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Whimsically   /wˈɪmzɪkli/  /hwˈɪmzɪkli/   Listen
Whimsically

adverb
1.
In a fanciful manner.  Synonym: fancifully.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Whimsically" Quotes from Famous Books



... but to please her mother she promised to swallow faithfully the doses of bitter tea. She thought whimsically as she drank it, "First time I knew that boneset tea is good for an aching heart. Boneset tea—it isn't that I want! I'm afraid I'm losing hold of my old faith in the ultimate triumph of sincerity and truth. Seems that men, ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers

... for the mace in the De Chenier quartering," thought the Count whimsically. "It is obviously the weapon of the family." And he drew the ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... to Ste. Marie, whimsically, that the two young people might have stepped out of the door of Bernstein's studio straight into this garden, judging from their bearing ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman

... hard,' he half murmured to himself, half to me; yet he added whimsically enough, being struck with the seeming absurdity of such a view, 'I must try to bear it. God tempers the wind to the shorn ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton

... meditation had completed it, but with a cumulative effect for her husband's general sense of her method that caused him to overflow, whimsically enough, in his corner, into an ejaculation now frequent on his lips for the relief that, especially in communion like the present, it gave him, and that Fanny had critically traced to the quaint example, the aboriginal homeliness, still so delightful, ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... together," he said, in his whimsically grave way, "at the humiliating spectacle of an old man's folly. I feel, at this moment, Arnold, as if I would give every thing that I possess in the world to have passed over next week, and to be landed safely ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... a doctor then. If he tries to tell the truth for once he'll strangle," suggested Selwyn whimsically ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... they withdraw these bags from the pressure to which they are subject; the merchant, with a careless air, gives a slight push with his fist to the bottom of the crown, to raise it up, smooths the front upon his knee, and presents to your eyes an object at once whimsically fantastical, which recalls confusedly to your memory those fabulous head-dresses favored by box-keepers, aunts of opera dancers, or duennas of provincial theaters. Further on, at the sign of the Gout du ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... He smiled whimsically as he kissed her. "You wouldn't want to leave George, would you? Never see him again? I'm not asking you ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings

... Shaw[87], alike distinguished by his genius, misfortunes, and misconduct, published this year a poem, called The Race, by 'Mercurius Spur, Esq.[88],' in which he whimsically made the living poets of England contend for pre-eminence of fame ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... close on my Frankfort story," said M'Iver, whimsically. "I only hope we may win out of Dalness as snugly as we won out of the castle ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... have some faint idea," Luck drawled whimsically. "Look over there, Andy over toward Albuquerque. Is that a mirage again, or ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower

... never noticed that it is often the most whimsically inconsequent, the most utterly ordinary, the most intrinsically prosaic of inanimate things that, with a sudden and overwhelming rush, will call into being memories the tenderest, the deepest, the saddest? It may be a worthless ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... up and down the hill, and then, fixing his quiet grey eyes on me, said whimsically, "I am a man of peace, and unarmed; the road is of a truth very lonely, and I have considerable ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... escape the penitentiary if he doesn't? Well, we do learn to restrain ourselves in some things; and there are people who really want someone else to take the last cookie, though they aren't very common. But it's all right, the world seems to be getting on." She gazed whimsically upon her great-nephew and added, "Of course, when you watch a boy and think about him, it doesn't seem to be ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington

... different ways, saw the joke of the thing. At any rate, I found that in their charm for each other they had somehow not ceased to be amusing for me, and I waited confidently for the answer she would make to his whimsically abrupt bidding. But she did not answer very promptly, even when he had added, "Wanhope, here, is scenting something psychological in the reason of my laughing at you, instead of accepting the plain inference in ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells

... Dolly; and then, half unconsciously and quite in spite of herself, the ghost of a sigh escaped her. She could not help wishing things were a trifle more real sometimes, bright and whimsically unworldly ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... make a habit of loving me, you know,' he went on half whimsically. 'No one would know anything about it. It would be our secret, our little experiment. If only you'd try it. Dearest, I ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... the colonel said whimsically, "I am afraid we are rather like the shepherdess and the chimney-sweep of the fable I read you very long ago. We climbed up so far that we could see the stars, once, very long ago, Patricia, and we have come back ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... channels of London. A beautiful poem, but how immeasurably sad, an invocation to the memory and to the spirit of Robert Browning, not speaking of him in an elegiac strain as of a great poet who had lived his life to the full and struck his clear-toned harp, solemnly, sweetly, and whimsically too, year after year; but as of something great and noble wholly lost and separated from the ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson

... straightforward young fellow he is anyway, and how thoroughly he knows his job. I thought how well he was equipped with unilluminated knowledge, and it came to me whimsically, that here was a fine bit of ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker

... whimsically, for she was too wise to be ignorant of the fact that such men as were in that schooner must first be caught before they might be commanded. Yet the giant's plan ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle

... had walked some way along the street in silence, which the good man was not likely first to break, when Johnson suddenly stopped, and turning round to him, exclaimed, "Sir! don't you think that 'Me miserable' is miserable stuff?" On another occasion he thus whimsically described the different manner in which he felt himself disposed towards a Whig and a Tory. "If," said he, "I saw a Whig and a Tory drowning, I would first save the Tory; and when I saw that he was safe, not till ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... cable that the Premier took part in most of the sports on board ship, and of course lost most of the events. Well, there is no harm in a Premier beginning to be whimsically athletic near fifty. But, unless now and then he could manage to win something it was obviously only an attempt to make him interesting to the cables, on the principle that a polar bear is prodded in a cage to make him perform for ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino

... me," he began whimsically. "I met a tourist with spectacles walking along Duke of Gloucester Street. 'Sir,' he said courteously, 'I am looking for Kingsborough. I am told that it is a city.' 'Sir,' I responded, with a bow that did honour to my grandfather's ghost, 'it was once ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow

... read the Arabian Nights tales, as they were divided in the literal translation. He reflected whimsically on the methods of the story-teller who, "having said her permitted say," was wont to stop right in the middle of a sentence for the sake of piquing interest in what ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day

... are the bonds that unite us one and all; whether by the soft binding of Love, or the iron chaining of Necessity, as we like to choose it. More than once have I said to myself, of some perhaps whimsically strutting Figure, such as provokes whimsical thoughts: "Wert thou, my little Brotherkin, suddenly covered-up within the largest imaginable Glass-bell,—what a thing it were, not for thyself only, but for the world! Post Letters, more or fewer, from all the four winds, impinge against thy Glass ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... seldom humorists seems in a fair way of passing out of existence. Several contemporary feminine writers have at least sufficient sense of humor to produce characters as deliciously humorous as delightful. Of such order is the Countess Claverley, made whimsically real and lovable in the recent book by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler and A.L. Felkin, ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer

... Jack, whimsically, "I do hope if they've got their German appetites along, they don't clean out that pantry before I get my look-in, that's all. Twenty-four hours without a single bite would be the limit for me. I don't think I'd survive the ordeal. ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach

... The Mott Streeters would as soon have thought of following her into police headquarters as there. Ever after she stayed. She took possession of the alley and of headquarters, where the reporters had their daily walk, as if they were hers by right of conquest, which in fact they were. With her whimsically grave countenance, in which all the cares of the vast domain she made it her daily duty to oversee were visibly reflected, she made herself a favorite with every one except the "beanery-man" on the corner, who ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... the name, seeing him for a moment somewhat whimsically as Viceroy of conquered great India of the elephants and the temples filled with bells. His face lighted. He looked at me, and I knew again that he ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston

... brilliant sunshine, which found its way through a gap in the drawn curtains, showed that it was long past the usual hour for rising. She smiled whimsically and closed her eyes once more. She remembered now that she was not in her own little room in the other wing of the house. The curtains proved that. How often in the ten years she had been with Miss Wickham had she begged that the staring white window blind, which decorated ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett

... picture-book, Mrs. Ripwinkley?" said Mrs. Scherman, reaching over for the laurel picture. "Aren't these almost too exquisite? They would like a big scarlet poppy just as well,—perhaps better. Or a clump of cat-o'-nine-tails," she added, whimsically. ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... this picnic, the Finley annual, that he asked Hester, then seventeen, to marry him. She was darkly, wildly pretty, as a rambler rose tugging at its stem is restlessly pretty, as a pointed little gazelle smelling up at the moon is whimsically pretty, as a runaway stream from off the flank of a river is naughtily pretty, and she wore a crisp percale shirt waist with a saucy bow at the collar, fifty-cent silk stockings, and already she had almond incarnadine nails ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst

... rise, but she extended her hand, a grave inquiry in her slumbrous eyes. With equal gravity he clasped the hand, but held back the impulse to kiss it. He was not quite sure of himself just then. He sat down opposite her and, smiling, whimsically inquired: ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... but with her white frock exchanged for the negligee she had found laid out for her among other things, and hurried toward the door where she had piled two chairs to supplement the lock—a foolish-looking barricade in the shining light of day, she thought, her lips lifting whimsically. ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... at him, smiling rather whimsically). You're a much finer person than I am, Victor. Of course that's not saying much. I'm not very much good, am I? (Laughing gently.) But that's exactly why I'm not going to do what you want me to. It's not the only reason, though. The real reason is that ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al

... all very exciting and so whimsically odd that it was acclaimed a most successful surprise. It is yet remembered by those who saw it or heard of it from them as the most spectacular and peculiar of all the inventions of the ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... himself; and for that reason, among others, perhaps fatal to his country; measures, the effects of which, I am afraid, are for ever incurable. He made an administration, so checkered and speckled; he put together a piece of joinery, so crossly indented and whimsically dove-tailed; a cabinet so variously inlaid; such a piece of diversified mosaic; such a tesselated pavement without cement; here a bit of black stone, and there a bit of white; patriots and courtiers, king's friends and republicans; Whigs and Tories; treacherous friends and open ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... I should. But will you?"—whimsically. She glanced at the sophisticated simplicity of Magda's white gown, at the narrow suede shoes and filmy stockings—every detail of her dress and person breathing the expensiveness and luxury and highly specialised ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler

... were visible. With his left hand he fumbled in his breast, and Granger knew that he grasped a loaded weapon. "Does he mean to kill me?" he wondered; yet he made no effort to bar the door, or to reach for the rifle which hung on the wall above his head. He only smiled whimsically; amused that anyone should waste so much care over robbing a man of a possession which he himself so little valued—his life. Personally he would welcome so easy a method of departure from Keewatin—one which was quite ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson

... whimsically. "I haven't the advantage of being a girl with a brother and a baker's dozen of beaux in bell buttons and gray. I'm only an old fossil of a 'cit,' with a scamp of a nephew and that limited conception of the delights of West Point which one can derive ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... and his charming letters. His two best known poems were suggested by a lively and cultivated widow, Lady Austen, who told him the story of John Gilpin and called for a ballad on the subject. She also urged him to write a long poem in blank verse; and when he demanded a subject, she whimsically suggested the sofa, which was a new article of furniture at that time. Cowper immediately wrote "The Sofa," and, influenced by the poetic possibilities that lie in unexpected places, he added to this poem from time to time, and called his completed work The Task. This was published ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... but I could not help him, and again he was forced to meet the kindly, almost whimsically accusing gaze of the censor, who was by no ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... He was still playing whimsically with the query when he was made to realize that the murmuring rush of water under the catboat's forefoot had changed into a series of resounding thumps; that the wind was rising, and that the summer afternoon ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... while in town would, he suspected, seem very loose to Alexander P. Dill. It consisted chiefly of spending the nights where the noise clamored loudest and of sleeping during the day—sometimes—where was the most convenient spot to lay the length of him. He smiled whimsically at the contrast between them and their habits ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower

... there's no gamble about that. But if we challenge him, the chances are—he'll revoke that benediction!" Cadman speculated whimsically. "Then we'll have all the people against us—which is to say, every prospect of success would go glimmering. No, there's nothing for it but to go ahead, as fast ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost

... Paredes smiled whimsically. He took two faded photographs from his pocket. They were of young men, after the fashion of Blackburns, remarkably alike even without the gray, obliterating ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp

... 1857 it was printed in six volumes by the Delegates of the University Press under the title of A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs from September 1678 to April 1714. He also left a personal diary in English, but whimsically written in Greek characters, consisting principally of entries recording the hours of his rising and going to bed, the manner in which he spent his time, what friends called to see him, the sermons he heard, where and how he dined, and the occasions, which were not infrequent, when he took ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher

... afresh in the world, in the character of a portrait-painter; with the payment of my remuneration from my first sitter depending whimsically on the life of my grandmother. If you care to know how Lady Malkinshaw's health got on, and how I succeeded in my new profession, you have only to follow the further course of these confessions, ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins

... me, last summer, that you enjoyed keeping up the feud," she reminded, smiling whimsically down ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower

... displaying a curious aloofness from his fellow-men and an unconsciousness of any suffering he might inflict that left mere cruelty far behind. If I were making an automaton king, I would model my machine on the lines of Hammerfeldt. He had no belief in a future life, but would sometimes trifle whimsically with the theory of a transmigration of souls; he traced all beliefs in immortality to the longing of those who were unfortunate here (and who did not think himself so?) for a recompense (a revenge he called it) hereafter, and declared transmigration to be at once the ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... it, though," he meditated whimsically. "It would be a mean, low trick to make it think so. This yere job rightly belongs to a water-tank. Oh, gosh! And ten miles yet, across that darned dry ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various

... She smiled whimsically upon the young man. "Tell the truth," she said. "Don't you fairly detest going into business with that ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington

... except some of the happier efforts of the late Mr. Charles Bennett, to which, nevertheless, it is greatly superior in execution. To this clever artist's invention everything seems to present itself with a train of fantastic accessory so whimsically inexhaustible that it almost overpowers one with its prodigality. Each fresh examination of his designs discloses something overlooked or unexpected. Let the reader study for a moment the famous ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang

... the village on the opposite bank, resided the witty but profligate Sir Richard Steele, in a house which he whimsically denominated "the hovel;" and "from the Hovel at Hampton Wick, April 7, 1711," he dedicated the fourth volume of the Tatler to Charles, Lord Halifax. This was probably about the time he became surveyor of the royal ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various

... he eagerly affirmed. "Only," he added, with a vaguely rueful modulation, and always with that amiable abruptness, as a man very much at his ease, while his blue eyes whimsically brightened, "only the blessed public never comes—we're so off the beaten path. And I suppose one mustn't expect a Scioccone"—his voice swelled on the word, and he cast sidelong a scathing glance at his summoner—"to cope with ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland

... admirers; she only, a famous fair one, counts lovers in her train. And indeed, even by her kindest friends, Edinburgh is not considered in a similar sense. These like her for many reasons, not any one of which is satisfactory in itself. They like her whimsically, if you will, and somewhat as a virtuoso dotes upon his cabinet. Her attraction is romantic in the narrowest meaning of the term. Beautiful as she is, she is not so much beautiful as interesting. She is pre-eminently Gothic, and all the more so since she has set ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... permit yourself to become down-hearted, Mr. Parker," Don Mike assured him whimsically. "I cannot see one chance in a million where you are going ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... here interrupted by Astronomia's mother Physica. This dialogue is a specimen of the whole piece: very flat, and very gross. Yet the piece is still curious,—not only for its absurdity, but for that sort of ingenuity, which so whimsically contrived to bring together the different arts; this pedantic writer, however, owes more to the subject, than the subject derived from him; without wit or humour, he has at times an extravagance of ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... smiled whimsically over at me. "Gin ye hae your appetite wi' you we'll eat, Mr. Montagu, for I'm a wee thingie hungry my nainsell (myself). 'Deed, to mak plain, I'm toom (empty) as a drum, and I'm thinkin' that a drappie o' the usquebaugh ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... crashing rattlety-bang Agnes sprang to her feet with a nervous shriek. Ethelwynne dived for her skates and felt them carefully. "I tried to pick out the softest spot on the rug," she complained whimsically, "but there wasn't any other way to wake her up. And I simply had to have some sympathy. Oo-oo-ooh, ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz

... was a little florid for the organist of St. Mark's," said the choirmaster whimsically. "My boy, if you will sing it for us at the recital as well as you did just now, you ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates

... parallel which he runs between past and present is false—whimsically false. At one time we hear it uttered as an impeachment against our age, that every thing is done by committees and companies, shares and joint effort, and that no one man, or hero, can any longer move the world as in the blessed days of Peter the Hermit. Were we disposed to treat Mr Carlye as members ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... by the ungentle tread of pitching hoofs, skidded twice as far as in calm weather. The gray sky bent threateningly above them, wind-torn into flying scud but never showing a hint of blue. Later there might be rain, sleet, snow—or sunshine, as nature might whimsically direct; but for the present she seemed content with only the chill wind that blew the very heart out of ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower

... to know it, they'd think it was so funny, but—" She paused uncertainly, and looked questioningly into his face. "Maybe you won't understand what I mean, but sometimes I'd like to be good myself. Awfully good, I mean." She smiled whimsically. "Wouldn't Connie scream if she could hear that? Now you won't give me away, will you? But I mean it. I don't think of it very often, but sometimes, why, Professor, honestly, I wouldn't care if I were as good as Prudence!" She paused dramatically, ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston

... Mistress it is really finished: she has dismissed him. We are not told why. It cannot be because he has not loved her—he who so tenderly, if so whimsically, accepts her decree. He will not let her see how much he suffers—he still can say the "little ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne

... you much—matrimony," he observed whimsically, as he dropped the hand. "You look just like you always did—with your hat on." In the West, not to say in every other locality, there is a time-honored joke about matrimony, for certain strenuous reasons, producing ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower

... had won in a community where he had experienced the unique sensation of being a pioneer in at the rebirth of a great city, as well as the outdoor sports that kept him fit, that had endeared California to Ruyler, and in time caused him whimsically to visualize New York as a sternly accusing instead of a beckoning finger. Long before he found time to play polo at Burlingame he had conceived a deep respect for a climate where a man might ride horseback, shoot, drive a racing ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... a real steamer," said Patty whimsically; "it's a chromo- lithograph. I've often seen them in the offices of steamship companies. This one isn't framed, as they usually are, but it's only a chromo all the same. There's no mistaking its bright colouring and that ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells

... breast, a gleam of blue somewhere on its wings. When I came to the edge of the sand basin where perhaps Khufu saw it lying nearly four thousand years before the birth of Christ, the Sphinx and the bird were quite alone. The bird flew near the Sphinx, whimsically turning this way and that, flying now low, now high, but ever returning to the magnet which drew it, which held it, from which it surely longed to extract some sign of recognition. It twittered, it posed itself in the golden air, with its bright eyes fixed upon those eyes of stone which gazed ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens

... that building," he goes on, whimsically, "and I saw that repair really seemed out of the question. Nothing but a new church would do! So I took the ax that I had brought with me and began chopping the place down. In a little while a man, not one of the church members, came along, and he watched me for ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell

... not like other folks.—I'm a dwarf, dearies—a poor, stunted bit of a thing like yon fir over yonder that has grown this way, that way, and every way except straight up and down like the rest of the trees about it. I'm Bambo the dwarf, Joe Harris's musical dwarf," and the little man laughed whimsically. ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur

... hope you didn't hurt your fingers, putting the fire out. Are you a very awkward person?" she asked, looking up at him whimsically. ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming

... (Samuel L. Clemens) was appointed Territorial Secretary of Nevada. Samuel accompanied his brother as private secretary. The journey was made largely in a stagecoach, the inconveniences of which are whimsically set forth in the following ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... implanted in authors for wise purposes? may it not be the way in which Providence has taken care that the seeds of knowledge and wisdom shall be preserved from age to age, in spite of the inevitable decay of the works in which they were first produced? We see that Nature has wisely, though whimsically provided for the conveyance of seeds from clime to clime, in the maws of certain birds; so that animals, which, in themselves, are little better than carrion, and apparently the lawless plunderers of the orchard and the corn-field, are, in fact, Nature's carriers ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... Henry's sincere admirers in the old Lyceum days, and now if you want to hear any one talk of those days brilliantly, delightfully, and whimsically, if you want to live first nights and Beefsteak Room suppers over again—if you want to have Henry Irving at the Garrick Club recreated before your eyes, it is only Alfred Gilbert who can do it ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... and I caught the perfume of a rose on her breast. "Monsieur, we are all rejoiced to see you safe." Her tone took, half-whimsically, the note of court and compliment. The fingers that I still held were berry stained. She showed them to me with a laugh and a light word, and so made excuse to draw them away. Her hair had grown long enough to blow into her eyes, and she smoothed a soft loose ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith

... concerned themselves with their own affairs. The new-comer went on quietly with her unpacking, taking no notice of her room-mates, but when the gong sounded for tea she allowed Betty and Sylvia to pass, then looked half-appealingly, half-whimsically at Marjorie. ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... there. Not by the girl's solicitation was he lounging intimately in the single rocker the room boasted; yet once again the bald fact remained that though it was not yet nine by the clock, he was present, his legs comfortably crossed, his eyes, beneath drooping lids, whimsically observing the girl as she went about the perfunctory labour of ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge

... the man he formerly assisted. He was apparently without ambition, and chiefly remarkable for an antipathy to physical effort. Although he had a good education, he found that cooking suited him. He sat upon an overturned bucket discoursing whimsically, while Mattawa Tom, who acted as Thurston's foreman, peeled potatoes for him. The cook-shanty was warm and snug, and Gillow made those to whom he granted the right of entry work for ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... to you, Sarge, to see me in this rig?" he asked whimsically. "It beats punching cows, though—that is, when a fellow discovers that he isn't a ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... that before very long I shall put off this vile body." He glanced down whimsically at his useless legs, cloaked beneath the inevitable rug. "After all," he continued, "life—and death—are both fearfully interesting if one only goes to meet them instead of running away from them. Then they ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... in the treasure," he said whimsically. "But I'll go out and look for the girl. I—I should like to discover of a truth if the passage ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller

... attempted. A little unpretending volume, entitled "Select Proverbs of all Nations, with Notes and Comments, by Thomas Fielding, 1824," is not ill arranged; an excellent book for popular reading. The editor of a recent miscellaneous compilation, "The Treasury of Knowledge," has whimsically bordered the four sides of the pages of a Dictionary with as many proverbs. The plan was ingenious, but the proverbs are not. Triteness and triviality ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... with its long legs. It seemed to wish to sit with Hugh; and again and again, after a short flight, it returned to the same place. What was the meaning of this tiny, definite life, with its short space of sun and shade, made with so curious and elaborate an art, so whimsically adorned and glorified? Here again he was touched close by the impenetrable mystery of things. But presently the cheerful and complacent creature flew off on some secret errand, and ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... profound contrition, his eyes being turned up, and the corners of his mouth drawn down, as Wamba expressed it, like the tassels at the mouth of a purse. Yet this demure affectation of extreme penitence was whimsically belied by a ludicrous meaning which lurked in his huge features, and seemed to pronounce his fear and ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... termination to the festival wanting, for Alexander, pleased with the genial character of these demonstrations, repaired himself to the bridge, where he was received with shouts of rapture by his army, thus whimsically converted into a horde of fauns and satyrs. Afterwards, a magnificent banquet was served to the soldiers upon the bridge. The whole extent of its surface, from the Flemish to the Brabant shore—the scene so lately of deadly combat, and of the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... willing, against my will," returned Mrs. Fayre, whimsically. "I confess I just hate to have you go, but I can't bear to deprive you of the pleasure trip. And, as you say, it would also keep Dotty at home, and so, altogether, I think I shall have to ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells

... laughed as he ended—himself with a whinny of laughter. For, odd as such discourse may sound in the reading, it was uttered so whimsically, and in so spirited and humorous a style that I assure ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne

... than adequate provision for such children. If other people think fit to throw away their money, let them." I have not read the will myself, but I heard there was something queer of the sort, very whimsically expressed. The principal heir, Yefim Petrovitch Polenov, the Marshal of Nobility of the province, turned out, however, to be an honest man. Writing to Fyodor Pavlovitch, and discerning at once that ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... blame 'em," Allen retorted whimsically. "They're not used to seeing two such good-looking people together," he added in ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope

... said half whimsically, "do you smile? Even so I think God should smile that He had let such a thing be made. And if, as I believe, you know the truth at last, that is why you also smile. But shut your eyes, my brother," he added, stooping to do the office, "shut your ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... For a minute or two, he lay quite silent, while two scarlet patches glowed upon his cheeks, and while the eyes above them seemed to fix themselves on distant vistas far beyond the limits of Dolph's sight. Then at last, he spoke, whimsically as far as his mere wording went, but in a voice which ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... "Well," laughed Schoverling whimsically, "I might as well show under true colors, since you have led the way," and he called in all the men. At sight of their real numbers, Selim gave ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney

... to be called reptile, or rather devil—who is said to look after the housekeeping, but robs him, and ruins that child. Would you believe it? she and two tall churls of sons that she has about her amuse themselves with terrifying that little girl by dressing themselves up whimsically, and acting the goblins in the twilight. It is more than a miracle if they ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... a colt in the pasture—fit for anything. But the doctor won't have it that way. He says I'm an invalid," returned the young man whimsically. ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine

... learn that the more you give the more you have to give. This give-and-take of friendly conversation develops mentality, and fluency in expression. Longfellow said: "A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years' study of books," and Holmes whimsically yet none the less truthfully declared that half the time he talked to find out what he thought. But that method must not be ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... of law and oratory. So many of the brilliant young politicians of this period had been brought into close relations with Cicero in this way, that when he found himself forced out of politics by the Caesarians, he whimsically writes to his friend Paetus that he is inclined to give up public life and open a school, and not more than a year before his death he pathetically complains that he has not leisure even to take the waters at the spa, because ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott

... still to cherish new lives and fresh ideals and a society profoundly different, yet scarcely less exclusive in its way, than that of the Colonies. It has been described by so many writers in so many ways that one is at a loss for a choice of quotations. Perhaps the most whimsically descriptive is ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin

... always see plenty of game when you haven't got a gun; and so I guess we'll run across all sorts of things, from bobcats to alligators!" Paul went on to remark, whimsically, but there was one scout who chose to take his words seriously, and ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher

... whimsically, just as Mollie and Amy ran down the stairs and into the room, "that we're fast becoming what you said you were the other day, Gracie—a ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope

... Dare sighed whimsically. 'Badly in the morning, when I have been tempted to indulge overnight, and worse in the afternoon, when I have been tempted in ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... friar as sing blindly at another's bidding," he said whimsically, and so they bade one another farewell never to meet again in this world: for Martin and the Friar went to Yarmouth, not Norwich, and there they perished among the first when the east wind swept the Plague thither in a boat-load of sickened shipmen. And Hilarius—once ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless

... her giving into begging, and in assuring her of the love and loyalty she longed for, all forgot their words of thanks till Larry said whimsically, "I'm afraid things are getting a little mixed here, and I'm not quite certain, now, whether we're to be grateful to Joyce for a beautiful home, or she to us for deigning ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... his store clothes, shiny and grown tight for him. Above his winged collar his sensitive face showed pale and thin in the early morning light. His eyes, brown, soft, were like Suzanna's—they had vision. He smiled now, half whimsically and ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake

... not a prophet. But this I can say. Tell our friends in America—and also those who do not love us—that I am looking forward with unshakable confidence to the final victory—and a well-earned vacation," he added whimsically. "I should like nothing better than to visit your Panama Exposition and meet your wonderful General Goethals, the master builder, for I imagine our jobs are spiritually much akin; that his slogan, too, has been ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... being so singular. I was in a tantalizing mood, annoyed with myself on account of the pencil incident, and in a high degree disturbed by all the food I had taken on a totally empty stomach. Suddenly my thoughts, as if whimsically inspired, take a singular direction. I feel myself seized with an odd desire to make this lady afraid; to follow her, and annoy her in some way. I overtake her again, pass her by, turn quickly round, and meet her face-to-face in order ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun

... moment, his face rigidly set, inscrutable to my glance. Then he relaxed into one of those whimsically appealing smiles that somehow are acutely eloquent of pathos. 'Serious parts—with this low-comedy face of mine!' he responded. And my query had been answered. Yet he went on, 'No, I shall never play Hamlet. I can give a good imitation of a bad actor but, ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson

... if you were a tailor," said Miss Bordereau whimsically; and then she added quickly, in a different manner, "This house is very fine; the proportions are magnificent. Today I wanted to look at this place again. I made them bring me out here. When your man came, just now, to learn ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James

... outlined his plan. "Now, go to bed and sleep, for you and I shall need some to draw upon during the next three or four days. Hunting for buried treasures was never a junketing. The admiral will tell you that. At dawn!" Then he added whimsically: "I trust we haven't ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath

... if the interview had been specially trying, she might have been seen afterwards to glance whimsically across to the picture, recently enlarged from an old photograph, of a fine-looking man in full hunting-rig ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... a couple of moated hedges, whimsically barbed in odd spots, and emerge into a park or open space leading into an unhealthy-looking road. It seems all plain sailing to the road—unless you know the R.E., in which case you will not be surprised to find ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 23, 1916 • Various

... whimsically quoted the count. "Come, Colonel; do not waste time in useless retrospection. He stumbles who looks back. I have been thinking of your daughter. I ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath

... him somewhat whimsically. "Well, we'll agree on God now, and perhaps before this struggle's over, we'll agree on Satan. That firing's growing louder, I think. There's a cousin of mine in the 65th—yonder by the colours! May ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... turn to hide the triumph which the willing acceptance aroused. Nevertheless, his next words were whimsically regretful. ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie

... term grotesque. The term grotesque was first applied as a generic appellation in the latter part of the fifteenth century, when the "grottoes," or baths of ancient Rome, and the lowermost apartments of houses then exhumed, exhibited whimsically designed wall-decorations, which attracted the attention of Raffaelle and other artists, who resuscitated and modified the style; adopting it for the famous Loggie of the Vatican and ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt

... conversation yesterday (at which only Mrs. Worden, my lady's woman, and my Polly attended) was so whimsically particular, (though I doubt some of it, at least, will appear too trifling) that I must acquaint my dear Miss Darnford with it, who is desirous of knowing all that relates to Lady ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... around somewhat whimsically at so many books, on a pile of which he was obliged to sit, felt unusual ignorance. He was probably in the presence of some ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... not to have heard the question. His glance moved slowly again over the opal sea and rested on the shining ramparts of the Olympics, off the port bow. "Constance!" he exclaimed mellowly. "The Brothers! Eleanor!" Then he said whimsically: "Thank God they can't set steam-shovels to work there and level those peaks and fill the canyons. Do you know?"—his look returned briefly and the genial lines deepened— "those mountains were my playground ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... her whimsically. "It's a shaky foundation," he said. "But we'll try. That is, we'll pretend if you like. Who knows? We ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... jaunty, in a superb travelling-dress of green velvet, trimmed with gold lace, and looped up on either side to allow a glimpse of satin petticoat. Her blond hair escaped in thick ringlets from beneath a broad black felt hat, decorated with white feathers whimsically twisted into various shapes. In one hand she held a little riding-whip terminated by a golden whistle. She tapped me lightly with it, and exclaimed: 'Well, my fine sleeper, is this the way you make your preparations? I thought I would find you up and dressed. Arise ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier

... so numerous and so whimsically contrasted were these various objects. But amongst this motley assemblage there were some who appeared more capable of interesting her heart and her fancy. She espied those who were no sincere partakers of the general joy, and ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... I'm not asking you to marry me if we should leave the island. You must give me credit for that," he argued whimsically. ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon

... was the thought that flashed whimsically through his mind as he withdrew his hand. He glanced almost jealously at the faces of Von Schroeder and Jones, and wondered if they had not divined the remarkableness and deliciousness of this woman who sat ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... at what we really wanted, we learned to inquire which was the worst road to such and such a place. That we knew would be the road for us. From their point of view, the road we were on was as bad as could be; but, as I said, the undertaker evidently understood us, and had sent us into a region of whimsically sudden hills and rock and wooded wilderness, a swart country of lonely, rugged uplands, with but a solitary house here and there for miles. It was resting at the top of one of these hard-won acclivities that we came upon—and remember that it was the middle of October—two wild roses blooming ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne

... Smith, so thoughtfully that his companion glanced at him. "By the way, you didn't happen to be here half a century ago, did you?" he asked whimsically. ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... here. That's my baggage. I've been through it, as I told you, but—" The young man frowned whimsically and lit a cigarette. "It doesn't diagnose. I can't find a solitary symptom of anything worth ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... care much where you go, do you, Dot?" asked her father whimsically. "The main idea with you seems to be to keep moving. How about it, Mother—want to take a little drive?" Mrs. Blossom glanced ...
— Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island • Mabel C. Hawley

... Mary Jane won't probably turn out to be quite such a bombshell as our Billy did—unless she should prove to be a boy," he added whimsically. "Oh, but Billy, she can't turn out to be such a dear treasure," finished the man. And at the adoring look in his eyes Billy blushed deeply—and promptly forgot all about ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter

... is, how can you believe what I tell you?" he asked, whimsically. "But, I used to be a fierce liar. Then, gettin' in with F. Stone, made me see it's wrong to lie—usuerly, that is. So I don't, now—leastways, not much. Only when it's jest the only thing to ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells

... dreaming of this ballad of mine that led me to think of Monna Vittoria, whom you will remember if you bear in mind the beginning of this, my history, the lady that Messer Simone of the Bardi was whimsically pledged to wed if he failed to win a certain wager that I trust you have not forgotten. And thinking of Monna Vittoria led, in due time, to a meeting with Monna Vittoria that was ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... straight away across the mountainous waste lay Lund, halfway up a canyon that led to higher reaches in the hills, rich in silver, lead, copper, gold. Silver it was that Casey had found and sold to the men from Tonopah, and it was a freak of luck, he thought whimsically, that had led him and his Ford away over to Starvation Mountains to find their stake when they had probably been driving over millions every day that they made the stage trip from Pinnacle ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower

... Honey." He thought whimsically that it was lucky no one else had heard that question. "So hard that my success ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs

... Goodness of Temper, that he is welcome to every Body, because every Man thinks he is so to him. He does not seem to contribute any thing to the Mirth of the Company; and yet upon Reflection you find it all happened by his being there. I thought it was whimsically said of a Gentleman, That if Varilas had Wit, it would be the best Wit in the World. It is certain, when a well-corrected lively Imagination and good Breeding are added to a sweet Disposition, they qualify it to be one ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... it's something funny about it. You stick with them, Loney, and find out. I'm taking Al's trail with Yack. You fix it." And he added whimsically, "Not so much tobacco, Lone. I don't eat it or smoke ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower

... together, in which Peacock, partly from conviction and partly from affectation, seems to have been pretty consistent in performing the office of a wet blanket. Testing his intellect on other people's enthusiasms, falling sedately and whimsically in love with various ladies, amongst them his future wife, but keeping such feelings as he had for the most part to himself, Peacock slipped through all the critical stages of youth till in 1816 he published "Headlong Hall." Brains will not make ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell



Words linked to "Whimsically" :   fancifully



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