"Sense of humor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he said to himself as he walked toward the garage. "Deliver me from an old woman who thinks she has a sense of humor." ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... had learned more from his own temperament than from political expediency. It was bound up in his love of efficiency and also in his sense of humor. During this same hot conservation controversy he writes to an old friend, "I have no intention of saying anything in reply to Pinchot. He wrote me thirty pages to prove that I was a liar, and rather than read that again I will ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... Comedy" which proves that the delightful fellow-wanderer in Holland and in London has a keen sense of humor and a ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... as the professional crooks put it, and getting away with such a fat bundle of "swag," you, my good reader, might naturally suppose that this shining light of the "System," contented with his profits, would pass on to new victims; or, if you have a mistaken impression of Mr. Rogers' sense of humor, for really he has a keen sense of the ridiculous—after five o'clock on week-days and all day Sunday—you might think he would take the opportunity to order me to tack up his card on the Utah office door, inscribed, "We will return ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... many German officers in a rather familiar way. Many of the younger men reminded one of our university men at home; several of the older men resembled their well-set-up English cousins. This seemed particularly true of the navy, which has acquired a type—lean, keen, firm-lipped young men, with a sense of humor—entirely different from the German often seen in cafes, with no back to his head, and a neck overflowing his collar. Particularly interesting were those who, called back 'into uniform from responsible positions in civil ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... please. Other things in which she wished Peabody might be more like Winthrop, obtruded themselves. Little things which she was ashamed to notice, but which rankled; and big things, such as consideration for others, and a sense of humor, and not talking of himself. Since this campaign began, at times she had felt that if Peabody said "I" once again, she must scream. She assured herself she was as yet unworthy of him, that her intelligence ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... An aristocratic polity produces every now and then an aristocrat who is also an accident, a man of intellectual independence and insight, a Napoleon born in the purple. His vast work was mostly invisible, and very little could be got out of him in private life except a crusty and rather cynical sense of humor. But it was certainly the accident of his presence at a family dinner of the Fishers, and the unexpected opinion he expressed, which turned what might have been a dinner-table joke into a sort of small ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... intensely subjective and self-absorbed character of mind, he had no understanding of human nature, no insight into character with its marvelous complexities and contradictions. With these limitations Poe, as might be expected, had a very defective sense of humor, lacked true sympathy, was tactless, possessed little business ability, and was excessively annoyed by the dull routine and rude frictions of ordinary life. He was always touched by kindness, but was quick to resent an injury, ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... and a volume of 'Poems of Religion and Society.' He had some facility in rhyme, but his judgment was not at fault in informing him that he was not a poet. Mr. Morse says that "No man can have been more utterly void of a sense of humor or an appreciation of wit"; and yet he very fairly anticipated Holmes in his poem on 'The Wants of Man,' and hits rather neatly a familiar foible in the verse with which he begins ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... said the jeweler, smiling, for he had a sense of humor, "I have a letter here which I wish you to take ...
— Mark Mason's Victory • Horatio Alger
... comfort, but the young conqueror never yielded to this enticement. He grew stronger and sturdier in spirit after each conflict, but lost something from his young buoyancy and elasticity which he could never regain. His struggles added a touch of grimness to his old sense of humor, but when he was admitted to the bar he was a man in ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... interest to the present generation.... Economics in the hands of this master was no dismal science, because of his broad sympathies, his healthy conservative optimism, his belief in the efficacy of effort; and, in a more superficial sense, because of his saving sense of humor and his happy way of putting things, ... he was the fortunate possessor of a very pleasing literary style, ... clear and interesting to the general reader, as well as ...
— The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens • Georg Jellinek
... pot of geraniums along the sill that it might have the entire benefit of its brief shining. He put the audience into peals of laughter over the wit of some poor creatures in certain trying situations, showing that a sense of humor is not lacking in "the other half"; and then set them weeping ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... him closely for a moment, but he made no sign, and so she turned her eyes again to the fire with a slightly troubled look. She had not a strong sense of humor, ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... prof, who was known as "Madge the Scientist," our indulgence went still further. We took no disturbing peanuts there and we let him drone his hour away without an interruption, except perhaps an occasional snore. We were so good to him, I think, because of his sense of humor. He used to stop talking now and then and with a quizzical hopeless smile he would look about the hall. And we would all smile broadly back, enjoying to the full with him the droll farce of our presence there. "Go to it, Madge," someone would ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... was like the sun bursting out of a black cloud. It was a sudden flash of intelligence, wit and good humor, which illumined his countenance, which I have hardly ever seen in any other." He could relish a joke, and had a keen sense of humor. Few things outside his work interested him; but he was fond of the theater, and liked to go to picture sales. His fiery temper often led him to explode at trifles. No talking among the listeners could be borne by him while he was conducting. He did not hesitate to visit violent abuse on ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... solemnity of manner had more than once led strangers to mistake him for a divinity student, though closer acquaintance proved him wholly unmoral and rattle-brained. Mr. Higgins possessed a distorted sense of humor and a crooked outlook upon life; while, so far as had been discovered, he owned but two ambitions: one to whip a policeman, the other to write a musical comedy. Neither seemed likely of realization. As for the first, he was narrow-chested ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... fears that the joke might prove too much for a man of his habit. She regarded him thoughtfully, and when he returned at one o'clock to dinner, and encountered instead a violent dust-storm which was raging in the house, she noted with pleasure that his sense of humor was ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... reluctantly out into the bitterly cold room, and crept shivering into his clothes. He never quite understood Ford's sense of humor, at such times, but he had learned that it is more comfortable to crawl out of bed than to be kicked out, and that vituperation is a mere waste of time when matched against sheer heartlessness ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... at length, in his clear, precise English, "would in my opinion be to give the laugh to someone whose sense of humor is already ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... the redoubtable Neri, this great chest must have been brought over by sea from Palermo. Probably four stout rascals had carried the supposed coffin in a mock solemn procession, under the pretense of its containing the body of a comrade. These thieves have a high sense of humor. Yet the question remained to be solved—How had they gained access to MY ancestral vault, unless by means of a false key? All at once I was left in darkness, My candle went out as though blown upon by a gust of air. I had my matches, and of course could easily ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... hill. At first he was very angry as he thought of what Peter had done, and he made up his mind that Peter should be taught a lesson he would never forget. But as he ambled along, the funny side of the whole affair struck him, for Jimmy Skunk has a great sense of humor, and before he reached the bottom of the hill his anger had all gone and he ...
— The Adventures of Jimmy Skunk • Thornton W. Burgess
... of knowledge," he used to say, "increases in direct proportion to the sense of humor—the belly laugh, measured in ...
— This is Klon Calling • Walt Sheldon
... explanation of her friendliness: "I've never had anything but a machine for a private secretary before. Miss Armstrong was hardly a companionable person. No sense of humor. But an excellent machine. Oh, yes—excellent. Better at figures than you, my dear Miss Vars, but oh, her complexion! Really I couldn't drink tea with Miss Armstrong. I never tried it, but I'm sure it would not have been pleasant. You have such ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... with glee. The aboriginal sense of humor may not be highly developed, but it is easily aroused. The friends of the outraged brave stamped up and down the dirt floor in spasms of mirth. They clapped him on the back and jabbered ironic inquiries as to his well-being. For the moment, at least, Dud was as popular as ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... and he began to enjoy himself exceedingly. He had not reckoned upon so rich an entertainment when he had consented to come down to witness this odd ceremony. His sense of humor conquered every other consideration, and the circumstance that Lord Rotherby was his brother, if remembered at all, served but to add ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... promoters of the strike. They set their faces against the war. They did not want their men to go forth to die. Then, also, the idea of the general strike caught the mood of the people. It struck their sense of humor. The idea was infectious. The children struck in all the schools, and such teachers as came, went home again from deserted class rooms. The general strike took the form of a great national picnic. And the idea of the solidarity of labor, so evidenced, ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... Oct. 19.—President Roosevelt has a fine sense of humor, and while he regrets that he has without malice stirred up a tempest in a teapot for the Southern editors by entertaining Professor Booker T. Washington at dinner, he cannot put aside the humorous side of the situation. It is only a few weeks since a number of white Democrats co-operated with ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... Adair. "And now the Transcontinental moguls are buying up a majority of their own, meaning to capture the main-line dog and leaving us to wag the extension tail which we have just acquired. Say, Ford; doesn't that appeal to your sense of humor?" ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... the Woman's Club, the Municipal League, Suffrage Society leader, wealthy, cultured and possessing a sense of humor. ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... of the steep, narrow streets that lie beyond the bridges and lead up to the city wall. It was still, still as the desert; she looked at him, and his earnestness quelled her sense of humor over the absurdity ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... himself appropriately. There is no suggestion of mawkishness in his discourse. Our Ferdinand, however, is distinctly spoony. There went no poetic irony to his creation, and he has no saving sense of humor. He never seems, like Romeo, to be toying with hyperbole in an artistic spirit, but it is all dead earnest. Such a love-lorn youth must expect to recruit his admirers chiefly from the ranks of the very young. And yet there are times, just as in the case of Karl Moor, when Ferdinand's ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... and one that Phil would doubtless often recall with a lively sense of humor. The lantern lighted up the tent of the motor boat, showing the emaciated black devouring the food about like a starving wolf might be expected to act; and the three watching boys, Phil still gripping his Marlin, Tony the hatchet, and Larry another ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... The Colonel, with little sense of humor and of the fitness of things, related a somber episode of those dark and bitter days, in which he had acted a conspicuous part and always formed a central figure. Nor was the Doctor happier in his selection, when he told the ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... magician-giant, who plays in the Algonquin mythology a part only inferior to that of Glooskap, whom he in every way resembles. Both are benevolent, both make war on wicked sorcerers and evil wild beasts, and both, finally, are much like Gargantua and Pantagruel in their sense of humor. They are sometimes made the heroes of the same adventure in different stories. The true origin of the name, according to Mr. Rand, is as follows: "After a cow moose or caribou has been killed, her calf is sometimes taken out alive, ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... to teach you how to write a really funny point or a gag. But, if you have a well-developed sense of humor, you can, with the help of the suggestions for form given here and the examples of humor printed in the appendix, and those you will find in the funny papers and hear along the street or on the stage, teach yourself to write saleable material. All that this chapter can hope to ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... adventure stirred in his blood. He laughed as he put his skill and strength in the sweep of his paddle, and for a time the thought that he was an outlaw, and in losing Nada had lost everything in life worth righting for, was not so oppressive. It was the old, joyous laugh, stirred by his sense of humor, and the trick he had played on Cassidy. He could imagine Cassidy back on the shore, his temper redder than his hair as he cursed and tore up the sand in his ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... way this accident was fortunate. Wabi, who possessed a Caucasian sense of humor, shook with merriment as he gave his assistance, and Rod, after he had dug the snow from his eyes and ears and had emptied a handful of it from ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... ooze out of him. If he had followed his instinct, he would have turned and fled into the night, away from that damp and silent house, away from the ceaseless splashing of waters, back to the warmth and lights of civilization. But his sense of humor, which is very often better than courage, came ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... a man, what wonders I could achieve in this marvelous age!" Her sense of humor made her laugh at herself. "Easy for a girl to say that," ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... with his keen poetic sensibility goes a vivid sense of humor,—two traits that commonly, indeed, are found Maying together over the meadows of imagination. For, ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... are prime elements in romance. 6. Find examples of another romantic characteristic, exaggeration. 7. Do you think that in his use of hyperbole and impossibilities Spenser shows that he was deficient in a sense of humor? 8. Observe the lyric note in iii and liv. 9. How does the poet impress the reader with the size of the Dragon? 10. Which Muse does he invoke? 11. Spenser's poetry is richly sensuous: find passages in which he appeals to the sense of sight (iv, viii, xiv), of sound (iv, ix), of touch ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... go down and see Tod," he said. "I like that wife of his; but she has no sense of humor. How much better principles are in theory than ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... smilingly shook my head and passed on, a presentiment of approaching disaster took possession of me—so that the recollection of the speaker's prophecies of evil regarding our cook did not come back with that keen sense of humor one ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... from her high standard of right and wrong to the neighbors' curiosity appealed suddenly to her sense of humor. She threw back her head and laughed. He joined her, after an uncomfortable moment. But he was very much in earnest. He sat, bent forward, turning his new straw ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... not laugh, but he nearly dislocated a rib in his effort to abstain from doing so. It seemed to him that this act on Lord Emsworth's part effectually disposed of the theory that Britons have no sense of humor. To rob a man of his choicest possession and then thank him publicly for letting you have it appealed to Ashe ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... read," said Mary idly, her back against the rail, "that it was invented by the authority who started the slander about women's having no sense of humor." ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... sense of humor in the apparently phlegmatic passivity of the Russian nitchevo than is suspected by those not acquainted with him. There is also a great timidity in it; for the Russian moujik or christianik (peasant farmer) has scarcely been sure his soul is his own, since time ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... or not," said Dapper Pete, "it goes to show what a sucker a guy is—even a smart guy. This ain't no sermon against a life of crime I'm pulling, mind you. I'm too old to do that and my sense of humor is workin' too good. I'm only sayin' what a sucker a guy is—sometimes. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... many pathetic scenes connected with the work of relief were others that illustrated the saving sense of humor which keeps people from going insane in times of great ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... of his country and does not wish to keep his temper when its acts make him ashamed of it. He is disgusted and indignant to the last degree at seeing "Mr. Quelconque" chosen over the illustrious statesman who was his favorite candidate. But all his indignation cannot repress a sense of humor which was one of his marked characteristics. After fatiguing his vocabulary with hard usage, after his unsparing denunciation of "the very dirty politics" which he finds mixed up with our popular institutions, he says,—it must be ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... listener is not pinned down to any precise mood, the music being allowed to work its particular charm without the aid of literary crutches for unimaginative minds. Dr. Niecks gives specimens of what the ingenious publisher, without a sense of humor, did with some of Chopin's compositions: Adieu a Varsovie, so was named the Rondo, op. 1; Hommage a Mozart, the Variations, op. 2; La Gaite, Introduction and Polonaise, op. 3 for piano and 'cello; La Posiana—what a name!—the Rondo a la Mazur, op. 5; Murmures de la Seine, Nocturnes op. 9; ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... Duties.—"Let's cast for our Symposiarch!" is Prodicus's next order, and each guest in turn rattles the dice box. Tyche (Lady Fortune) gives the presidency of the feast to Eunapius, a bright-eyed, middle-aged man with a keen sense of humor, but a correct sense of good breeding. He assumes command of the symposium; takes the ordering of the servants out of Prodicus's hands, and orders the wine to be mixed in the craters with proper dilution. He then rises and pours out a libation from each ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... Westmoreland shepherds, as is the epic blank verse of Milton. On the other hand, in those of his poems which were consciously written in illustration of his theory, the affectation of simplicity, coupled with a defective sense of humor, sometimes led him to the selection of vulgar and trivial themes, and the use of language which is bald, childish, or even ludicrous. His simplicity is too often the simplicity of Mother Goose rather than of ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... it all with unruffled gravity. There was never a more gentle hero, or one with a slighter sense of humor, than the hero ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... point beyond which the Earl of Barfield could not haggle. He surrendered, but it galled him, and the agreeable sense of humor with which he commonly regarded Joseph Beaker failed him for the rest of that afternoon. It happened, also, that the people who remained to be encountered one and all opposed him, and with the exception of his triumph over the Widow Hotchkiss the day was ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... prevailed; for Defoe is gravely quoted as an authority in "A Discourse on the Plague; by Richard Mead, Fellow of the College of Physicians and of the Royal Society, and Physician to his Majesty. 9th Edition. London, 1744." Though Defoe, like his admiring critic Mr. Saintsbury, had but small sense of humor, even he must have felt tickled in his grave at this ponderous scientific tribute to his skill in the art ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... in ordinary conversation. He had an infinite wit and great sense of humor. He used to tell delightful stories of queer characters and events that had come within his own observation. My relations to him for a good while were entirely antagonistic. We had some very sharp controversies. He would never tolerate any expression, ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... man—except a man from a remote rural district—who thought he knew the Bowery. There are agriculturists, however, all over this broad land who have entertained that supposition and acted on it—but never twice. The sense of humor is the saving ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... asked. "Well, maybe my sense of humor's gettin' cross-eyed or—or somethin'. I did think I could see somethin' funny in it, but most likely I was mistaken. Sit down, Jed, and tell me all about how you ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... heavy black hair was worn a trifle long on the upper part of his head and fell in masses above his forehead. His eyes were black and keen under heavy black brows. Every feature was strong and massive, but saved from sternness by a genial kindliness and sense of humor. Whoever came into his presence felt that magnetic power only a king of his kind ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... On another occasion this sense of humor and love of joking was turned to very practical account. Among the customers at the store were a half a dozen old Revolutionary pensioners, who were permitted to buy on credit, leaving their pension papers as security. One of these pensioners was a romancing ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... he bore this inspection. He resented the impertinence of the scrutiny far more on Philip's account than his own. Ashe's pale face had on it the faintest possible flush, and his always grave manner had become really solemn; but otherwise he made no sign. Wynne had a certain sense of humor which helped him through the ordeal, and there was a faint gleam of a smile in his eye as he confronted the brilliant woman before him; but he was ill-pleased that his friend ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... transcribed in music is then augmented and intensified by the peculiar quality of the Negro voice, rich in overtones, quavering, weird, cadenced, throbbing with the sufferings of a race. Or perhaps that well-developed sense of humor which has, for more than a century, made ancestral sorrows bearable finds fuller expression in the lilting turn of a note than in the flashes of wit which abundantly enliven the pages of this volume. There is one lyric in particular which, in evident sincerity of feeling, simple ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... of this poem is that a man's best helper may be that which gives him no direct aid at all—a sense of humor. ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... of the most loudly howling mob. Even the wayfarer gets an inkling from a poster, but it is a man of the widest comprehension who gets the whole truth from the subtlest exaggeration, and he who possesses a sense of humor who ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... regard to his love affair. It is very much more comfortable to consider oneself a cad, and acknowledge to oneself love for a girl, and be sure of her unfortunate love for you, than to consider oneself the dupe of the girl. Fanny had a keen sense of humor. Suppose she had been making fun of him. Suppose she had her own aspirations in other quarters. He walked on until he reached the old Bolton house. The door stood open, askew upon rusty hinges. Wesley Elliot entered and ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... his "mind comes and goes", his memory is keen, and his sense of humor unimpaired. His reminiscences of slave days are enriched by his ability to recreate scenes and incidents in few words, and by his powers of mimicry. "If I had my life to live over," he declares, "I would die fighting rather than ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Tennessee Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... establish my rights. Second, there is a bit of cupidity here; the reward money is being offered out of my own inheritance so I feel that I should have some say in where it should go. Third, the fact that I steer it into the hands of someone I'd prefer to get it tickles my sense of humor. The trapper trapped; the bopper bopped; the sapper hoist ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... file of official papers. He glanced slyly at Thankful Blossom's face with an amused look, as if he had already heard the colloquy between her and his superior officer, and had appreciated that which neither of the earnest actors in the scene had themselves felt,—a certain sense of humor in the situation. ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... the Temperature of the Body. Another claim urged in its favor was that it warmed the body and protected it against cold. It ought to have been easy for any one with a sense of humor to judge the value of this claim by the fact that it was equally highly commended by its users as a means of keeping them cool in hot weather. Its supposed effects in the case of both heat and cold were due to the same fact: it deadened the nerves ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... to apply this solution? Because if this is anything but another Test, or the output of a diseased sense of humor, I ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell
... without a certain sense of humor, grim humor though it was, and here and there in his letters there is an admixture of levity with the all-pervading melancholy. An example may be quoted from a letter to Kerner in Weinsberg, dated 1832: "Heute bin ich wieder bei Reinbecks auf ein grosses Spargelessen. ...
— Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry • Wilhelm Alfred Braun
... In-fer-nal young scoundrel!" Cappy murmured to himself. "He has a sense of humor, thank God! Ah, poor old narrow-gauge Skinner! If that fellow ever gets a new or unconventional thought in his stodgy head, it'll kill him overnight. He's hopping mad right now, because he can't ...
— The Go-Getter • Peter B. Kyne
... the young officer began quite frankly and with a certain sense of humor to describe the circumstances that led up to the climax, but presently he hesitated, and, observing this, Owen said: "No false delicacy, please. It's extremely important to me as a doctor to know everything that happened. You say Mrs. Wells ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... that wide questioning gaze, that seemed to demand every vital truth in whatever came under his consideration. He had, too, his mother's quick way of grasping your thoughts almost before you yourself were fully conscious of them, with that same saving sense of humor that made Sammy Lane the life ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... sorrows of the people. Through the influence of Pushkin and Gogol (d. 1852), Russian literature became emancipated from the classic rule and began to develop original tendencies. Gogol in his writings manifests a deep sentiment of patriotism, a strong love of nature, and a fine sense of humor. ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... could take a malignant pleasure in the misfortune of an ally. Henry also saw the white teeth of Timmendiquas gleam as his lips curved into a smile. But in him the appeal was to a sense of humor, not to venom. He seemed to have ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Lupin, jumping for joy. "You see, baby, what you fall short in is the power of smiling; you're a trifle serious for your age. You're a very likeable boy, you have a charming candor and simplicity—but you have no sense of humor." He placed himself in front of him. "Look here, bet you I make you cry! Do you know how I was able to follow up all your inquiry, how I knew of the letter Massiban wrote you and his appointment to meet you this morning at the Chateau de Velines? Through ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... a sense of humor, and it must be confessed that when the scorned and discarded babies were returned to her, and she sat by the kitchen stove trying to plan a second bottle, a second cradle, and see how far the expected baby could ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Oddly enough, when it is attempted, the writer usually fancies herself the lover, and describes feminine, not masculine, beauty. College girls show possibly more maturity of reflective power than do their brothers, but they are notably weaker in the sense of humor. Fourth, amongst so much merely graceful verse, there are not wanting touches here and there of genuine poetry. I shall be disappointed if the reader does not discover many such ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... kilts and things. Mr. Phillips, the principal, suggested that the stage be set with small evergreen trees. The picture of them in my mind's eye brought relief, and I impulsively exclaimed, "That will be good, because we will not have to wear pants," meaning, of course, the kilts. He had a sense of humor and was a tease. He pretended to take me literally, and raised a laugh as he ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... and weigh the whole character and quality and upbringing of the man. You must admit that the monumental complacency with which he trotted out his ingenious little Constitution for India showed a strange want of imagination and the sense of humor." ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... office and walked to meet them. He was a short, stocky young man only a few years older than Rick, and his slightly sour look hid a keen sense of humor. "I called my lawyer," he ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... with a sense of humor; he realized that the inquiry had long since passed the bounds of official decorum, and its irregularities had proved so illuminative that he was not anxious to check them ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... recorded. Everybody knew the fault was not Armstrong's, but it was jarring to have to sit and hearken to the controversy. "Don't ever twit or try funny business with Armstrong," once said a regimental sage. "He has no sense of humor—of that kind." Those who best knew him knew that Armstrong never tolerated unjust accusations, great or small. In his desire to say an irritating thing to a man he both envied and respected, the staff officer had not confined himself to facts, and it proved ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... eyes. "Yes, I understood—later. At first I was crushed. It shook my faith in you for a little while." She put off this mood (whose recollected shadows translated into her face filled Douglass's throat with remorse) and a smile disclosed her returning sense of humor. "Oh, Hugh and Westervelt are angry—perfectly purple with indignation against you for leading me ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... a young Greek gentleman of large means, genuine intellectual power, a sense of humor and a reputation ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... always had a saving sense of humor. Though such a driver for work—sometimes twenty hours a day seemed too short and they often worked all of twenty-four,—there was not unfrequently a jolly, prank-playing relaxation among the employees in the laboratory. If some fellow fell asleep ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... came down and shivered upon the girl's dark head and played about the bundle of white over which her hands were busy. She moved aside to avoid it, but it followed her, and when she moved back it followed again and danced in her lap as if it were a live thing with a malicious sense of humor. It might have been Tinker Bell out of Peter Pan, only it did not jingle. Mlle. O'Hara uttered an exclamation of annoyance, and Ste. Marie laughed at her, but in a moment the leaves overhead were still again, and the sunbeam, with a sense of humor, was gone ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... "Travels" and asking some one to tell him about the "foraging ants" described by the explorer. At last his older sister found the passage in which the little boy had mistaken "foregoing" for "foraging." No wonder that in his mature years he became an advocate of reformed spelling. His sense of humor, which flashed like a mountain brook through all his later intercourse and made it delightful, seems to have begun with his infancy. He used to say his prayers at his mother's knee, and one evening when he was out of sorts with her, he prayed the Lord to bless the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... Gilwyn's lower jaw dropped in amazement. There was a sudden awful silence, while, behind the guest's chair, Cicely's shoulders were shaking. In her mind, Theodora rapidly summed up the situation and judged it best to make a clean breast of the whole matter. Mr. Gilwyn looked as if his sense of humor were somewhat deficient; but he was a married man, and it was barely possible that his wife had not always escaped from similar experiences. Accordingly, she put on her most brilliant smile and leaned forward slightly in ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... quarrels, are some of its manifestations. The idea of possession exercised by either of the couple, and especially a tendency to dominate or try to control on the part of the woman, may be a causal factor in desertion. The lack of a saving sense of humor in one or both is often a complicating factor. These comparatively minor differences take on a serious complexion in the minds of the couple; and it is surprising how often a deserting man will give promptly and with every appearance of feeling justified some cause for his desertion ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord
... ten minutes Betty and Meg had rather a difficult time in making peace; for Mollie had not a strong sense of humor—a fact which both girls should have remembered. But because she was always so gentle and kind herself, no one of her friends could bear the idea of hurting her ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... soul of honor and had a sense of humor seldom found in one of Indian blood, and was as ready to romp and roughhouse as a boy of twelve. His straightforwardness and his tender care of Mrs. Sherman caused the Major to rejoice every day that he had transferred him ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... destitute of the national sense of humor; but he read this letter not only without amusement in its English, but with intense bitterness and renewed alarm. It appeared to him that the willingness of the ladies to put the affair in his hands had not strongly manifested itself till it had quite ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... to it. He said he was a selfish brute to want to keep her to himself. That speech amused Mrs. Gibson immensely. She had a curious and capricious sense of humor. It made her very adaptable and tided them both over a sharp ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... spectacle of professional educators decrying appeal to interest while they uphold with great dignity the need of reliance upon examinations, marks, promotions and emotions, prizes, and the time-honored paraphernalia of rewards and punishments. The effect of this situation in crippling the teacher's sense of humor has not received the ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... question he answered, and he pointed straight as the needle of a compass into the north. And then, as if his crude sense of humor had been touched by the other thing Philip had asked, he burst into a laugh. It made one shudder to see laughter in a face like Bram's. It transformed his countenance from mere ugliness into one of the ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... "You never had a sense of humor, John; but you was born without it. But, I tell you, it makes me young again. Why, it makes a woman old to feel she can do just as she pleases and not git talked about; and I feel I ain't got one foot in the grave to know that I can still be carryin' on—Oh, I ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... Dill looked at him uncertainly, as if his sense of humor were weak and not to be trusted off-hand; turned his tired horse awkwardly in a way that betrayed an unfamiliarity with "neck-reining," and began to retrace his steps beside Charming Billy. His stirrups were too short, ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... it are good natured people enough, with a sense of humor, and free from trammels of principle, official or ethical. Their greatest severity is exercised toward those who stand outside the gates and crave permission to visit their friends within; these find ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... The sense of humor must surely exist in individual dogs; otherwise it would puzzle me to account for the singular practical jokes played off by a water-spaniel once possessed by me. This individual, whose name was Muff, was a rather small-sized ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... St. Bernard dog which reminded me much of my ideal. He was always sedate, always loving, and faithful; generally quiet. He only got excited when out in the elements.) I have not been able to get on with people who have no sense of humor. From my birth I was physically weak. First I suffered from eczema. Being born with a double squint, I was operated on at 21/2 and again at 31/2 years of age, with excellent result. From 4 to 12 years of age I had convulsions (often), and all the illnesses of childhood. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... a sense of humor; a sense of humor sardonic, it is true, cruel, sometimes grewsome; and yet it is a sense ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... place. Here, among the rest, was the aged, matronly countenance of the worthy Samuel Sewall, deeply impressed with the dignity and importance of his position as senior member of the Board. At his best he never had the faintest sense of humor or perception of the ludicrous, and being now perhaps touched with dotage, he thought it incumbent upon him to address a few words of exhortation and encouragement to the incoming chief magistrate. He rose from his seat with long locks, limp and white, drooping ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman |
