"Ass" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with me is this,' continued Arthur. 'It is a way of business that would throw me with the old set, and there is no safety but in keeping clear of them. I might have been saved all this if I had not been ass enough to put my neck into Gardner's noose that unlucky Derby-day. I had promised never to bet again after I married, and this is the end of it! So I think I have no right to run into temptation again, even for the chance of getting clear. ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of all manner of goods for the furnishing and defence of the castle up yonder. For some four days the train of rough-bearded men in long seamen's boots toiled to and fro from bay to castle, from castle to bay, with horse and ass, waggon and cart, till men said all the spoil of Brittany and Spain, with all manner of treasures of Moorish lands were stored in the deep caverns under the chateau. And it was even said that since Le Grand Sarrasin would be lord of Guernsey, he would treat well and justly them that dwelt therein, ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... him as I would any other young ass who forgot himself," Norgate replied indignantly. "I naturally refused to go, and the Baroness left the place ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the deuce can I get hold of some more women to help work it! Scandalous, how few of the right sort there are about! And as for the Asylums Committee, if we really can't legally co-opt women to it, as our clerk says"—he looked again at a letter in his hand—"the law is an ass!—a double-dyed ass. I swear I won't visit those poor things on the women's side again. It's women's work—let them do it. The questions I have to ask are enough to make an old gamp blush. ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... valor, but upon the Gruyeriens were lavished every epithet of contempt. The pitiful episode was the object of many royal witticisms. To the king who "supposed that they were of the same stuff as the Confederates," his chronicler du Bellay replied that "it was folly to disguise an ass as a charger"——"Why pay these cowards," asked the king in return, ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... he, "though you're an ass and a coward, and you don't deserve that I should be so condescending, I will relieve your fears at once. I know the law better than you can, for my whole life has been spent in doing exactly as I please, without ever putting myself in the ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... nowt o' the kind. There ain't no useful animal as I kens the name and nature of as he can't have in Ayrshire,—for paying for it, my leddie;—horse, pownie, or ass, just whichever you please, my leddie. But ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... it as you like, and think me an interfering ass if you choose, but if I were you I'd somehow get Chetwode back from Newmarket,—and not go about so ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... period of nearly five months, and with the terrific sacrifice of at least two hundred and fifty thousand souls, to say nothing of herds and flocks past all reckoning. These had all perished: ox, cow, horse, mule, ass, sheep, or goat, not one survived—only the camels. These arid and adust creatures, looking like the mummies of some antediluvian animals, without the affections or sensibilities of flesh and blood—these only still erected their speaking eyes to the eastern heavens, and had ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... form that I can think of, reminds us strongly of Homeric drowsiness. The virtue of James is one thing and the virtue of Scott is another; but surely admiration for both does not make too unreasonable a demand on catholicity of palate? Mr. Howells could never write himself down an ass, but surely in his criticism of the "Wizard of the North" he has written himself down as one whose literary creed is narrower than his human heart. The school of which Mr. Henry James is a most accomplished member has added more than ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... evil in such a custom is the idea it gives that poor man of his own worth. Like King Midas he sees all things turn to gold at his touch, but he does not see the ass' ears growing. Let us keep Emile's hands from money lest he should become an ass, let him take the work but not the wages. Never let his work be judged by any standard but that of the work of a master. Let it be judged as work, not because it is his. If anything is well ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... to their feet. Each had a coarse hair halter held in the hand of a lepero driver, also fantastically dressed in the same black stuff. Behind each stood a lepero similarly attired, and carrying "cuartos" of buffalo-skin. By the side of each ass was one of the padres of the mission, and each of these held in his hand the implements of his trade—book, rosary, and crucifix. The priests wore an official look. They were in the act of ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... place assigned To his beasts, and disaforested his mind! Empaled himself to keep them out, not in, Can sow, and dares trust corn where they've been; Can use his horse, goat, wolf, and every beast, And is not ass himself to all ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... told of the manger, and of how the ox and the ass stood by one bitter night like this, when the infant Christ was laid in it long ago. "Thank you, dear," said her mother, when Mercy had done. "Now run up ...
— Dick and His Cat and Other Tales • Various
... found himself holding a trial upon himself for Presumptuousness, for setting himself up against the wisdom of the ages, and the decisions of all the established men in the world, for being in short a Presumptuous Sort of Ass. He was judge and jury and prosecutor, but rather inexplicably the defence was conducted in an irregular and undignified way by some inferior stratum ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... back full of the happy weariness engendered by honest toil. But nearing home Clive lifted her nose, and sniffing the breeze like a wild ass of the desert sensing ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... woman's, for it is quite as uncertain in its sympathies, bestowing its affections when least expected, and, when bestowed, quite as constant, so long as the object is not taken away. Sometimes a horse, sometimes an ass, captivates the fancy of a whole drove of mules, but often an animal nowise akin. Lieutenant Beale told me that his whole train of mules once galloped off suddenly, on the plains of the Cimarone, and ran half a mile, when they halted in apparent satisfaction. The cause of their freak ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... considerable. Two lambs "of the first year" were appointed to be sacrificed daily for the morning and evening sacrifice; and a lamb served as a substitute for the first-born of unclean animals, such as the ass, which could not be accepted as an offering to the Lord. Every year, also, on the anniversary of the deliverance of the children of Israel from the bondage of Egypt, every family was ordered to sacrifice a lamb or kid, and to sprinkle some of its blood upon the door-posts, in ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... could be no doubt whatever. Would this inoculate his playing, keep the soul out of it? Or worse, would it cause him to strike wrong notes, and even to forget whole passages, so that his guests, and of course Barbara, would go away in the impression that they had heard a boastful person make an ass of himself? He was almost minded to begin his concert with an imitation of a virtuoso suffering from stage fright. If there was going to be laughter, let it be thought that he was not the irresponsible cause of it, but the deliberate and responsible. What should he play? Violent things to get ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... younger man held his ground. "She has told me she thoroughly likes me and that—though a fellow feels an ass repeating such things—she thinks ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... go there, and thought she'd find her man. Oh! Lord, I wish I'd taken your advice. You might as well murder somebody and have the credit of it, as get into the newspapers the way I have. She's pure devil, that girl. You ought to have seen how sweet she was on me; what an ass I am." ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... ought, but certainly I shan't," says Terence, genially. "And if I were you," politely, "I wouldn't make an ass of myself. There is quite enough of that sort of thing going on up there," indicating, by a wave of his hand, the drawing-room at Moyne, where the Misses Blake are ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... said David; and suddenly extricating himself from the man's grasp, and snatching his palette from him, he was up the ladder in an instant, shouting: 'Wait awhile, and you shall have yourself to admire, with your fool's pate and your ass's ears!' ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... mighty men who could kill a jaybird with a sling-shot a quarter of a mile off didn't stay to see the show." "No," he answered; "when the sons of Belial beheld our warlike preparation, their hearts melted, and became as water; they gat every man upon his ass, and speedily fled, even beyond the brook which is called Cache." He then went on to tell me that on our arrival at Augusta there was a body of Confederate cavalry near there, supposed to be about ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... old ass! The first you know,' I says, 'they'll have your skin off an' layin' on the front piaz' for ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... mental ejaculation in the astonishing first moment. A deep-sea sailor, who had come through what he had come through, to let himself be caught unawares by such a paltry mischance as this! Then, what an unspeakable ass to have been so careless—to have shown himself incapable of protecting his wife, after all his boasts! Would he ever hear the last of it as long as he lived? Poor little woman! How cold the water felt when he thought of her tender ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... Austro-Hungarian army and the whole issue was suppressed by the censor in Austria and Hungary. The drawing showed a group of three Austrians, a general, an officer, and a private. The soldier had a lion's head, the officer an ass's head, and the general had ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... sharelists; and he quoted, if he did not comprehend, the money article from the "Times." This sort of assumption, though very ludicrous in itself, goes down wonderfully. Bob gradually became a sort of authority, and his opinions got quoted on 'Change. He was no ass, notwithstanding his peculiarities, and made ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... amiable rhapsody, the latter part of which was levelled at a lugubrious weakness of his grandmother's for the superfluous embellishment of the dead, by telling her it was bad enough to be tied by the foot like an ass, without settling down on his back like a cast sheep. "Give me the armchair. I'll sit in it, and, if I have any friends, they will show it now: they will come and tell me what is going on in the village, for I can't get out to see it and hear ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... when they came to a ford of the Tagus, behold the river was swoln, and the best horsemen feared to try the passage. Now there was a holy man in the camp, by name Lesmes, who was a monk of St. Benedict's; and he being mounted upon an ass rode first into the ford, and passed safely through the flood; and all who beheld him held ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... accordance with Bertillon's methods, I don't mind so much. I will not yield to fools; I yield to science. I didn't think this diamond king had sense enough to apply to you. He's the most gullible old ass I ever met in my life. But if it's you who have tracked me down, I can ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... high, but see the proudest Oak Most subject to the rending Thunder-Stroke; I would be rich, but see men too unkind Dig in the bowels of the richest mind; I would be wise, but that I often see The Fox suspected whilst the Ass goes free; I would be fair, but see the fair and proud Like the bright Sun, oft setting in a cloud; I would be poor, but know the humble grass Still trampled on by each unworthy Asse: Rich, hated; wise, suspected; scorn'd, if poor; Great, ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton
... "cramming" critic, his using the lore of the Encyclopedia Britannica for his articles suggest Maginn's classical lucubrations. A well-known eminent Litterateur, to whom I suggested this view, objected that Pott is not shown to be such a blackguard as Maginn, and that Maginn was not such an ass as Pott. But Boz generalised his borrowed originals. Skimpole was taken from Leigh Hunt, yet was represented as a sort of scoundrel; and Boz confessed that he only adapted his lighter manner ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... written all sorts of worries and sorrows. But I couldn't pretend at eighteen, nor can I at thirty-eight. No wonder so many men—the kind of men you meet at your club, at the Marlborough, or the Bachelors', or the Travellers'—call me an 'ass of a woman.' I am an ass of ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... 'the Alveld Ass' (as he called him in a letter to Spalatin) in a long reply entitled 'The Popedom at Rome,' with the object of exposing once and finally the secrets of Antichrist. 'From Rome' he says 'flow all evil examples of spiritual and temporal iniquity into the ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... dear Nehemiah," said Rochecliffe, "but care not for them—a dram of brandy will correct it all. Mr. Baxter was," he was about to say "an ass," but checked himself, and only filled up the sentence with "a good man, I dare ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... train of ideas came into my head. I had a vague idea, though not a belief, that a cock and cunt, were not made for pissing only. Fred treated me as a simpleton in these matters, and was always calling me an ass; I have quite a painful recollection of my inferiority to him, in such things, and of begging him to instruct me. "They make children that way," said Fred. "You come up and we will ask the old nurse, where children come from, and she'll say 'out of the parsley-bed,' but it's all a lie." We ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... for two hours, until the approach of night and weariness made me stop short at the house of a farmer, where I had a bad supper and a bed of straw. In the morning, I bought an old overcoat, and hired an ass to journey on, and near Feltre I bought a pair of boots. In this guise I passed the hut called the Scala. There was a guard there who, much to my delight, as the reader will guess, did not even honour ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... ran through his head like music, and it softened his heart, so that almost nothing could bring him to earth except the recitations of Teed, who crashed through the classics like a bull in a china-shop or, as Litton's Greeks put it, like an ass among beehives. ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... call me a fooil or a ass, To tawk abaat wantin a wife; But there's nowt like a true hearted lass, To sweeten a workinman's life. An love is a feelin as pure In a peasant as 'tis in a queen, An happy aw could be awm sewer, Wi' that grand ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... made her acquainted with the real state of my mind, and{126} given her the reasons therefor, it might have been well for both of us. Her abuse of me fell upon me like the blows of the false prophet upon his ass; she did not know that an angel stood in the way; and—such is the relation of master and slave I could not tell her. Nature had made us friends; slavery made us enemies. My interests were in a direction opposite to hers, and we both had our private thoughts and ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... them toward the shore, he found them very heavy, and thought he had a good draught of fish, at which he rejoiced; but a moment after, perceiving that instead of fish his net contained nothing but the carcass of an ass, he was ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... an animal would be to state the truth"—to which you would agree; and, "To call you an ass would be to call you an animal"—to which you would also agree; from which I might conclude that, "To call you an ass would {30} be to state the truth"—which you might have a vague idea was not true. If you wish to be sure that ...
— How to Study • George Fillmore Swain
... held me. Then that angry despair that was a part of my exhaustion and physical misery resumed its sway. I perceived with a sudden novel vividness the extraordinary folly of everything I had ever done. "Ass!" I said; "oh, ass, unutterable ass.... I seem to exist only to go about doing preposterous things. Why did we ever leave the thing? ... Hopping about looking for patents and concessions in the craters of the moon!... If only we had had the sense to fasten a handkerchief to a stick ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... together in a chariot which is sometimes said to be drawn by horses, and this would suit their name; but more often the poets say that their chariot is drawn by birds, such as eagles or swans, and sometimes even by a buffalo or buffaloes, or by an ass. I do not see how we can escape from this difficulty except by supposing that popular imagination in regard to this matter varied from very early times, but preferred to think of them as having horses. At any rate they ...
— Hindu Gods And Heroes - Studies in the History of the Religion of India • Lionel D. Barnett
... no reasonable doubt but that the domestic Ass is descended from the Wild Ass of Asia and Africa, for the two animals are so much alike that it would be impossible, by the eye alone, to distinguish the one from ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... Ass that I am! I've knocked her down again!" he shouted, as those whom he summoned burst ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... The names of the personages are either significant names, such as Noble, the lion, and Chanticleer, the cock, or proper names, such as Isengrin, the wolf, Bruno, the bear, Tibert, the cat, Bernard, the ass; and as certain of these proper names are found in the eastern district, it has been conjectured that a poet of Lotharingia in the tenth century first told in Latin the wars of fox and wolf, and that through translations the epic ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... of storm raisers is universally prevalent amongst the Italian peasantry, and especially in mountainous districts. A Danish botanist, journeying alone upon an ass through the mountains of Abruzzi, was involved in several perilous adventures by this superstitious terror of the peasantry. They had for some time seen him collecting plants amongst the unfrequented cliffs and ravines, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 381 Saturday, July 18, 1829 • Various
... used until the reign of James I. They came from Italy, to which country we owe many of the new fashions introduced in the seventeenth century. In The Boke of Curtosye there are directions given not to "foule the bord-clothe wyth the knyfe;" and Ben Jonson, in his comedy of "The Devil is an Ass," alludes to the introduction of forks, and the ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... mountain-songs and ballads; some cast great stones and iron bars, in which exercises is distinguished Ernauton d'Espagne, the strong knight mentioned in Froissart as being able to bring into the hall of Gaston an ass fully laden with fuel, and to throw the whole on the hearth, to the great delight of all present. These scenes give occasion to the author to introduce many of the proverbial sayings of the people, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... insects. A gentleman, by name Walcott, from Barbadoes, lived high up the river Demerara. While I was passing a day or two at his house, the vampires sucked his son a boy of about ten or eleven years old, some of his fowls and his jack-ass. The youth showed me his forehead at daybreak: the wound was still bleeding apace, and I examined it with minute attention. The poor ass was doomed to be a prey to these sanguinary imps of night: he looked like misery steeped in vinegar. I saw, by the numerous sores on his body, and by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various
... be sorely tempted," he mused, picking up a novel and selecting a comfortable angle in the Morris, "I should be sorely tempted to call any other man a silly ass. Leddy Lightfinger—it would be a fine joke if my singer turned out to be ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... you silly ass!" cried the Rat, from the bottom of the boat. "You can't do it! You'll have ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... true horses and the asses, which latter also include the zebra and quagga. Apart from the decided external differences between the horse and ass, they have one marked divergence, viz. that the horse has corns or callosities on the inner side of both fore and hind limbs, whilst the asses have them only on the fore limbs; but this is a very ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... little brother and sister there, El Sabio is everything in the world to me, senor. I—I cannot leave him, senor. I should die if we were parted; and El Sabio would die also. And you say that you have perceived that he is a very small ass. Do not ask me ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... "James Grierson," he said, "I shall put you in a book some day when you're developed. At present you're about twenty-one years old in many respects. Probably you'll marry stodgily, or else you'll go to the other extreme and make an even bigger ass ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... Mr. Gibson was, as usual, very funny, it seems. Whether his fun was appreciated I doubt, for he confided to me that Mr. Scatcherd, senior, was a pompous and stuck-up old ass. People have such different notions of what is funny. Nobody roared at Mr. Gibson's funniments more than I did; but ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... Strathdene pretended to be disgusted and stormed out. But that was because he did not want to be seen making an ass of himself, weeping as Bottom the Weaver wept. He flung away his salted and extinguished cigarette and wondered what was the matter with the world where nothing ever ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... jade! Baggage! Mopsy! Shamelesss wench! Thou wilt not obey Bagoas, chief eunuch in the camps of the Assyrians! I will make thee the slave of my slave and the plaything of scullions. (Stops. Judith smiles. Haggith subsides alarmed at her feet.) Thou shalt be abandoned to the sutlers and the ass-drivers, and thus thou shalt learn who is Bagoas and what is his power! (Stops again. Judith still smiles.) The strumpets of the kitchens shall ...
— Judith • Arnold Bennett
... Ellenora Vibert, where is all this going to end? I'm not a bad fellow, but I swear I'm only human, and if you are leading me on to make a worse ass of myself than ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... Christ. In the Ara Celi the whole of one of the side-chapels is devoted to this exhibition. In the foreground is a grotto, in which is seated the Virgin Mary, with Joseph at her side and the miraculous Bambino in her lap. Immediately behind are an ass and an ox. On one side kneel the shepherds and kings in adoration; and above, God the Father is seen surrounded by clouds of cherubs and angels playing on instruments, as in the early pictures of Raphael. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... ass, Jimmy; I haven't known you all these years for nothing. . . . Is it true that Cynthia's ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... With that bellowing Klutchem? Don't you know that that idiot will have it all over the Street by nine o'clock to-morrow, unless he is ass enough to get scared, get out a warrant, and clap you into the Tombs before breakfast? O Colonel! How could you do a thing like this without letting ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... can no longer be a coquette.' Lady Delacour would become the subject of witticisms, epigrams, caricatures without end. It would just be the very thing for Mrs. Luttridge; then she would revenge herself without mercy for the ass and her panniers. We should have 'Lord and Lady D——, or the Domestic Tete-a-tete,' or 'The Reformed Amazon,' stuck up in a print-shop window! Oh, my dear, think of seeing such a thing! I should die with vexation; ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... steady star but a meteor; bumping as yet darkly against the planets; and then this monumental folly which had returned him to the old orbit but still in meteoric form, without peace or means of livelihood! An ass, indeed, if ever there ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... has such a store, That he who would not see an ass, Must bide at home, and bolt his door, ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.04.06 • Various
... reason to believe that aboriginal habits are long retained under domestication. Thus with the common ass, we see signs of its original desert-life in its strong dislike to cross the smallest stream of water, and in its pleasure in rolling in the dust. The same strong dislike to cross a stream is common to the camel which has been domesticated ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... The Loq. Ass. (to the Grizzled Customer). Remarkable how some parties do keep their 'air, Sir! Now yours—(with a disparaging glance at the Bald Customer's image in the mirror)—yours grows quite remarkable strong. Do you use ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 19, 1892 • Various
... servant's experience of beauty; he may be immoral in every other way and she not desert him; but let him turn Balaam and declare beauty absent where he feels its presence—though in doing this he hopes to advance virtue or knowledge, she needs no better than an ass to rebuke him. Nothing effects more for anarchy than these notions that art derives from individual caprice, or defends virtue, or demonstrates knowledge; for they are all based on those flattering hopes of the unsuccessful, that chance, rules both in ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... an old ass!" the boy excused himself. "I want some more tea, mother. I won't have this her sopping handkerchief fell in. All her beastly ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... with the air of relieving his explanation by an anecdote, "how reckless they get using dynamite when they're torpedoing wells. We stopped at one place where a fellow was handling the cartridges pretty freely, and Mr. Dryfoos happened to caution him a little, and that ass came up with one of 'em in his hand, and began to pound it on the buggy-wheel to show us how safe it was. I turned green, I was so scared; but Mr. Dryfoos kept his color, and kind of coaxed the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... animal world. That was a sentiment connected at once with the love of outward nature in himself and in the "Lake School," and its assertion of the natural affections in their simplicity; with the homeliness and pity, consequent upon [95] that assertion. The Lines to a Young Ass, tethered— ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... that the humour of Jonson, always open to this danger, loosens into the Rabelaisian mode that so delighted King James in "The Gipsies Metamorphosed." Another comedy of less merit is "The Devil is an Ass," acted in 1616. It was the failure of this play that caused Jonson to give over writing for the public stage for a period of ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... on Pisgah purg'd was the sight Of a son of Circumcision, So may be, on this Pisgah height, Bob's purblind, mental vision: Nay, Bobby's mouth may be open'd yet Till for eloquence you hail him, And swear he has the angel met That met the Ass ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... as if a cold douche had been flung in his face, for after a moment's pause, the other returned, "That's awfully good of you," in a voice so distant and formal that the Virginian could have kicked himself. What an ass he was to be so darned enthusiastic with an Englishman! He supposed it was bad form to show any pleasure over praise of a member of your family. Lord, if Chev got the V.C., he reckoned it would be awful to speak of it. Still, you would have thought Gerald might have stood for a little praise ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... her talk is I can hook on to what she says." Mr. Flournoy walked over to the window and measured the distance to a given spot below with his lips. "No beatin' round to keep you from knowin' what she means. What kind of slush was that Bailly Ass Brickhouse tryin' to get off, anyhow? ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... lead the bulls before them all covered o'er with trappings; The little boys pursue them with hootings and with clappings; The fool, with cap and bladder, upon his ass goes prancing 'Midst troops of captive maidens with ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... three lights of the instrument shining like emeralds in the sunlight! Upon my word, I was so upset with the extraordinary novelty of the whole experience that I had some difficulty in getting into harness again. Talk of Glorious Art indeed! D'Aubigne says Carville is an ass about Art. But has ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... and his voice had a tone it had not yet held. "Of all the preposterous suggestions!" he said. "Good heavens! What an ass I must have been making of myself! And I begin to think I have exaggerated the resemblance. In a day or two, I shall cease to notice it. And, look here, doctor, if she really was interested in that portrait—Here, I say—where are ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... and its hair was woven into cloth. When domesticated, it is known as the llama. It feeds on vegetables, and requires no attention. Its voice resembles the shrill neighing of a horse. Its use as a beast of burden has been superseded by the horse, the ass, and the mule. The fleece of the tame animal is not so long as that of the wild one. Their appearance I have already described. I shall never forget that night among the Andes,— how the stars of the southern hemisphere came ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... your drink from you, The kind old humanizing glass; Soon they will take tobacco too, And next they'll take our demi-tasse. Don't say, "The bill will never pass," Nor this my warning word disdain; You said it once, you silly ass— Don't ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... man, woman, and child, for ten versts out on the Moskovskoi road, knows of their coming. Let it be known that whoever uncovers his head before them shall uncover his back for a hundred lashes. Whomsoever they greet may bark like a dog, meeouw like a cat, or bray like an ass, as much as he chooses; but if he speaks a decent word, his tongue shall be silenced with stripes. Whoever shall insult them has my pardon in advance. Oh, let them come!—ay, let them come! Come they may: but how they ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... the Canadian caribou differs in nothing from the Renne of Buffon except in the color of its skin, which is brown or reddish.—Tom. v., p. 191. La Hontan calls the caribou a species of wild ass; and Charlevoix says that its form resembles that of the ass, but that it at least equals the ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... saying so much. Though I have been well abused, yet I have had so much praise, that I have become a gourmand, both as to capacity and taste; and I really did not think that mortal man could have tickled my palate in the exquisite manner with which you have done the job. So I am an old ass, and nothing more need be said about this. I agree entirely with all your reservations about accepting the doctrine, and you might have gone further with further safety and truth. Of course I do not ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... this country.(1041) "He slept with his fathers," is all the Scripture says of his death. Jeremiah had prophesied, that he should neither be regretted nor lamented; but should "be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem:" this was no doubt fulfilled, though it is not known ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... Major's before Forster came, and then after that I never met him there except on that evening before he came in here. Now you know, Miss Hannay," he went on earnestly, "what I think about you. I have not been such an ass as to suppose I ever had a chance, though you know I would lay down my life for you willingly; but I did not seem to mind Bathurst. I know he is an awfully good fellow, and would have made you very happy; but I don't feel like that with Forster. There is nothing ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... the thing and an ass of yourself, Billy," was Gordon's comprehensive if not consolatory summary of the matter, "and as Canker has been rapped for one thing or another by camp, division and brigade commanders, one after ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... trooper, we've fought 'em in dock, and drunk with 'em in betweens, When they called us the seasick scull'ry-maids, an' we called 'em the Ass Marines; But, when we was down for a double fatigue, from Woolwich to Bernardmyo, We sent for the Jollies—'Er Majesty's Jollies—soldier an' sailor too! They think for 'emselves, an' they steal for 'emselves, and they never ask what's to do, But they're camped an' ...
— Barrack-Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... bewitched persons, he says: "What they affirm, concerning others, is not to be taken for evidence. Whence had they this supernatural sight? It must needs be either from Heaven or from Hell. If from Heaven (as Elisha's servant and Balaam's ass could discern Angels) let their testimony be received. But if they had this knowledge from Hell, though there may possibly be truth in what they affirm, they are not legal witnesses: for the Law of God allows of no revelation from any other ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... almost before it was light. About sunrise they passed, in the wood of Bondy, a poor herb-man, with his ass and panniers of greens. When the hue and cry began, this herb-man told of the fine new berlin he had seen in the wood of Bondy; and thus set pursuers upon their track. Besides the eight horses wanted for the two carriages, there were more for the three body-guards, mounted and dressed ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... Poor dear brother! Poor dear friends of the family! Poor dear Tabbies and Grimalkins. Poor dear everybody except the woman who is going to risk her life to create another life! Tavy: don't you be a selfish ass. Away with you and talk to Violet; and bring her down here if she cares to come. [Octavius rises]. Tell ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... when Pope once forgot himself so far as to make love to Lady Mary Wortley Montague, the lady's answer was "a fit of immoderate laughter." In an appendix to the 'Dunciad' Pope collected some of the epithets with which his enemies had pelted him, "an ape," "an ass," "a frog," "a coward," "a fool," "a little abject thing." He affected, indeed, to despise his assailants, but there is only too good evidence that their poisoned arrows rankled in his heart. Richardson, the painter, found him one day reading the latest abusive ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... or whatever the proper name may be,' replied Nicholas quickly; 'and I was an ass to take his coarseness ill. They are looking this way, and it is time I was in my place. Bless you, love, and goodbye! Mother, look forward to our meeting again someday! Uncle, farewell! Thank you heartily for all you have done and all you mean ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... 'fulfilment' goes but for little with us, who rest Jesus' claims to be our King on more inward and spiritual grounds, but it stands on the same level as other similar fulfilments of prophecy which meet us in the Gospels; such as the royal entry into Jerusalem, 'riding upon an ass,' in which the outward, literal correspondence is but a finger-post, pointing to far deeper and truer realisation of the prophetic ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... Jack, with a smile, as he leaned back and regarded his work with his head very much on one side, and his eyes partially closed, after the manner of knights of the brush, "I'm not offended, because I'm just as much of an ass as you ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... silly fool," spluttered the old liar, "dost want that loose-legged slut of thine in trouble? I tell thee she's playing in a corner with Carlo Formaggia. Already he's pinched her cheek twice, and who knows what the end may be? Mud-coloured ass, wilt thou let thy child slip to the devil while thou standest gaping at a horse-race?" And this before all the neighbours! What to say to such a man? Maso babbled with rage; but he had to go, for Carlo Formaggia was well known. He had ruined more girls than enough; he was in league with ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... is very full," said he; "I suppose many of them are up for the Hauconberg wedding. There's old Cliddesdon—just look at him. Did you ever see such an infernal ass? Hullo! I thought that Millie Warfield wouldn't be far off. She's a perfect rack of bones. Lady Michelmarsh is getting rather pretty—it's wonderful how these dowdy girls can work up their profiles after a month or two in town. She was a lump as a bride—a regular lump. You ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... may not be punished corporally), more than an ordinary man, for the greater the wisdom the greater the offence. They that commit the Five Great Sins live many years in hells, and afterwards obtain vile births; the slayer of a priest becomes in turn a dog, a pig, an ass, a camel, a cow, a goat, a sheep, etc, etc. A priest that drinks intoxicating liquor becomes various insects, one after another. A priest that steals becomes a spider, snake, etc, etc. By repeating sinful acts men are reborn in painful and base births, and are hurled about in hells; where ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... active in setting forward the Roman Catholic reaction in Bohemia with which the dismal tragedy of the Thirty Years' War began. It was a far-fetched and not very happy piece of revenge, when they of the other side took pleasure in spelling his name 'CLesel,' as much as to say, He of the 150 ass-power. Berengar of Tours calls a Pope who had taken sides against him not pontifex, but 'pompifex.' Metrophanes, Patriarch of Constantinople, being counted to have betrayed the interests of the Greek Church, his spiritual mother, at the Council of Florence, saw his name ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... moral weapons to insure a favourable reception. We must remember that for half a century many of the Jewish people had been constantly looking for the arrival of the Messiah, and there can be little doubt that the entry of Jesus riding upon an ass in literal fulfilment of prophecy must have wrought powerfully upon the imagination of the multitude. That the believers in him were very numerous must be inferred from the cautious, not to say timid, behaviour of the rulers at Jerusalem, who are represented as desiring ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... she asks. Do my words sink into thy mind? Or art thou dull "as the ass to the sound of the lyre"? Why dost thou weep? Why do ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... reader, as you pass The carcase buried of a great jack-ass: Perfidious, smiling, fawning, cringing slave, Hell holds his spirit, and his flesh this grave. Corruption revels in a kindred soil: A carcase fatted ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... booby's vengeance bit I leave your haunts, ye sons of wit! And swear, by Heaven's blessed light, That Epigrams no more I'll write. Now hang that ***** for an ass, Thus to thrust in his idiot face, Which spite of oaths, if e'er I spy, I'll write an Epigram—or ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... perfect height of five-feet-nine-and-a-half, I always feel depressed and out-classed in the presence of a man, say of six-feet-two. He may be an ass, but still I have to look up to him in a physical sense, and the mere act of looking up seems to endow him with a moral advantage. I feel a grievance at the outrageous length of the fellow, and find I want to make him fully understand that ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... my confounded thirst for general information! Why did I ever know what Kurdaitcha and Interlinia mean? If I turn out to be right, oh, shade of Sherlock Holmes, what a pretty kettle of fish there will be! Suppose I drop the whole affair! But I've been ass enough to let Logan know that I have an idea. Well, we shall see how matters shape themselves. Sufficient for the day is ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... of general experience, there are some cases which put that curious mixture in a very clear light. You are aware that the offspring of the Ass and the Horse, or rather of the he-Ass and the Mare, is what is called a Mule; and, on the other hand, the offspring of the Stallion and the she-Ass is what is called a 'Hinny'. I never saw one myself; but they have been very carefully ...
— The Perpetuation Of Living Beings, Hereditary Transmission And Variation • Thomas H. Huxley
... Cross' is a theological novel. It is, without any doubt, the most brilliant of Chesterton's novels; it is an argument between a Christian ass and a very decent atheist. Atheists, if they are sincere, are on the way to becoming good Christians; Christians, if they are insincere, are on the way to ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... good an' hard! I dodged just then, for the spider bit me, but Ah Wee got it bad in the side an' tumbled about like anything. W'isky was just weigh-in' me out one w'en 'e saw the spider fastened on my finger; then 'e knew he'd made a jack ass of 'imself. He threw away the axe and got down on 'is knees alongside of Ah Wee, who gave a last little kick and opened 'is eyes—he had eyes like mine—an' puttin' up 'is hands drew down W'isky's ugly head and held it there w'ile 'e stayed. That wasn't ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... than the sand, even less so, because the sand in time would even blind those eyes. How I wish I could see it lying uncovered on its base. And I somehow can't imagine that Mary laid the Infant Christ to rest between its paws! How did they cross the desert on one poor ass? How would they, so humble and so poor, be able to approach the Sphinx with its guards about it? And I wonder if they will ever open up the shaft and search until they find the history on the walls ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... deliberate opinion given by Gouverneur Morris to Alexander Hamilton in 1796, that the French people in general were royalists at heart, and utterly averse to the general overthrow of their institutions by the legislative mob at Paris, or, as Mirabeau comprehensively called them, 'that Wild Ass of ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... from knocking a little ball over the links) as if he habitually went tiger-shooting; but, though not without charm, he had much less distinction than his wife. Most people smiled when Bruce's name was mentioned, and it was usual for his intimates to clap him on the back and call him a silly ass, which proves he was not unpopular. On the other hand, Edith was described as a very pretty woman, or a nice little thing, and by the more discriminating, jolly clever when you know her, ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... invention of philanthropy.' Labourers were a necessity for the Spanish colonist, 'the proud and melancholy Indian pined like an eagle in captivity, refused to accept his servitude, and died; the more tractable negro would domesticate like the horse or the ass.' Though Hawkins met with much good as well as bad luck, he was one of those who have need to remember that fate does not shower favours on all men, but 'if a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she be blind, yet she is not invisible,' and his success was to a very ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... you can do a turn of any sort, let the women have it. All the fun they get. Be an ass, like the rest of us. Maskee how silly! Mind you, ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... I felt so stupid, such a godforsaken blockhead as I do now. When I try to consider I feel as if that heavy shutter had been nailed clown on my head. Have you had any ideas? I have not one which would not disgrace the veriest ass—not a single one." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Ouvrard must have made a good thing of his business with the Prince of the Peace? But the fool! Why did he get Talleyrand to ask me for a passport? That is the very thing that raised my suspicion. Why did he not apply for a passport as every one else does? Have I the giving of them? He is an ass; so much the worse ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne |
