"Caper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... queries, received a rapid answer, in which, from the haste and peculiarity of the dialect, the word 'butler' was alone intelligible. Waverley then requested to see the butler; upon which the fellow, with a knowing look and nod of intelligence, made a signal to Edward to follow, and began to dance and caper down the alley up which he had made his approaches.—A strange guide this, thought Edward, and not much unlike one of Shakespeare's roynish clowns. I am not over prudent to trust to his pilotage; but wiser men have ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... But dizzily roving Through dreams to a grave. There below 'tis yet worse; Its flowers and its clay Roof a gloomier day, Hide a still deeper curse. Ring then, ye cymbals, enliven this dream! Ye horns, shout a fiercer, more vulture-like scream! And jump, caper, leap, prance, dance yourselves out of breath! For your life is all art; Love has given you no heart: Therefore shout till ye plunge into ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... hugging me. My sensations were strange. Let me try to explain them. When I was a child, I well remember a somewhat similar circumstance that befell me; whether it was a reality or a dream, I never could entirely settle. The circumstance was this. I had been cutting up some caper or other —I think it was trying to crawl up the chimney, as i had seen a little sweep do a few days previous; and my stepmother who, somehow or other, was all the time whipping me, or sending me to bed supperless, —my mother dragged me by the legs out of ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... royalist satirists of course expressed their views on the situation. A French royalist caricature, published after Waterloo, represents Napoleon as a dancing bear forced to caper by England, his keeper, who makes an unsparing use of the lash, whilst Russia and Prussia play pipe and drum by way of music. A good answer, however, to this is found in a French caricature (published in the Napoleon interest), like ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... his expectant immobility. A thing of instinct—the unthinking stillness of a scared brute. "What are you doing here?" asked Mr. Baker, sharply.—"My duty," said the cook, with ardour.—"Your... what?" began the mate. Captain Allistoun touched his arm lightly.—"I know his caper," he said, in a low voice. "Come out of that, Podmore," ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... friend, such strains arise From the dream-time that is dead Though some modern trills may oft Caper through ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... all so bright, and so merry, and so thankful, and so good, that, when I got home that night, I was mightily amazed that, instead of going to bed sour at holidays, I was in a state of great contentment in regard to holidays. In fact, I was really merry. I whistled. I sang. I do believe I cut a caper. The poor wretches I had left had been so merry over their unlooked-for Christmas banquet ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... weigh about equally; roast the thick or fillet end and serve with or without onion sauce (a la soubise); boil the knuckle in a small quantity of water, just enough to cover it, with a carrot, turnip, onion, and bunch of parsley, and salt in the water, serve with caper sauce and mashed turnips. The broth from this is excellent soup served thus: Skim it carefully, take out the vegetables, and chop a small quantity of parsley very fine, then beat up in a bowl two eggs, pour into ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... downstairs every morning, and upstairs every night. She would clasp me round the neck and laugh, the while, as if I did it for a wager. Jip would bark and caper round us, and go on before, and look back on the landing, breathing short, to see that we were coming. My aunt, the best and most cheerful of nurses, would trudge after us, a moving mass of shawls and pillows. Mr. Dick would not have relinquished his post of candle-bearer to anyone alive. ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... his wife then arranged upon the table a boiled leg of mutton, hot, with caper sauce, turnips, and potatoes. Mr. Tuckle took the chair, and was supported at the other end of the board by the gentleman in orange plush. The greengrocer put on a pair of wash-leather gloves to hand the plates with, and stationed ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... tradition. But that panther shore disappears; it's the end of his vandalage; an' ag'in does quadrilles, pra'rs, an poker resoom their wonted sway. That's the end; an' now, gents, if Black Jack will caper to his dooties we'll uplift our drooped energies with ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... from Lee or Mortehoe, Woolacombe or Croyde, over fields in which lambs stand on their front feet in exuberance of youth, or caper on their back ones until called to order by their maternal parent; or through lanes lined with primroses and violets, or roses, or nuts, or berries, according to the season, whilst on the top twig of the high hedges yellow-hammers, chaffinches, robins and the like gossip to you about the hawk ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... Haw, haw! Ho, ho, ho!" laughed Bob, cutting a caper expressive of his great amusement. "Her Majesty's officers—some one worthy of their steel. Ha, ha, ha, ha! I say, Tom Long, how happy and contented her Majesty must feel, knowing as she does that the gallant officer, Ensign Long, ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... figure, it does not exist anywhere. The fellows themselves were the first to disown him as unlike anyone. That Bazarov is a sort of indistinct mixture of Nozdryov and Byron, c'est le mot. Look at them attentively: they caper about and squeal with joy like puppies in the sun. They are happy, they are victorious! What is there of Byron in them!... and with that, such ordinariness! What a low-bred, irritable vanity? What an abject craving to faire du bruit autour de son nom, ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... and I wished we could do it at home at the General Election. I wish that instead of the wearisome business of Mr. Bonar Law taking the chair, and Mr. Lloyd George addressing the meeting, Mr. Law and Mr. Lloyd George would only hop and caper in front of a procession, spinning round and round till they were dizzy, and waving and crossing a pair of umbrellas in a thousand invisible patterns. But this political announcement or advertisement, though more intelligent than ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... heard the noise of the trampling feet, opened the window and looked out upon the fantastic procession. No doubt some news of what had happened had reached him, for he is reported to have called out: "Well, boys, you have had a fine night for your Indian caper. But mind, you've got to pay the fiddler yet." One of the Mohawk leaders looked up and answered promptly: "Oh, never mind, squire. Just come out here, if you please, and we'll settle the bill in two minutes." The admiral ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... without rising, as it were looking for his daughter, she sprang toward him, and threw her arms about him, whilst he still knelt. It would be difficult to describe the scene which followed: Dymock began to caper and exult, Mrs. Margaret to weep, Rebecca to utter imprecations, and Shanty to sing and whistle, as he was wont to do when hammering in his shed, and the vagrant to dare the old Jewess to deny any thing which she had said. When Dymock had assisted Tamar to lift her father into the chair, and ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... Clasps it laid close his peaked and gleaming face Propped in the pillow. Breathe silent, lofty lime, Your curfew secrets out in fervid scent To the attendant shadows! Tinge the air Of the midsummer night that now begins, At an owl's oaring flight from dusk to dusk And downward caper of the giddy bat Hawking against the lustre of bare skies, With something of th' unfathomable bliss He, who lies dying there, knew once of old In the serene trance of a summer night When with th' abundance of his young bride's hair Loosed on his ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... eloquent your legs, were it your whim To caper nimbly in a classic measure, Terpsichore (entranced reviewers hymn) Would swoon upon her lyre ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... desolation, refined and dignified, and not unworthy in its grace of the dead Cyprian goddess. Through its broken lancets the sea-wind whistles and the vast reaches of the Tyrrhene gulf are seen. Samphire sprouts between the blocks of marble, and in sheltered nooks the caper hangs her beautiful ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... in the window. Devereux smiled and nodded, and the doctor stopped short at the railings, and grinned up in return, and threw out his arms to express surprise, and then snapped his fingers, and cut a little caper, as though he would say—'Now, you're come back—we'll have fun and fiddling again.' And forthwith he began to bawl his enquiries and salutations. But Devereux called him up peremptorily, for he wanted to hear the news—especially all about the Walsinghams. And up came Toole, and they ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... metals, and had bushy beards and eyes like pigs. From the smoke of their forges, in autumn, came the haze of Indian summer; and when the moon was full, it was their custom to assemble on the edge of a precipice above the hollow and dance and caper until the night was nigh worn away. They brewed a liquor that had the effect of shortening the bodies and swelling the heads of all who drank it, and when Hudson and his crew visited the mountains, the pygmies held ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... attended by their four seconds and the umpire of the field. Fougas, naked to the waist, was as handsome as a young god. His lithe and agile figure, his proud and radiant features, the manly grace of his movements, assured him a flattering reception. He made his English horse caper, and saluted the lookers-on with the point of ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... become pretty well acquainted in the ship yard at Baltimore. With this, I cut down the saplings by which my oxen were entangled, and again pursued my journey, with my heart in my mouth, lest the oxen should again take it into their senseless heads to cut up a caper. My fears were groundless. Their spree was over for the present, and the rascals now moved off as soberly as though their behavior had been natural and exemplary. On reaching the part of the forest where I had ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... than beef, and done more; the chine, saddle or leg require more fire and longer time than the breast, &c. Garnish with scraped horse radish, and serve with potatoes, beans, colliflowers, water-cresses, or boiled onion, caper sauce, mashed ...
— American Cookery - The Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry, and Vegetables • Amelia Simmons
... The proper and up-to-date caper in connection with taking snap-shots these days is to buy a developing outfit and upset the household from pit to dome while you are squeezing out pictures of every dearly beloved ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart
... tenants of the gun-room had assembled to their repast. "Now all my misery is about to commence," cried Courtenay, as he took his seat at the gun-room table, on which the dinner was smoking in all the variety of pea-soup, Irish stew, and boiled mutton with caper sauce. ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... it gnaw you?" persisted Roderick. "Did you take counsel with him this morning when you should have been saying your prayers? Did he sting, when you thought of your brother's health, wealth, and good repute? Did he caper for joy, when you remembered the profligacy of his only son? And whether he stung, or whether he frolicked, did you feel his poison throughout your body and soul, converting everything to sourness and bitterness? That is the way of such ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... off did trot, As fast as he could caper, To old Dame Dob, who patched his nob With vinegar and ...
— The Real Mother Goose • (Illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright)
... was returning from market, having sold his corn and two fat pigs. He was riding his pretty mare, who, near Azay, commenced to caper about without the slightest cause, and poor Cochegrue trotted and ambled along counting his profits. At the corner of the old road of the Landes de Charlemagne, they came upon a stallion kept by the Sieur de la Carte, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... the miraculous fashion of his years. He cut an elfish caper. He rubbed himself against his saviour like some small ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... regyard it as the proper caper to go deceivin' the little Joolie girl? That's preecisely the p'sition a Bible sharp over in Tucson takes, when some ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Sober,' the report the officer-of-the-deck makes when the enlisted men come aboard after being on liberty. If they are intoxicated and untidy they check them up D. and D.—which means Drunk and Dirty. You'll never hear the last of Betsy Brindle's caper." ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... at once, and not so brave before a waking man as a sleeping one, performed a rapid caper, ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... all, ma'am, but I have collected some useful information about China, which you may like, especially the teas. The best are Lapsing Souchong, Assam Pekoe, rare Ankoe, Flowery Pekoe, Howqua's mixture, Scented Caper, Padral tea, black Congou, and green Twankey. Shanghai is on the Woosung River. Hong Kong means 'Island of Sweet waters.' Singapore is 'Lion's Town.' 'Chops' are the boats they live in; and they drink tea out of little saucers. Principal productions ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... prospect of the surrounding shores has been obscured a great portion of this month. The countenances of our companions partake of our dismal atmosphere. It has even sobered our Frenchmen; they do not sing and caper as usual; nor do they swing their arms about, and talk with strong emphasis of every trifle. The thoughts of home obtrude upon us; and we feel as the poor Jews felt on the banks of the Euphrates, when their task-masters ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... grow upon a crab, A damson on a black-thorn.—[Aside.] How greedily she eats them! A whirlwind strike off these bawd farthingales! For, but for that and the loose-bodied gown, I should have discover'd apparently The young springal cutting a caper in ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... bright wonder of a house, began to caper and dance, and imperatively required that the whole breadth of sunshine should be stripped off its front, and ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... with caper sass—wall, it is nateral for sheep to caper and act sassy, and it is ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... class. It was a Saturday afternoon, and my companion and I had been wondering how we could raise enough cash to go to town for dinner and a little harmless revel. To shove those books into a suitcase and hasten to Philadelphia by trolley was the obvious caper; and Leary's famous old bookstore ransomed the volumes for enough money to provide an excellent dinner at Lauber's, where, in those days, the thirty-cent bottle of sour claret was considered the true, the blushful Hippocrene. But among the ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... along with the hammocks, bedding, boxes, and so forth in the forecastle, all which would be good to feed my fire with. This was a most comforting reflection, and I recollect springing out through the lazarette hatch with as spirited a caper as ever I had cut at ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... cowardly fellow, called Cadillan, rushed out on one of the balconies which looked on the square, and, holding a loaded pistol in each hand, which he had not dared to discharge even into the dead body of the murdered man, he cut a caper, and, holding up the innocent weapons, called out, "These have done the business!" But he lied, the braggart, and boasted of a crime which was committed by braver cutthroats ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... grim caper in his delight, and the scared deer fled away from the neighbourhood of his path; perhaps they took him for some modern gnome, dancing wild dances in the wet woodland. He laughed aloud, with a hollow, fiendish-sounding laugh, ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... eat anything which was brought to it, and soon learned to come to a call, seeming more delighted with notice than with what there was to eat. It whined and barked like a dog, and wagged its big tail when pleased. It enjoyed being patted on the head, and would caper around, the most awkward thing ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... Marve stirred up Nickie in his cage, and made him grin and howl and caper for the edification of the crowd, whose souls his street ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... great tall sturdy fellow now, yet have I held thee on my knee many and many's the time, and dandled thee when thou wert only a little weeny babe. Be still, thou devil's limb!" he suddenly broke off, reining back his restive raw-boned steed, which began again to caper and prance. Myles was not sorry for the interruption; he felt awkward and abashed at the parting, and at the old man's reminiscences, knowing that Gascoyne's eyes were resting amusedly upon the scene, and that the men-at-arms were looking on. Certainly old Diccon ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... your own present humor and disposition indiscriminately against everybody, but to observe, conform to, and adopt them. For example, if you happened to be in high good humor and a flow of spirits, would you go and sing a 'pont neuf',—[a ballad]—or cut a caper, to la Marechale de Coigny, the Pope's nuncio, or Abbe Sallier, or to any person of natural gravity and melancholy, or who at that time should be in grief? I believe not; as, on the other hand, I suppose, that if you were in low spirits or real grief, you would ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... place he occupied as possible. Jane said, when they first began to multiply, the care troubled her some; but she began to talk to herself, and to say: "There now, don't be foolish enough to notice every little caper of them boys," and then, she said: "I began to practise what I preached to myself. It worked first-rate, for I give over watchin' 'em, and ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... and gentlemen, while we have been diverting you, Time has been at work on the little people of the passing show, and now before we draw back the curtain to let them caper across your hearts, let us again thank you one and all for your courtesy in staying, and hope that what you see and hear may make you wiser and kinder and braver; for this is a moral entertainment, good people, ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... dar'st say thy isles shall lack Grapes before Herrick leaves canary sack. Thou mak'st me airy, active to be borne, Like Iphiclus, upon the tops of corn. Thou mak'st me nimble, as the winged hours, To dance and caper on the heads of flowers, And ride the sunbeams. Can there be a thing Under the heavenly Isis[I] that can bring More love unto my life, or can present My genius with a fuller blandishment? Illustrious idol! could th' Egyptians ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... invited her to join him. She was ever light of foot, and, as she said afterwards, "would have danced her life out but she'd give the poor young gentleman a chance." Long and vigorously did Dan Sheeny advance, retire, curvette, and caper. The whiskey and exertion at length overcame him, and he left the lady sole mistress of the floor. By this time murmurs had again arisen, and all eyes were turned upon the intruder, who had been intently engaged observing the dancers. It was an accomplishment ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... Blandly accepting Jason's urgent story of a known ... er ... jewel thief traced to the neighborhood. Blandly amenable to Jason's suggestion that his men be permitted to go over the mansion (once he'd started this damfool caper, he had to go through with it). Lonnie so bland that Jason felt a skitter of perspiration down his backbone while his men hustled up the soaring ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... his translation into sentences by stops, or permits any break in the continuity of the narrative, since none such exists in the Arabic" (p. 182). My reply is that I neglect the original metres first and chiefly because I do not care to "caper in fetters," as said Drummond of Hawthornden; and, secondly, because many of them are unfamiliar and consequently unpleasant to English ears. The exceptions are mostly two, the Rajaz (Anapaests and Iambs, Terminal Essay, x. 253), and the Tawil or long measure (ibid. pp. 242, 255), ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... fishermen. It is a sound to delight the ear and linger pleasantly in the memory like the sleigh-bell tinkling of ice crystals in a frozen wood. Stirred by this, or perhaps by the beat of the risen sun on its surface, the pond itself begins to caper a bit, musically, roaring in basso profundo a morning song of its own. The result is grotesque in the extreme. I once heard a big-chested man sing "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep," while his accompanist jigged out an accompaniment on the ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... Indies, perhaps very rich, meets with a privateer (not so strong but that she might fight him and perhaps get off); the captain calls up his crew, tells them, "Gentlemen, you see how it is; I don't question but we may clear ourselves of this caper, if you will stand by me." One of the crew, as willing to fight as the rest, and as far from a coward as the captain, but endowed with a little more wit than his fellows, replies, "Noble captain, we are all willing to fight, ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... tumble and holding on. It made me wake up, and there I lay thinking of you, spending your nights up here all alone, and no one to look after you. I wondered what you could be doing and what might be happening to you. I said to myself at once, 'Either this is a coincidence or the caper sauce.' But I made sure it was you. I felt I MUST do something anyhow, and up I came just as soon as I ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... off the fence. The Kaiser stopped pulling for a moment as she came out and eyed her warily, on guard for a well-aimed stone, but she passed by unheeding. It betokened deep abstraction indeed when Sahwah ignored the depredations of Kaiser Bill. The Kaiser executed a defiant caper under her very nose and then returned blandly to his vine pulling, sending a suspicious look after her from time to time as ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... Horace, dined with us. Your brother was more extraordinary than ever. He would get up suddenly, and cut a caper; rubbing his hands every time that the thought of your fresh laurels came ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol II. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... highest, without falling, succeeds in the office. Very often the chief ministers themselves are commanded to show their skill, and to convince the emperor that they have not lost their faculty. Flimnap, the treasurer, is allowed to cut a caper on the strait rope at least an inch higher than any other lord in the whole empire. I have seen him do the somerset several times together, upon a trencher fixed on the rope, which is no thicker ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... about some revels?' says the latter. 'What shall we do else?' says Toby; 'were we not born under Taurus?' 'Taurus, that's sides and heart,' says sapient Andrew. 'No, sir,' responds Toby, 'it's legs and thighs. Let me see thee caper.' ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... "it often comes like that. Do you see how she's beginning to caper? So, there! Softly, softly!" he cried, as though he were talking to a horse. A spirt of water had jerked over the ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... sublime and the ridiculous which the author, writing for the acute monkish apprehension of the 13th century, did not deem it necessary to insert—I have hoped at least partially to liberate the lurking devil of humor from his fetters, letting him caper, not, certainly, as he does in the Latin, but as he probably would have done had his creator written in English. In preserving the metre and double rhymes of the original, I have acted from the same reverent regard for the music with which, in the liturgy of the Church, the ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... theirs! They too are a feature of distant centuries, as of near ones. St. Edmund on the edge of your horizon, or whatever else there, young scamps, in the dandy state, whether cased in iron or in whalebone, begin to caper and carol on the green Earth! Our Lord Abbot excommunicated most of them; and they ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... letter to Gurth, who shook his head gruffly, and passed it to Wamba. The Jester looked at each of the four corners of the paper with such a grin of affected intelligence as a monkey is apt to assume upon similar occasions, then cut a caper, and gave ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... i'th' City: But Stallion Tom, who well knew how to scold, And by his Mistress's Favour grown too bold, Swears if he has it not, he will reveal, And to his Master tell a dismal Tale; Madam, reluctant, gives him up the Paper; He at her Folly laughs, and cuts a Caper. ...
— The Ladies Delight • Anonymous
... morning in the latter part of the month of March, Caper proposed to Roejean and another artist named Bagswell, to attend the fair held that day ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... wasn't safe. The palm wine itself caused the King to cut a pretty caper now and then; but awfter his mistake, he was far worse—far, far worse. He never got ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... Cross IS a good man. He's good, and he's good-humored. He don't try to set people's teeth on edge against all the pleasant things of this world, and he can laugh, and talk, and sing, like other people. Many's the time he's asked me, of his own mouth, to play the violin; and I've seen his little eyes caper again, when sweet Sall talked out her funniest. If it was not so late, I'd go over now and give him a reel or two, and then I could take a look at this strange chap, that's set your grinders ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... wouldn't give one single round penny, providing I had it, to be able to whistle and have a thousand of my fellows dance to the tune—against their wishes. If I could whistle so sweetly or so enchantingly that they'd caper nimbly because they wanted to, because the contagion was irresistible, then—" The whimsical look passed as suddenly as it had come. "Pleasure with me, I think," he continued soberly, "means appreciation by my fellow-men, in ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... Queen, and she will list to me. I'll not smirk and caper like St. Ouen's; I'll bear me like a man not speaking for himself. I'll speak as Harry her father spoke—straight to the purpose. . . . No, no, no, I'm not to be wheedled, even by a Pawlett, and you shall not ask me. If you want Michel de la Foret, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Spanish cavaliers of those days had inherited from the Moors; being noted for his vigour and address in the jousts or tilting matches after the Moresco fashion. Ojeda himself could not surpass him in feats of horsemanship, and particular mention is made of a favourite mare, which he could make caper and carricol in strict cadence to the sound of a viol; beside all this, he was versed in the legendary ballads or romances of his country, and was renowned as a capital performer on the guitar! Such were the qualifications of this candidate for a command ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... laying up a store against days of famine," said Tom, calmly. "Some days the pantry is awfully bare; and Kate, too, has a caper of hiding the victuals. I call that a plaguey mean trick—when a fellow's hungry! I clear the pan when I do find it, ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... of the Caper Tree, a small shrub, generally found growing out of the fissures of rocks, or among rubbish, on old walls and ruins, giving them a gay appearance with its large white flowers. It is a native of Italy: it is also common ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... bore to me, my dear," she said, "to move my old bones; and there's nowhere, I suppose, in your house where I could pass the night; besides, I never can sleep in a strange bed. Let these young folks caper as they please." ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... without any order whatever. Everybody carries something that they did not want to leave behind in the abandoned village. The very little children are fastened to their mother's backs, the others caper merrily round the women, and the old people walk slowly on, ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... Archbishop of Dublin, having invited several persons of distinction to dine with him, had, amongst a great variety of dishes, a fine leg of mutton and caper sauce; but the doctor, who was not fond of butter, and remarkable for preferring a trencher to a plate, had some of the abovementioned pickle introduced dry for his use; which, as he was mincing, he called aloud to the company to observe him; "I here present you, my lords and gentlemen," ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various
... him for a steady beau.' Just at that minute up galloped Ned Hassel on the gray sorrel. He saw me at the door, I know, though I ran into the parlor, and took up my stocking, and began to knit it as fast as I could. He made his horse dance and caper before he got off. More fool he! for father sat on the porch, and was looking at him all the time! When he came in, he had a beautiful color in his cheeks, and his eyes were as bright as diamonds; and, as he pushed the hair off his forehead, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... al-ofa, papalang" ringing in our ears ("Good-bye; good-bye, white man"), we rounded the point, and, with increasing pace, bore away through the outlying islands for the open sea. There was a strong trade blowing, making the old barky caper like a dancing-master, which long unfamiliar motion almost disagreed with some of us, after our long quiet. Under its hastening influence we made such good time that before dinner Vau Vau had faded into nothingness, mingling like the clouds with the ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... I am!" cried the little fellow, cutting a caper on the sidewalk. "Tom said I could. Didn't ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... Perched in air, Careful how you Caper there! Careful lest the Little feet Or the little Hands so sweet, Lose their hold And babies fall,— Careful, ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... quite ready, and we can run all the way, and we can tell mamma that Aunt Irene is coming to see her; won't she be pleased? and so will Mabel and Julia. Oh, I am so glad, and Fred gave a remarkable caper, which not only threw himself down, but overthrew the gravity of both aunt and cousin, who laughed heartily at the grotesque way in which ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... wouldn't go to the Jolly Seventeen. She hadn't energy enough to caper before them, to smile blandly at Juanita's rudeness. Not today. But she did want a party. Now! If some one would come in this afternoon, some one who liked her—Vida or Mrs. Sam Clark or old Mrs. ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... came in, followed by Fair-Star, who began to plunge and caper at the sight of his mistress. Agnes looked keenly at Mrs. Harrington's flushed face; but, the covert smile, dawning on her lip, vanished, as she saw Ralph in the chair his mother had abandoned, bending ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... towel. Dust a cloth with flour and wrap the leg up with it. Put it into a kettle of boiling water and simmer gently 20 minutes to every pound; add salt when the leg is nearly done. When cooked remove the cloth carefully, garnish with parsley and serve with caper sauce. Save the liquor in which it was ...
— Public School Domestic Science • Mrs. J. Hoodless
... complied. Off we set, and soon climbed the steep ridge at the back of your farm, and got upon —- lake plains. The woods were flush with flowers; and the little man grew into such an ecstacy, that at every fresh specimen he uttered a yell of joy, cut a caper in the air, and flung himself down upon them, as if he was drunk with delight. 'Oh, what treasures! what treasures!' he cried. 'I ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... intended to cut a caper round the bed; but suddenly composing himself, he fell on his knees and raised his hands, and returned thanks that the lawful master and the ancient stock were restored ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... day in October when Caper engaged rooms in the Babuino; the sun shone cheerfully, and he took no heed of the cold weather to come: in fact he entertained the popular idea that the land half-way between the tropics and paradise, called Italy, stood in no ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the black gave a prodigious leap, which Tartlet could not but admire from a choregraphic point of view. Then repressing his fear, and seeing the bird with broken wing running through the grass, he started off and swift as a greyhound ran towards it, and with many a caper, half of joy, half of stupefaction, brought it back to ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... rebelled against dictation. Besides, were not her aphorisms superior to those of her husband? The cold face of Sir JOHN grew eloquent in protest. She paused, and then with one wave of her stately arm swept mutton, platter, knife, fork, and caper sauce into the lap of Sir JOHN, whence the astonished BINNS, gasping in pain, with much labour rescued them. JOANNA had disappeared in a flame of mocking laughter, and was heard above calling on her maid for ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 18, 1890 • Various
... horse, who came prancing onward with such a sound of trumpets and trampling of hoofs, as might have startled Don Quixote himself; while an old toper, of inveterate ill habits, uplifted his black bottle and took off a hearty swig. Meantime the Merry-Andrew began to caper and turn somersets, shaking his sides, nodding his head, and winking his eyes in as life-like a manner as if he were ridiculing the nonsense of all human affairs, and making fun of the whole multitude beneath him. At length the old magician ...
— The Seven Vagabonds (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... his newly discovered power of swimming, and became astonished at the feats he could accomplish. He could dart this way and that with wonderful speed, and turn and dive, and caper about in the water far better than he had ever been able to do on land—even before he got the wooden leg. And a curious thing about this present experience was that the water did not cling to him and wet him as it had always done before. He still wore his flannel shirt and pea jacket and ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... Daddy, won't you?" she said, a little anxiously, as Monarch executed a more than ordinarily uproarious caper. ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... affix their signatures to the fatal Registry-book of the vestry, they enter into an engagement with a body of provincial actors to join the troop on the day of their nuptials, and away they go in their coach and four, and she is Lady Kitty Caper for a month, and he Sir Harry Highflyer. See the honeymoon spinning! The marvel to me is that none of the young couples do it. They could enjoy the world, see life, amuse the company, and come back fresh to their own characters, instead of giving themselves ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hear the shrill cry of the screech-owl sounding down the silent streets in the most thickly-populated parts of the city. Or you will perhaps be aroused from sleep, as Caper often was, by the long-drawn-out cadences of some countryman singing a rondinella as he staggers along the street, fresh from a wine-house. Nothing can be more melancholy than the concluding part of each verse in these rondinellas, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... dance to music of her own making; or she would put trinkets upon her forehead, and be a gypsy-queen—she could be anything that was wild and exotic and unpremeditated. She had dances for that mood also—she would laugh and caper as merrily as any young witch. But then, again, there would come the Corydon of melancholy and despair; her features would shrink up, her face would become peaked and pitiful, she would seem like a child of ten. Sometimes Thyrsis could ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... would need a heart of flint To watch the blithe lambs caper o'er the lea, And, watching them, refrain from thoughts of mint, Of new potatoes, and the sweet ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 10, 1892 • Various
... my left shouther I gae him a blink, [shoulder, gave, glance] Lest neebors might say I was saucy; My wooer he caper'd as he'd been in drink, And vow'd I was his dear lassie, dear lassie, And vow'd I was his ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... was received on deck the first time he made his appearance in his new costume was loud and prolonged. But Meetuck was as good-humoured an Esquimau as ever speared a walrus or lanced a Polar bear. He joined in the laugh, and cut a caper or two to show that he entered into the ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... tea-party that has slipped your memory. As our procession moved from the wharf and passed the house of the tory Coffin, Admiral Montague raised the window, and said, 'Ah! boys, you have had a fine evening for your Indian caper; but mind, you've got to pay the fiddler yet!' Pitts here shouted, 'Oh! never mind, never mind, squire! Just come out, if you please, and we'll settle that bill in two minutes!' The people shouted, and ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... the proper caper," said Will. "We can take you all up in one load, and your suit cases, too. Trunks can go by express. Then we can stay a week or so with you in the ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp - Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats • Laura Lee Hope
... inclosure men begin to quiver and dance, others join, a circle forms, winding monotonously round some one in the centre; some "heel and toe" tumultuously, others merely tremble and stagger on, others stoop and rise, others whirl, others caper sideways, all keep steadily circling like dervishes; spectators applaud special strokes of skill; my approach only enlivens the scene; the circle enlarges, louder grows the singing, rousing shouts of encouragement ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... they went. The Mother thought she had never been so happy before in her life, and the ugly little beast yelped with anticipative joy. In a little—a very little—while, now, they would hear the Boy shout—see him caper—feel his hard little palms on their faces. They would see the trail of the Boy over everything; not a make-believe, made-up trail, but ...
— The Very Small Person • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... seats himself in the pillory with crossed arms, his feet protruding. He whistles Don Giovanni, a cenar teco. Artane orphans, joining hands, caper round him. Girls of the Prison Gate Mission, joining hands, caper round in ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... at the stars— Jupiter, Ceres, Uranus, and Mars, Dancing quadrilles; caper'd, shuffl'd and hopp'd. Heavenly bodies! this ought ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... belle of many seasons, lights up best at night. In morning, in deshabille, not all the venerability of its age can make it respectable. Caper declares that on a fresh, sparkling day, in the merry spring-time, he once really enjoyed a very early breakfast there; and that, with the windows of the Omnibus-room open, the fresh air blowing in, and the sight of a pretty girl at ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... by my troth, I love the fool the best: And, if you be jealous, God give you good-night! I fear you're a gelding, you caper ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... gasped Scudamore, wild with wrath. 'Thy unmannerly varlet tricks shall cost thee dear. Thou a soldier? A juggler with a mountebank jade—a vile hackney which thou hast taught to caper! ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... three weeks Nate laid off ter be away; but whar he hev gone, an' what's his yerrand, he let no human know," returned Mrs. Griggs. "I hev been powerful aggervated 'bout this caper o' Nate's. I ain't afeard he'll git hisself hurt no ways whilst he be gone, for Nate is mighty apt ter take keer o' Nate." She nodded her head convincingly, and the great ruffle on her cap shook in corroboration. "But I hain't never ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... Everywhere, on the stone flags, coolies were dumping down bundles, boxes, jute-bags crammed with heavy objects. Among them, still brawling in bad Hindustani, the little captain gave his orders. At sight of Heywood, however, he began once more to caper, with extravagant grimaces. By his smooth, ruddy face, and tunic of purest white, he seemed a runaway parson ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... you, did she?" he laughed. "Oh, well, better come along over to the Roof with me and watch her caper, ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... her, as I supposed, coming toward me across the down, greeting me from afar with the familiar twinkle of her great vitreous badge; and as it was late in the autumn and the esplanade was a blank I was free to acknowledge this signal by cutting a caper on the grass. My enthusiasm dropped indeed the next moment, for it had taken me but a few seconds to perceive that the person thus assaulted had by no means the figure of my military friend. I felt a shock much greater than any I should ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... awkward little caper to show his aplomb, and assured her, "I guess probably I'll kill you some time, ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... and have a fight with their more fortunate companion, added to the braying of donkeys, barking of dogs, and groaning of the camels, gave me the notion of a menagerie in a state of insurrection. The affair looked serious when the animal began to caper amongst Sturt's instruments, but luckily we secured him before any damage was done, though for some time theodolites, sextants, artificial horizons, telescopes, and compasses were in imminent danger. The worst of an occurrence of this ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... marched, in the first instance, to the trader's barracoons, where they could be sorted and regain some of their strength. Harry and I were paying all the attention we could to the wounded men, who, enjoying the advantage of fresh provisions, were quickly recovering their health. Caspar Caper, the man who seemed to be the most grateful to Harry and me, was quite himself again, and was certainly fit to return on board, but he begged hard that we ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... the present day; since, but for this, their fame might have been utterly eclipsed. Elephants may, in the days of old Rome, have been taught to dance on the rope, but when was an elephant ever known to skip on a rope over the heads of an audience, or to caper amidst a blaze of fire fifty feet aloft in the air? What would Aristotle have thought of his dancing elephants if he had seen some of the elephants who ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... giant steps grew only rows of olive and almond trees, with sickly foliage. The heat was already overpowering; she saw the little lizards running about on the disjointed flags, among the hairy tufts of caper bushes. ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola |
