"Anecdote" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and left it complete and a thing of power. . . . To take a bright period or personage of history, to frame it in a firm outline, to conceive it at once in article-size, and then to fill in this limited canvas with sparkling anecdote, telling bits of colour, and facts, all fused together by a real genius for narrative, was the sort of genre-painting which Macaulay applied to history. . . . And to this day his essays remain the best of their class, not only in England, but in Europe. . . ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... tells us that it used to "cur-r-r-l" before he had the "faver" in Burmah, and on such occasions we assure him that it "cur-r-rls" even yet. It is more polite to agree with him than to cross him—and a lot safer. He is as full of anecdote as heaven is of angels, and I mean to use him in the sweet days of peace, unless some stay-at-home journalist niches him from me in the meantime. Driscoll and Davies are fast friends. The Englishman is not such a picturesque figure as the Irishman. Englishmen ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... anecdote recorded of John Nicholson as a boy tells of a serious accident, which came very near to putting an abrupt end to his career. While spending a holiday at home in Lisburn he was playing with gunpowder, ...
— John Nicholson - The Lion of the Punjaub • R. E. Cholmeley
... familiarity. His attachments are strong, and extend not merely to persons but places. About a year ago, so much of the house in which he had lived ever since he had been at Serampore, fell down so that he had to leave it, at which he wept bitterly. One morning at breakfast, he was relating to us an anecdote of the generosity of the late excellent John Thornton, at the remembrance of whom the big tear filled his eye. Though it is an affecting sight to see the venerable man weep; yet it is a sight which greatly interests you, as there is a manliness in his tears—something far removed from ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... his remarks upon it by describing the influence it had in preventing his sleeping at night. He was so restless on one occasion that his wife became seriously alarmed. "What's the matter wi' ye, John? are ye ill?" "On no," replied the doctor, "it's only that confounded Bounder Clay!" This domestic anecdote brought down the house, and the meeting terminated in ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... Picturesque Scene. Excursion on the St. Francis. Wonderful River Voyage. Incidents by the Way. Characteristics of the Indians. Great Peril. Strange Encounter with the Indian Chief. Hardships of the Voyage. Vicissitudes of the Hunter's Life. Anecdote. The Return Voyage. 163 ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... injured; and although the Doctor's bibliography is very incorrect, and his spun-out inanities and wearisome affectations often annoy one, yet his books are so beautifully illustrated, and he is so full of personal anecdote and chit chat, that it grieves the heart to see "foxey" stains common in his ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... addressed to M. de Caylus, and found among the King's papers in the palace of the Tuileries, that most of the female opera-dancers were staunch aristocrates; but that democracy triumphed among the women who sang at that theatre. This little anecdote shews how far curiosity was then stretched to ascertain what is called public opinion; and I have no doubt that the result confirmed ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... with much enthusiasm about Defoe's famous little ghost-story, The Apparition of Mrs. Veal, praising Defoe's wonderful skill in making the unreal seem credible. In connection with this tale Scott developed a very interesting anecdote to explain the fact that Drelincourt's Defence against the Fear of Death is recommended by the apparition. "Drelincourt's book," he says, "being neglected, lay a dead stock on the hands of the publisher. In this emergency he applied to De Foe to assist him (by dint of such ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... continued, with gradations adapted to the age and progress of the pupil, through the whole course of instruction, whether longer or shorter. The value of thorough elementary training is well illustrated by the following anecdote respecting the education of the ear ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... disturbed period in English history and political and religious troubles occupied men's minds to the exclusion of lesser matters. Giggleswick was nevertheless well-known, for in 1697 Abraham de la Prynne records in his diary an anecdote of a Mr. Hollins who thirty years before had lived at Giggleswick "as I remember in Yorkshire where the great school is." Apparently Anthony Lister, who was then Vicar had roused the resentment of a particular Quaker, who found himself anxious to go to the Parish Church to rebuke Lister publicly, ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell
... way its sphere of usefulness is extended," remarked pompous Mr. Gloag, who could be impartial, as there was no candidate from Noran Side. He was a minister much in request for church soirees, where he amused the congregations so greatly with personal anecdote about himself that they never thought much of him afterwards. There is one such ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... emphatically an English boy—not in birth, for his father was Scotch and his mother a Dane—but in every other respect in which an English boy has a distinctive character. He was brave and honest, and merry and generous; his delight was in athletic exercise and manly sports; the anecdote we have quoted will testify to his skill and pluck. We read of him living at one time at Richmond, and swimming daily in the Thames; of his riding more than 100 miles in one day; of his hunting, and tennis playing, ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... beautiful little babe, let me look at it,' and then he smiled and made as though he would shake hands with the child, and, bless you, he slipped half-a-sovereign into my hand." I confess I was delighted at the little anecdote, and I am sure the good woman's praise was perfectly disinterested. Those who know anything of the poor are convinced they never flatter those from whom they can never again derive any benefit. I had almost expected to hear curses, if not ...
— Recollections of the late William Beckford - of Fonthill, Wilts and Lansdown, Bath • Henry Venn Lansdown
... my pocket, and frequently told the story of the dramatic way in which I had become possessed of it. I also kept my resolution of showing it to Professor Shroeder, who was much interested both by the anecdote and the specimen. He pronounced it to be a piece of meteoric stone, and drew my attention to the fact that its resemblance to an ear was not accidental, but that it was most carefully worked into that shape. A dozen little anatomical points showed that the worker ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... power of fascination which Napoleon had at command, a still more striking testimony occurs in an anecdote, apparently well authenticated, of Lord Keith. When someone alluded in this old admiral's hearing to Buonaparte's repeated request of a personal interview with the Prince Regent, "On my conscience," said Lord Keith, "I believe, if you consent to that, they ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... Sparta, and son of Agesilaus, when he saw a machine invented for the casting of stones and darts, exclaimed that it was the "grave of valour." The same story has been told of some knights on the first application of gunpowder; but the original anecdote is in Plutarch. [The Greek is "[Greek: A)po/lolen, a)ndros a)reta/]," Plutarch's Scripta ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... An interesting anecdote is told by Dies of his first experience with the Salomon Orchestra. The symphony began with three single notes, which the orchestra played much too loudly; Haydn called for less tone a second and a third time, and still ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... instructive anecdote to be found in the annals of the Chinese Empire. In a remote province there was an insurrection. The Emperor put down the insurrection, but he abased and humbled himself before the people, and said ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... smiled, and said, "If I can deceive my own friends I can make certain of deceiving the enemy." Nothing shook his faith in Frederick the Great's maxim, which he was fond of quoting: "If I thought my coat knew my plans, I would take it off and burn it." An anecdote told by one of his brigadiers illustrates his reluctance to say more than necessary. Previous to the march to Richmond this officer met Jackson riding through Staunton. "Colonel," said the general, "have you received the order?" "No, sir." "Want you to ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... "No. I don't agree with her, as it happens, here; but that there are matters as to which she's not in general at all befogged is exactly the worst I ever said of her. And I hold that in putting it so—on the basis of my little anecdote—you clearly ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... life, but without the worse vices of the convicts. This rule, even in such well-regulated households, was a very hard one to get observed, even under flogging penalties; and, indeed, formed the staple affliction of poor thoughtless Jim's early life, as this little anecdote will show:— ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... opened with prayer, still more would come. Also, that Friends had been very kind and attentive to them in every way, and never said a discouraging word to them. She then discourses a little on phrenology, at that time quite a new thing in this country, and relates an anecdote ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... a man fall of anecdote, and abounded in knowledge of people and places; he had apparently been everywhere with everybody, and, with a communicativeness not always met with in old soldiers, gave to the stranger a rapid sketch of his own most adventurous life. As the ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... Haywood when she was not a scandal-monger, was a sentimentalist. The story would have suited her temperament and the tastes of her readers. It is told so much in her manner that one could swear that the originator of the anecdote was aut Eliza, aut diabola. A few pages further on (p. 104) appears the incident of a swaggerer who enters the royal vault of Westminster Abbey at dead of night on a wager, and having the tail of his coat twitched ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... genius unequivocally discovering itself in youth. In general, perhaps, a master-mind exhibits precocity. "Whatever a young man at first applies himself to, is commonly his delight afterwards." This remark was made by HARTLEY, who has related an anecdote of the infancy of his genius, which indicated the manhood. He declared to his daughter that the intention of writing a book upon the nature of man, was conceived in his mind when he was a very little boy—when ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... admirable travelling companion. He had lived many years in the country, had been with General Cass on his expedition to the head-waters of the Mississippi, and had a vast fund of anecdote regarding early times, ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... parts to be restricted to one illustrative anecdote and one advisory monologue, neither to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 9, 1917 • Various
... and starving beggars and banditti who in those days still infested the city and its horrible and putrescent lanes and alleys. The Naples of the Bombas, in which he had spent two or more winters, was always a delightful source of anecdote. I could fill a book with his talk about Neapolitan nobles who let two apartments in their Palaces with only one set of furniture, and of the Neapolitan boatmen who formed the crew of the boat which he kept in the Bay, for he was too great an invalid to walk. Especially ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... to the plot of the piece, provided only that their favourite singers were taking part. Very often in that classic period the performers themselves knew nothing and cared less about the dramatic meaning of the works in which they appeared, and a venerable anecdote is current concerning a certain supper party, the guests at which had all identified themselves with one or other of the principal parts in 'Il Trovatore'. A question being asked as to the plot of the then popular piece, it was found that not one of ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... him at the dentist's and the tailor's. But George was basking in Joan's favor and was too dazzled to be able to catch and concentrate upon his wife's insinuations as to things and people that didn't exist. And Joan held him with her smile and led him from one anecdote to another. Finally, with no one realized how supreme an effort, Mrs. Harley came to the point. As a rule she never ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... An anecdote often told of him aptly illustrates his habit of mind. He was late in coming to a fashionable dinner, and his excuse was this: "I hope you will pardon me," he said. "I was detained at the funeral of an ant, and I could not come ...
— Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks - From the French of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... Virginia, and observed many of the characters on the inscription then before him so nearly resembled the characters used by the Indians, he had no doubt the inscription was made long ago by some natives of America." Proceedings of Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. x. p. 115. This pleasant anecdote shows in a new light Washington's accuracy of observation and unfailing common-sense. Such inscriptions have been found by the thousand, scattered over all parts of the United States; for a learned study of them see Garrick ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... more important than the moods and intuitions of the looker-on, it seems quite fitting that I should begin these suggestions about pre-Franciscan Italian art by saying that some years ago there met by accident in my mind a certain impression of Lombard twelfth-century art, and a certain anecdote ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... an army officer, whose life had been spent in the far west, told the following anecdote: "Indians, when they accept Christianity, very often hold ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... works. In general, the Trouveres devoted themselves to fiction and story, while their southern brethren sang of love. The novel, used largely in the south, was a short poem containing some brilliant anecdote of gallantry, couched in neat phrase. The romance, or long narrative, was by reason of its size the most permanent of all the poetry of this age. Though written by both Troubadours and Trouveres, the latter were far ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... anecdote connected with every flower-bed;—her story of the ivy, so abundant, quite pleased me, as being interesting in itself, and made doubly so by her naive mode ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... studied these properties a long time, and having meditated a great deal about them, he understood them a little (217) better than any one else ("iu alia"). 5. The story about the debasing of the gold crowns has already been told. 6. There is another anecdote, namely ("nome"), that he remarked to Hiero, king of Syracuse, that with a lever he would move the world, as soon as he had a place on which he himself could stand. 7. Having discovered how ("kiamaniere") the sunlight is reflected by a mirror, and heats the wood upon which ...
— A Complete Grammar of Esperanto • Ivy Kellerman
... up an apt anecdote, 'been promised the natives that their laws and customs should not be interfered with. After I introduced the courts, a chief was discovered to have put one of his tribe to death for witchcraft. I had the affair gone into, whereupon the chief contended, "You are ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... hesitation, resigned it into his hands; thus proving the sincerity of his zeal in the cause, [Footnote: Of the lengths to which this zeal could sometimes carry his fancy and language, rather, perhaps, than his actual feelings, the following anecdote is a remarkable proof. On one of the days of the trial, Lord ——, who was then a boy, having been introduced by a relative into the Manager's box, Burke said to him, "I am glad to see you here—I shall be still gladder to see you there—(pointing ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... four-and-twenty hours, having a delightful conversation with his wife. The processes were equally orthodox. Exempted from the tax of entering general society, free to follow his own pursuits, and to live in that political world which alone interested him, there was not an anecdote, a trait, a good thing said, or a bad thing done, which did not reach him by a fine critic and a lively narrator. He was always behind those social scenes which, after all, regulate the political performers, knew the springs of the whole machinery, the chang-ings and the shiftings, the fiery ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... of it; he was simplicity itself in such things; he didn't seem to have any idea of the game. He was wholly oblivious of the little cloud which his anecdote left on her. It was a little cloud, but many little clouds can make a canopy of gloom and beget a storm. Then came the words. It was at one of the church evenings in the parsonage—a regular affair, but not soaring to the glorious heights of a sociable—that the words were uttered ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Mosey and Bum wound up the evening with a series of gestes and apothegms, such as must not tarnish these pages—Willoughby occasionally taking part, rather, I think, through courtesy than sympathy, and ably closing the service with a fescennine anecdote, beginning, 'It is related that, on one occasion, the late ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... three pages of attempts to show the justness of these same criticisms; half a dozen pages made up of slight fault-findings with certain minor details of your literary workmanship, of extracts from your 'Outre-Mer' and comments upon them; then I closed with an anecdote. I repeat—for certain reasons—that I closed with ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... was over nothing could be found remaining of either combatant except his tail,—the marvellous inference to be drawn therefrom being, of course, that they had devoured each other. This ludicrous anecdote has, no doubt, been generally looked upon as an absurdity of the Joe Miller class; but this I conceive to be a mistake. I have not the least doubt that the story of the mutual destruction of the contending cats was an allegory designed to typify the utter ruin to which centuries of litigation and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various
... now beautifully perfect machine. Various and for a time unsuccessful experiments were made to bring out a machinery or travelling engine, as it was first called. A patent was taken by a Mr. Trevethick for a locomotive to run on common roads, and to a certain extent it did work. An amusing anecdote is told of it. In coming up to a toll-gate, the gatekeeper, almost frightened out of his seven senses, opened the gate wide for the monster, as he thought, and on being asked what was to pay, said "Na-na-na-na!" ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... say, to get more credit for precocity and originality than fairly belongs to him; he accidentally alludes to his dog that he may bring in a translation from the Odyssey, quote Plutarch, and introduce an anecdote which he has heard from Trumbull about Charles I.; he elaborately discusses Cromwell's classical translations, adduces authorities, ventures to censure Mr. Rowe's amplifications of Lucan, and, in this respect, thinks that Breboeuf, the famous French ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... done?" He was kept at the head of the army on the Potomac just long enough to prevent Burnside from doing anything, and not much has been done since that time. Now, McClellan may be a very nice young man—I haven't the slightest doubt of it—but I have read a little anecdote of him. Somebody asked the president of a Western railroad company, in which McClellan was an engineer, what he thought about his abilities. "Well," said the president, "he is a first-rate man to build bridges; he is very ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... fashionable English decorator. While on a visit to friends in Venice, he avoided every building which contains a Tintoretto, averring that the sight of Tintoretto's pictures would injure his carefully trained taste. It is probable that neither anecdote is strictly true. Yet there is a certain epigrammatic point in both; and I have often speculated whether even Venice could have so warped the genius of Poussin as to shed one ray of splendour on his canvases, ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... said, "I remember once—" and he told a graceful anecdote of Margaret's grandmother, which delighted every one, after which he bowed, like a young lover of twenty, to each of the ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... to be seen,—for Frank was fond of Natural History, and the habits and ways of the wild creatures of the prairie were full of interest for him. His companions, although taciturn when on horseback and engaged in scouting the country, or in hunting, were full of anecdote as they sat round the fire of an evening, and Frank heard many a story of wild adventure with the ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... Scott says: "There are several instances, at least in tradition, of persons so much attached to particular tunes, as to require to hear them on their death-bed. Such an anecdote is mentioned by the late Mr. Riddel of Glenriddel, in his collection of Border tunes, respecting an air called the 'Dandling of the Bairns,' for which a certain Gallovidian laird is said to have evinced this strong mark of partiality. It is popularly told of a famous freebooter, that he ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... existence in the lives of (and which is generally distinguished by some uncommon traits of character) people of genius—save that she had for a school companion and playfellow the late Lord Brougham, the distinguished statesman; she was remarkable also for her power of mimicry. An amusing anecdote of this rather dangerous gift is the following: Her brothers and sisters returned home from a ball, very hungry, and entered her room, where they supposed she lay asleep, and, while discussing the events ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... of the wretched criminal, had something in it hideous and disgusting to the more refined feelings of later times. But if an old tradition of the Parliament House of Edinburgh may be trusted, it was the following anecdote which occasioned the disuse of ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... in the prison camp at Zossen, or the flower-beds in front of the French barracks there—"but, of course, the French are an artistic people. You can allow them liberties like that." Every now and then in the papers one runs across some anecdote from France in which the Frenchman is permitted to make the retort at the expense ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... a quaint anecdote of our hero, which, better than pages of analysis, depicts the man. It appears that Leigh Hunt, who was a great keeper of birthdays and other anniversaries, took it into his head to celebrate the birthday of Papa Haydn by giving a dinner, drinking toasts, ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... bring to my mind an anecdote, which, though rather out of place, I shall offer no apology for introducing. Among other inquiries, we were anxious to learn whether M. de la Peyrouse, with the two ships under his command, bound on a voyage of discovery, had arrived in France. We heard with concern, that ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... demanding an explanation, he said, that if a lion sprang at an animal, and missed it by leaping short, he would always go back to where he sprang from, and practise the leap so as to be successful on another occasion; and he then related to me the following anecdote, stating that he was an eye-witness to ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... on the table, and in this hush she heard the voice of Colonel Buffington telling a story in dialect. It was an immemorial anecdote of Cousin Jimmy's—she had heard him tell it a dozen times—and while she listened, it made her feel comfortably ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... of apprentices on this point are well illustrated by the following anecdote, which was related to us while in the West Indies. The governor of one of the islands, shortly after his arrival, dined with one of the wealthiest proprietors. The next day one of the negroes of the estate said to another, "De new gubner been poison'd." "What dat you say?" inquired the other ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... form seems best, as the interest of the anecdote clearly depends on HIS stupidity—not on what happened to ME. Let us then make m "he"; x "persons whom I sent, &c."; and y "persons ...
— The Game of Logic • Lewis Carroll
... an anecdote told of the poet Hafiz, in Sir William Jones's Life, which, in reporting this instance of illiberality, recurs naturally to the memory. After the death of the great Persian bard, some of the religious among his countrymen protested strongly against allowing ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... in the afternoon, but Ned stayed in his place in the hospital. After a while Davy Crockett and several others joined him there. Crockett as usual was jocular, and told more stories of his trips to the large eastern cities. He had just finished an anecdote of Philadelphia, when ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... back again to the old world in quest of our estates and privileges. But, in writing this history, it has been my determination from the first, to record nothing but settled truths, and to reject everything in the shape of vague report or unauthenticated anecdote. Under these limitations, I have ever considered my family as American by origin, European by emigration, and restored to its paternal soil by the mutations and ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... Reminds me of an anecdote. Everything is changed since the war, for better or for worse; but you'll find people down here born grumblers, who see no change except the change for the worse. There was an old negro woman of this sort. A ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... an anecdote which I read in a newspaper, of an ass being found hanging his head over a canal in a wretched posture. Upon examination a dead body was found in the water, and proved to be the body of its master. The countenance, gait, and figure of Peter were taken from a wild rover with whom ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... the government domain on the Lord's Day exposed him to the satire of scorners. He thought that youths who violate the sanctity of the Sabbath take the first ordinary steps in a dissolute and dishonest life. An anecdote, on the authority of Captain Back, shows his harmless character in a striking light.[230] The writer observes—"As an illustration of the excellent individual to whom it refers, I may be pardoned for introducing it here. ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... day,—though, after all, he was but the first of the brutes. The Romans kept up the paternal rule for many ages, and theoretically it long survived the Republic. It had existed in the Kingdom, and it was not unknown to the Empire. We have an anecdote that shows how strong was the supremacy of paterfamilias at the beginning of the eighth century, when Young Rome had already made more than one audacious display of contempt for the Conscript Fathers. When Pompeius was asked what he would do, if Caesar should resist the requirements of the Senate, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... a few whiffs in order to ensure the continued combustion of his pipe, related the following anecdote, which is now matter of history, as anyone may find by consulting the archives ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... as well add here that a Mr. Whitbread, to whom Clarkson mentioned this latter cause of distress, generously offered to repair the pecuniary losses of all who had suffered in this cause. One anecdote will be a specimen of the energy with which Clarkson pursued evidence. It had been very strenuously asserted and maintained that the subjects of the slave trade were only such unfortunates as had become prisoners of war, and who, if not carried out of the country in this manner, would be ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... second edition. In the first edition we merely find 'by one whose authority,' &c. Boswell in his Hebrides, Aug. 28, 1773, speaks of George III. as 'a Great Personage.' In his Letter to the People of Scotland (p. 90) he thus introduces an anecdote about the King—and Paoli:—'I have one other circumstance to communicate; but it is of the highest value. I communicate it with a mixture of awe and fondness.—That Great Personage, who is allowed by all to have the best memory of any man born a Briton, &c. In ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... [Footnote 5: An interesting anecdote of the "warlike and martial Talbot." Philippe de Laon was "squire of the stables" to the Duke of Burgundy in 1461. He contributed also Nos. 20, 21, ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... companions to forego their visit to the Abbey that night. We therefore had in old Davidson, the landlord of the Inn, and my companions submitted him to an interrogatory of three long hours' duration. One little anecdote of fresh occurrence struck me as possessing some interest. I will record it. About a month before, a poor maniac presented herself at the gates of Abbotsford. She desired to see Sir Walter. The servant denied her admittance, but such was the earnestness of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... bristling with imitation tortoise-shell pins. Her sleeves had a fashionable cut, and half a dozen metal bangles rattled on her wrists. Her voice rattled like her bangles as she poured forth a stream of anecdote and ejaculation; and her round black eyes jumped with acrobatic velocity from one face to another. Miss Mellins was always having or hearing of amazing adventures. She had surprised a burglar in her room ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... Marlborough, the hero thereof, a sorry figure, as the reluctant victim of a lady of Ingolstadt, whose advances he refused, trembling lest his haughty Sarah should hear of it and give him a sound rating on his return to England. The anecdote was broad, to say the least, and sure it did not lose in the telling. 'A great captain, but sorely afraid of his lady!' finished ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... most delightful talker in the world', and his essays have precisely the charm of the conversation of a well-informed and thoughtful man of the world. They are entirely discursive; he starts with a certain subject, and follows any line of thought that occurs to him. If he thinks of an anecdote in connexion with his subject, that goes down; if it suggests to him abstract speculations or moral reflections he gives us those instead. It is the capricious chat of a man who likes to talk, not the product of an imperative need ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... me an anecdote of his taking honey from an old-fashioned straw beehive; another day the talk was of pruning fruit-trees. I had shown him an apple—the first one to be picked from a young tree—and he at once named it correctly as a "Blenheim Orange," recognizing it by its "eye," whereupon I asked ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... who are guilty of the sinne, or archpatrons thereof.' This amusing document, contains some fifty or sixty veritable accounts of balls of fire that fell into churchyards and upset the sporters, and sporters that quarrelled, and upset one another, and so forth: and among them is one anecdote containing an example of a rather different kind, which I cannot resist the temptation of quoting, as strongly illustrative of the fact, that this blinking of the question has not ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... in Wayne County, once broke up a negro funeral with a hornets' nest. The idlers nodded a smiling affirmative as they watched the cortege go past. They had all heard it. But Mr. Tomwit would not be denied. He sallied forth into humorous reminiscence. Another loafer contributed an anecdote of how he had tied ropes to a dead negro so as to make the corpse sit up in ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... Governor-General's table, he overheard an officer opposite him asking another, loud enough to be heard, whether Carey had not once been a shoemaker: "No, sir," exclaimed Carey immediately; "only a cobbler." An eminently characteristic anecdote has been told of his perseverance as a boy. When climbing a tree one day, his foot slipped and he fell to the ground, breaking his leg by the fall. He was confined to his bed for weeks, but when he recovered and was able to walk without ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... Gazette, for which he said he had been reprimanded by the Government; nevertheless, he was glad he had done it. Sir Moses gave His Excellency two copies of the firman, with which he seemed much pleased. The Rev. E. Bondi subsequently related to Sir Moses an anecdote concerning the Marchese. About three months previously an Englishman, a Protestant, with a large family, had given much trouble to the British Government respecting a claim he had on the Sardinian ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... The crowd cheered him and there was no further disturbance at that meeting. The speech was a modest, straightforward declaration of his principles. When he was leaving several voices called for a story. Abe raised a great laugh with a humorous anecdote in which he imitated the dialect and manners of a Kentucky backwoodsman. They kept him on the auctioneer's block for half an hour telling the wise and curious folk tales of which he knew so many. ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... there was a vile conspiracy against it; and what made the conspiracy successful was, that among the leading conspirators were officers of the law—the very men without whose active co-operation it was impossible for it to be successful. Allow me to illustrate what I mean by an anecdote: A few years ago there was a gang of desperadoes, who operated in one of the south-western states. They robbed every one with perfect impunity for several years, all attempts to capture them proving abortive, for they seemed, in some mysterious manner, to get ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... "The following anecdote also relates to my residence at Constantinople. A woman, a Marseillaise by birth but married to a Mussulman, was engaged in a law-suit on some matter which I have forgotten; but I know that her adversaries grounded their hopes and pretensions on a document which they had placed ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... auditors, which accounts for the slight discrepancy between the actual facts as known to the reader and the popular version. After everybody had haw hawed and cracked his joke over Obadiah's last repetition of the anecdote, Peleg observed: ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... myself without That sad inexplicable beast of prey— That Sphinx, whose words would ever be a doubt, Did not his deeds unriddle them each day— That monstrous hieroglyphic—that long spout Of blood and water, leaden Castlereagh! And here I must an anecdote relate, But luckily of no great ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... "One night, at midnight, he (Cornelius Vanderbilt) carried away from the office of Horace F. Clark, his son-in-law, $6,000,000 in greenbacks as a part of his share of the profits, and he had $20,000,000 more in new stock." [Footnote: "The Vanderbilts": 103. Croffut in a footnote tells this anecdote: "When the Commodore's portrait first appeared on the bonds of the Central, a holder of some called one day and said: 'Commodore, glad to see your face on them bonds. It's worth ten per cent. It gives everybody confidence.' ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... parallels! Whenever I try to improve your soul, you always drag in some anecdote from your very shady past. Pigs aren't the British public; and self-respect is self-respect the world over. Go out for a walk and try to catch some self-respect. And, I say, if the Nilghai comes up this evening can ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... economy, always spending up, as he says, and not down! How alert, how attentive; what an inquisitor; always ready with some test question, with some fact or idea to match or to verify, ever on the lookout for some choice bit of adventure or information, or some anecdote that has pith and point! No tyro basks and takes his ease in his presence, but is instantly put on trial and must answer or be disgraced. He strikes at an idea like a falcon at a bird. His great fear seems to be lest there be some ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... Ethelberta's escapade, which had been dragged from Neigh the previous evening by the friend to whom he had related it before he was so enamoured of Ethelberta as to regard that performance as a positive virtue in her. 'Nobody was told, or even suspected, who the lady of the anecdote was,' Picotee concluded; 'but I knew instantly, of course, and I think it very unfortunate that we ever went to that dreadful ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... among the people of New Salem. They respected him for his uprightness and admired him for his genial and social qualities. He had an earnest sympathy for the unfortunate and those in sorrow. All confided in him, honored and loved him. He had an unfailing fund of anecdote, was a sharp, witty talker, and possessed an accommodating spirit, which led him to exert himself for the entertainment of his friends. During the political canvass of 1834, Mr. Lincoln made the acquaintance of Mr. John T. Stuart of Springfield, Ill. Mr. Stuart ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... his eulogy, speaks enthusiastically of its luminous and sublime views, of its reasonings, in which the mind of the geometer is always apparent, of its perfect fairness toward those whom it controverts, and its rich store of anecdote and illustration. Even Stewart, who was not familiar with it, and who, as might be expected, strangely misconceives and misrepresents the author, is compelled to echo the general sentiment. He pronounces ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... seemed highly delighted with this anecdote, but, for my own part, I felt feverish to the tips of my claws, as I thought of the miserable creature who had usurped the place I wished to fill, and who might be the means of my having to fall back after all on the Deserted Cats' Fund. What bungling puss had had him under her ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... is the book in which Beyle has embodied his reflections upon Love. The volume, with its meticulous apparatus of analysis, definition, and classification, which gives it the air of being a parody of L'Esprit des Lois, is yet full of originality, of lively anecdote and keen observation. Nobody but Beyle could have written it; nobody but Beyle could have managed to be at once so stimulating and so jejune, so clear-sighted and so exasperating. But here again, in reality, it is not the question ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... Confucius and Justinian are dead—and I'm nae feelin' that vera weel mysel'," which in March, 1893, Punch republished, adapting it, however, to modern literature—the speaker quaintly including George Eliot amongst our deceased "best men." More recently a precisely parallel anecdote has been attributed to Dr. McCosh, apropos of Leibnitz's theory of evil ("Westminster Gazette," January, 1895). And again, there is an old story of Baron Rothschild, who when very busy received the ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... early period to the last weeks of Charlotte Bronte's life; and, though she had left her place many years ago, one of these former servants went over from Bradford to Haworth on purpose to see Mr. Bronte, and offer him her true sympathy, when his last child died. I may add a little anecdote as a testimony to the admirable character of the likeness of Miss Bronte prefixed to this volume. A gentleman who had kindly interested himself in the preparation of this memoir took the first volume, shortly after the publication, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... malpractices in his government, and that Pompey is in favor of Appius. Curio has gone over to Caesar. But the important subject is the last handled: "It will be mean in you if I should have no Greek panthers."[98] The next refers to the marriages and divorces of certain ladies, and ends with an anecdote told as to a gentleman with just such ill-natured wit as is common in London. No one could have suspected Ocella of looking after his neighbor's wife unless he had been detected thrice in ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... immoral, and yet do not tend in the very least to induce sexual excitement—it suffices to mention illustrations of scatological scenes. Another source of error lies in the fact that things which appear sexual to the adult, may to the child be entirely devoid of sexual colouring. There is an amusing anecdote of a little girl who had been bathing with other children, and on her return home was asked whether boys had been bathing as well as girls; "I don't know," said the little one, "for they were all naked!" This story is based ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... chronography[obs3]; historic Muse, Clio; history; biography, autobiography; necrology, obituary. narrative, history; memoir, memorials; annals &c. (chronicle) 551; saga; tradition, legend, story, tale, historiette[obs3]; personal narrative, journal, life, adventures, fortunes, experiences, confessions; anecdote, ana[obs3], trait. work of fiction, novel, romance, Minerva press; fairy tale, nursery tale; fable, parable, apologue[obs3]; dime novel, penny dreadful, shilling shocker relator &c. v.; raconteur, historian ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... ever heard the anecdote about the artist of Duesseldorf and the jealous courtiers. This is it. It seems there was once a very famous artist who lived in the little town of Duesseldorf. He did such fine work that the Elector, ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... live," cried the king, "and we will each one honor this, our first sitting, by showing our confidence in each other. Every one shall relate something piquant and strange of his past life, some lively anecdote, or some sweet little mystery which we dare trust to our friends, but not to our wives. The oldest ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... appliances of romance; however, though I cannot promise you all the discomfort generally pertaining to an old castle, you will find legends and ghostly lore enough to claim your respect; and if old Martha be still to the fore, as I trust she is, you will soon have a supernatural and appropriate anecdote for every closet and corner of the mansion; but here we are—so, without more ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... gruesome anecdote is recounted by Hughson in his "Walks through London" (1817), concerning Flower-de-Luce Court (Fleur-de-Lis Court), just off Fetter Lane in Fleet Street. This concerned the notorious Mrs. Brownrigg, who was executed in 1767 for the murder of Mary Clifford, ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... which she trod; and as for her feet getting wet, the dew must have soaked them long ago. She was in the brightest of spirits. Lavender could hear her laughing in a low pleased fashion, and then presently her head would be turned up toward her companion, and all the light of some humorous anecdote would appear in her face and in her eloquent eyes, and it would be Ingram's turn to break out into one of those short abrupt laughs that had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... was in these clear eyes—these swimming blue eyes! The young man felt it. He told anecdote upon anecdote, and answered question after question; and mamma always asked the same lively, sensible, pertinent questions as ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... clapped applause, and No. 4 especially must have been very fond of laughing, for the glass-bead anecdote set her off again as heartily as ever, and the rest followed in her wake, and while so doing, never noticed that Aunt Judy ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... this anecdote, which the teacher related in English so good that we certainly could not have supposed him a native but for the colour of his face and the foreign accent in his tone. Next day we walked out with this interesting man, and were much entertained and instructed by his conversation ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... asthma. It became more violent after his retirement from office, and was now accompanied by dropsy. His deathbed was placid and resigned, and comforted by those religious hopes which he had so often suggested to others, and the value of which he is said, in an anecdote of doubtful authority, to have now inculcated in a parting interview with his step-son. He died at Holland House on the 17th of June 1719, six weeks after having completed his 47th year. His body, after lying in state, was interred ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... scholiast whose footnotes would take Thackeray to task for his "and whiches," and your professor who disdains the voice of the people, which is the voice of the god of grammar. I know all the scholiast has to say (surely he is the silly [Greek: scholastikos] of Greek anecdote), and indeed I owe all my own notions of diction to a work on "Style" written by him. It was from the style of this work that I learnt what to avoid. The book reminded me of my old schoolmaster, who grew very angry with me for using ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill |
