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More "Humor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was shining down upon the desert, but Haidia was no longer in pain. It was evident that she was fast becoming accustomed to the sunlight, though she still kept her eyes screwed up tightly, and had to be helped along by Dodd and Jimmy. In high good humor the three reached the encampment, to find that the blacks were feasting on the dead beetles, while the two eldest members of the party had proudly donned ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... a temporizing and extemporizing licenser? whenas all the writer teaches, all he delivers, is but under the tuition, under the correction of his patriarchal licenser, to blot or alter what precisely accords not with the hide-bound humor which he calls his judgment? What is it but a servitude like that ...
— Taboo - A Legend Retold from the Dirghic of Saevius Nicanor, with - Prolegomena, Notes, and a Preliminary Memoir • James Branch Cabell
... boy, not as heavy as Jake Dennison by twenty pounds, had "faced down" and quelled the Dennisons all three together, and kept Jake Dennison from going where he wanted to go, struck the humor of the trustees, and they stood by their teacher almost unanimously, and even voted to pay for a new door, which he had offered to pay for himself, as he said he might have to chop it down again. Not that there was not some hostility to him among those ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... The book begins in rapid action, and there is surely "something doing" up to the very time you lay it down, possibly with a sigh of regret because you have reached the end; yet thankful to know that a second volume is within reach. Besides the adventure, there is more or less rollicking humor, of the type all ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... few equals as an agreeable letter-writer. The author was in official correspondence with him through his whole missionary life, and never ceased admiring his vivacity, humor, and felicity of expression, the aptness of his thoughts, and his very appropriate quotations of Scripture. He had the power, beyond most men, of passing at once and by an easy transition, from the merriest laughter to the most serious topics. His addresses to children had a resistless ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... arise, that man is Frank Harris. Here is one who is extraordinarily qualified, by a range of sympathy and understanding that extends from the ribaldry of a buccaneer to the shyest tendernesses of the most sensitive poetry, to be all things to all men, yet whose proud humor it is to be to every man, provided the man is eminent and pretentious, the champion of his enemies. To the Archbishop he is an atheist, to the atheist a Catholic mystic, to the Bismarckian Imperialist an Anacharsis Klootz, to Anacharsis Klootz ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... no knowledge of so-called "society." Her instincts told her it was very wrong to humor Rose. She disliked Miss Elliot-Smith and felt wild at the trick which had been played on her. Nevertheless, on an occasion of this kind, she was no match for Rose, who knew perfectly what she was about, and stood smiling and ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... bag both the birds every time. There were boys in the neighborhood who doubted this. Game of all kinds was abundant, and Lester was given every opportunity to exhibit the skill of which he boasted so loudly, but he was never in the humor to do it. He seldom went hunting, and when he did he always went alone, and no one ever knew how much game he ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... smiled, but his eyes were steady and cold. In them shone a flash of cold humor. He stood, quietly contemplating ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... poke the fire. Some books will flop a hundred pages, to make you thumb them back and forth, though whether this be the binder's fault or a deviltry set therein by their authors I am at a loss to say. But Shaw would be of this kind, flopping and spry to mix you up. And in general, Shaw's humor is like that of a shell-man at a country fair—a thimble-rigger. No matter where you guess that he has placed the bean, you will be always wrong. Even though you swear that you have seen him slip it under, it's but his cunning to lead ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... In the reception room of this building are seven delightful small panels by Charles J. Taylor, showing the early life of Pennsylvania villages. They are painted in the quaint style of old colonial decorations and have charm, humor, naivete and beauty ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... in such a forgiving humor tonight that she absolves before any one has a chance to confess," ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... more human interest in the origin of Squaw Gulch, though it tickled no humor. It was Dimmick's squaw from Aurora way. If Dimmick had been anything except New Englander he would have called her a mahala, but that would not have bettered his behavior. Dimmick made a strike, went East, and the squaw who had ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... mountain-climbing within easy reach, and a good roof over your head at night, which is no small matter. One is often disqualified for enjoying the woods after he gets there by the loss of sleep and of proper food taken at seasonable times. This point attended to, one is in the humor for ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... figure and air of good humor comforted me a little; but in all the other houses I went to, at the Horwiches, the Frantz-Tonis, the Durlaches, everywhere I heard only lamentations. The women especially were in misery; the men said nothing, but walked about with heads hanging down, ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... containing these oblate spheroidal knots familiarly known as "bull's eyes" were ruthlessly destroyed, in the hope of obtaining lenses of marvellous power. I even went so far as to extract the crystalline humor from the eyes of fishes and animals, and endeavored to press it into the microscopic service. I plead guilty to having stolen the glasses from my Aunt Agatha's spectacles, with a dim idea, of grinding them into lenses of wondrous magnifying properties,—in which attempt it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... descriptions of the scenery, plants, and inhabitants of Central America. One of the London journals, in a review of it, observes, "We would not wish a more lively or interesting companion than Captain Reid,—a thorough Yankee soldier, combining humor, imagination, and dashing bravery in the highest degree." The thorough Yankee, like many others much quoted abroad, is a clever Irish adventurer, who was in the United States altogether some four or five years, engaged chiefly as a writer for the journals ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... party were all quite glad to welcome him and hear news of their friends. One or two decent people had arrived that afternoon also, and Moravia felt she could be quite amused and wear her pretty clothes. Sabine hated the avalanches of dinners and lunches and what not this would mean. Her sense of humor was very highly developed, and she often laughed in a fond way over her friend, who was, in her search for pleasure, still as keen as she had ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... not, Norton. I see that your sense of humor is improving. If convenient, run over to New York the last of the week. I'll give you a card. My client's office is ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... of us respected Navvy for his good humor, and especially when he walked up to Marc, and with no show of the mean Indian, patted the glossy neck and then nimbly remounted. Marc, not being so difficult to please as Jim in the way of discomfiting the Navajo, appeared satisfied for the present, and trotted off down the ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... Springer, that if they don't step faster than that somebody may hasten their movements with a prod from the point of a sabre," said Bob angrily. "We are in no humor to stand a great deal of nonsense from them. Now, right-face them; that's better.—Fall in around them, squad, four on each flank and four in the rear. Forward, march!—Now, George, which way is the ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... has a keen sense of humor but is swift on the retort. While speaking at a party rally in his district not many years after the Boer War he was continually interrupted by an ex-soldier. He stopped his speech and asked the man to state his ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... be avoided. Mr. Micawber was addicted to this pomposity of language; and Dickens, by the creation of this character, has done literature a real service, by showing how absurd it is, how valueless for anything more than humor. "'Under the impression,' said Mr. Micawber, 'that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road—in short,' said Mr. Micawber, ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... keys that were to be made use of in this journey, to gain us a passage through many a tower, stair, and postern, were in the hands of the authorities, whose subordinates we never failed to coax into good humor. ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... says: "One cannot rise from reading this book without feeling that it is a notable contribution to current literature." ... "Thoroughly original, fresh, earnest, sparkling with wit and humor," says the Chicago Record-Herald, ... and the Birmingham News says: "The plot is deep, strong, graphically told and will not be forgotten as that of many passing novels, but will be cherished as a classic, as a story of right against ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... afterwards made his appearance. There was not the slightest change visible in his countenance; he seemed as pleasant and unruffled as ever, and showed no displeasure at our behavior. As soon as he had taken his seat, he inquired, with his accustomed good humor, what were the motives of our flight? I remarked to him that I wished, first of all, to declare that I alone was responsible for the course we had pursued, and that it was against their will that my companions had obeyed my orders; if they had refused to do so, they would be liable to ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... the 24th of June, justifying to the letter his glorious bravado; his ill-humor was dissipated, and he remained entrusted with the chief command of the army of Italy. The First Consul had received at Milan the eager homage of the Lombards, but the Cisalpine Republic was not reconstituted; a Grand Council governed it under the Presidency of Petiet, the French minister. ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... befooled into good-humor and laughing back. "If you give me a day's warning, I'll try to keep ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... gravem!" The Consul was sent for. He called on the people to follow him out of the theatre to the Temple of Bellona, and there addressed to them that wonderful oration by which they were sent away not only pacified but in good-humor with Otho himself. "Iste regit dictis animos et pectora mulcet." I have spoken of Pliny's eulogy as to the great Consul's doings of the year. The passage is short and I will translate it:[175] "But, Marcus Tullius, how shall I reconcile it to myself ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... splendid and wear so triumphant an expression. "She is frightened at my fine gown!" my mother exclaimed, with a changed look of self-forgetting concern; and I never lost the lesson of how much more beautiful her noble glance was than her triumphant one. A faded bill has been preserved, for the humor of it, from Salem days, in which it is recorded that for the year 1841 she ordered ten pairs of number two kid slippers,—which was not precisely economical for a young lady who needed to earn money by painting, and who denied herself a multitude ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... then at the artist. He was evidently a gentleman, and she recognized that he was possessed of a keen sense of humor. It would seem rude and ungrateful to run away and leave him just as their luncheon was announced, when he had raced all the way across the meadow to assist in the rescue of their ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... reported to Madame Gianclis, had not put her in a humor to concede Madame Blavatsky's soul, or any part of it, to Mrs. Athelstone. Promptly on hearing of her pretensions, so rumor had it, the Boston woman had announced the reincarnation of Theosophy's high priestess in herself. And Boston believers were inclined ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... Marshall, Tracey Miles, Johnny Drake, Clive Hammond—could have committed such a cheap, sensational crime as murdering a hostess during a bridge game.... Not that I haven't wanted to commit murder myself over many a game of bridge," he added, with the irrepressible humor for which he was famous. Then he groaned, the rueful twinkle still in his eye: "I'm afraid we're in for a lot of gruesome kidding. Why, last night, in the club car of my train, three tables of bridge players ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... thing which the German government did was to send a doctor around occasionally to look down their throats and inspect their tongues. If a prisoner became ill, it behooved him to find another prisoner who had studied medicine and then wait until old General Griffenhaus was in a sufficiently good humor to give him medicines. General Griffenhaus was not cruel; perhaps he would have been pleasant if ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... finer opportunity for the display of tact than in the introduction of witty or humorous stories into a discourse. Wit is keen and like a rapier, piercing deeply, sometimes even to the heart. Humor is good-natured, and does not wound. Wit is founded upon the sudden discovery of an unsuspected relation existing between two ideas. Humor deals with things out of relation—with the incongruous. ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... received liberal gifts for their songs and the long romances of love and chivalry which they recited to music. Not unfrequently satirical songs were sung, or the minstrel narrated stories in which the humor was of a coarser nature than would now be tolerated in the presence of ladies, but which in that day were listened to without ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... humor her," whispered Chantel, and, kneeling like a peddler among the bazaar-stuffs, spread on the floor a Java sarong, blue and brown, painted with men and buffaloes. On this he began to heap ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... the tongues of men and of angels and have not a Sense of Humor, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling symbol. And though I have the gift of Prophecy—and all knowledge—so that I could remove Mountains, and have not a Sense of Humor, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my Goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... interrupted, for this petulant ill-humor, that saw naught but evil in everything, was becoming too frequent and always ended in the same way—a night of semi-delirium, "by the bye, did you see those fellows turning up soil for corn with a buffalo ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... of Vannes, much annoyed at having met D'Artagnan at M. Percerin's, returned to Saint-Mande in no very good humor. Moliere, on the other hand, quite delighted at having made such a capital rough sketch, and at knowing where to find his original again, whenever he should desire to convert his sketch into a picture, Moliere arrived in the ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... one of the happiest old men I ever knew. He was always cheerful. One could never meet him in the street, and look into his pleasant face, without catching something of his cheerfulness. Bad humor is catching, you know, as much as the small pox, or the canker rash, and so is good humor, too. At all events, I remember that once, when I felt ever so much "out of sorts," because things did not go right, I came across Uncle Mike, ...
— Mike Marble - His Crotchets and Oddities. • Uncle Frank
... "but Viedler is a queer sort of chap. He has been putting up a lot of money for me. He wants this done this way and I want to humor him. It will help me and won't hurt you. Payment will never be demanded of you." I asked him if Mr. Viedler was fully informed on the matter and knew what my position was. He replied, "Yes, I have told him all about it." I then gave him the note. The sequel to this incident ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... they were not there. My father, great, simple, countryman's soul, I knew, Will, and Mary Shakespeare I know. Would she might learn she could do more with John through laughter, dear heart; but the right is ever stronger with Mary than the humor of the thing. My father and Mary I have known. And you, you I knew when in your rage you fell upon the maid, baby that you were at five, and beat her with your fists because she wantonly swept your treasures—a rose petal, a beetle wing, a pebble, a feather—into her kitchen fire. I ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin
... my assurance, but I was surprised at hers; at her having the energy, in her state of health and at her time of life, to wish to sport with me that way simply for her private entertainment—the humor to test me and practice on me. This, at least, was the interpretation that I put upon her production of the portrait, for I could not believe that she really desired to sell it or cared for any information I might give her. ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... affection, and a profound esteem, though, by a not unfrequent contrast, she almost always differed from him in opinion. Hence arose, when Mdlle. de Cardoville had nothing to disturb her mind, the most gay and animated discussions, in which M. de Montbron, notwithstanding his mocking and sceptical humor, his long experience, his rare knowledge of men and things, his fashionable training, in a word, had not always the advantage, and even acknowledged his defeat gayly enough. Thus, to give an idea of the differences of the count and Adrienne, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... very good humor, and took ill the jokes of the policeman. Mr. Peterkin, fearing he might not consent to open the door, pressed into his hand a large sum of money. The door flew open; the family could go in. Amanda arrived at the same moment. There was hope of breakfast. Mrs. Peterkin staggered towards the stairs. ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... and carries the cap in his hand. Although somewhat inconvenienced and preoccupied with the novelty of his surroundings and his situation, he remains, in the main, in excellent self-possession, an occasional twinkle in his eye showing that he is even quietly alive to a certain humor in the adventure. Above all, his attitude is that rare one, which we like to feel typical of American youth, of facing an unusual situation firmly, and seeing ...
— Washington Square Plays - Volume XX, The Drama League Series of Plays • Various
... wrong Duke William," cried Harold, indignantly, "to suppose, merely in that playful humor, for which ye Normans are famous, that he could lay ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... down her thumb to mark the number of times she had heard it, since Split and she had made a wager on it. Inwardly, though, she was nauseated by the thought that she was being laughed at. As nearly destitute as a Madigan could be of humor, she would so much rather have been flayed alive, she thought in the depths of her puritanical soul, than ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... place in which he had resided, he became the popular favorite. His kindness of heart, his good humor, his skill as a story teller, his strength, his courtesy, manliness, and honesty were such as to win all hearts. He would allow no man to use profane language before women. A boorish fellow who insisted on doing so in the store on one occasion, in spite of Lincoln's ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... adieu with high good humor, and so many big words that Yuki San was hard pressed to interpret. He invited the family and all their relatives to come to see him in America. When he reached Yuki San he held out his hand. Made shy ...
— Little Sister Snow • Frances Little
... passed into that of complete acceptance. He ceased to satirize himself because time dulled the irony of the situation and the joke lost its humor with its sting. Even the sight of Haskett's hat on the hall table had ceased to touch the springs of epigram. The hat was often seen there now, for it had been decided that it was better for Lily's father to visit her than for the little girl to go to his boarding-house. ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... estimate of his wife's superiority to himself in the subtleties of life, it had never occurred to him to include the choice of every-day objects of art. He had eyes and could judge for himself like any other American citizen. Still, he was only too glad to humor Selma in such an unimportant matter, especially as he ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... of playing amiable and harmless tricks upon the first of April that its origin is not definitely known. It is not a holiday and not worthy to be one, but it should be good for our sense of humor and that is one of the best things we can have. An April fool is sometimes called ...
— Our Holidays - Their Meaning and Spirit; retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... eyes gleamed with humor as he heard the virtues of the modest Thad thus extolled to the skies; he knew what was coming, but it pleased him to keep the boys on the anxious seat a while, for this was a every amusing happening ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... his dear little 'wifey' shares the pleasure also. And, by the way, Dick, that reminds me of something that must go in for mother. A few days ago, when I was sitting with father, he directed me to get a trifling gift for mother, but with his old-time humor he said, 'I believe the most acceptable gift that I could make Wifey would be all the receipts of the bills that have come in, for the little woman has worried considerably over the number and amounts. I got in a pretty good check several days ago, but I'll ...
— Grandfather's Love Pie • Miriam Gaines
... the dappled turf at ease, I sit, and play with similes, Loose types of things through all degrees, Thoughts of thy raising: And many a fond and idle name I give to thee, for praise or blame, As is the humor of the ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... youth he exulted in the rejection of Christianity; then he felt the pressure of life's problems, and was powerless before them. He could believe only what was proved,—all beyond was a sad mystery. He bore himself for many years with honesty, kindness, humor, sadness, and infinite patience. He did not for a while rise to the perception of the highest truth in politics, but he was faithful to what he did see. He lived in closest contact with ordinary men and knew them thoroughly. His training ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... Fusilier Marin Lieutenants—that the blue cap and the red pompon of the famous fighting sailors of France looked strangely to the Germans, who took the wearers for francs-tireurs, terror suggesting the idea. But this is the kindly humor of Brittany. The saucy sailor caps could not have looked strangely to German eyes, because a few weeks earlier those "Girls with the red pompon" had held the German army corps at Melle, and not even terror could have made them look other ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... and was beyond question on very good terms with the world. At every meeting they had somehow seemed to make progress; they really got on famously together now that he was no longer shy in her company and had caught the spirit of her humor. ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... her toast and tea up to her," she begged. With that toast and tea she intended to pass along the good word Uncle Darcy had given her—"the line to live by." But Tippy was in no humor to be adjured by a chit of a child to bear up and steer right onward. Such advice would have been coldly received just then ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... broken-down miner. But their unconcern was as speedily changed again into resentment at the perfect ease and equality with which he regarded them, a regard the more exasperating as it was not without a suspicion of his perception of some satire or humor in the situation. ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... would have pricked Virginia's sense of humor to see Baroness von Lyndal's almost shocked surprise at discovering her to be the daughter of that Lady Mowbray whom she was asked to meet. (Luckily all the letters of introduction had reached their destination, it merely remaining, according to etiquette in Rhaetia, ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... folks begin to see a little fun ahead in lettin' him try it—which I don't see thess how they could 'a' hindered him, an' it a free school, an' me a taxpayer. But they all seemed to be in a pretty good humor by this time, an' when Sonny put it to vote, why, they voted unanymous to let him try it. An' all o' them unanymous votes wasn't, to say, friendly, neither. Heap o' them thet was loudest in their unanimosity ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... without humor. "We've worked that idea to the bone, too. If you could build a big enough projector, and mount it on an infinitely solid base, you could push something deep enough and accurately enough to throw off stuff at escape velocity, but it's a matter of energy and we ...
— Tulan • Carroll Mather Capps
... cooky, arrayed in apron and undershirt, with a basting spoon and a meat ax held at attention, making faces at his old sergeant, the humor of the situation came over him, and he smiled to himself as he looked at the scene before him: the banana-trees, loosely flapping their wilted leaves, the socks idly waiting to be the center of merriment again, the troop drawn up at attention, regardless ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... caught him up with a good humor gay with relief. "Oh, give you time, Nat, and you come round to seeing what's under your nose. I was wishing it hadn't happened long before I knew it had. I breathed it in the air before we ever knew she'd so much as ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... be the popular indoor and outdoor sport for girls in these days," he returned with good humor. "Just a moment ago you were raising the very devil with that fellow up there with your eyes. Of course, practice makes perfect. But you're a good, kind girl in your heart. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... did with the lady away! And to dance on, when we've lost the music, Always made me—and no doubt makes you—sick. Nay, to my mind, the world's face looked so stern As that sweet form disappeared through the postern, {800} She that kept it in constant good humor, It ought to have stopped; there seemed nothing to do more. But the world thought otherwise and went on, And my head's one that its spite was spent on: Thirty years are fled since that morning, And with them all my head's ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... a squat bottle on the bar, and thinking it best to humor the both of them I poured out a stiff drink, fully aware that Rale was ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... keen blue eye, were not reassuring to the object of his ridicule. He was tall and somewhat portly, and he had a bluff and offhand manner, which, however, served not so much to intimate his good-will toward you as his abounding good-humor with himself. He was a man of most arbitrary temper, one could readily judge, not only from his own aspect and manner, but from the docile, reliant, approving cast of countenance of his reserve force—a half-dozen men, who were somewhat in the background, lounging on the rocks ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... laughter rippled forth, as though the expression of my face appealed to her sense of humor. Evidently the lady was no longer afraid of me, nor greatly ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... you are suffering from a misplaced sense of humor. Will you believe me when I tell you that I have certain sources of information in local matters both serviceable ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... fact, they will be quite prepared to undertake the education of their parents, and to tell you with alarming assurance just how and when to do things, both at home and abroad. Fortunate, indeed, are the parents who have come to this critical stage in their education equipped with a sense of humor. ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... the South. I have given a lecture since this notice, which brought out some of the most noted rebels, among whom was Admiral Semmes. In my speech I referred to the Alabama sweeping away our commerce, and his son sat near him and seemed to receive it with much good humor. I don't know what the papers will say to-day; perhaps they will think that I dwelt upon the past too much. Oh, if you had seen the rebs I had out last night, perhaps you would have felt a little nervous for me. However, I lived through ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... store, In the defence of women; who,[67] but that The mothers virtues stands betweene heavens Justice Would for the daughters unexampled sinne Be by some soddaine Judgment swept from earth As creatures too infectious. Gentle freind, An humor, heavy as my soule was steep'd In Lethe, seases on me and I feare My passion will inforce me to transgresse Manhood; I would not have thee see me weepe; I prethee leave mee, solitude will suite Best with my anguish. ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... from the wreck even to buy the merciful rope that should end all my humor and impecuniosity!" he mutters, over his folded arms and heaving chest. "I have come to this out-of-the-way suburb to end my miserable days, and not so much as one clothes-line have I seen yet. There ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... virile humans as they must have a live, virile pipe-smoke.' There are, to be sure, some who find in this agile-brained and nimble-witted mirth an element of profound melancholy; it seems often a debased coin of humor, which rings false on the counter of intelligence; yet even at its worst it is far better than many of the waggeries that once stirred laughter in mediaeval monarchs. The thought renders them bearable, these live, virile humans, who only a few centuries ago would have been ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... following morning the guest was the first person astir at Fairacres, not even excepting Cleena, who rose with the birds; and when she opened her kitchen door, the sight of him pacing the grass-grown driveway did not tend to put her in good humor. ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... and desolation took possession of me, for I missed the cool-handed efficiency of that ever-dependable "special." I almost surrendered to funk, in fact, when both Poppsy and Pee-Wee started up a steady duet of crying. I sat down and began to sniffle myself, but my sense of humor, thank the Lord, came back and saved the day. There was something so utterly ridiculous in that briny circle, soon augmented and completed by the addition of Dinkie, who apparently felt as lonely and overlooked as did his spineless ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... The major had a peculiar laugh, which always put the crowd about the pump in a good-humor—a shrill, pleasant cackle of exultation. "Why, the whole country knows Boyer. But, if you must know it, he was a personal friend of mine. He had a great intellect—a gi-gantic intellect," sweeping the horizon ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... officer had a sense of humor," remarked Blake, half sarcastically, "or we might have had to send back for a special passport for ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton
... pompous professional air, and appeared to be waiting for the entire party to be ceremoniously introduced to him. Nothing unwilling to humor the vanity of the eccentric little man, Servadac proceeded to go through the ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... this question, speaking with apparent good humor but with a tinge of sarcasm in his voice: "My dear young lady, your own disposition to secrecy—a quality quite necessary in a detective—should show you the absurdity of your question. Can we be too careful in these days of espionage? No emissary of the Kaiser ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... mustn't play tricks on Anvik," reminded Tad. "I have an idea that he hasn't much of a sense of humor. He might lose his temper and run away and leave us after we were deep in the interior ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... His ill-humor was, of course, of later growth. While Eugenie Grandet was being written, between July and November of 1833, Balzac was quite content to estimate it at its higher value. During the period of its composition, he had fallen, perhaps for the first time in his life, sincerely ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... advancing age came a disposition to leave the task of governing to others, and to weary of Confucius' high-flown lectures. He ceased "to use" Confucius, as the Chinese historians say, and the Sage was therefore indignant, and ready to accept any offer which might come from any quarter. While in this humor he received an invitation from Pih Hih, an officer of the state of Tsin who was holding the town of Chung-mow against his chief, to visit him, and he was inclined to go. It is impossible to study this portion of Confucius' career without feeling that ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... instructions; that my body has held out so long in such a kind of life; that I never touched either Benedicta or Theodotus; and that, after having fallen into amatory passions, I was cured; and, tho I was often out of humor with Rusticus, I never did anything of which I had occasion to repent; that, tho it was my mother's fate to die young, she spent the last years of her life with me; that, whenever I wished to help any man in his need, or on any other occasion, I was never ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... all my friends, yet if they came to treat of peace, they ought to have gone in peace." Having finished this harangue, designed for the humiliation of John Washington and his followers, he rose and with grim humor said: ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... would have done, and nibbled squirrel-like as she talked. She did not resent being teased by Amiel—she liked it, rather, as representing a perfect understanding between them. Also, once removed from the high hills of romance, she was not devoid of humor. ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... came back in a good humor, and found me in unimpaired spirits. I had not talked even of "curds," though I had given him several hard cuts on other subjects, when an accident happened which frightened all malicious fun out of me. We were about going out after cane, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... a particularly good humor when he at last dispatched the Danube "artist proof" by an especial messenger to Mr. Randall Clayton's own rooms. It had all fallen about in a spirit of graceful courtesy. And three hearts bounded with a hidden delight when the ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... He was in high good-humor, therefore; and as he fancied himself on the high-road to the full fruition of his schemes, nothing could exceed his courtesy and kindness to the young cornet, whom he almost overpowered with those tokens of affection and regard which he did not choose to lavish on the peer, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... four great funnels were given broad black bands in order to make us look like the Olympic, which was supposed to be twenty-four hours ahead of us. There was a certain grim humor in the fact that the wireless operator on the Olympic kept calling us all Friday night. Of ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... and found the bread. It was old and hard and dry. The cook was in too bad a humor to give her anything to eat with it. She had just been scolded by Miss Minchin, and it was always safe and easy to vent her ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... little, save that it was spent, as was many a later one, in work. Bradford said: "Ye 25 day begane to erect y^e first house for comone use to receive them and their goods." On the following Christmas the governor records with grim humor a "passage rather of mirth than of waight." Some new company excused themselves from work on that day, saying it went against their consciences. The governor answered that he would spare them until they were better informed. ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... is intended to serve as the beginning of an annual publication. The first number contains seven tales, some of them by well known romance writers. The first is Eine Leidenschaft (A Passion), by Louise von G., and is highly praised by the most reliable critics; it abounds in arch and graceful humor. Spiller von Hauenschildt is the least successful of the contributors in respect to the artistic treatment of his subject. His novel is socialistic. Adolph Hahr and Alfred Meissner are also among the contributors. On the whole the book is ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... a new driver for my car enabled me to pay a last visit to Le Cauroy, where I had left some of my possessions on our trip to Amiens. I found the Cure in high good humor over the way the war was going. The outlook was very different now from what it had been when I was there before. I also visited Arras and the forward area, where I dined one night in a tent with Major Price, who was then in command of my original battalion, the 14th. The ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... before which I paused in the Rue Mouffetard was presided over, by two women—evidently grandmother and granddaughter. The former was as grotesque a type of the jolly old vendeuse of Paris as it would be possible to find. A low, winey humor twinkled in her little black eyes, hidden in wrinkly wads of fat; her nose glowed with good feeling; her toothless mouth smirked good-naturedly. A worn shawl covered her chunky shoulders, and a cap like a muslin and flannel extinguisher protected her bald old head from the weather. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... the boot and hood of the carriage, and slept comfortably in a keen wind. At daylight the yemshicks attached horses and called the captain from the house. He complained that he slept little owing to the heat. Boika was in bad humor and opened the day by tearing the coat of one man and being ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... such as became one of his recognized professional standing, after having favored the newcomer with a long, impertinent stare, apparently expressing disapproval. The manager was outwardly in most excellent humor, narrating several stories, at which all, excepting the reserved comedian, laughed quite heartily. At the conclusion of the repast, Albrecht condescended to purchase his new recruit a cigar, and then walked beside him toward ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... As I was walking out beyond the Porta San Giovanni the other day, I heard the most ingenious and consolatory periphrasis for a defeat that it was ever my good-fortune to hear; and, as it shows the peculiar humor of the Romans, it may here have a place. Two of a party of contadini had been playing at Mora, the stakes being, as usual, a bottle of wine, and each, in turn, had lost and won. A lively and jocose discussion now arose between the friends on the one side ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... bribed our friend the waiter to let him carry it off. Shows how you can trust anybody in the tourist country, where they are nearly all out for the money," Bob declared, indignation struggling hard with a sense of humor. ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... you would say had never been accustomed to indefiniteness about anything—must have impressed the men under his command with the confidence that he knew his business and that they must follow him. Yet it could twinkle on occasion with a pungent humor as he told his story, which did not take him long but left you long a-thinking. A writer who was as good a writer as he was a soldier if he had had the same experience could have made a book out of it; but then he could not have been a man of action ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... twisted itself into an angry frown; for, above all things else in the world, he prized the Golden Fleece, and was even suspected of having done a very wicked act in order to get it into his own possession. It put him into the worst possible humor, therefore, to hear that the gallant Prince Jason and forty-nine of the bravest young warriors of Greece had come to Colchis with the sole purpose of taking away ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... remark, Frances redoubled her crying, but, for the sake of a share of the present feast, did not attempt to leave the party. No more was said, and the feast was concluded in good humor by all except the conscious greedy girl, and they then all went into the garden together to finish their hour's recreation before they were called again to ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... yarns meant to his associates, they meant vastly more to Lincoln. His hours of social vagrancy really completed the process of his intellectual training. It relieved his culture from the taint of bookishness. It gave substance to his humor. It humanized his wisdom and enabled him to express it in a familiar and dramatic form. It placed at his disposal, that is, the great classic vehicle of popular expression, which is the parable and ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... is golf. I have been teaching papa at the Springs. It is a great resource, and it increases your sense of humor." ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... made his effect by suddenly turning upon Hewson, and saying with his broad guffaw: "And here you have the burglar in person. He has owned his crime to me, and I've let him off the penalty on condition that he tells you all about it." The humor was not too rank for the horsey people whom St. John had mainly about him, but some of the women said, "Poor Mr. Hewson!" when the host, failing Hewson's confession, went on to betray that he had risen at that unearthly hour to go down to the St. Johnswort ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... must first put her in a good humor," Chirpy Cricket told him cheerfully. "Begin by saying what a good trumpeter she is and tell her that her hat is ...
— The Tale of Buster Bumblebee • Arthur Scott Bailey
... that all young lovers are good talkers,—they have an eloquence all their own when they are with the beloved object, no doubt, emphasized after the fashion the solemn bard of Paradise refers to with such delicious humor in the passage we just heard,—but a little talk goes a good way in most of these cooing matches, and it wouldn't do to report them too literally. What I mean is, that a man with the gift of musical and impassioned phrase (and love often deeds that to a young person for a while), ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... was one sweet joy. Alexandre de Beauharnais had no sooner heard of the arrest of his wife, than he asked as a favor from the tribunal of the revolution to be removed into the same prison where his wife was. In an incomprehensible fit of merciful humor his prayer was granted; he was transferred to the Convent of the Carmelites, and if the husband and wife could not share the same cell, yet they were within the same walls, and could daily (through ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... appearing in a new role to-night, Miss Farnham," he said, with sardonic humor; "I as the hunted criminal, and you as the equally culpable accessory after the fact. If I run away, what shall be done with the—the 'swag,' the bulk of which, as you know, is ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... glad event of the day. But on receiving the pluck of the ear, in the dear old way, the dear old fellow, quick to take the hint, gave vent to a sort of double yelp, peculiar to him when in a waggish humor—a smothered nasal "boo-woo," so irresistibly ludicrous that it had always made Sprigg laugh, as now it did, right heartily. This is but the prelude to what needs must follow. Up he rears himself on his hind legs, snaps at the imaginary bone thrown up by an imaginary hand, catches ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... cajoled Jehovah into allowing him to see what no man had hitherto seen, the form of Jehovah, for it appears that Jehovah was so pleased with this murderer, charlatan, and wizard that he allowed him to glimpse His hind quarters. At least, Jehovah had a sense of humor! ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... there is a strong probability that it was known to Napoleon before the battle of Friedland. Is it possible that the Emperor intended Friedland to do no more than satisfy his army's eagerness for glory, and yet leave Alexander in a humor to unite with him for the gratification of those well-known Oriental ambitions of his which he had so recently seen jeopardized by the Franco-Turkish alliance and the consequent ascendancy of French influence at Constantinople? Such a hypothesis ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... ever written, reveal wonderful sympathy, universality, humor, delineation of character, high moral ideals, mastery of expression, and strength, beauty, and ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... shows itself in every movement of his limbs. Never for a moment is he still unless he has some work upon his hands. He has his little routine of tasks, regularly assigned, which he goes through with the most amusing good-humor and attention. It is his duty to see that the skiffs are not jammed under the wharf on the rising tide; to sweep out the "Annie" when she comes in, and to set her cabin to rights; to set away the dishes after meals, and to feed the chickens. Aside from a few such tasks, his time in summer is his ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... bright spirit had inherited no trace of their harshness and gloom. The windows of his soul opened to the sunlight of a joyous faith. His optimism and genial humor inspired gladness and good sense in others. With an old story he prepared their minds to receive new ideas, and with a parable he opened their hearts to generous feelings. All men loved him because he loved them. They knew that his heart was in their happiness, and that his humanity ...
— The Song of the Stone Wall • Helen Keller
... bears evidence in every chapter of the fresh, original, and fascinating style which has always enlivened Mr. ADAMS' productions. We have the same felicitous manner of working out the plot by conversation, the same quaint wit and humor, and a class of characters which stand out boldly, pen ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... did not carry herself with the air of one conscious of possessing something admired and sought after by all the world, something which set her on a high pedestal apart from other singers. Not at all. I saw a little lady of plump, comfortable figure, a face which beamed with kindliness and good humor, a mouth wreathed with smiles. Her manner and speech were equally simple and cordial, so that the visitor was put at ease at once, and felt she had known ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... this. Which process, it did not then seem to him could be very difficult; or attended with much other than heroic joy, and enthusiasm of victory or of battle, to the gallant operator, in his part of it. This was, with modifications such as might be, the humor and creed of College Radicalism five-and-twenty years ago. Rather horrible at that time; seen to be not so horrible now, at least to have grown very universal, and to need no concealment now. The natural humor and attitude, we may well regret to say,—and honorable not dishonorable, ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... the one creature with whom he had any communication, socially speaking; he would come in to ask for a light, to borrow a book or a newspaper, and of an evening he would allow me to go into his cell, and when he was in the humor we would chat together. These marks of confidence were the results of four years of neighborhood and my own sober conduct. From sheer lack of pence, I was bound to live pretty much as he did. Had he any relations or friends? Was he rich or poor? Nobody could give ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... his well-shaped head on his shoulders provocatively challenged admiration, and would have had a dash of insolence in them if the expression had not been corrected by a pleasant smile, which showed a range of bright white teeth beneath a jet-black moustache, and the good-humor of the glance that tempered the frank roving boldness of the well-opened eye. When it has been added that he was in the very prime of manhood, a man of some thirty-five or thereabouts, I think that the reader will be able ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... from the group and relieve the strain. Reward came to crown their efforts in strange, unlooked-for fashion. Hoofs, wheels and flashing lights were again at the entrance gate, even as Mrs. Frank, sparkling with animation, distributing her gay good humor over the silent semicircle, suddenly exclaimed: "Oh, if I'd only known you were here, I could have provided the one thing to make our reunion complete! If we were not going on at daybreak I should do ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... fond of a joke. When all the others had retired for the night, Magarth and Archie sat by the fire. Magarth guessed how it was going with Archie and told him he could not stand out the winter. Then, with kindly humor, he gave Archie to understand that if he and Norah would make it up, he would take him as a partner in his business, which was growing too large for him to manage alone. Archie was astounded, making no reply beyond thanking him for the hint. When ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... little love story. Like her other books it is bright and breezy; its humor is crisp, and the ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... diabolical ingenuity and an analysis of society that would drive to despair Leuwenhoech and Swammerdam, who beheld the entire universe in a drop of water. This inexhaustible subject has again inspired an entertaining book full of Gallic malice and English humor, where Rabelais and Sterne meet and greet ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... is afraid that he will have to back up against a fence sometime to hide his patches from you," laughed Roxanne in such merriment that anybody with any sense of pleasant humor would have joined her at the thought of the Idol and me dancing a minuet to keep out of each ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... unfeeling spirit, pervading all, would have filled a physiognomist with disgust. These characteristics, fully visible at this moment, were usually modified in public by a sort of commercial smile,—a bourgeois smirk which mimicked good-humor; so that persons meeting with this old maid might very well take her for a kindly woman. She owned the house on shares with her brother. The brother, by-the-bye, was sleeping so tranquilly in his own chamber that the orchestra of the Opera-house could ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... and sending the water forward, he was left high and dry at the side of the long-boat, still holding on to his tin pot, which had now nothing in it but salt water. But nothing could ever daunt him, or overcome, for a moment, his habitual good-humor. Regaining his legs, and shaking his fist at the man at the wheel, he rolled below, saying, as he passed, "A man's no sailor, if he can't take a joke.'' The ducking was not the worst of such an affair, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... name—she speaks of it most bitter as a 'weed.' She says poppies are what are meant in the Scripter by the tares. Don't it sound real awful?—I trembled all over when she told me that. So Sarah I am here, and Sarah Ann, and Sarah Jane, and Sarah Mary the ladies calls me. When they're in a very good humor I'm Sarah Mary, and when they're a bit put out it's Sarah Jane they calls for, and now and then I'm Sarah Ann—then I know I'm in for a scolding. Oh yes, Miss Primrose, London is ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... opinion of the honors shown me by my fellow-townsmen, is it?" asked Lucien. All his melancholy had left him, his face was radiant with good humor. "If you knew mankind, Papa Sechard, you would see that no moment in one's life comes twice. Such a triumph as this can only be due to genuine enthusiasm! . . . My dear mother, my good sister, this wipes out ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... Ida determined to dismiss the carriage and return on foot. Briskly, and yet with a certain slowness of step, that indicated a woman accustomed to admiration, she started on her walk, leading Jack by the hand. The fresh air, the gay streets and attractive shops, quite restored Ida's good-humor. Then suddenly, by what connection of ideas I know not, she remembered a masqued ball to which she was going that night, preceded by a ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... threatened with his ministers or Parliament, always avoided it by timely concessions. Whatever happened, he used to say, he was resolved "never to set on his travels again." Charles's charm of manner, wit, and genial humor made him a popular monarch, in spite of his grave faults of character. One of his own courtiers well described him as a king who "never said a foolish thing and never did a ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... spoken of the wit of these verses, which is certainly one of their distinguishing qualities. It is quite Attic in its flavor and exquisitely delicate in its combined good-humor and freedom from rancor. An epigram, according to the old definition, should be like a bee; it should carry the sweetness of honey, although it bears a sting at the end. Sometimes the end has a point which does not sting, as in the following ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... misfortune—for that is what poor creatures, the slaves of the elements, count it—as rainy weather in a season concerning which all men agree that it ought to be fine, and that something is out of order, giving ground of complaint, if it be not fine. The father met it with tolerably good humor; but he was so busy writing a paper for one of the monthly reviews, that he would have kept the house had the day been as fine as both the church going visitors, and the mammon-worshipping residents with income depending on the reputation of their weather, would have made it if ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... by the way. He had reached Copper Creek Camp, which was boiling and frothing with the excitement of gold-maddened men, and was congratulating himself that he would soon be at the camps west of the Peace, when the thing happened. A drunken Irishman, filled with a grim and unfortunate sense of humor, spotted Shan Tung's wonderful cue and coveted it. Wherefore there followed a bit of excitement in which Shan Tung passed into his empyrean home with a bullet through his heart, and the drunken Irishman was strung up for his misdeed fifteen minutes later. Tao, the Great Dane, ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... pietate gravem!" The Consul was sent for. He called on the people to follow him out of the theatre to the Temple of Bellona, and there addressed to them that wonderful oration by which they were sent away not only pacified but in good-humor with Otho himself. "Iste regit dictis animos et pectora mulcet." I have spoken of Pliny's eulogy as to the great Consul's doings of the year. The passage is short and I will translate it:[175] "But, Marcus Tullius, how shall I reconcile it to myself to be silent as to you, or by what special ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... nodded with a sort of a smile, and the baby, rolling over in her lap, let fly both heels? at the nurse, who had crept in slyly, as if intent to lug him off to bed without his knowledge. But he was not in a humor to be trifled with; and so he flopped over on the other side, and, tumbling head over heels upon the floor, very much at large, lay there kicking and screaming till he grew black in the face. But the girl persisted, nevertheless, in lifting ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... and wherever he went the atmosphere seemed to lighten and brighten. Sometimes he was flying around town in a buggy; at such times he was driven by a sweet-faced lady, whose smiling air of proprietorship proclaimed her to be his wife: but more often he was on foot. His cheerfulness and good humor were infectious. The old men sitting at Perdue's Corner, where they had been gathering for forty years and more, looked up and laughed as he passed; the ladies shopping in the streets paused to chat with him; and even the dry-goods ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... down at all, but who had wandered about the free decks like some lost soul from The Flying Dutchman, Warrington, hearing voices, came out of the smoke-room. A glance was sufficient. A devil's humor took possession of him. He ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... and to underestimate himself in the comparison—indeed, a certain humility was strongly marked in him, even as regards his art, though he was self-confident also. When he was unconstrained his great powers of observation, his shrewdness of judgment, his bubbling humor, and a picturesque vivacity of phrase not uncommon among artists made him one of the most ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... the standard generalities and holds them a perfect creed; who distrusts anything new except mechanical inventions, the standardized product of the syndicate which supplies his nursing bottle, his school books, his information, his humor in a strip, his art on a screen, with a quantity production mind, cautious, uniformly hating divergence from uniformity, jailing it in troublous times, prosperous, who has his car and his bank account and can sell a bill of goods as well as the best ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... educational assistance modern science lends these unfortunates, no finger alphabet, or even another inarticulate for sympathy. He was like the mutes of history, of courts and romances, condemned to suffer in silence the humor and contempt of all about him, though he felt himself better than they in body and in the understanding of things, which he could not make them know. This repression made him often like a wild beast, ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... separate and indivisible great ones. In mere writing, mere style, he was not supreme; one seldom or never derives from anything of his the merely artistic satisfaction given by perfect prose. His humor, except of the grim and gigantic kind, was not remarkable; his wit, for a Frenchman, curiously thin and small. The minor felicities of the literature generally were denied to him. Sans genie, il etait flambe; flambe as he seemed to be, and very ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac
... Indian. Dr. Jimmy didn't whoop. He visited and he'd get a jug of whiskey, call his niggers and give them a little, make them feel good and get them in a humor for working. Dr. Jimmy had a nigger overseer. They was digging a ditch and making a turnpike from Dr. Manson's place to Murfreesboro. They told grandpa to drive down in the ditch with his load of rock and let the white folks drive up on the dump. They was ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... any rate once and again, view of the proportions of life and of the stage and plot of its action. We speak often with amusement, sometimes with distaste and uneasiness, of men who "have no sense of humor," who take themselves too seriously, who are intense, self-absorbed, over-confident in matters of opinion, or else go plumed with conceit, proud of we cannot tell what, enjoying, appreciating, thinking of nothing so much as ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... not altogether engrossed in that tunnel. I think her prospecting into the soul of Casey Ryan interested her much more; and being a woman she followed the small outcropping of his Irish humor and opened up a distinct vein of it before the evening was over. Just to convince you, she led him on until Casey told her all about feeding his Ford syrup instead of oil, and all about how it ran over him a few times on the dry lake,—Casey was secretly made ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... than Ralph by some three or four years. Her face was round but worn, and expressed that tolerant but anxious good humor which is the special attribute of elder sisters in large families. Her pleasant brown eyes resembled Ralph's, save in expression, for whereas he seemed to look straightly and keenly at one object, she appeared to be in the ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... who,[67] but that The mothers virtues stands betweene heavens Justice Would for the daughters unexampled sinne Be by some soddaine Judgment swept from earth As creatures too infectious. Gentle freind, An humor, heavy as my soule was steep'd In Lethe, seases on me and I feare My passion will inforce me to transgresse Manhood; I would not have thee see me weepe; I prethee leave mee, solitude will suite Best with ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... melancholy that stopped just short of sadness. All this, with the firmness of his features and the dignity of his carriage, gave the impression of sternness and severity. And these things gave rise to the popular conception that he had small sense of humor; yet he surely was ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... husband's burst of ill humor to puerile jealousy, but she was flattered and did not reply. On retiring, haunted by the ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... subjects of conversation: in some of these apartments they conversed about such matters as they had seen or heard in the public places of resort and the streets of the city; in others the conversation turned upon the various charms of the fair sex, with a mixture of wit and humor, producing cheerful smiles on the countenances of all present; in others they talked about the news relating to courts, to public ministers, and state policy, and to various matters which had transpired from privy councils, ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... with a wistful eye at the roast meat, which looked so inviting, and smelt so savory, I could not abstain from making that a bow likewise, adding in a pitiful tone, good bye, roast meal! This unpremeditated pleasantry put them in such good humor, that I was permitted to stay, and partake of it. Perhaps the same thing might have produced a similar effect at my master's, but such a thought could never have occurred to me, or, if it had, I should not have had courage to ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... to, Captain Hardy found the Chief smiling and talkative. As his eye fell on Captain Hardy, the Chief rubbed his hands with apparent satisfaction. Evidently something had happened that had put him in an extremely good humor. ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... imperfect machinery; his gait rejects all idea of order, and proceeds by spasmodic zig-zags and sudden stoppages, which knock him violently against peaceable citizens on the streets and boulevards of Paris. His conversation, full of caustic humor, of bitter satire, follows the gait of his body; suddenly it abandons its tone of vengeance and turns sweet, poetic, consoling, gentle, without apparent reason; he falls into inexplicable silences, or turns somersets of wit, which at times are somewhat wearying. In ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... strict philosophical sense, for that would contradict the account of the formation of the world given by Hesiod, and which is here closely followed by Ovid; indeed, it would contradict his own words,—'Circumfluus humor coercuit solidum orbem.' The meaning seems to be, that the waters possess the lowest place only in respect to the earth whereon we tread, and not relatively to the terrestrial globe, the supposed centre of the system, inasmuch as the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... the opening was toward the valley. I felt an intense desire to look into this opening,—so intense that I thought I would venture on an attempt to gratify it. Scrutinizing the resolute face of the man before me and flattering myself that I detected signs of humor underlying his professional bruskness, I asked, somewhat mournfully, if he would let me go away without so much as a glance at the man I had come so far to see. A glimpse would satisfy me I assured him, as the hint of a twinkle ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... brought to his country's service an undaunted courage and a devoted heart. His services during the Revolution are known to almost every reader. Every one seems to have liked him, for he had a very happy turn for humor, sang a good song, and was a ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... after the court ball. Princess Elizabeth was in her dressing-room, and occupied in enveloping herself in a very charming and seductive neglige. She was to-day in very good humor, very happy and free from care, for Alexis Razumovsky had, with the most solemn asserverations, assured her of his truth and devotion, and Elizabeth had been soothed and reconciled by his glowing language. It was for him that she wished to appear especially attractive ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... growth, and devoid altogether of many brilliant qualities which his rival possessed, Lincoln nevertheless outreached him by the measure of the two gifts the other lacked: the twin gifts of humor and of brooding melancholy. Bottomed by the one in homeliness, his character was by the other drawn upward to the height of human nobility and aspiration. His great capacity of pain, which but for his buffoonery would no doubt have made him mad, was the source of his rarest ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... forth afresh from Hook-nose. Bald-head, however, remained quiet, and there was a faint twinkle in his eyes, as though he caught the humor of the situation. They were severely cramped, and in considerable pain, but their condition was not likely to be benefited by ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... about that the colonel had just met with a rude rebuff from a certain person at headquarters, and as the rank and sex of the offender hindered his showing his resentment in that direction, on whom could he vent his ill-humor but on those under his command? Meynell advised that they should all unite in sending a round robbin to Lady Mabel, begging her to smile upon their colonel, and put him in ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... dilettante attitude toward life, and showed little promise of usefulness. But idling as well as industry has to be judged by its fruits. He was in a real sense seeing life, as he personally needed to see it, not in its passion and mystery, but in its lighter moods of humor and sentiment. Paris frankly seemed to him at this time the most profitable place in the world. Two months after his arrival, he wrote airily, "You will excuse the shortness and hastiness of this letter, for which I can only plead as an excuse that I am a ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... the very embodiment of life, energized and joyful to a degree I have never known. And the thought of the separation of you two makes me turn cold. . . . The world can never be the same to me with Carl out of it. I loved his high spirit, his helpfulness, his humor, his adoration of you. Knowing you and Carl, and seeing your life together, has been one of the most perfect ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... perish in their duty and in the service of their country die honorably." Then he proceeds to give particular directions about his numerous dogs, for the welfare of which in his absence he provides with anxious solicitude, especially for "my friend Caesar, who has great merit and much good-humor." ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... began to write plays of his own. As an actor he never rose above mediocrity. It is said that he played such parts as the Ghost in Hamlet, and Adam in As You Like It; but off the stage he became known for a ready wit and convivial humor. ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... discovering that she was out of humor, but not divining the cause. "Your housemaid admitted me, and thinking you in your own room, was about to usher me in here, and go to announce me, when I saved her the trouble, telling her that my time was limited, and admitting myself; had I known you ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... cacti, which supply at once scourging thorns, binding stake, and consuming fuel, and, kindling a fire at the top, leave it to burn slowly down to the victim, and, long before it despatches him, to twist his body and limbs into what appear to the Apache sense of humor to be ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... the eminent lawyer, smiling at himself in the little mirror of the towel-cabinet. He understood that he possessed a thin vein of humor. Necessary quality for an eminent lawyer. "And no occupation, I presume, and ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... cannot bring about your release." "Sir," said Bertrand, "think no more of it; I will leave the matter to the decision of God, who is a good and just master." Some time after, Du Guesclin having sent a request to the Prince of Wales to admit him to ransom, the prince, one day when he was in a gay humor, had him brought up, and told him that his advisers had urged him not to give him his liberty so long as the war between France and England lasted. "Sir," said Du Guesclin to him, "then am I the most honored knight in the world, for they ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the doorway and upon the platform, one or two only politely assisting within. They had taken this cue as readily as the other; indeed, they were by no means aware that this was not the issue intended from the beginning, long as the joke had been allowed to go on, and their good-humor and courtesy had been instantly restored. Miss Craydocke, by one master-stroke of generous presence of mind, had achieved an instantaneous change in the position, and given an absolutely new complexion ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... Such was Barty's humor, as a boy—mere drivel—but of such a kind that even his butts were fond of him. He would make M. Bonzig laugh in the middle of his severest penal sentences, and thus demoralize the whole school-room and ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... wrathful at the fate that robbed him of a share of the glory he felt sure awaited his comrades at Manila, Stuyvesant was in no humor for a joke and plainly showed it. He gave it distinctly to be understood that he needed no coddling of any kind and preferred not to see the ladies, no matter what they belonged to. Not to put too fine a point upon it, ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... often brought food for the prisoners in little baskets, which, after examination, were handed in. Now and then the guard might intercept what was sent, or Cunningham, if the humor took him, as he passed through the hall, might kick over vessels of soup, placed there by the charitable for ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... to your house and you put me next to him with the assurance that he is all right—and I go ahead with him on that basis. I was perfectly and entirely honest with him. I disregarded all the rules that govern me in ordinary business offices," the banker added, too excited to appreciate the grim humor flashed by the flint and the steel ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... that the features would be blotted out and the hair made to snap. When the body was affected the sufferer was hurled over hindrances that came in his way, and finally dashed on the ground, to bounce about like a ball." The eccentric Lorenzo Dow, whose freaks of eloquence and humor are remembered by many now living, speaks from his own observation ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... golden apples," to the novel, in the 'O.T.' (1836), which marks no advance on the 'Improvisatore'; and in the next year he published his best romance, 'Only a Fiddler,' which is still charming for its autobiographical touches, its genuine humor, and its deep pathos. At the time, this book assured his European reputation; though it has less interest for us to-day than the 'Tales,' or the 'Picture Book without Pictures' (1840), where, perhaps more than anywhere else in his work, the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Potter is a most interesting Negro character—one of the most genial personalities of the Old South that the interviewer has met anywhere. His humor is infectious, his voice boisterous, but delightful, and his uproarious laugh just such as one delights to listen to. And his narrations seem ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... would be to see you two meet. It's so unusual to have the same name, especially when it's such a strange name as yours. There's a pun. I simply can't help making them. My brother says I inherited all the sense of humor in the family. I don't know why I do it, but I always see a joke. Can you tell ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... Fenelby could not fathom Kitty laughed merrily at this, and then they all went in to dinner. It was a very good dinner, of the kind that Bridget could prepare when she was in the humor, and they sat rather longer over it than usual, and then Mr. Fenelby proposed that he should step over to the Rankins' and arrange about the storage of Kitty's trunks, and on thinking it over he decided that he had better step down to the station and see if he could not get a man to carry the trunks ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler
... in no better humor than before, and a berth in the steerage was assigned to him. The other prisoners were sent on board, and Captain Breaker had ordered Christy to anchor ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... sure how much of her barbed speech was humor and how much was serious, so he said nothing. He showed her to an empty cabin—she did lock the door—then looked for Ihjel. The Winner was in the galley adding to his girth with an immense gelatin dessert that ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... drawing a trick towards you, pause in the act to smile disdainfully upon your opponents. They may not admire a spectacular arrangement of your features, and if they happen to be in a bad humor your facial expression may be ruined ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... their precipitate and ill-judged attention, may aggravate the public misfortunes. In such a state of things, the principles, now only sown, will shoot out and vegetate in full luxuriance. In such circumstances the minds of the people become sore and ulcerated. They are put out of humor with all public men and all public parties; they are fatigued with their dissensions; they are irritated at their coalitions; they are made easily to believe (what much pains are taken to make them believe) that all oppositions ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... this; but ere I had finished my first hurried glance I had accepted her, as always one must, just as she was; had accepted her surroundings, preposterously impossible as they all were from any logical point of view, as fitting to herself and to her humor. It was not for me to ask how or why she did these things. She had done them; because, here they were; and here was she. We had found England's ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... the wife, affectionately, "I wonder why Mr. Ravenel avoided mentioning that to you. He needn't have feared your sense of humor. Ah! if you only had ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... Fellows wore a distinctive costume, which remained almost unchanged in its fashion for no less than three centuries.[86] Withal, it was a serious company, but in nowise solemn, and the tedium of the journey was no doubt beguiled by song, story, and the humor incident to travel. ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... and who had made war on Austria and forced a surrender. I made no attempt to argue with him—one wastes time arguing with madmen—but if this man could believe that, the transformation of a coach-and-four into a cabbage wagon was a small matter indeed. So, to humor him, I asked him if he thought General Bonaparte's agents were responsible for his ...
— He Walked Around the Horses • Henry Beam Piper
... beauty, and not so much the loneliness. Then, just to prove to himself that he was not going to be bluffed by the silence, he began to whistle. And the tune carried with it an impish streak of that grim humor in which, so they tell us, the song was born. It is completely out of date now, that song, but then it was being sung around the world. And sometimes it was whistled just as Jack was whistling it now, to brace a man's courage ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... things, made Stubb such an easy-going, unfearing man, so cheerily trudging off with the burden of life in a world full of grave pedlars, all bowed to the ground with their packs; what helped to bring about that almost impious good-humor of his; that thing must have been his pipe. For, like his nose, his short, black little pipe was one of the regular features of his face. You would almost as soon have expected him to turn out of his bunk without his nose as without his pipe. He kept ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... Prussia, Robinson finds, in spite of Mollwitz and the sad experiences, no trace at Vienna. The humor at Vienna is obstinately defiant; simply to regard Friedrich as a housebreaker or thief in the night; whom they will soon deal with, were they once on foot and implements in their hand: "Swift, ye Sea-Powers; where are the implements, the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... her in the little cupboard or just outside it. He had delight in watching the most extraordinary shining that she had in her eyes. It was like reading an entertaining book, he used to think, and he had the idea that humor of that rarest kind which is unbounded love mingled with unbounded sense of the oddities of life was packed to bursting within her. All that she saw or heard seemed to be taken into that exhaustless ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... rush, he left for California with his mother, then a widow. Once there, the rough but fascinating chaos engulfed him, and from it, at first hand, he drew the stage properties—Spaniards, Greasers, gambling houses—the humor, sin and chivalry of the '49—which color all his stories. After some little journalism and clerking, he was made secretary to the Supt. of the Mint, a position which was not too exacting to allow a great deal ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... departments of others. This cannot be surprising to those who know how often governors of States are nominated and elected through railroad influences, and what efforts are made by corporations to humor servile and to propitiate independent executives. The time is not far remote when nearly every delegate to a State convention had free transportation for the round trip. This transportation was furnished to delegates by railroad managers through their local attorneys, ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... end of a week I asked the M.O. if I would get Blighty and he said he didn't think so, not directly. He rather thought that they would keep me in hospital for a month or two and see how I came out. The officer was a Canadian and had a sense of humor and was most affable. I told him if this jamming wasn't going to get me Blighty, I wanted to go back to duty and get a real one. He laughed and tagged me for a beach resort at Ault-Onival on the northern coast ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... ideas or in a sort of triumphantly earthy worship and adoration of his wife. She was a continual source of astonishment to him—the freshness and originality of her mind, her dynamic, clear-headed energy, and her unfailing good humor. ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... a difference in Spawn's manner toward me now. He seemed far more wary. Outwardly he was in a high good humor. He asked nothing concerning my morning at the Government House. He puttered over his electron-stove, making me help him; he cursed the heat; he said one could not eat in such heat as this; but the meal he cooked, and the way he sat down opposite me and attacked ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... do with this wild falcon for a month?" thought Kano, half in despair, yet smiling, also, at the humor. "He must be clothed,—but how? I would sooner sheathe a mountain cat in silks! The one hope of existence during this interval is to get him engrossed in painting; but where is he to paint? I dare not keep him in ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... smooth-faced boy, not as heavy as Jake Dennison by twenty pounds, had "faced down" and quelled the Dennisons all three together, and kept Jake Dennison from going where he wanted to go, struck the humor of the trustees, and they stood by their teacher almost unanimously, and even voted to pay for a new door, which he had offered to pay for himself, as he said he might have to chop it down again. Not that there was not some hostility to him among those to whom his ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... bell rang, and Elsie gathered up her books and hastened to the school-room. Her patience and endurance were sorely tried that morning, for Miss Day was in an exceedingly bad humor, being greatly mortified and also highly indignant that she had not been invited to make one of the picnic party; and Elsie had never found her more unreasonable and difficult to please; and her incessant fault-finding and scolding were almost more than the little girl could bear in addition ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... somewhat indistinct. The ancient name of one of the streets in Caen, rue de la Cervoisiere, distinctly proves the habit of beer-drinking; and, when Tacitus speaks of the beverage of the Germans, in his time, as "humor ex hordeo vel frumento in quandam similitudinem vini corruptus," it seems highly improbable but that the same liquor should have been in use among the cognate tribes of Gaul. Brito, however, expressly says of Flanders, that ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... pleased to see another of Elia's contributions to Hone's "Every-Day Book." For, though Lamb's articles in that amusing and very entertaining miscellany are not very highly finished or very carefully elaborated, they contain many touches of his delicious humor and exquisite pathos, and are, indeed, replete with the quaint beauties and beautiful oddities of his very original and very ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... tamed her spirit, and Swinburne telling of her, years after, speaks of "her matchless loveliness, courage, endurance, humor and sweetness—too dear and sacred to be profaned ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... upon life from a sour or severe disposition, with hard and stringent notions, is ill prepared to meet the experiences of the world; but he who has the sweetness of hope, he who has an imagination lit up with cheerfulness, he who has the sense of humor which softens all things—he who has this atmosphere of the mind—has made himself superior to accident. As the angel described by Milton, who was smitten by the sword, and whose wounds healed as soon as the sword was withdrawn, so ought man to ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... and wild agility of a tractor engine pulling a carload of coal, glared ponderously at the porter who took it as a joke. Gollop sometimes assumed that prodigious seriousness when about to pass out specimens of his best humor. ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... had never been so unfriendly before. On the contrary he had always made the most friendly remarks to the merry goat-boy. But Moni's changed appearance did not please him, and besides he was in a worse humor than usual because Frulein Paula had just complained to him about her loss and assured him that the valuable cross could only have been lost in the house or directly in front of the house-door. She had only stepped ...
— Moni the Goat-Boy • Johanna Spyri et al
... remarked, "There is fame for you." The same party inquired in what State he was born. He answered, "Virginia." "Ah," said the questioner, "I thought you were a native of Connecticut." This left him in a bad humor for the remainder of the evening. The editor of this series has said of him: "General Scott was a man of true courage—personally, morally, and religiously brave. He was in manner, association, and feeling courtly and chivalrous. He was always equal to the danger—great on great ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... but presents in all cases the arguments of the Sceptic, yet the illustrations and the form in which the arguments are presented, often bear the marks of his own thought, and are characterized here and there by a wealth of humor that has not been sufficiently noticed in the critical works on Sextus. Of all the authors who have reviewed Sextus, Brochard is the only one who seems to have understood and appreciated his ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... that they kept the secret among themselves so that it never transpired abaft the Pequod's main-mast. Interweaving in its proper place this darker thread with the story as publicly narrated on the ship, the whole of this strange affair I now proceed to put on lasting record. For my humor's sake, I shall preserve the style in which I once narrated it at Lima, to a lounging circle of my Spanish friends, one saint's eve, smoking upon the thick-gilt tiled piazza of the Golden Inn. Of those fine cavaliers, the young Dons, Pedro and Sebastian, were on the closer terms with me; and ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... lot, and seized immediately upon "Philoprogenitiveness"—a marvellous print (our copy is not at all improved by being colored, which operation we performed on it ourselves)—a marvellous print, indeed,—full of ingenuity and fine jovial humor. A father, possessor of an enormous nose and family, is surrounded by the latter, who are, some of them, embracing the former. The composition writhes and twists about like the Kermes of Rubens. No less than ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... one question he answered, and he pointed straight as the needle of a compass into the north. And then, as if his crude sense of humor had been touched by the other thing Philip had asked, he burst into a laugh. It made one shudder to see laughter in a face like Bram's. It transformed his countenance from mere ugliness into one of the leering gargoyles carven under the cornices of ancient ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... not conceal it—the happy marriage in which we cast into the common lot our ideas and our sorrows, as well as our good-humor and our affections. Suppress, by all means, in this partnership, gravity and affectation, yet add a sprinkling of gallantry and good-fellowship. Preserve even in your intimacy that coquetry you so readily assume in society. Seek to please your husband. Be amiable. Consider ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... evensong of a pair of clear-throated warblers poised on the topmost twigs of one of the trees, should have been sweet music in the ears of a returned exile. But on that matchless bride's-month evening of dainty sunset arabesques and brook and bird songs, I was in little humor for rejoicing. ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... tipsy-happy Capuchin monk and a jester laughing at him. The series closes with a love-scene, broken in upon by a watchman armed with a big spit hung with herrings, beer-cans, sausages, and other furniture of a German restaurant. The whole are treated with that affluence of national humor for which Schroedter ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... master. "Don't you know a friend from an enemy? Excuse my dog's bad manners, please; he is not in a good humor. Some street boys attacked us, and he ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... morning Mrs. Abbott caught Mrs. Hunter digging in her private vegetable garden behind the palace, and wearing a garment that her second gardener's wife would have scorned, her unblemished face beaming under a battered straw hat. Both women had the humor to laugh, and their intimacy dated from that moment, Mrs. Hunter confessing that stuff on her face made her sick; but adding that she adored dress and thought that any rich woman ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... youth. He is credited with over forty plays, eleven of which survive, along with the names and fragments of some twenty-six others. His satire deal with political, religious, and literary topics, and with all its humor and fancy is evidently the outcome of profound conviction and a genuine patriotism. The Attic comedy was produced at the festivals of Dionysus, which were marked by great license, and to this, rather than to the individual taste of the poet, must be ascribed ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes
... to join her daughter, Farrel knew that at all events he had earned the approval of the influential member of the Parker family. Mrs. Parker, on her part, was far more excited than her colloquial humor indicated. ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... the best of his longer poems, while of exquisite workmanship and delightfully melodious, generally fail to hold the reader's attention. The movement is languid; there is little dramatic interest, and only a suggestion of humor. The very melody of his verses sometimes grows monotonous, like a Strauss waltz too long continued. We shall best appreciate Spenser by reading at first only a few well-chosen selections from the Faery Queen and the ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... as successful as that of the society in which they move. Worse himself is rendered with a rare mingling of humor and pathos; Hans Nilsen is a striking example of the religious enthusiast, drawn with feeling and subtlety; and Madame Torvestad, though belonging to a familiar type, is ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... saying "Rebeck me!" and "Ods Boddikins!" when his hawk bit his finger or something else put him out of humor, he would have exclaimed, "Oh, pshaw!" or, "Botheration!" Instead of playing with a hawk, he would have had a black-and-tan terrier,—if he had any pet at all; and his wife would not have been bothering herself with a distaff, when linen, already spun and woven, could be ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... disposition to leave the task of governing to others, and to weary of Confucius' high-flown lectures. He ceased "to use" Confucius, as the Chinese historians say, and the Sage was therefore indignant, and ready to accept any offer which might come from any quarter. While in this humor he received an invitation from Pih Hih, an officer of the state of Tsin who was holding the town of Chung-mow against his chief, to visit him, and he was inclined to go. It is impossible to study this portion of Confucius' career without feeling that a great ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... somehow or other, the room in which Mr. Delora was supposed to be, to remain there concealed, and to await this attack which, for some reason or other, they were expecting. And then, as the possibilities connected with such an event spread themselves out before me, my sense of humor suddenly asserted itself, and, to Louis' amazement, I laughed in his face. I came back from this world of fanciful figures, of mysterious robberies, of attempted assassinations, to the world of every-day things. It was Louis—the maitre d'hotel, the man who had ordered my Plat du Jour and selected ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... marrow, core, sap, lifeblood, backbone, heart, soul; important part &c. (importance) 642. principle, nature, constitution, character, type, quality, crasis[obs3], diathesis[obs3]. habit; temper, temperament; spirit, humor, grain; disposition. endowment, capacity; capability &c. (power) 157. moods, declensions, features, aspects; peculiarities &c. (speciality) 79; idiosyncrasy, oddity; idiocrasy &c. (tendency) 176[obs3]; diagnostics. V. be in the blood, run in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... enumerate the many good things of this sort which Holmes has written, full of wit and wisdom, and of humor lightly dashed with sentiment and sparkling with droll analogies, sudden puns, and unexpected turns of rhyme and phrase. Among the best of them are Nux Postcoenatica, A Modest Request, Ode for a Social Meeting, The Boys, and Rip Van Winkle, M.D. Holmes's favorite measure, in ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... repartee and deftly handling the slang of the day and the locality with a childlike appreciation and an infantine accent that seemed to redeem it from vulgarity or unfeminine boldness! Few could resist the volatile infection of her presence. A smile was the only tribute she exacted, and good-humor the rule laid down for her guests. If it occasionally required some mental agility to respond to her banter, a Californian gathering was, however, seldom lacking in humor. Yet she was always the principal performer ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... was a minister, and ministers are accustomed to penetrating the blue mazes of mental abstraction. This minister did. He began by telling three funny stories, and Eveley, who loved to exercise her sense of humor, came back to the Current Club and ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... deal more than they bring in. But the husband, no doubt, has ideas of his own. You have seen him, haven't you? A tall, slim fellow, as carroty and as scraggy as his wife, with an angular face, green eyes, and prominent cheekbones. He looks as though he had never felt in a good humor in his life. And I understand that he is always complaining of his father-in-law, because the other had three daughters and a son. Of course that cut down his wife's dowry; she inherited only a part of her father's property. And, besides, as the trade of a miller never enriched his ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... depths. The forehead was ample and smooth, as far as could be seen, for rather longish brown hair hung over it, with a negligent, sullen effect. The general expression was of an odd painwearied dismalness, curiously warmed by the remnant of an unquenchable humor. ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the halting gaze that was levelled at them from the grassy bank. Then they all looked at one another until boy's eyes rested on boy's eyes for question and answer, and the stranger lad's face flashed with quick humor. ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... mind which in nature more imaginative than mine might be called reverie. I had allowed myself to drift away this gently upon the current of my thoughts, when my housekeeper announced, in a tone of ill-humor, that Monsieur Coccoz desired ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... Dr. Balch's life were spent at number 3302 Gay (N) Street, where a bad fire destroyed many valuable papers and the records of his church. He wrote to a friend: "Only the Parrott (his wife) remains!" Apparently, he never lost his sense of humor. Perhaps it was that which helped to make him ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... spring of personal humor which he taps at rare intervals. He remarks that "the coming to Paris and settlement there of his friend Matuszynski must have been very gratifying to Chopin, who felt so much the want of one with whom to sigh." This ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... to my life and yet—or rather because of that—she interested me. Filled with theories concerning art—enthusiasms with which the "American Colony" in Paris was aflame, she stated them clearly, forcibly and with humor. Her temper in argument was admirable and no man had occasion to talk down at her—as Browne, who was a good deal ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... argued with the woman for hours, and finally got her round, the while he sat cross-legged, after his fashion, on a deep chair and implored me with his eyes to do my worst. It happened long ago, and I was so obsessed with the desire to please him that the humor of the situation ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... plebeian name in the mere movements of their lips, and hear the anticipatory criticisms made in the blunt, provincial fashion that too often borders on rudeness. He had not expected this prolonged ordeal of pin-pricks; it put him still more out of humor with himself. He grew impatient to begin the reading, for then he could assume an attitude which should put an end to his mental torments; but Jacques was giving Mme. de Pimentel the history of his last day's sport; Adrien was holding forth to Mlle. Laure de Rastignac on Rossini, ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... of the 93rd is full of deeds of valor, laughter in the face of death, of fearful carnage wrecked upon the foe, of childlike pride in the homage their Allies paid them, and now and then an incident replete with the bubbling Negro humor that is the same whether it finds its outlet on the cotton-fields of Dixie or the ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... of the songs of childhood or the poems that lend mirth to the out-pouring of his poetic nature, will welcome this unique collection of his choicest wit and humor. ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... slavery which was then prevalent. Those attacks had all the more weight, inasmuch as the book was by no means exclusively devoted to them. It dealt with many other subjects connected with provincial life; and the humor and the pathos and the picturesqueness with which they were treated would of themselves have been sufficient to commend it to the very favorable attention of his countrymen. But the sad pictures ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... dawned upon the officials present that Nolan was having fun with them, and though the spokesmen were nettled, many others, with genuine American sense of humor, felt that he couldn't ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... go anywhere without you, you head of bone," remarked the cook, rather enjoying his own humor, "but this time you're going ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... liar, how far he is misleading himself. The capital on which he lives is confidence, and nothing equals the confidence of the people, unless it be their distrust when once they find themselves betrayed. They may follow for a time the exploiters of their artlessness, but then their friendly humor turns to hate. Doors which stood wide open offer an impassable front of wood, and ears once attentive are deaf. And the pity is that they have closed not to the evil alone, but to the good. This is the crime of those who distort and degrade speech: they shake confidence generally. ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... tendency; aptness, aptitude; proneness, proclivity, bent, turn, tone, bias, set, leaning to, predisposition, inclination, propensity, susceptibility; conatus[Lat], nisus[Lat]; liability &c. 177; quality, nature, temperament; idiocrasy[obs3], idiosyncrasy; cast, vein, grain; humor, mood; drift &c. (direction) 278; conduciveness, conducement[obs3]; applicability &c. (utility) 644; subservience &c. (instrumentality) 631. V. tend, contribute, conduce, lead, dispose, incline, verge, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... express my faith in the virtue of Dr. Pierce's Golden Medical Discovery. Having suffered for three years from salt-rheum and after having been unsuccessfully treated by a good physician, I began the use of the "Discovery." The humor was in my hands. I was obliged to keep a covering on them for months at a time, changing the covering morning and night. The stinging, burning and itching sensation would be so intense that at times it ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... this book is a work of genius and, as always with works of genius, it is difficult to analyze the elements that have gone to make it. There is poetry here and fantasy and humor, a little pathos but, above all, a number of creations in whose existence everybody must believe whether they be children of four or old men of ninety or prosperous bankers of forty-five. I don't know how Mr. Lofting has done it; I don't suppose that he knows himself. There it is—the first ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... the various opinions of Anatomists concerning the use of that kernelly substance; call'd Pancreas (in English, the Sweetbred) endeavours to prove experimentally that this Glandule was not form'd by Nature, to separate any Excrementitious humor, and to convey it into the Intestins, but to prepare an useful juyce out of the Blood and Animal Spirits, of a somewhat Acid taste, and to carry the same into the Gut, call'd Duodenum, to be there mixt with the Aliment, that ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... us through German and Scandinavian, Celtic and Italian, Russian and Jewish immigration, are well marked in certain localities, although their traces may be difficult to follow in the main trend of American writing. The presence of Negro, Irishman, Jew, and German, has affected our popular humor and satire, and is everywhere to be marked in the vocabulary and tone of our newspapers. The cosmopolitan character of the population of such cities as New York and Chicago strikes every foreign observer. Each one of the manifold ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... thoroughly enjoyed amidst mirth and laughter, wit and humor, jokes and short stories, for the whole company were in ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... the baby was grappled with by its great aunt, an elderly maiden, whose book knowledge of babies was something at which even the infant himself winked. A delicious bit of humor. ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... His first impulse was to follow, and say that he would not be left alone in circumstances that might compromise him; but a second thought assured him that he was past being compromised. So he concluded to fall in with his host's queer humor, and try to prove himself worthy of trust. He cleared away his dinner with as much deftness as could be expected of one engaging in an unusual task, and put everything in its place, or what should be its place. He next found a broom, and commenced sweeping the room, which unwonted proceeding ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... have wanted to say something to you," went on Apollonius, "I will tomorrow; you are not in the right humor today. You had to know what I have told you about the workman, and it wasn't meant as ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... quickly, for the roar had seemed to be almost at his side. What he saw drew an exclamation from Phil that, at other times, might have been humorous. There was no humor ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... on the dam had been done almost wholly by the soldiers, who had worked both day and night, often up to their waists and even to their necks in the water, showing throughout the utmost cheerfulness and good humor. The partial success, that followed the first disappointment of the break, was enough to make such men again go to work with good will. Bailey decided not to try again, with his limited time and materials, to sustain the whole weight of water with one ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... and urbane, with a touch of humor in his nature; Marlow and Hastings who come from London to visit ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... The humor of it might have struck Jennie if she had not been so Scotch, and so hungry. As it was, a slow, sullen, heavy Scotch wrath rose in her ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... present, untoward time. Also he hears again of the Suitors and their guilty deeds, viewed with a loyal eye. Finally he plays the prophet to Eumaeus and foretells the return of Ulysses. This is the height of his disguise, wherein he rises to the humor of Providence, who has brought to the swineherd the realization of his strongest wish without his knowing it. His prayers have come to pass, could he but see. Herein Ulysses suggests the part of Providence in disguise, bringing the fulfillment ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... officers assembled nightly to recite tactics, and no mercy was shown the luckless one who failed in his "lessons." Many a young fellow went away from the "school" smarting under the irony of the impatient colonel. Some of his remarks had a piquant humor, others were characterized by the ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... thing needn't be very witty or very funny to make them laugh. From the ease with which this party exploded into laughter, it may be perceived that in spite of the high words and the pop-gun firing, there was no deep-seated ill-humor ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... of erudition were demanded, Ben was ready with the heavy artillery of the unities, and all the laws of Aristotle and Horace, Quintilian and Priscian, exemplified in tragedies of canonical structure, and comedies whose prim regularity could not extinguish the most delightful and original humor—Robert Burton's excepted—that illustrated that brilliant period. But if the graceful lyric or glittering masque were called for, the boundless wealth of Ben's genius was most strikingly displayed. It has been the fashion, set by such presumptuous blunderers as Warburton and such formal prigs ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... this modern Caligula amused his leisure hours, and made life hideous to his victim. Nor was it only from this arch-fiend that the poor boy suffered. Mate, cook, and sailors, soon found in him a butt for their jokes, an object on which they might safely vent their ill-humor, and a convenient cover for their ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... matter less placid touching Cyprus and the betrothed bride wherewith to fill this period of waiting: and more than once the Senator Marco Cornaro had returned from lengthy sessions at the Ducal Palace in no gentle humor, yet mute to all questioning. For it had been learned in that innermost Council, and told no farther than was needful, that Ferdinand of Naples was intriguing to draw Janus into an alliance with a princess of his house; it was also known, by that singular penetration in which Venice had ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... how much more father will enjoy it if his dear little 'wifey' shares the pleasure also. And, by the way, Dick, that reminds me of something that must go in for mother. A few days ago, when I was sitting with father, he directed me to get a trifling gift for mother, but with his old-time humor he said, 'I believe the most acceptable gift that I could make Wifey would be all the receipts of the bills that have come in, for the little woman has worried considerably over the number and amounts. I got in a pretty good check several days ago, but I'll ...
— Grandfather's Love Pie • Miriam Gaines
... at the escape of his man, just when he was about to put his hand on him, and at the loss of his horse, Chip was in no humor to allow a technical boundary line to keep him from capturing his men, who, riding around the edge of an elevation on the prairie were now ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... and surely was not wholly bad— even Mephisto is not bad all of the time. Mrs. Gainsborough once said she would prefer Mephisto to Thicknesse, because Mephisto had a sense of humor. Very often they naturally referred to Thicknesse as "Thickhead"—the joke was too obvious to let pass entirely, until each "took the pledge," witnessed ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... quiet humor about the boatman's face, and the boys winked at each other as much as to say that after such an exordium they must expect something rather staggering. The boatman took two or three hard whiffs at his ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... unnatural that in the course of a trial occupying weeks or months the tension should occasionally be relieved by a gleam of humor. After one has been busy trying a case for a couple of weeks one goes to court and sets to work in much the same frame of mind in which one would attack any other business. But the fact that a small boy sometimes sees something funny at a funeral, or a bevy of giggling shop-girls may be sitting ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... English folk. There is lawlessness indeed; but this seems justified by the oppression of the times and by the barbarous severity of the game laws. An intense hatred of shams and injustice lurks in every song; but the hatred is saved from bitterness by the humor with which captives, especially rich churchmen, are solemnly lectured by the bandits, while they squirm at sight of devilish tortures prepared before their eyes in order to make them give up their golden purses; and the scene generally ends ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... timers, I spoke to him, and he looked up at me with a pair of singularly intelligent brown eyes, and with a kindly expression of his meager little face. We conversed a little on general subjects, and I found him well educated, observant, thoughtful, with a distinct vein of subdued humor. Afterward I saw him in his cell, though there was a rule against that, too; but the ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... soon. He began his public work with every promise of success. For a few months he preached with great power, and thousands flocked to hear him. Then came the waning of his popularity, and soon he was shut up in a prison, and in a little while was cruelly murdered to humor the whim of ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... the possibility of such biting humor one must be ever on the alert in furnishing a period room. It is not a bow-knot and a rococo curve or two that will turn a modern room, fresh from the builder's hands, into a ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... slowly from the grinning face to the garments heaped in the man's arms. They were cold and critical eyes and there was no humor in them. ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... dialectic utterance does not admit of any super-exaltation of sentiment; at any rate, it helps to detect such at first glance. But there are other features no less meritorious in his stories of rural life, chief of which is that unique blending of seriousness and humor that makes us laugh and cry at the same time. With his wise and kind heart, with his deep sympathy for all human suffering, with the smile of understanding for everything truly human, also for all the limitations and follies ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... to amuse him, as if that were his right. He gives his mother a great deal of trouble, by first wanting this and then that, and by uttering a great many expressions of discontent, impatience and ill-humor. Thus his accident is not only the means of producing inconvenience to himself, but it makes the whole family uncomfortable. This is boyishness of ...
— Stuyvesant - A Franconia Story • Jacob Abbott
... his kindness of heart, and genial humor, made him an object of high respect and warm regard among his professional brethren. And now, sir, as memory passes in review the pleasant incidents which marked our social and professional intercourse, the smitten heart shrinks in sadness and sorrow ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... had gone through this ceremony, leering with a wistful eye at the roast meat, which looked so inviting, and smelt so savory, I could not abstain from making that a bow likewise, adding in a pitiful tone, good bye, roast meal! This unpremeditated pleasantry put them in such good humor, that I was permitted to stay, and partake of it. Perhaps the same thing might have produced a similar effect at my master's, but such a thought could never have occurred to me, or, if it had, I should not have had ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... upon his face shows itself in every movement of his limbs. Never for a moment is he still unless he has some work upon his hands. He has his little routine of tasks, regularly assigned, which he goes through with the most amusing good-humor and attention. It is his duty to see that the skiffs are not jammed under the wharf on the rising tide; to sweep out the "Annie" when she comes in, and to set her cabin to rights; to set away the dishes after meals, and to feed the chickens. ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... I have seen this mighty tree, vigorous with its four hundred years, I feel a desire to believe the legend for ITS sake; so I will humor the desire, and consider that the tree really watches over those poor hearts and feels a sort ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... will. His presence impresses one, at the first glance, as that of an extraordinary man. His bearing is dignified and courteous, with a touch perhaps of military brusquerie in his mode of address. He has a keen sense of humor, a kindly and generous disposition, and a genial and companionable nature. He is a "good hater" and a firm friend. Like all men of strong character and outspoken opinions, he has some enemies; but his chosen friends he "grapples to his heart with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the capture of 1600 Federals, 4 guns, etc., yesterday at Petersburg, has put the people here in better humor, which has been bad enough, made so by reported rapes perpetrated by negro soldiers on young ladies in Westmoreland County. There has been talk of vengeance, and no doubt such atrocities cause many more to perish than otherwise ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... surveyed the situation. His first steps seemed to indicate that he proposed to continue the siege, the troops being formed into a besieging army of about forty thousand men, while the Russian fleet was ordered up to the town. But the deliberation of a siege never accorded with Suwarrow's ardent humor. His real purpose was to take the place by storm. He had taken Otchakof in this way the previous year with heavy loss, and with the slaughter of twenty thousand Turks. He now, on the 21st of September, twice summoned the city to surrender, threatening ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... suffer some subtraction from universal pre-eminence. Therefore we may frankly admit the deficiencies of Wordsworth,—that he was lacking in dramatic force and in the power of characterization; that he was singularly deficient in humor, and therefore in the saving grace of self-criticism in the capacity to see himself occasionally in a ridiculous light; that he has little of the romantic glamor and none of the narrative energy of Scott; that Shelley's lyrical flights leave him plodding along the dusty ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... of some humor, and he enjoyed Sam's evident embarrassment. He took pains to be ceremoniously polite. Sam, who was used to the free and easy ways of a restaurant, hardly knew how to act. Henry Martin, though now thrown upon his own exertions, had been well brought ...
— Sam's Chance - And How He Improved It • Horatio Alger
... captivate by its humor, set all the heart strings to vibrating by its pathos, flood one's being in the great surge of patriotism ... a story that vastly ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... he himself was, in nature and in action. They belong to the same world; they are pillars of the same church, though they uphold its starry roof from opposite sides. Burns was much the rarer man; precisely because he had most of common nature on a grand scale; his humor, his passion, his sweetness, are all his own; they need no picturesque or romantic accessories to give them due relief: looked at by all lights they are the same. Since Adam, there has been none that approached nearer fitness to stand up before God and angels in ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... put Edward and nearly all his followers in excellent humor, and disposed them to listen very favorably to any propositions for settling the quarrel which Louis might be disposed to make. At last, after various and long protracted negotiations, a treaty was agreed upon, ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Her gentle humor is of the highest quality. If only her opponents could have seen her amusement at their hysteria. At the very moment they were denouncing some plan of action and calling her "fanatical" and "hysterical" she would fairly beam with delight to see how well her plan ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... allegory as she rocked it in her arms; the bard favored by royalty—the poet laureate—amused the idle moments of his chief with some witty improvisation; the alii himself, gifted with the poetic fire, would air his humor or his didactic comments in rhythmic shape—all in the ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... alone!" returned Mrs. Wadleigh, drawing off her icy stocking-feet, "an' walked all the way from Cyrus Pendleton's! There ain't nobody likely to be round," she continued, with grim humor. "I never knew 'twas such a God-forsaken hole, till I'd been away an' come back to 't. No, you needn't be scairt! The road ain't broke out, an' if 'twas, we shouldn't have no callers to-day. It's got round there's a man here, an' ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... response on his part would bring the cart to a standstill, and that the young woman would be ready to give him any assignation he pleased. Nevertheless, although the recognition of this fact put him in a better humor for the nonce, it seemed hardly worth while to waste minutes upon so trivial an adventure. He was content, therefore, to allow the peasant woman to drive her cart and all its contents unimpeded through ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... his foes Couer'd the Sun with darts and armed speares, Hee made reply, Thy newes is ioy in woes, Wee'le in the shadow fight, and conquer feares. And from the Polands words my humor floes, I care for naught but falling of the Spheares. Thunder affrights the Infants in the schooles, And threatnings are the ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... admit it frankly) we were to a great degree selfish. As you are aware, the essence of humor is surprise: we found a delicious humor in our campaign of surprising woebegone humanity in moments of crisis. For instance, we used to picket the railway terminals to console commuters who had just missed their ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... quaint old-world niches withdrawn from men in silent grass-grown corners, where a twelfth-century corbel holds a pot of roses, or a Gothic arch yawns beneath a wool warehouse, or a waterspout with a grinning faun's head laughs in the grim humor of the Moyen-age above the bent head ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... through the influence of his wife, and because of his own unruffled good-humor, the antipathy had worn away. As years sped on, no one, except the proudest and loftiest Pocomokian, would have cared to trace the Slocomb blood farther back than its graft upon the Talbot tree. Neither would the major. In fact, the ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the arrangement of flowers. Though she had inherited the Deyncourt earnestness of character, together with their dark serious eyes, and a certain annoying rigidity as to right and wrong, these defects were counterbalanced by flashes of brightness and humor which reminded Lady Deyncourt of herself in her own brilliant youth, and inclined her to be lenient, when in her daughters' cases she would have been sarcastic. The old woman and the young one had been great friends, and not the less ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... I wish to call your attention to the good your Sulphur Soap has done me. For nearly fourteen years I have been troubled with a skin humor resembling salt rheum. I have spent nearly a small fortune for doctors and medicine, but with only temporary relief. I commenced using your "Glenn's Sulphur Soap" nearly two years ago—used it in baths ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 38, No. 06, June, 1884 • Various
... Alexander Smith, but, unlike Ramsay and Burns, there is nothing Scottish about him beyond his place of birth. "It is not," says one of his reviewers, "Scottish scenery, Scottish history, Scottish character, and Scottish social humor, that he represents or depicts. Nor is there," it continues, "any trace in him of that feeling of intense nationality so common in Scottish writers. London," as it adds, "a green lane in Kent, an English forest, an English manorhouse, these ...
— Letters on International Copyright; Second Edition • Henry C. Carey
... the definite forms of go, equivalent to a future: "I was going to repeat my remonstrances;" "I am not going to dissert on Hood's humor." ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... their own father to visit them and make arrangements for a divorce. They haven't seen him for twelve years and they are determined he shan't treat them like children. James Masters, the father, comes. Although he has a sense of humor and would sincerely like to make friends with his children, he antagonizes them at once. For a week the father struggles against the professor and his influence. After the various problems have been more or less solved the children suddenly ...
— Why the Chimes Rang: A Play in One Act • Elizabeth Apthorp McFadden
... something of attractive in his face—the smooth-curved chin, the shrewd yet sleepy eyes, and finely-cut thin lips—a curious mixture of audacity and meekness blended upon his features. Yet this impression was but the prelude to his smile. When that first dawned, some breath of humor seeming to stir in him unbidden, the true meaning was given to his face. Each feature helped to make a smile that was the very soul's life of the man expressed. It broadened, showing brilliant teeth, and grew into a noiseless laugh; and then I saw before me Dosso's ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... society. When herself residing in England she writes to her sister, Ann Granville, afterward Mrs. Dewes, expressing a wish that they could both be conveniently transported to Ireland for one year, that no place would suit her sister's taste so well, and that "the good-humor and conversableness of the people would please her extremely." This lady's descriptions of life in the country parts of Ireland are perhaps more interesting than even her experiences in the capital. At one time she describes her entertainment after a picnic in a thatched house which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... our heirs from taking up arms, we will accept it."[77] The answer of Cornwallis was by no means so stern as it has been represented.[78] After the formal reception he talked in private with the deputies; and "they went home in good humor, promising ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... more delicate every day. Her watchful eye had detected how poor his appetite had been lately. Despite that, the boy had a very sweet disposition and was always full of fun. He was always anxious to have everybody in a good humor, and above all, his mother. Of all the burdens she had to bear, the trouble about her son's health was the hardest. One could see this by the painful expression on her face when she left the window and sat down beside her ...
— Cornelli • Johanna Spyri
... mannish minded; you must then conclude these are natural instincts. If it happen to fall out, contrary to your expectation, that she hath more mind to a brave young fellow that's a Prentice, whose parts and humor she knows, then she hath in a Plush Jacketted or gilt Midas; then make your selves joyfull in the several examples that you have of others, who being so married, have proved to be the best Matches; of which examples multiplicities ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... a watch, seemed to have failed us now; for we had been so long together that we had heard each other's stories told over and over again till we had them by heart; each one knew the whole history of each of the others, and we were fairly and literally talked out. Singing and joking we were in no humor for; and in fact any sound of mirth or laughter would have struck strangely upon our ears, and would not have been tolerated any more than whistling or a wind instrument. The last resort, that of speculating upon the future, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... one, on the influence of that one, on a good bribe to another in order that the application be not pigeonholed, a present to the one further on so that he may pass it on to his chief; one must pray to God to give him good humor and time to see and examine it; to another, talent to recognize its expediency; to one further on sufficient stupidity not to scent behind the enterprise an insurrectionary purpose; and that they may not all spend the ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... had been told, to keep the Europeans who came to see them as guests, for months, and he drew this very simple deduction: there are about fifty or sixty rich plantations at Martinique and Guadeloupe; their proprietors, bored to death, are delighted to keep with them men of wit; of gay humor, and of resources. I am essentially one of these; I have only, then, to appear to be petted, feted, spoiled; admitting that I spend six months at each plantation, one after another—there are fully in the neighborhood of sixty—this will give me from twenty-five to thirty years ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... hurried glance I had accepted her, as always one must, just as she was; had accepted her surroundings, preposterously impossible as they all were from any logical point of view, as fitting to herself and to her humor. It was not for me to ask how or why she did these things. She had done them; because, here they were; and here was she. We had found England's woman on ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... show more at large, whereby they drew out their armies), nor to seize or sell any man's goods or children that were in the camp. Whereupon the people with a mighty concourse immediately took arms, marched forth, and (which to them was as easy as to be put into the humor, and that, as appears in this place, was not hard) totally defeated the Volsci first, then the Sabines (for the neighboring nations, hoping to have had a good bargain of the discord in Rome, were up in arms on all sides), and after the Sabines the Aurunci. ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... goblin-shine," laughed the big doctor, recovering his good humor. "Who's the physician ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... with a reasonably fair show of getting the thing covered up if I'm let alone, and now this fiend has gone and found me out somehow or other. I wonder how much she knows? Oh, oh, oh, it's enough to break a body's heart! But I've got to humor her—there's ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the game to pay for that praise of her Beth, who could not be prevailed upon to play for them after her compliment. So Laurie did his best, and sang delightfully, being in a particularly lively humor, for to the Marches he seldom showed the moody side of his character. When he was gone, Amy, who had been pensive all evening, said suddenly, as if busy over some new idea, "Is Laurie an ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... is likely to attend the plan of allowing the pupils of the school to decide some of the cases which occur, is, that it may tend to make them insubordinate; so that they will, in many instances, submit, with less good humor, to such decisions as you may consider necessary. I do not mean that this will be the case with all, but that there will be a few, who will be ungenerous enough, if you allow them to decide, sometimes, to endeavor to make trouble, or at least to show symptoms of impatience and vexation, ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... KING). Perhaps it were wise to humor him, O king. After thou hast thrown thy crown away I can go outside and ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... eastward against him. Pemberton, however, instead of holding a straight line against Grant, turned at first to the south, with the view of breaking the latter's line of communication. This was not a success, for, as Grant says, with grim humor, "I had no line of communication to break"; and, moreover, it delayed Pemberton when delay was of value to Grant in finishing Johnston. After this useless turn to the southward Pemberton resumed his march to the east, as ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... bible are loud in their denunciation of what they are pleased to call the immoral literature of the world; and yet few books have been published containing more moral filth than this inspired word of God. These stories are not redeemed by a single flash of wit or humor. They never rise above the dull details of stupid vice. For one, I cannot afford to soil my pages with extracts from them; and all such portions of the scriptures I leave to be examined, written upon, and explained by the clergy. Clergymen may know some way by which they can extract ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... steadily bent upon the head of the animal. To all the notary's questions, he replied only by monosyllables, passing his fingers every now and then through his bushy brown locks, and twining them in his forked beard, a sure indication with him of preoccupation and bad humor. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... heir. The volume bears evidence in every chapter of the fresh, original, and fascinating style which has always enlivened Mr. ADAMS' productions. We have the same felicitous manner of working out the plot by conversation, the same quaint wit and humor, and a class of characters which stand out boldly, pen photographs ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... of the papers caused no end of amusement to every one except Monty and Miss Drew. The headlines had announced "Magnificent ball to be given Miss Drew by her Finance," and the "Little Sons of the Rich" wondered why Monty did not see the humor ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... boating and mountain-climbing within easy reach, and a good roof over your head at night, which is no small matter. One is often disqualified for enjoying the woods after he gets there by the loss of sleep and of proper food taken at seasonable times. This point attended to, one is in the humor for any enterprise. ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... Stuarts. George I. and George II. were Germans, in their feelings and their manners as well as their language; the politic wisdom of the English people had put up with them, but not without effort and ill-humor; the accession of the young king was greeted with transport. Pitt still reigned over Parliament and over England, governing a free country sovereign-masterlike. His haughty prejudice against France still ruled all the decisions of the English ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... one of unprecedented success. Never had the young orator been so brilliant. All the faculties of his mind seemed wrought up to their highest pitch and all its resources under perfect control. The boisterous crowd laughed itself hoarse at his humor, wept itself silly at his pathos, and laid its shekels at ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... radiant humor. She seated herself in her favorite rocking-chair; she laid her fan on the table near her and her reticule by it, and she pushed back from her ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... assistance through the day? And did I read His sacred Word, To make my life therewith accord? Did I for any purpose try To hide the truth and tell a lie? Did I my time and thoughts engage As fits my duty, station, age? Did I with care my temper guide, Checking ill-humor, anger, pride? Did I my lips from aught refrain That might my fellow-creature pain? Did I with cheerful patience bear The little ills that all must share? For all God's mercies through this day Did I my grateful tribute ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... popular vein; to the young Jew, however, they were new, and unlike the solemn style of discourse and conversation to which he was accustomed. He belonged, moreover, to a race whose laws, modes, and habits of thought forbade satire and humor; very naturally, therefore, he listened to his friend with varying feelings; one moment indignant, then uncertain how to take him. The superior airs assumed had been offensive to him in the beginning; soon they became irritating, and at last an ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... possibly can to make her perfectly happy; while too often children treat their mothers with irreverence or neglect, and instead of striving with loving zeal to lighten their labors and save their steps, they treat them more as though they were servants hired only to wait upon every whim and to humor every caprice. ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... good humor, notwithstanding Ester's provoking silence, "what can't be cured must be endured, Miss Ester; and it isn't as bad as it might be, either. We've only to wait an hour and a quarter. I've some errands to do, and I'll show you the city with pleasure; or would you prefer sitting ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... which they were constantly poring like young spendthrifts on their fathers' last testaments. They would also ask a world of questions, such as, "where lay the richest lands? — and the finest situations? — and who were the warmest old fellows, and had the finest girls?" and when answered to their humor, they would break out into hearty laughs; and flourish their swords, and 'whoop' and 'hoic' it away like young fox hunters, just ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... his immediate fortunes were locked up, and it came near stopping the building activities at Redding. It was only the smaller things of life that irritated him. He often met large calamities with a serenity which almost resembled indifference. In the Knickerbocker situation he even found humor as time passed, and wrote a number of gay letters, some of which ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... tired to the inmost fiber of her being. The only real desire left her was that she might crawl off somewhere and die in peace. But these good friends of hers had set their faces against the inevitable and it was only decency to humor them. Once, quite unconscious that the others were watching her, she lifted her hands and eyed them idly. They were almost transparent and shook a little. The group about the fire stirred pityingly. John and Katherine and Jack remembered those shadowy ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... people who could enjoy such sports, and it had cost her something to admit that they were not for her. A ticket for a concert to which she had thought of going was stuck in a picture frame, but she was not in the humor for music, and putting down the book she held, leaned back languidly ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... us respected Navvy for his good humor, and especially when he walked up to Marc, and with no show of the mean Indian, patted the glossy neck and then nimbly remounted. Marc, not being so difficult to please as Jim in the way of discomfiting the Navajo, appeared satisfied ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... was wrong to smile. But she had an unfortunately quick perception of the ridiculous, and the struggles of principle against a sense of humor were not always successful. She would not give up her point, though. "I can not think that you judge ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... furnishings consisted of a table—at which he was writing—a couple of rough chairs, and the universal feather-bed, this time made on the floor in one corner of the room. On my remarking upon the limited character of his quarters, the Count replied, with great good-humor, that they were all right, and that he should get along well enough. Even the tramp of his clerks in the attic, and the clanking of his orderlies' sabres below, did not disturb him much; he said, in fact, that he would have no grievance at all were it not for a guard of ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... them we should remember that they are a people old in war, very strict in military etiquette, and apt to take fire when others seem scarcely warmed. Permit me to recommend, in the most particular manner, the cultivation of harmony and good agreement, and your endeavors to destroy that ill-humor which may have found its way among the officers. It is of the utmost importance, too, that the soldier and the people should know nothing of this misunderstanding; or if it has reached them, that means may be used to stop its progress and prevent ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... She had no knowledge of so-called "society." Her instincts told her it was very wrong to humor Rose. She disliked Miss Elliot-Smith and felt wild at the trick which had been played on her. Nevertheless, on an occasion of this kind, she was no match for Rose, who knew perfectly what she was about, and stood smiling and ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... well developed, his eyes penetrating rather than piercing, his voice strong and commanding. His was a noble, generous soul, cool and brave almost to rashness. He was idolized by his troops and beloved as a comrade and commander. Under the guise of apparent sternness, there was a gentle flow of humor. To illustrate this, I will relate a little circumstance that occurred after the battle of Chancellorsville to show the direction his humor at times took. Colonel Bland was a bearer of orders to General Hooker across ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... blackballed a respectable man because all of the members were out of humor; they ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
... up and down in excitement, etc.; second by new attachments on the side of the stimulus, such that the emotion is no longer called out by the original simple type of situation (it takes a more serious danger, a subtler bit of humor, to arouse the emotional response); and third by combination of one emotion with another. An example of compound emotion is the blend of tenderness and amusement awakened in the friendly adult by the actions of a little child. Hate is perhaps a compound of anger and fear, and pity a compound of grief ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... come in to tea as he had planned. It was the first time he had ever broken an engagement with me, and I was a wee bit unhappy over it, though I knew, of course, there must be some good reason why he couldn't come. Still, his absence rather put me out of humor with tea, so I sent Valentine for a box of chocolates. When she returned I sat down with them and a novel, prepared to spend the rest ...
— Cupid's Understudy • Edward Salisbury Field
... altogether wrong in thinking she will not be welcome if her dress is not that of the circle to which she aspires. Many a woman indifferently gowned has been made to feel her difference from the elegant she found herself among. If she is sure of herself and has a sense of humor, this may be an amusing experience. To many, however, it is ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... she burst into tears, and retired. His first compliment when he saw her a little time afterwards was, "Pray, madam, are you as proud and ill-natured now as when I saw you last?" To which she replied with the greatest good humor, "No, Mr. Dean; I will sing for you now, if you please." From this time he conceived the greatest esteem for her, and always behaved with the utmost respect. Those who knew Swift, took no offence at his bluntness of behavior. It seems ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... on the frontier, however. The frontiersmen were in no humor to sit still and wait for the Indians to scalp them at their plows or burn them in their beds. Their cry was, "On ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... to put in print the peculiar humor of pathetic regret, of sarcasm born of contempt, of intolerant intellectual pride, that marked the last sentence, which was addressed to the dog, as though the speaker turned from his human companion to a more ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... He had given the invitation first, he said, and nobody could take the privilege from him. So the others yielded gracefully, and in high good humor the eight, saying much and humming little songs, walked across the fields from the camp and into the town. Robert noticed the bustling life of Albany with approval. The forest made its appeal to him, and the city made another and different but quite as strong appeal. The old Fort Orange ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... never gout in the hands or feet, nor catarrh, nor sciatica, nor grievous colics, nor flatulency, nor hard breathing. For these diseases are caused by indigestion and flatulency, and by frugality and exercise they remove every humor and spasm. Therefore it is unseemly in the extreme to be seen vomiting or spitting, since they say that this is a sign either of little exercise, or of ignoble sloth, or of drunkenness, or gluttony. They suffer rather ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells
... thee, Shrope, for mentioning that name," cried Elizabeth her humor changing instantly. "We, too, have somewhat to say of Francis Stafford, but the time is not yet ripe. When it is, then will I hear what thou hast to say. Until then we would not be plagued with the ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... instance, in Tidemand's scenes of Norwegian peasant life! What a spirituelle and movingly sentimental note in the corresponding German scenes of Knaus and Huebner, and, longo intervallo, Meyerheim and Meyer von Bremen. Not a breath of the broad humor of Teniers and Van Ostade in these masters; scarcely a hint of the robust animality and clownish jollity with which the clear-sighted Dutchmen endowed their rural revellers. Though pictorial art has not, outside of Russia (where the great and unrivalled Riepin paints the peasant ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... afraid you have consulted your own humor both in your neglect and your attentions, Duke. The more you try to excuse yourself, the more inexcusable your conduct appears. I do not know how to advise you. If Constance is told, you may some day forget ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... that of a north country bull, and his round head closely set upon shoulders e'en a match for those of Little John himself. Beneath his bushy black brows danced a pair of little gray eyes that could not stand still for very drollery of humor. No man could look into his face and not feel his heartstrings tickled by the merriment of their look. By his side lay a steel cap, which he had laid off for the sake of the coolness to his crown. His legs were stretched ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... have dug up something interesting. We're going to visit a friend of mine, Matthew Breen. A young man, still unknown, who, in my opinion, is one of our greatest physicists. Matt is a kind of savage, so he may take to you. If he does—and if he's feeling in a good humor—he may show you some laboratory stunts that will afford you plenty of distraction. Come along—you're wearing out my rugs with your infernal ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... ruthless humor he goes over his Pension-list; strikes three fourths of that away, reduces the remaining fourth to the very bone. In like humor, he goes over every department of his Administrative, Household and other Expenses: shears everything down, here by the hundred ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... he said with a smile, though from happiness or humor I could not tell. He went on soberly, saying: "The prophecy is concerning the kinsman redeemer, one of the ancients sent by Onan, the Lord of the Past, to redeem us from the ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... is extraordinarily qualified, by a range of sympathy and understanding that extends from the ribaldry of a buccaneer to the shyest tendernesses of the most sensitive poetry, to be all things to all men, yet whose proud humor it is to be to every man, provided the man is eminent and pretentious, the champion of his enemies. To the Archbishop he is an atheist, to the atheist a Catholic mystic, to the Bismarckian Imperialist an Anacharsis Klootz, to Anacharsis Klootz a Washington, to Mrs Proudie a Don Juan, to Aspasia ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... be seen on the brow of King Louis, who was chained to his arm-chair by ill-health, weakness, and excessive corpulency. She narrated to him the chronique scandaleuse of the imperial court; she reminded him of the old affairs of his youth, which the king knew how to relate with so much wit and humor, and which he so loved to relate; it devolved upon her to examine the letters of the "black cabinet," and to read the more interesting ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... of books for girls which have been uniformly successful. Janice Day, the "Do Something" girl, is a character that will live long in juvenile fiction. Every volume is full of inspiration. There are an abundance of humor, quaint situations, and worth-while effort, and likewise ...
— Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall - or, Leading a Needed Rebellion • Janet D. Wheeler
... a pleasant recollection of the mock gravity, the broad humor, and often exquisite wit of those meetings, but it is impossible to give you any adequate idea of them. Burlesque lectures on all conceivable and inconceivable subjects were frequently read or improvised by members ad libitum. I remember something of a remarkable one from Dr. Alden, upon ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... almost to emaciation. Garrison was short and stockily built, with a powerful physique. His hair, eyes and mustache were as black as coal. He had a fine set of even white teeth, and was so full of jest and humor that it was safe to conclude it was something said by him that had caused Jim to break ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... came gliding in upon me, like a dream, with more flowers, the Scotch rose and many rare things among them. Mr. Doughty [the artist, who had consented to give Sophia lessons] came, as bright as possible. The cool breezes, the flowers, etc., put him into excellent humor. He said it was luxury to sit and paint here. He created a glowing bank in broad sunshine. Mr. Russell called, and came up into my studio. He thought such a studio and such an occupation must cure the headache. Then I prepared to make several calls, but on my ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... the weary rest on it for the slight consideration of half a dime each. The Rev. Derby Sifter was there too. He was to perform the ceremony, and, as it was the first wedding in Peonytown for six months, he was in unusual humor, rubbing his hands together, and laughing at every remark ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... bucketing about big pastures in the moonlight. But as it was given, very softly at that bad time in that terrible camp of death, it was the one thing in the world that could have restored, as it did restore, shaken men back to their pride, humor, and self-control. [Cheers.] This may be an extreme instance, but it is not an exceptional one. Any man who has had anything to do with the service will tell you that the battalion is better for music at every turn, happier, more easily handled, with ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... As the epoch of Cuculain shows us our valor finding its apotheosis, so shall we find in Find and Ossin and Oscar the perfect flower of our genius for story and song; for romantic life and fine insight into nature; for keen wit and gentler humor. The love of nature, the passion for visible beauty, and chiefly the visible beauty of our land, will here show itself clearly,—a sense of nature not merely sensuous, but thrilling with hidden and mystic life. We shall find such perfection in this more emotional and poetic ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... was not only with cattle notices and Americans that Isabelita was offended this day. She was in a bad humor, and nothing suited her. Hence it was in no pleasant voice that she called to Timoteo, when he at last made his appearance between ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford
... go and spoil everything by getting seasick," moaned Lucile, in the same toneless voice, and then, as a flash of her old saving humor came to the front, she turned to the girls with a suggestion of a smile. "I suppose I'll have to come to the lemon and ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... selling the Mine to Eastern Speculators. While he was Salting the Mine, pausing once in a while to Control his Mirth, a few Natives came along, and were Interested. They were a slow and uncouth Lot, with an atrophied Sense of Humor, and the Prank did not Appeal to them. They asked the Joker to Explain, and before he could make it Clear to them or consult his Attorney they had him Suspended from a Derrick. He did not Hang straight enough to suit, so they brought a Keg of Nails and tied to his Feet, ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... dogmas. The freedom of action and familiarity of language, where there are few social restraints to prevent universal intercourse, familiarizes every class of the community with the peculiarities of each, and forms an outlet for the wit and humor of the whole. This was the stimulant to mirth and hilarity, for which no people are so much distinguished as the Georgians of the middle country. At the especial period of which I now write, her humorists were innumerable. Dooly, Clayton, Prince, Longstreet, Bacon (the Ned ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... in the incidents of the booth, the smithy, the dalesman's wedding, the rush-bearing, the cock-fighting, and the sheep-shearing. Those readers of the earlier book who found human nature and an element of humor in the patois, will regret with me the necessity so to modify the dialect in this book as to remove from it nearly all the race quality ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... Alvarado, whom we have seen in places that try men's souls to the extreme, hath always comported himself as a Spanish gentleman should. This may be a lie. But if it is true, his old association with you and yours, and some humor of courage and fidelity and gentleness that I doubt not his mother gave him, have washed out the taint. Will you not reconsider your words? Give the maiden to the man. I am an old soldier, sir, and have done you some service. I would cheerfully stake my life to maintain his honor and ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... this Herr Consistorialrat who has perpetrated the great masterpiece of humor of the war—the hymn in which he appeals to that God who keeps guard over Cherubim, Seraphim, and Zeppelins. You have to say over the German form of these words in order to get the effect of their delicious melody—"Cherubinen, Seraphinen, Zeppelinen!" And lest you think ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... shake her purpose. She furthermore expected more or less opposition when they fully grasped her meaning. This she intended to overcome. Neither Jane nor Martha, she said to herself, could be angry with her for long, and a few kisses and an additional flow of good-humor would soon set ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... people are developing a sense of humor," said Matsukuo, "but I'm not sure I care for ...
— The Penal Cluster • Ivar Jorgensen (AKA Randall Garrett)
... and during their evening meal and afterwards, Professor Young poked fun at Betty. She took it good-naturedly, and laughed to see her father in such fine humor. Professor Young was a widower, and Betty was housekeeper in their flat; though a maid did the cooking for them and cleaned the rooms, the young woman planned the meals and saw to it that everything was homelike ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... guard-duty with Tom Martin, an Irishman who was over forty-five and exempt from military service, but was soldiering for the love of it. Sometimes he was very taciturn and entirely absorbed with his short-stemmed pipe; at other times full of humor and entertaining. He gave me an account, one night while on post, of what he called his "great flank movement"—in other words, a visit to his home in Rockbridge without leave. After Doran, another Irishman, had been disabled at Malvern Hill and discharged from ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... you ask, then?" said the captain, who was getting worse in his humor. I had a good mind to tell him that it would take up a good deal of the crew's time if Tom Myers and his brother George asked about everything they didn't understand on board this ship, but I thought I had better not. I have no doubt the gong sounded ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... other men of his class. She always rather educed what was in others than impressed herself on them; showing much kindliness of heart in drawing out people who were shy. Sympathy was the keynote of her nature, the source of her iridescent humor, of her subtle knowledge of character, of her dramatic genius." No person attains to permanent fame ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... seem quite unnecessary, for the judge is in haste to have you come to that which is of most consequence, and the patient, will tacitly call upon you to acquit yourself of your promise, or, if he has much business to dispatch, or his dignity puts him above your trifling, or he is of a peevish humor, he will oblige you to speak to the purpose, and perhaps do ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... me of many incidents, many things that I could tell, but I think I will not try to do it now. It will be more to my present humor to call back a little glimpse of the simple and colorless good times we used to have in our village homes in those peaceful days—especially in the winter. In the summer we children were out on the ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... suddenly pale, and, letting his hands fall in great discouragement by his side, drew aside, mingling in one sigh his old affection and his new hatreds. The admiral, however, without taking any further notice of the duke's ill-humor, led the princesses into the quarter-deck cabin, where dinner had been served with a magnificence worthy in every respect of his guests. The admiral seated himself at the right hand of the princess, and placed the Comte de Guiche on her left. This was the place Buckingham usually occupied; ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... lodge he found Ogallah awake. Evidently he was not in good humor, for his manner showed he was scolding his much better half, who accepted it all without reply or notice. No doubt she received it as ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... was a rush of miners, to look at the mine and inspect the specimens of copper; and then shoestring promoters began to arrive, with proposals to stock the property. The Professor came up, his eyes staring and resentful; and old Bunker, overflowing with good humor; and at last, when nobody else was there, Drusilla walked by on the trail. She glanced up at him hopefully; then, finding no response, she heaved a great sigh and turned up his path to have it over ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand on foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice? It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... he accepted the irremediable with grim humor; "what must be, must. I don't pretend to be glad to see you, but—you're free to stay as long as you find the climate agreeable. I warn you I shan't whine. Lots of men, hundreds and hundreds of 'em, have slept tight o' nights with you for bedfellow; if they could grin and ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... to his age, always able to contribute his full share or more. Most of his natural aptitudes equipped him especially to play his part well. He had quick intelligence, ready sympathy, a cheerful temperament, a kindling humor, a generous and helpful spirit. He was both a ready talker and appreciative listener. By virtue of his tall stature and unusual strength of sinew and muscle, he was from the beginning a leader in all athletic games; by reason of his studious habits and his extraordinarily retentive memory ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... and sorrows—a faithful nurse, a willing slave, a happy spirit in spite of all. I fancy I hear her singing over her work in the kitchen, pausing from time to time to make some witty reply to Miss Abigail—for Kitty, like all her race, had a vein of unconscious humor. Her bright honest face comes to me out from the past, the light and life of the Nutter House when I was a boy ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... notwithstanding all this there is, I am sure, a warm, bright spot in his heart, or he never would have taken you and me from the cold charities of the world, to shelter and care for us. Now, dear, you must endeavor to fall in with his humor." ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... police happened to be in an obliging humor, and they were shown into his office a few moments later. Weagle stood in the middle of the floor, drawing on a light over-coat; the end of a black cigar was clenched between ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... find some collection, or at least some of the best specimens, of the works of the modern German school. It was not so, however—fine pictures are painted at Duesseldorf, but they are immediately carried elsewhere. We visited the studio of Schroeter—a man with humor in every line of his face, who had nothing to show us but a sketch, just prepared for the easel, of the scene in Goethe's Faust, where Mephistophiles, in Auerbach's cellar, bores the edge of the table with a gimlet, and a stream of champagne gushes ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... Germans knocking at the door of Rheims before they enter," remarked Madame Coudert with grim humor. "I did not expect so ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... "perhaps you have—still I don't see them;" and I handed him the paper without additional remark, not wishing to ruffle his temper; but I was much surprised at the turn affairs had taken; his ill humor puzzled me—and, as for the drawing of the beetle, there were positively NO antennae visible, and the whole DID bear a very close resemblance to the ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... Bosom warmed"), gives vent to his fury and hurls his javelin at David. The latter escapes; and in furious recitative Saul charges his son to destroy him. The next number is an aria for Merab ("Capricious Man, in Humor lost"), lamenting Saul's temper; and Jonathan follows with a very dramatic recitative and aria, in which he refuses to obey his father's behest. The High Priest appeals to Heaven ("O Lord, whose Providence") to protect ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... the baronet demanded. "What jugglery is this? Are you dressed for an Eastern dervish in a melodrama, and have you come here to play a practical joke? I am afraid I can not appreciate the humor of the masquerade. ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... {he might say}, "have prescribed a limit to these proceedings. {The time} is near, when I must live according to the humor of another; meanwhile, for the present allow me to ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... "it is a big loss—yes—but big as it is, it will not break Mr. Schloss. And," he would add with the tradesman's idea of humor, "I guess he has enough to play a ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... the court ball. Princess Elizabeth was in her dressing-room, and occupied in enveloping herself in a very charming and seductive neglige. She was to-day in very good humor, very happy and free from care, for Alexis Razumovsky had, with the most solemn asserverations, assured her of his truth and devotion, and Elizabeth had been soothed and reconciled by his glowing language. It was for him that she wished to appear especially attractive ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... says," soothed Mabel. "She feels awfully cross this afternoon because she has met with a disappointment. She has an invitation to a Pi Kappa Gamma dance and she has been refused permission to go. Result, she is in a raging, tearing humor." ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... hips. Her mother's eyes, following the slim figure, had a sort of grudging love in them. A spare, caustic, wiry little woman, Tessie's mother. Tessie resembled her as a water color may resemble a blurred charcoal sketch. Tessie's wide mouth curved into humor lines. She was the cutup of the escapement department at the watch factory; the older woman's lips sagged at the corners. Tessie was buoyant and colorful with youth. The other was shrunken and faded with years and labor. As the girl minced across ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... and symphonies are of this wonderfully varied form of writing. How full it can be of expressiveness you know from the Songs without Words by Mendelssohn, and the Nocturnes of Chopin; how full of flickering humor you hear in the Scherzo of a Beethoven symphony; how full of deep solemnity and grief one feels in the ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper
... away to the beach and sat down alone to brood over it, nursing her ill-humor and missing much enjoyment which she might have had because this—a very doubtful one ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... column. The ghost of to-day touches the funny bone as well. He adds new horrors to being haunted, but new pleasures also. The modern specter can be a joyous creature on occasion, as he can be, when he wishes, fearsome beyond the dreams of classic or Gothic revenant. He has a keen sense of humor and loves a good joke on a mortal, while he can even enjoy one on himself. Though his fun is of comparatively recent origin—it's less than a century since he learned to crack a smile—the laughing ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... the year, with emphasis on the holidays and special days in the English calendar. You should read it with a sharp lookout for the play on words. Each day supposedly acts in keeping with its character, and so the New Year's dinner party is kept in high mirth. But you cannot appreciate the humor until you understand what ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... be caught within a year. Sheriff Carter was dealing in futures, as it were. Nothing would have pleased him better than to lay hands on those highwaymen; but,—thoroughly discouraged at the outlook,—like a true sportsman he enjoyed the humor of betting against himself in the vague hope that such action might lead to something. He was more than pleased to see Keeler, whose mysterious air clearly indicated that something was up. They walked immediately to the court-house, and were ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... to all the loyal, anonymous, untiring men and women who have worked in private employment and in Government and who have endured rationing and other stringencies with good humor ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt
... being my mood at the time; but the lesson is there just the same and in many instances tears follow close behind the laughter. Furthermore, I thank God that my regeneration has not taken away my sense of humor. One of the great troubles with neurasthenic women is that they ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... trees. Fish, in open pools, were not too quick for him; nor were beaver, mending their dams, too wary. He killed to eat, not from wantonness; but he preferred to eat what he killed himself. So a lurking humor ran through his deeds, and it was his delight to steal upon the squirrels, and, when he all but had them, to let them go, chattering in mortal ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... so amusing and gay at lunch and talked of teeny scandals with a whimsical humor at themselves for being so small, which was delightful, and no one said anything spiteful or mean. Quantities of pleasant things were planned, and Tamara found her days arranged for ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... large, whereby they drew out their armies), nor to seize or sell any man's goods or children that were in the camp. Whereupon the people with a mighty concourse immediately took arms, marched forth, and (which to them was as easy as to be put into the humor, and that, as appears in this place, was not hard) totally defeated the Volsci first, then the Sabines (for the neighboring nations, hoping to have had a good bargain of the discord in Rome, were up in arms on all sides), and after the Sabines the Aurunci. Whence returning, victorious ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... book from which these sayings are quoted? It is one you can laugh over by yourself, again and again. A very good specimen of that curious, new-world kind of wit—American humor; and also full of the truest sense of natural beauty and of ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... The Indians' sense of humor was very keen. Mrs. Maxwell's little girl was tow-headed. The Indians always stroked her head and laughed. My older brother had beautiful curly hair. The Indians called it "Ha-ha hair"—curling or laughing. ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... behind them on the counter and swing to a place of comfort upon it, or they sit upon the window-sills, keeping well within the range of raillery that welcomes the coming and speeds the parting guest. It is a good-natured humor that these mountaineers love, quick as the crack of a rifle and as direct as its speeding ball. There is never an effort to wound. But always there is the open challenge to measure resource ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... good-humor at my Quixotic schemes. Then he told me, that since he had been in the city he had given thousands to the charitable associations which spread in great lifegiving veins through ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... in a bad humor, and makes her mistress feel that she too is a woman like herself, though she is not married. She has her whims, her fits of melancholy, her caprices. She even dares to have her nerves! She replies curtly, she makes herself insupportable to the other servants, and, to conclude, her ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... firmly the American soil of the nineteenth century. But Bunner's realism never concerned itself with the record of trivialities for their own sake. When he portrayed the lower phases of city life, it was the humor of that life he caught, and not its sordidness; its kindliness, and not its brutality. His mind was healthy, and since it was a poet's mind, the point upon which it was so nicely balanced was love: love of the trees and flowers, love of his little brothers in wood and field, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... the inn—and, on my returning the towel, as he found that I took no notice of him, he at length ventured to introduce himself by saying, "Massa not know me; me your slave!"—and really the sound made me feel a pang at the heart. The lad appeared all gaiety and good humor, and his whole countenance expressed anxiety to recommend himself to my notice, but the word "slave" seemed to imply that, although he did feel pleasure then in serving me, if he had detested me he must have served me still. I really felt quite humiliated at the moment, and was tempted to ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... features generally, including rather a narrow forehead. His nostrils, however, were well curved, and his thin, straight lips and square chin showed the stiffest determination. He looked fatigued, weary, and harassed; yet it did not appear that he complained of his lot; rather accepted it with sardonic humor. The cares of an opera season and of three other simultaneous managements weighed on him ponderously, but he supported the ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... rather spirited old lady, and liked to fancy, with the pathetic complacency of the passing generation, that her sense of humor quite kept up with the times. Rachael knew her well, and knew all her stories, but this only made her the pleasanter companion. She quickly carried the conversation into the past, and was content to be a listener; indeed, with a hostess far removed in type ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... act was fairly good and put the crowd in good humor once more. But that to follow was so bad that many began to hiss. Then came a race which was as tame as it could possibly be, and many ...
— The Rover Boys on the River - The Search for the Missing Houseboat • Arthur Winfield
... ecclesiasticall historie, no small number of things no lesse strange and true than this seemeth vaine and false, are recorded; yea euen touching the verie crosse. But considering that this our age is verie nice and deintie in making choise of matter pleasing their owne humor we will not wade too farre in this kind of argument, which we know may as soone offend as it is taken, as a thorne may pricke, or a netle sting when it is touched. Neuerthelesse, we would not wish ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (5 of 12) - Henrie the Second • Raphael Holinshed
... went to her room somewhat out of humor, and even attempted to overhear the conversation, but Helene bolted the ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... sometimes seized John when he was in the most dangerous situation took hold of him again. It was not humor exactly, but it was the innate desire to make the best of ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... did it with his might; he could not understand or tolerate those who, perceiving an object to be good, did not at once and actively pursue it; and with all this energy he gained a corresponding warmth, and, so to speak, eagerness of affection, a keen appreciation of humor, in which he found a rest, and an indescribable frankness and simplicity of character, which, crowning his other qualities, made him, I think, and I strive to think impartially, nearly or quite the most interesting old man I ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... of a specially pressing case, and as he had walked up the avenue, he had, for two reasons, dreaded his visit more than usual. In the first place, he knew that his lordship had for several days been suffering with the gout, and had been in so villainous a humor that rumors of it had even reached the village—carried there by one of the young women servants, to her sister, who kept a little shop and retailed darning-needles and cotton and peppermints and gossip, as a means of earning an honest living. What Mrs. Dibble ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... The Stubbornness of Geraldine are two original American plays, ingenious and novel in their employment of pictorial devices. These plays are funds of delightful sentiment, unhackneyed, piquant humor, and minute observation. ...
— Her Own Way - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... that he unmistakably was, laughed in the utmost good humor. The boys found themselves much inclined to ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... to think about it till to-morrow, and now, in high good-humor and increasing confidence in the coming good-fortune, he helped Blasi and Jost to empty the bowl, in a toast to the success ...
— Veronica And Other Friends - Two Stories For Children • Johanna (Heusser) Spyri
... who love themselves are to be blamed, in so far as they love themselves as regards their sensitive nature, which they humor. This is not to love oneself truly according to one's rational nature, so as to desire for oneself the good things which pertain to the perfection of reason: and in this way chiefly it is through charity that ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... with alacrity. Scholar Phelps smiled after him, then turned to me and said, "Dr. Sprague is a diligent worker, businesslike and well-informed, but he lacks the imagination and the sense of humor that makes a man brilliant in research. Unfortunately, Dr. Sprague cannot abide anything that is not laid out as neat as an interlocking tile floor. Now, Mr. Cornell, how ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... His usual procedure in an affair of this kind would have been to advance quickly, ruffle his victim's hair in a goading kind of swaggerish good humor and send him sprawling. He would not really have hurt a youngster like Pee-wee but he would have made ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the first place, is to give monthly a view of all the pieces of wit, humor, or intelligence daily offered to the public in the newspapers, which of late are so multiplied as to render it impossible, unless a man makes it his business, to consult them all; and in the next place, we shall join therewith some other matters of use or amusement ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... never to have laughed before. Up to that time no friendly student of his character, cataloguing his admirable qualities, would have thought of including among them a sense of humor, much less a bent toward levity. Neither his early strenuous battle to get away from the farm and achieve such education as should serve to open to him the gates of professional life, nor the later wave of religious enthusiasm which caught him up as he stood on the border-land of manhood, ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... he said, "I guess I'm dull. There was a Scotch professor at college and the fellows used to say his bump of humor was a dent. Maybe mine isn't much better. ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the big door and only about a third as large. Soon the boy was sitting by the kitchen fire eating a bowl of the most delicious broth he had ever tasted. Round-faced Brother Hilarius, who had charge of the kitchens, was in so good a humor over the trout that he suggested to Padraig that he might herd sheep for the Abbey. The monks did a great deal of the work about their farms and in their workshops themselves, but there was still much to do, and they were usually willing to give work to anybody who did not ask for more ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... had no little influence in permeating the mind of the embryo poet with that enthusiasm for and love of liberty for which he was distinguished in maturer years. From early youth, Landor was a poor respecter of royalty and rank per se. He often related, with great good-humor, an incident of his boyhood which brought his democratic ideas into domestic disgrace. An influential bishop of the Church of England, happening to dine with young Landor's father one day, assailed Porson, and, with self-assumed superiority, thinking to annihilate the old Grecian, exclaimed "We ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... they might have continued to operate independently with moderate profits. When, therefore, it is said that competition is destructive, it may be a partial truth, but more likely it is a pleasantry reflecting the happy humor of the prosperous promoters of ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... mean?" chuckled Ned in high good humor. In his mind he could already see fat profits ...
— Tom Swift and His Giant Telescope • Victor Appleton
... houses there is a shrine and a "Saint." These deities can answer all prayers if they choose to. Sometimes, however, they are not "in the humor," and at one house the saint had refused, so he was laid flat on the floor, face downwards. The woman swore that until he answered her petition she would not lift him up again. He laid thus all night; whether longer or not I do ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... cannot wholly perish while any fragment of her sculptured walls nods to its shadow in the canal; I had been penetrated by a deep sense of the mystery of the place, and I had been touched already by the anomaly of modern life amid scenes where its presence offers, according to the humor in which it is studied, constant occasion for annoyance ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... Harry, of widely various characteristics, visited the Giant last week, and treat the subject on their return by articles published in that highly original sheet, according to their respective peculiarities. Tom, who is evidently admired in his family circle as a man of great humor, has so cultivated that faculty that it presents an abnormal development, and if petrification ever does overtake him, posterity may hope it will not operate upon his intellectual faculties. Dick, on the other ...
— The American Goliah • Anon.
... redeemed my soul), and be pure as a lily for my lover I would not hesitate a moment! What sort of devotion has rewarded mine? You have housed and fed me, just as you give a dog food and a kennel because he is a protection to the house, and he may take kicks when we are out of humor, and lick our hands as soon as we are pleased to call to him. And which of us two will have been the ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... something to be glad about, and brings light into sunless lives. Finally Pollyanna straightens out the love affairs of her elders, and finds happiness for herself in Jimmy. "Pollyanna" gives a better appreciation of people and the world. It reflects the humor and humanity that gave the story such wonderful popularity among young ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Melodramatic Farce in Four Acts • Paul Dickey
... the midst of your scholars. Love open air and exercise yourselves first; this love will be contagious, and will communicate itself to those around you. No atom of true dignity will be lost, and a priceless fund of good humor will be gained for yourself, and a mutual good feeling will be established forever between you and your scholars. Do this, and we shall no longer hear of schoolmasters becoming old men before they are forty; but the schoolmaster will be known as the youngest looking, healthiest ...
— A Lecture on Physical Development, and its Relations to Mental and Spiritual Development, delivered before the American Institute of Instruction, at their Twenty-Ninth Annual Meeting, in Norwich, Conn • S.R. Calthrop
... Ward," she began abruptly, in a whisper, "is the rudest, most ill-bred person I ever met. When I talked to him the other day I thought he was nice. He was nice, But he has behaved abominably—like a boor—like a sulky child. Has he no sense of humor? Because I played a joke on him, is that any reason why ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... it into his hands Cambaceres begged earnestly that he would not read a trifling note upon domestic matters. Napoleon persisted, and found it to be a note to the cook containing only the following words, "Gardez les entremetes—les rotis sont perdue." When Napoleon was in good humor at the result of a diplomatic conference he was accustomed to take leave of the plenipotentiaries with, "Go and dine Cambaceres." His table was in fact an important state engine, as appears from the anecdote ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... an impolite name for a woman, dear. You have no sense of humor, Frank, or you would ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... it to a palace put of the Arabian Nights raised at the Prince's bidding by a Genie, or like Lippomano, the Venetian ambassador, to "the abode of Morgana or Alcinous"; but this topheavy barrack is anything rather than a "fairy monument"; it might with as much humor be called a "souvenir of first loves," as M. de la Saussaye has it. Both descriptions fit Chenonceaux admirably; when used of Chambord they ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... Richard Winners. Why he had been nicknamed Sukey we have never been able to ascertain; but the sobriquet, attached to him in childhood, clung to him all through life. Sukey was like his father, brave, slow, careful, but a steadfast friend and possessed of considerable dry humor. He took the world easy and thought "one man as good as another so ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... chair up beside the lunch table, and immediately set Mrs. Gray's good humor awry by indulging in one of his "horrid ways," namely, the tossing of dainty bits to Prince, who caught them in his mouth with much adroitness and without quitting his ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... his ballads of the region. Many anecdotes of the poet and several poems by him are now first published. It is with some hesitancy that I have ventured to add a chapter upon a phase of his character that has never been adequately presented: I refer to his keen sense of humor. It will be understood that none of the impromptu verses I have given to illustrate his playful moods were intended by him to be seen outside a small circle of friends and neighbors. This playfulness, however, was so much a part of his character from boyhood ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... Man is here," announced a voice, and the spectacle man walked up rubbing his hands and smiling in great good humor. "What's ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... kindness flowing in our veins—to keep sweet and sincere and loving. The good that you get from Burns cannot be analyzed. You cannot say, "I have read Burns, and find in him of wisdom so many grains, of humor so many grains, of beauty of expression so many grains," and so forth and so on to ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... entered the large room the elderly woman came out. She was plainly in a bad humor. Mrs. Chester was awaiting me with an anxious countenance, evidently much more troubled about the damage to my bicycle than I was. I hastened to relieve ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... announced Aunt Pattie Boyden with some trepidation; for Constance, besides being ill, had not been in the best of humor ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... master of humor recitations," his mother now said to me. "Perhaps you know, or perhaps you do not know, how ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... being Republican deputies. I have seen General Prim's name signed officially, Conde de Reus, Marques de los Castillejos, Prim, J. Prim, Juan Prim, and Jean Prim, changing the style as often as the humor ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... Spawn's manner toward me now. He seemed far more wary. Outwardly he was in a high good humor. He asked nothing concerning my morning at the Government House. He puttered over his electron-stove, making me help him; he cursed the heat; he said one could not eat in such heat as this; but the meal he cooked, and the way ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... now with frowning impatience. You were supposed to humor delusions, weren't you? Only, could you surrender and humor a wild idea which might mean your death? If Thorvald wanted to go island-hopping in chance of discovering what never had existed, Shann need not accompany him. And if the officer tried to use force, well, Shann was armed with a stunner, ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... heard the full chord of intellectual and emotional delight. What a place her chamber would be, if she could there read such things! How easy would it be then to bear the troubles of the hour, the vulgar humor of Mr. Turnbull, and the tiresome attentions of George! Would Mr. Wardour lend her the book? Had he other books as good? Were there many books to make one's heart go as that one did? She would save every penny to buy such books, if indeed such treasures were within her reach! Under ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... His guess was a good one. Pasquale himself, arm in arm with Ochampa, made the rounds and stopped for a moment to speak to the sentries in front of the prison. The man crouched in the bear grass could tell that Gabriel was in high good-humor. He jested with the men and clapped them on the shoulder jovially. He laughed as heartily at his ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... the French theatre as a school, and profited by the performances. The company was excellent, particularly one young girl, Mlle. Fontaine. Her playing was unsurpassable. She knew always when to go on and when to stop. Perfect simplicity, a taste never at fault, delightful humor, a high tragic power; to these add a lovely face, a beautiful form, grace in every movement, a voice just as sweet as a voice could be, and you have a dim idea of Mlle. Fontaine. In her private life, moreover, ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... expense, and he must now stay and share their cheer. My ancestor was a little alarmed, for he had more money about his person than he cared to risk in such society. However, being naturally a bold, lively spirited man, he entered into the humor of the thing, and sat down to the feast, which consisted of all the varieties of game, poultry, pigs, and so forth, that could be collected by a wide and indiscriminate system of plunder. The dinner was a very merry one, but ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... hesitate. There were some prints among them very odd indeed; some that girls could not understand; some that boys, indeed, had best not see. We swiftly turn over those prohibited pages. How many of them there were in the wild, coarse, reckless, ribald, generous book of old English humor! ...
— John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character • William Makepeace Thackeray
... overwhelmingly glad to see him when he came back—especially if he had got fat and bald-headed," she added, her face involuntarily twitching into a smile. Cecily, in spite of her serious expression and intense way of looking at life, had an irrepressible sense of humor. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... crateras haustu uno siccare possunt, qui sic crassum illud et porosum corpus vino implent, ut per cutem humor erumpat (nam tum se satis inquiunt potasse, cum, positis quinque super mensam digitis, quod ipse aliquando vidi, totidem guttae excidunt) laudant; hos viros esse ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 53. Saturday, November 2, 1850 • Various
... than the campaign pictures had represented. His face, when lighted up in conversation, was not unhandsome, and the kindly and winning tones of his voice pleaded for him like the smile which played about his rugged features. He was full of anecdote and humor, and readily found his way to the hearts of those who enjoyed a welcome to his fireside. His face, however, was sometimes marked by that touching expression of sadness which became so generally noticeable in the following years. On the subject of slavery I was gratified to find him ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... This is seen very well in cases which, fortunately, are rather rare, and, for some reason, are less frequent in girls than in boys. These little ones observe sharply the faces and obvious motives of those about their sick-beds, and more readily than adults are led to humor the doubts they hear expressed by the doctor or their elders as to their capacity to do this or that. Too frequent queries as to their feelings are perilously suggestive, and out of it all arises, in children of ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
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