"Absurd" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been committed. Upon the third day, the villagers hardly ventured to speak to one another on the subject, for they all of them had the same idea in their heads, though they did not like to give utterance to it. The idea seemed to them not less absurd than it was self-evident, viz., that the flax-crusher's key must have been used for the robbery. The priest remained within doors so as to avoid having to give utterance to the suspicion which obtruded itself upon him. He had not as yet examined very closely the linen which ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... Having mentioned this conversation long before parties were formed here, it must appear to every impartial person, that it could not have been the mere invention of my own "brain," suggested in the spirit of party; and it is still more absurd to suppose, that I could have foreseen that you, who then thought as I did concerning the essential objections to the constitution of Pennsylvania, should refuse the appointment of Chief Justice, because you could not, in conscience, take the oath ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... cats and rubbish. She and Jim chattered rapturously of French windows, of brick garden walks, of how plain little net curtains and Anne's big brass bowl full of nasturtiums would look on the landing of the absurd little stairway that led from the square hall to two ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... the girl resisted her desire to solve the question; her suspicions seemed absurd to her, and, besides, it was distasteful to her to play the spy. Still, she listened, waiting to hear Madame Leon re-enter the house. But more than a quarter of an hour elapsed, and yet the door did not open or close again. Either Madame Leon had ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... I beg of you!" he said. "Nothing, positively nothing, but a biscuit and a cup of tea! Really, now, I cannot allow it. Thanks, Jerry! awfully good of you, don't you know! oh! very, very, very! now, my dear fellow, not your best coat! It is too absurd." ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... its inwardest fountain, 840 If you only could palm yourself off for a mountain. Mr. Quivis, or somebody quite as discerning, Some scholar who's hourly expecting his learning, Calls B. the American Wordsworth; but Wordsworth May be rated at more than your whole tuneful herd's worth. No, don't be absurd, he's an excellent Bryant; But, my friends, you'll endanger the life of your client, By attempting to stretch him up into a giant; If you choose to compare him, I think there are two per- -sons fit for a parallel—Thomson and Cowper;[2] 850 I don't mean exactly,—there's something of each, There's ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... after raiding and provisioning itself at the expense of the Virginia and Maryland farmers, made a dash at Washington, sending boats up the Patuxent and Potomac rivers, and landing a body of about 2,000 men. On August 24, with absurd {230} ease, this force scattered in swift panic a hasty collection of militia, and entered Washington, sending the President and Cabinet flying into the country. In retaliation for the damage done at York, the British officers ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... men and maids dwell together in amity, and where clowns wander, making love to shepherdesses. Some of these same pestilent pedants have pretended to believe that this forest of Arden was situated in France, which is absurd, as there are no serpents and no lions in France, while we have the best of evidence as to the existence of both in Arden—you know that, ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... remember of him, was the point he made every Christmas of getting in the "Yule-log," a huge log which he had doubtless been saving out in chopping the wood-pile, big enough for a yoke of oxen to draw, and which he placed with a kind of ceremony and respect in the great kitchen fireplace. With our absurd New England Puritan ways, yet naturally derived from the times of the English Commonwealth, when any observance of Christmas was made penal and punished with [24] imprisonment, I am not sure that we should have known anything of Christmas, ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... charitable in these things, and not fancy ourselves so vastly superior to other mortals, pagans and what not, because of their half-crazy conceits on these subjects. There was Queequeg, now, certainly entertaining the most absurd notions about Yojo and his Ramadan; —but what of that? Queequeg thought he knew what he was about, I suppose; he seemed to be content; and there let him rest. All our arguing with him would not avail; let him ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... Moreover, the Christian Greeks had much the same hopes on those points as the Mussulmans; and similar causes should produce similar effects: but those hopes gave them no strength. Besides, according to the Mussulmans' own account, this was not their great inspiring idea; and it is absurd to consider the wild battle-cries of a few imaginative youths, about black-eyed and green- kerchiefed Houris calling to them from the skies, as representing the average feelings of a generation of sober and self-restraining ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... like Twostars, learned and profound like Threestars, exquisitely humorous and human like Fourstars? Why, finally, is he not somebody else?" My good people, it is not only impossible to please you all, but it is absurd to try. The dish which one man devours, another dislikes. Is the dinner of to-day not to your taste? Let us hope to-morrow's entertainment will be more agreeable. . . . I resume my original subject. What an odd, pleasant, humorous, melancholy feeling it is to sit in the study, alone and quiet, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... How absurd we islanders are! London is a poky place, but we adore it. St. James's Street is about the length of a good big ship, yet we don't feel we have lived till we get back to it! And as for Piccadilly and St. Paul's, well, we see them in ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... instructed to prepare certain text-books by Cardinal Paleotti. These were an Ecclesiastical History, a treatise on the Hebrew Commonwealth, and an edition of Sulpicius Severus. The MSS. were returned to him, accused of unsound doctrine, and scrawled over with such remarks as 'false,' 'absurd.'[125] ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... whispered that the young girl, having had conscientious scruples about her love for Urbain, he had allayed them by an act of sacrilege—that is to say, he had, as priest, in the middle of the night, performed the service of marriage between himself and his mistress. The more absurd the reports, the more credence did they gain, and it was not long till everyone in Loudun believed them true, although no one was able to name the mysterious heroine of the tale who had had the courage to contract a marriage with a priest; and considering ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... "Torture Phorbas!" Corbulo cried. "Absurd! In my court I never torture men like him, any more than if they were freemen. And though it might be imperative to torture him for a confession if all the testimony pointed to his guilt, it is ridiculous to suggest torturing him ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... this celebrated devotional work, arranged in languages in chronological order. It realized L101. The second lot comprised a collection of 437 printed editions, a few of which were not included in the former, and sold for the equally absurd amount of L43. The British Museum had the first pick of this collection, and the authorities were enabled to fill up a large number of gaps in their already extensive series of editions. The six MSS. and over 250 printed editions passed into the ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... vain was her promise to the senses of a mysterious luxury of untold bliss; her fulfillment was richer than her promise. When she reached Lavriky in the very height of the summer, she found the house dark and dirty, the servants absurd and old-fashioned, but she did not think it necessary even to hint at this to her husband. If she had proposed to establish herself at Lavriky, she would have changed everything in it, beginning of ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... "it's those absurd children." Then, opening the gate, she called: "John! Dorry! come out and show yourselves." But nobody replied, and no one could be seen. The nosegay lay on the path, however, and picking it up, Katy exhibited to the girls a long end of black ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... advantageous, and that they feel that their individual security depends on such restriction. But that would be to suppose them to have too much reasoning power, and, what's more, a false reasoning, because it is absurd to save one's life at the expense of all that makes it reasonable and valuable. It is further said that fear keeps them obedient, and it is true that prison, gallows and wheels are excellent assurers of submission ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... leaning over the iron railing of the top row of the Academy of Music, and had finished the evening at Pfaff's, drinking beer and munching hardtack and pickles, and had laughed and sung in a dozen other equally absurd escapades. And yet it was as plain as daylight to Fred that Oliver's heart was no longer centred in the ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... illustrated by an Englishwoman in India for her two small daughters, Little Black Sambo, with its absurd story, and funny crude pictures in color, will delight young ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... find a hidden meaning in the story. Bishop Warburton, in his 'Divine Legation of Moses,' professes to see in it a defense of Paganism at the expense of struggling Christianity. While this seems absurd, it is fairly evident that the mind of the author was busied with something more than the mere narration of rollicking adventure, more even than a satire on Roman life. The transformation of the hero into an ass, at the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... comedy they play at home and which they repeat abroad? The piece abroad is the same as that played in Paris for the past eight years,[51120] an absurd, hasty translation in Flemish, Dutch, German, and Italian, a local adaptation, just as it happens, with variations, elisions and abbreviations, but always with the same ending, a shower of blows with gun and sword on all property-owners, communities, and individuals, compelling the surrender of their ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... of the many absurd fictions which long formed the elements of romance writing, the word romance is sometimes taken as synonymous with falsehood. Thus the French talk of Des Romans, and thus the English ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... well?" asked the inquisitive Nettie. "How she stares—why does she stare, do you suppose? Is there anything absurd about my dress? Look here—don't they wear bonnets just like this ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... "How absurd!" said another; "for I am told they don't like it, as, of course, they cannot. And she is so young, that if they delayed it a little while, another season, with the admirers she is sure to have, would put it out ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... Alaric to make use of a portion of Madame Jaquetanape's marriage portion. 'You have taken part of the girl's money,' was Undy's argument; 'you have already converted to your own purposes so much of her fortune; it is absurd for you now to talk of conscience and honesty, of your high duties as a trustee, of the inviolable distinction between meum and tuum. You have already shown that the distinction is not inviolable; let us have no more such nonsense; there are still left L15,000 on ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... have imagined that a chit of a thing like you, Dorothy Glenn, would have the impudence to put in your oar, or that you ever thought of lovers, or marrying, and you only sixteen a day or so ago?" cried one. "It's absurd!" ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... objects as are best calculated to arrest their attention, and keep them in a continual state of excitement. This course is succeeded by a supply of all sorts of toys, to gratify the passion of novelty. These are followed by wonderful stories, and books of every variety of absurd impossibilities;—which system of development is, it would seem, entirely based upon the presumption, that the faculty of admiration must be expanded, in order that the young idea may best learn how to shoot. It is therefore ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... amused and tender, "I thought you didn't want me! And it would have been rather absurd to hang round, ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... evident the attitude of Albuquerque, his desire to earn the friendship of Hindu rulers and his unrelenting enmity to all Muhammadans. He had not the absurd notion which Almeida attributed to him of desiring to establish a direct Portuguese rule all over India. He wished rather to pose as the destroyer of Muhammadanism and the liberator of the natives. In return for this service Portugal was ...
— Rulers of India: Albuquerque • Henry Morse Stephens
... Country Faith in Love Unrequited Affection The Poet's Troubles Echoes from the City Love's Wiles Hazard in Love A Mother's Love "The Shadow of the Cross" Curates and Colliers: on reading in a Comic Paper absurd comparisons between the wages of Curates and Colliers Wanted—a Wife: a Voice from the Ladies Sympathy A Fragment Law versus Theology: on an Eminent County Court Judge The Broken Model Impromptu: on ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... absurd under the circumstances Darrin promptly obeyed. Instantly the German officer snatched a fold of Darrin's rubber coat, pulling it aside and thus revealing a glimpse ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock
... absurd. I cannot have been mistaken," said Mr. Downing. "I am positively certain the toe of this boot was red ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... me it is quite absurd— But tastes and opinions vary; And some have declared that no beast or bird Can sing like the small canary,— Who, if it be true as I've heard it told, Is really worth more than its weight ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... Essay with Part of a Character, which is finely drawn by the Earl of Clarendon, in the first Book of his History, and which gives us the lively Picture of a great Man teizing himself with an absurd Curiosity. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... man who never enjoyed the advantage of going to college, is puzzled as he witnesses the demonstration of undergraduate life, and he fails to catch the meaning; he does not understand; it has played no part in his own experience; college customs seem absurd to him, and he fails to appreciate that in these traditions our American college spirit ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... incursions of northern barbarism had quenched the light of classic art, the struggle made by such artists as the Goths had at command to embody the ideas of power or grace they wished to indicate, were often as absurd as the work of a modern child. Hence the grotesque is an inseparable ingredient in their designs, often quite accidental, and frequently in express contradiction to the intention of the designer, who imagined in all seriousness many scenes that now only excite a smile. A strong ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... uncharitable and absurd, as the navigators could not know any thing of the motives of these fires, and much less about the alleged sacrifices. The fires might have been friendly signals, inviting ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... plague, or St. Vitus' dance,[60] in the year 1418, and the same infatuation existed among the people there as in the towns of Belgium and the Lower Rhine. Many who were seized at the sight of those affected, excited attention at first by their confused and absurd behavior, and then by their constantly following the swarms of dancers. These were seen day and night passing through the streets, accompanied by musicians playing on bagpipes, and by innumerable spectators attracted by curiosity, to which were added ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... matter! Nothing could possibly be of any importance now. Rose was making her way with some difficulty towards him. How wan and tired she looked. Was it possible that any one besides himself was suffering? The idea was absurd. ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... jar she concluded that Henry Perkins was an angel—a conclusion which, in view of the well-known facts, was manifestly absurd. ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... was issued making it lawful for all native-born Spaniards to make voyages of discovery, and to settle in Espanola itself if they liked. This was an infringement of the original privileges granted to the Admiral—privileges which were really absurd, and which can only have been granted in complete disbelief that anything much would come of his discovery. It took Columbus two years to get this order modified, and in the meantime a great many Spanish ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... the day,"[49] that Martien's patent outranked Bessemer's, insisted that Mushet link his process to Martien's. This, as late as 1861, Mushet believed to be in effective operation.[50] His later repudiation of the process as an absurd and impracticable patent process "possessing neither value nor utility"[51] may more truly represent his opinion, especially as, when he wrote his 1861 comment, he still did not know of ...
— The Beginnings of Cheap Steel • Philip W. Bishop
... quite upset at this absurd notion; and he laughed outrageously. "Why, the fact is, sir," said I, "that my friend Pogson, knowing the value of the title of Captain, and being complimented by the Baroness on his warlike appearance, said, boldly, he was in the army. He only assumed the rank in order ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hear all about it!" she called to her father as soon as she saw him; "the strangest, most absurd, most amusing affair"—she piled up the adjectives—"that has ever occurred in ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... brought into Queenstown harbor? Farraday himself, the efficient, the concentrated, sat absent-mindedly reading the papers, or drumming a slow, ceaseless tap with his fingers upon the desk. The general gloom was enhanced by their knowledge that Mac, their dear absurd Mac, was going. But they were all proud ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... look dreadfully," she said to Irene; "but moping here will not mend you. It was a most absurd step for Fred to come back to Yerbury, and take that paltry position! He has no real Lawrence pride, and I don't see that his elegant education has done much for him. Why didn't he study law, and go into politics? With his style and ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... Rolypoly there, but I believe she's a grandmother. If she'd been a boy, we should have been cut out of it. Oh yes, she's a lady—a born Morton; and when it was over she was very jolly about it—no harm done—bears no malice, only Ida makes such an absurd work ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as my law, His providence as my will, His fellowship as my joy. And the root and beginning of all such following is in coming to Him, conscious of mine own darkness, and trustful in His great light. We must rely on a Guide before we accept His directions; and it is absurd to pretend that we trust Him, if we do not go as He bids us. So 'Follow thou Me' is, in a very real sense, the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... next morning, ready to take our train for Berlin, we beheld—unmistakably beheld—our beloved Greenie by the drinking-fountain!!! Her back was toward us, and all the proofs we had at that moment were the hang of her familiar gray suit, and our old friend, that absurd chicken feather, awry upon her little, black, St. Helen's hat. We stood breathless ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... rejoined. "There was a man with us whose farm and stock would, in the event of his death, fall into Clarke's hands, and it's clear that I was a serious obstacle in his way. Can't you see that he couldn't use his absurd story to bleed you ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... dress, leaning over my father while he had gone so happily into his old delight of showing his prints and engravings; and Torwood, standing by the fire, watching them with the look of a conqueror, and Jaquetta—like the absurd child she loved to be—teasing them with ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... has been in the habit of using cubes for arithmetic; let him use them also for the elements of geometry. I would begin with solids, the reverse of the usual plan. It saves all the difficulty of absurd definitions, and bad explanations on points, lines, and surfaces, which are nothing but abstractions.... A cube presents many of the principal elements of geometry; it at once exhibits points, straight lines, parallel lines, angles, parallelograms, etc., etc. These cubes are divisible ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... an example which I quote because it is so absurd. The rooms I live in were owned by a prim old woman who for more than twenty years was my landlady. She and I were great friends, indeed she tended me like a mother, and when I was so ill nursed me as perhaps few mothers would have done. ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... with care we found ourselves before the shop of Nathan the Jew. Here, whilst the Capuchin went farther on to see his Jewess, I haggled with Nathan for an hour or more over the price of the diamond, but could not persuade him to give more than fifteen livres. This was absurd, and I was about to turn away in disgust when the Capuchin returned. The bargaining was now taken up by a master, and the short of it was that we made our way out of the Jews' quarter with sixty-three livres in my purse. Three of these I gave Grigole for his good offices, and on approaching ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... say, an absurd anticlimax to that noble scene. Antigone, being recalled and made the centre of a volley of bouquets, ceased to be Antigone and became only Mademoiselle Bartet; and the Greek chorus, breaking ranks and scampering about the stage in order to pick up the leading lady's flowers, ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... suddenly one day it occurred to him that these qualms and forebodings were sheer folly. Was not Celia rich? Would she not with lightning swiftness draw forth that check-book, like the flashing sword of a champion from its scabbard, and run to his relief? Why, of course. It was absurd not to ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... what she might not do. And yet she had been only a child when living with her father. Now she was a married woman, and the mistress of her own house. She was quite sure that were she to ask her father, the Dean would say that such a prohibition as this was absurd. Of course she could not ask her father. She would not appeal from her husband to him. But it was a hardship, and she almost made up her mind that she would request him ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... as shadows I Know to be substance; tell me why My visions, like those haunting you, May not be as substantial too. Alas, who ever answer heard From fish, and dream-fish too? Absurd! 220 Your consciousness I half divine, But you are wholly deaf to mine. Go, I dismiss you; ye have done All that ye could; our silk is spun: Dive back into the deep of dreams, Where what is real is what, seems! Yet I shall fancy till my grave Your ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... Frisk, and Kitty would not be able to tease me as they do. It is very annoying to be tormented all the time, and if one says a word in one's own defence, one gets blamed for being quarrelsome. The idea of my quarrelling with any one: it is perfectly absurd." ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... Lord did not really rise from the dead, and that the tale of his resurrection, if it were not a fabrication, was the elaboration of a myth. But neither of these alternatives will bear investigation. On the one hand, it is absurd to suppose that the temple of truth could be erected on the quagmire and morass of falsehood—impossible to believe that the one system in the world of mind which has attracted the true to its allegiance, and been the stimulus of truth-seeking throughout ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... Chatham is very pretty. Young Thames, for I do not see why there should not be Young Thames as well as Young England, that most absurd of all D'Israelisms, looks enchanting in a country where lakes as flat on their shores as a pancake take the lead, and where rivers ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... 'what my funny little mite of a Japanese maid calls me! You'd really never guess! She calls me Madam Peach Blossom! Isn't that perfectly absurd, Mr. Floud?' ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... nullify the vague rumours brought against him. Richard himself in a few scornful words disposed of this accusation. The accusation that he, Richard of England, would stoop to poison a man whom he could have crushed in an instant, was too absurd ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... sides, minus his evil sides, remained forever. Logically stated, this means that man's goal is the world; this world meaning earth carried to a state higher and with elimination of its evils is the state they call heaven. This theory, on the face of it, is absurd and puerile because it cannot be. There cannot be good without evil, or evil without good. To live in a world where there is all good and no evil, is what Sanskrit logicians call a 'dream ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... sarcastically, as though this future that he was anticipating was an absurd contradiction ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... How do we show that such an excuse is false and absurd? A. We show that such an excuse is false and absurd because (1) It is false and absurd to say that we should remain in error after we have discovered it; (2) because if one religion is as good as another, Our Lord would not have abolished the Jewish ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 3 (of 4) • Anonymous
... itself, what is to be said? It should speak for itself if I could find it, but I cannot, and only remember that it was a "male nurse and constant attendant" that was "wanted for an elderly gentleman in feeble health." A male nurse! An absurd tag was appended, offering "liberal salary to University or public-school man"; and of a sudden I saw that I should get this thing if I applied for it. What other "University or public-school man" would dream of doing so? Was any ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... harlot!" said he, and looked right and left, till he caught sight of the axe and the sandals and said, "These are some man's gear. Who has been with thee?" Quoth she, "I never set eyes on them till this moment; they must have clung to thee as thou camest hither." But he said, "This talk is absurd and will not impose on me, O strumpet!" Then he stripped her naked and stretching her on the ground, tied her hands and feet to four stakes and proceeded to torture her to make her confess. I could not bear to hear her weeping; ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... This is impossibly absurd; and unless there is some flaw in our argument, the fault must lie in the premisses; we have ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges
... accurate time, except in connection with matters of transportation, but will refuse to adopt a standard which would materially alter their accustomed habits of thought and of language in every-day life. That this position is absurd may be argued, and, perhaps, admitted, but it is a fact, and one ...
— International Conference Held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. October, 1884. • Various
... south, and making his summer home in the Arctic regions. He is a noisy, lively, sociable Duck, who has in spring some pleasing notes, so mellow and musical that he may almost be said to sing; but he is not choice or dainty in his food, and the flesh is too rank for House People to eat. He has many absurd names besides ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... come to sum it all up general reasons for drinking are as absurd as general reasons for not drinking. It is entirely an individual proposition. I concluded it was a bad thing for me to drink. I know now I was right. But—and here is the point—it may be a good thing for my neighbor to drink. He must judge ...
— The Old Game - A Retrospect after Three and a Half Years on the Water-wagon • Samuel G. Blythe
... think of it," Sheila admitted frankly. "But I know it makes no difference to Casey. Fact is, I wonder, knowing him as I do, that he hadn't some absurd scruples on ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... man—I use no ceremony with you, because we are a kind of relations;—positively, Mama Meagles,' exclaimed Mrs Gowan cheerfully, as if the absurd coincidence then flashed upon her for the first time, 'a kind of relations! My dear good man, in this world none of us can have everything ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... words which, unlocked from their absurd imprisonment, would become extensively useful. We should say, for instance, 'condign honours,' 'condign treatment' (treatment appropriate to the merits), thus at once realizing two rational purposes, viz., giving a useful function to a word, which at present has none, and also providing ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... been variously attributed to George II, the King then reigning; to the two Georges from whom the land was taken, and to George Washington, which last is, of course, absurd, as he was then a young man of twenty, engaged in surveying the properties of ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... self-poise. "Aunt Margaret was asking a good deal about Mr. Bressant, too," said she. "She said she'd only heard about him from you, papa; but I thought, sometimes, she must be fibbing. Once in a while, you know, she acted just as if she had forgotten having said she didn't know him. However, that's absurd, of course. By-the-way, where ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... precautions. She writes the day before to Madame Foullepointe to go to St. Maur with Adolphe, to look at a piece of property for sale there. Adolphe would go to breakfast with her. She aids Adolphe in dressing. She twits him with the care he bestows upon his toilet, and asks absurd questions about Madame Foullepointe. ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... that in twenty guesses you could get at the actual instrument of destiny. Cassandra chokes over a fish-bone! That's what I meant about Mrs. Vaizey's courage. And the reward of it is that, after your first moment of incredulity, the fish-bone isn't in the least bit absurd. Poor Cassandra comes quite near to expiring of it; and Dane, having thumped and battered her into safety, sobs out his wild and whirling passion, while Grizel and poor Teresa have just to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various
... to them absurd, but they answered very civilly that it was a signal of some sort which could only be interpreted by Indians, and that they had no doubt that it meant some sort ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... their researches to the uttermost. It is much to be regretted that every possible telegram and letter should not have been called for upon that occasion; but the idea that this was not done for fear that Mr. Chamberlain and the British Government would be implicated, becomes absurd in the presence of the fact that the Commission included among its members Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and Sir William Harcourt. Is it conceivable that these gentlemen held their hands for fear of damaging the Government, or that ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... this passage is an absurd truism; but the proposition in question can be resolved into—An animal is rational or it is irrational. Again, "the former does not belong to pure categoricals," it is simply disjunctive. MR. INGLEBY falls into the same ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 217, December 24, 1853 • Various
... good-looking upon the cricket field or in any gathering of people belonging to the other side of life. Here he seemed almost a curiously incongruous figure. He passed through the glass-paned door and stood respectfully before his employer. Mr. Weatherley—it was absurd, but he scarcely knew how to make his suggestion—fidgetted for a moment and coughed. The young man, who, among many other quite unusual qualities, was possessed of a considerable amount of tact, looked down upon his employer with a little well-assumed anxiety. ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Paris of Rops is at once an abode of disillusionment, of mordant joys, of sheer ecstasy and morbid hallucinations. The opium of Rops is his imagination, aided by a manual dexterity that is extraordinary. He is a master of linear design. He is cold, deadly cold, but correct ever. Fabulous and absurd, delicious and abominable as he may be, his spirit sits critically aloft, never smiling. Impersonal as a toxicologist, he handles his poisonous acids with the gravity of a philosopher and the indifference of a destroying angel. There is a diabolic spleen more strongly developed in ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... up into the clouds: that is, if we are idealists with the religious impulse rampant in our breasts. If we are scientists we practice aeroplane flying or eugenics or disarmament or something equally absurd. ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... Lewiston, N. Y., in 1825, and reprinted at Lockport, in 1848. ] a record of singular value. His confused and imperfect style, the English of a half-educated foreigner, his simple faith in the wildest legends, and his absurd chronology, have caused the real worth of his book, as a chronicle of native traditions, to be overlooked. Wherever the test of linguistic evidence, the best of all proofs in ethnological questions, can be applied to his statements relative ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... was absurd that Jack Glover should imagine she needed a guardian at all, but if he insisted, as he did, it would be better to have somebody as ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... arrangement. For, as ten thousand loads of brick and stone dumped down higgledy piggledy will not build a house, neither will ten thousand millions of materials poured into a chaos make a world like this earth, arranged in order and beauty. It is grossly absurd to imagine that the inanimate materials of the earth arranged themselves in ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... Medici, in spite of his name and influence, was in the eyes of the French nobility, who considered it a dishonourable thing to concern oneself with art or industry, nothing more than a rich merchant, with whom it would be absurd to stand upon any very strict ceremony. So Charles VIII received him on horseback, and addressing him with a haughty air, as a master might address a servant, demanded whence came this pride of his that made him dispute his entrance into Tuscany. Piero dei Medici replied, that, ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Absurd as we consider such stories, they were believed by the Normans, who were no less credulous than the Anglo-Saxons. This is evident from the large number of miracles, revelations, visions, and enchantments which are related with great gravity by ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... comfortable, and did not feel disposed to move, for all seemed so calm and pleasant; and when I thought a little about my previous night's fancies I was ready to smile at them as being perfectly absurd. ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... make use of its works. Whistler assumes that we make no use of works of art except as objects of use; and since pictures, poems, music are not objects of use, we can have no concern with them whatever—which is absurd. ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... for a time, but only for a time. It came back to her again. Why did he not come to her? Why had not the Major sent him off to her at once? Could the Major have been killed? even if so, there was Doctor Mulhaus. Her terrors were absurd. ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... matter how riotously absurd it is, or how full of inane repetition, remember, if it is good enough to tell, it is a real story, and must be treated with respect. If you cannot feel so toward it, do not tell it. Have faith in the story, and in the attitude of the children ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... follow that every Pole, whose name ends in ski is a nobleman. Therefore the translation of that particular z into English of is only strictly correct, although in other cases z should be translated into English from: to write: Baron de Rothschild is absurd and ridiculous, because the sign "red shield" was not an estate, and one ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... illustrations in history, to "decorate with legend" the early history of great men. In reply, it may be enough here to say that legends analogous to the pagan legends of the births of heroes, false and absurd legends, did gather round the infancy of Jesus Christ. The Apocryphal Gospels are full of such legends. They tell us how the idols of Egypt fell down before Him; how His swaddling-clothes worked miracles; ...
— The Virgin-Birth of Our Lord - A paper read (in substance) before the confraternity of the Holy - Trinity at Cambridge • B. W. Randolph
... wanting: No priest, no ceremonies of their sect; Or, grant we these defects could be supplied, How could our prophet do an act so base, So to resume his gifts, and curse my conquests, By making me unhappy? No, the slave, That told thee so absurd a story, lied. ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... Mays, the Cabots, the Higginsons, and others, were known throughout the world for their integrity, their mercantile skill, and the extent and beneficial character of their operations. These were the golden days of Boston's commerce.... The standard of integrity was high, and though it would be absurd to suppose that there was not the usual amount of evil in the place, it may be assumed that in no part of the world was the young trader more likely to find severer judges of character and conduct, or to be better treated if he should ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... visiting Simpheropol and Baktchiserai. I travelled to Simpheropol with a pretty large party, and had a very amusing journey. My companions were young and full of fun, and tried hard to persuade the Russians that I was Queen Victoria, by paying me the most absurd reverence. When this failed they fell back a little, and declared that I was the Queen's first cousin. Anyhow, they attracted crowds about me, and I became quite a lioness in the streets of Simpheropol, until the arrival of some Highlanders in their ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... house, nor have any of my relations either. It has belonged to me, to be quite accurate, since March 25th, 1920, and the interloper was interloping on a short lease when I bought the long lease over his head. It is also true that by an awkward and absurd convention I have to restore the old home to the ground landlord in 1941. But who cares about what is going to happen in 1941? The Coalition may have come to an end by that time, and the first Labour Government, under Lord NORTHCLIFFE or ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... a boy astride him, with a big drum placed before him. Now, under the treatment recommended by MR. G. SHADBOLT, both sides of the ass would be visible; both the boy's legs; and the drum would have two heads. This would be untrue, absurd, ridiculous, and quite as wonderful as Mr. Fenton's twelve-feet span ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various
... more absurd than any dream, was yet based on a substantive foundation. In fact he had that morning put it in practice, and unless a miracle occurred he would have to continue putting it in practice for some days ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... no other grounds can I understand why a reading should be preserved by which broad sunshine is attributed to ten o'clock at night! Nor can I believe that the copyist of the MS. with whom the error must have originated would have set down anything so glaringly absurd, unless he had in his own mind some means of reconciling it with probability. It may, I believe, be explained in the circumstance that "ten" and "four," in horary reckoning, were convertible terms. The old Roman method of naming ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 81, May 17, 1851 • Various
... is part of the history of my country. During many years he was my only parent or friend or companion; he taught me my lessons by day and my prayers by night, and, when I passed through all the absurd ailments to which a child is heir, he sat beside my cot and lulled me to sleep, or told me stories of the war. There was a childlike and simple quality in his own nature, which made me reach out to him and confide in him ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... each represents an economy of time or of manual labour. And if most of the workshops we know are foul and unhealthy, it is because the workers are of no account in the organization of factories, and because the most absurd waste of human energy is the distinctive feature of the ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... say, have you seen at the willows so green, So charming and rurally true, A singular bird, with the manner absurd, Which they call the Australian emeu? Have you Ever seen this ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... artists who cannot help themselves must borrow from other artists. The critic's business is to help the public. With the artist he is not directly concerned: he is concerned only with his finished products. So it is ridiculous for the artist to complain that criticism is unhelpful, and absurd for the critic to read the artist lectures with a view to improving his art. If the critic reads lectures it must be with a view to helping the public to appreciate, not the artist to create. To put the public in the way of aesthetic pleasure, that is the end for which critics exist, ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... thought, as well as of outward attire. She is as independent in mind as in dress. She is as ready to throw off the restraints society seems to have placed on woman's mind, as she is to cast aside what she considers an absurd fashion in dress. Without endorsing the eliminated petticoats, we can not but admire Miss Stone's "stern old Saxon pluck," and her total independence of the god, Fashion. Her dress is first a black velvet coat with collar, fastened ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... can't be done, Peter. And it can't even be pretended. Imagine the mother of twins trying to flirt with a man even as nice as you are! It would be as bad as an elephant trying to be kittenish and about as absurd as one of your dinosauria getting up and trying to do a two-step. And I'm getting old and prosy, Peter, and if I pretend to be skittish now and then it's only to mask the fact that I'm on the shelf, that I've eaten my pie and that ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... the doctrine of a de facto officer can be applied to such an office at all. In the present case, Brewster went into the State-House and voted for Mr. Hayes; at the same instant his rival went into the same State-House and voted for Mr. Tilden. It is absurd to pronounce Brewster, under such circumstances, an elector de facto, so as to make his vote for that reason good against his rival in the Tilden college, who was as much an elector de facto as was Brewster, and had this difference in his favor, that he was elected, and was ...
— The Vote That Made the President • David Dudley Field
... tongue lick absurd pomp, And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee Where thrift may follow fawning. 1930 SHAKS.: Hamlet, Act ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... up, and caught Annixter about the shoulders with one arm, gripping his hand hard. This absurd figure, with dangling silk suspenders, lathered chin, and tearful eyes, seemed to be suddenly invested with true nobility. Beside this blundering struggle to do right, to help his fellows, Presley's own vague schemes, glittering ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... admire their outline in passing, or when I see them silhouetted against the setting sun, that is all right, but further than that I will not go. The idea of entering these cold spaces, while some one explains their absurd and interminable history, of looking up at their ceilings with craning neck, of cramping my feet by walking unnaturally over highly waxed floors, of being obliged to admire the restoration of the left wing that they would have done ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt |
