"The absurd" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... own fate—that the affair thus plaintively voiced by her mother was in effect a family crisis of the first magnitude. She was stirred anew to anger and revolt against a life so precarious and sordid as to be threatened in its continuity by the absurd failure of a stove, when, glancing at her sister, she felt a sharp pang of self-conviction, of self-disgust. Was she, also, like that, indifferent and self-absorbed? Lise, in her evening finery, looking occasionally ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... attention is paid to the protection of heronries. Not to know a hawk from a heronshaw (the former name for a heron) was an old adage, which arose when the diversion of heron-hawking was in high fashion. It has since been corrupted into the absurd vulgar proverb, "not to know a hawk from a handsaw!"[9] The flesh of the heron is now looked upon as of little value, and rarely if ever brought to market, though formerly a heron was estimated at thrice the value of a goose, and six times the price ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various
... suddenly, "have you ever thought what would happen if you stopped making petticoats?" She did not answer. "It illustrates," he went on, "the absurd importance we attach to ourselves. The race would get itself clothed somehow, even as Church and State will go on, although they fail to settle that question of the swallowing on ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... wife, above all for such an artist as this outrageous fellow, impassioned, uproarious and exuberant, who, with his nose in the air and bristling moustaches, rushed through life defiantly flaunting the eccentric and whirlwind-like name of Heurtebise,* like a challenge thrown down to all the absurd conventionalities and prejudices of the bourgeois class. How, and by what strange charm had the little woman, brought up in a jeweller's shop, behind rows of watch chains and strings of rings, found the means of captivating ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... been told to assure him, in case they ever managed to locate the elusive Roland, that he should not worry because of not being able to comply with the absurd conditions of Uncle Jerry's ridiculous will; because she had enough of this world's goods for both, and she meant to leave it all to him, Roland; so she begged him to come back to her, and live his own life again, even ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... conceivable interest in its exact measurements; that after eight weeks of induction into the elements of Political Economy, she had only yesterday returned to the question, "What is the first principle of this science?" the absurd answer, "To do unto others as I would that ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... lifted his hat. It was not very comfortable, even without him; especially as before she had gone a quarter of a mile she felt that her action had been too marked—she wished she had let him come. His puzzled, innocent air of wondering what was the matter annoyed her; and she was in the absurd situation of being angry at a desistence which she would have been still angrier if he had been guiltless of. It would have comforted her (because it would seem to share her burden) and yet it would have covered her with shame if he had guessed ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... house in a roar as soon as he appeared. "I don't have them made," he said; "I keep them!" So also among the million actors who make up the great troupe of Paris, there are unconscious Hyacinthes who "keep" all the absurd freaks of vanished fashions upon their backs; and the apparition of some bygone decade will startle you into laughter as you walk the streets in bitterness of soul over the treason of one who was your friend in ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... The absurd idea that one gets wise by reading books is probably at the bottom of the abominable pedantry that thrusts so many tiresome pieces of antiquity down the throats of youth. There is no talisman for getting wise—some of the wisest in the world never open a book, and ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... know you can't want to see me," said the absurd young man, "though I do think you liked me pretty well before, didn't you? when Maisie Tarver tied my tongue; or ought to have, I'm afraid I should say. But she had enough sense to drop me when I was arrested. She couldn't stand a man arrested for murder any ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... noticed in the preceding pages, calculated to shew the ignorance which prevailed in Aubrey's time on medical subjects, and the absurd remedies which were adopted for the cure of diseases. In the present chapter this topic is further illustrated. It contains a series of recipes of the rudest and most unscientific character, amongst which the following are the only parts suited to this publication. ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... their subsidiary arguments also, from those which refer to the generalisations of the sociologists of the nineteenth century, and base themselves on the confusion between speculative truth and practical, down to those which are drawn from the absurd psychological supposition that all motives are interchangeable, and that those which actuate the artist, the anchorite, and the soldier can be made to replace by means of a vote or a sermon those which at present actuate the masters of industrial enterprise. On whatever argumentative point the ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... only the absurd tableaux I agreed to, with plenty of fun, and nothing more. So I tried to be merry and content, and so I should have been, for there was plenty to talk about, and every one was so solicitous for my comfort; ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... the wait, and struggling with the absurd anxiety that oppressed them. They counted the seconds singly, by the beating of ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... "The absurd old fool!" cried Beppo, not without some twinges, for he thought of his own projects with regard ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... fabulous myths floating about concerning this illustrious man; and his biographer, Captain Jesse, seems anxious to defend him from the absurd stories of French writers, who asserted that he employed two glovers to covers his hands, to one of whom were intrusted the thumbs, to the other the fingers and hand, and three barbers to dress his hair, while his boots were polished with champagne, his cravats designed by a celebrated portrait ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... existence is prolonged; many worthy people are beguiled; and some enthusiasts are so effectually hoodwinked as to persist in their delusion, and even to form societies for its propagation. But mankind at large is sufficiently sane to avoid a fall into this abyss of the absurd, and, having paid its tribute of laughter, goes its way without being a cent ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... of wandering quarters and vicissitudes in the country, and the intense relief experienced on return to your own comfortable chambers in town,—that this may have been written in the spirit of a farceur, reducing the Goncourtian and Zolaesque principle to the lowest terms of the absurd. But I am by no means sure that it was so, though this suspicion of parody pursues the earlier work of Huysmans to such an extent that a certain class of critic might take his later developments as ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... meant business; that she could not have taken our opposition seriously is evidenced by her previous note, and which, I think, was as insulting as any note ever addressed by one power to another. Think of the absurd proposition, that we should be allowed a certain number of ships to be prescribed by Germany upon which our people could sail! Of course, if we accepted her conditions, we would have to accept the conditions that any other belligerent, or neutral, for that matter, ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... oriental MSS. in the Bibliotheque Royale, which was to be completed in ten folio volumes, the first of which, just out, he was showing me. He complained of the extreme slowness of the Government presses in getting on with the work. This he attributed to the absurd costliness, as he considered it, of the style in which the work was brought out. The cost of producing that first volume he told me had been over 1,600l. sterling. It was to be sold at a little less than a hundred ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... nothing save love, and a fitful temperament, upon which she could draw for conversation. Those whose education debars them from deriving instruction from things, have in general the power to extract amusement from persons:—they can talk of the ridiculous Mrs. So-and-so, or the absurd Mr. Blank. But our lovers saw no society: and thus their commune was thrown entirely on their ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... as gross mistakes in the pursuit of this as of other branches of knowledge. I imagined, on setting out, a system of strict and impartial investigation of the sources of history. I was inspired with the absurd ambition, not uncommon to youthful students, of knowing as much as their masters. I imagined it necessary for me, stripling as I was, to study the authorities; and, imbued with the strict necessity of judging for myself, I turned from ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... oddly enough, while I could hear Jimmy calling his captors by all the absurd and ugly names he could invent, the pain and aching seemed to come back into my wrists and ankles, making me groan as I sat and clasped them, a little use having begun to ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... See the absurd and ridiculous promises made upon it! Why do they dare so to humbug the people? Because, in no other way could they get people to ride ten or twelve miles through a summer drouth to hand over their ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... gathering together in common worship and mutual edification. But the sense of individual rights and responsibilities seems to have overshadowed the love for the whole brotherhood of disciples. The condition of the church illustrated the Separatism of Williams reduced to the absurd. There was feeble organization of Christians in knots and coteries. But sixty years passed before the building of the first house of worship in Providence, and at the end of almost a century "there had not existed in the whole colony more than eight or ten churches of any denomination, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... along towards Fuentes d'Onoro, I could not help feeling provoked at the absurd circumstances in which I was involved. To be made the subject of laughter for a whole army was by no means a pleasant consideration; but what I felt far worse was the possibility that the mention of my name in connection with a reprimand might ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... debased worshipers. It is also true that the pretended exhibitions of the tooth of Buddha can still inspire an ignorant multitude of people to place themselves in adoring procession and to debase themselves with the absurd rites of frenzy and unreason. Nor do I forget the fact that my countrymen are broken up into hundreds of sects, and their language frittered into hundreds of dialects. Yet, as I said, we are full of hope, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... police and military in their attempts to capture or prevent their escape. No European has, however, yet paid the penalties of the law, for aggressions upon the Aborigines, though many have deserved to do so. The difficulty consists in legally bringing home the offence, or in refuting the absurd stories that are generally made up ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... Catholics may consider and address them so unharmed. The bill, as modified passed to a second reading on the 22d of March, by 438 ayes to 95 nays—a majority of more than four to one. Such is the finale of the absurd and disproportionate agitation with respect to the "Papal Agression." Nobody is satisfied. The Church party, who mourned over the shortcomings of the bill as originally presented, are of course still less pleased with it as emasculated. The Catholics ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... sorry you repudiate the confession, Hippolyte—it is sincere; and, do you know, even the absurd parts of it—and these are many" (here Hippolyte frowned savagely) "are, as it were, redeemed by suffering—for it must have cost you something to admit what you there say—great torture, perhaps, for all I know. Your motive ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... each other. One said, "Don't you see that lady with the rose has not got any salad?" The other answered, "Attend to your own affairs." Count Pourtales, crimson with mortification, was about to get up and apologize, when he was suddenly pulled back into his seat, and the absurd waiters began throwing pellets ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... for several months without eating is one of nature's mysteries. Every one has heard the absurd theory: that he does so by "sucking his paws," and the ingenious Buffon has not only given credence to this story, but endeavours to support it, by stating that the paws when cut open yield a substance ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... brilliant bevy of nobles who flitted gaily round the monarch at Versailles. The young King Louis XVI., it is true, carried through several reforms, but he had not enough strength of will to abolish the absurd immunities from taxation which freed the nobles and titled clergy from the burdens of the State. Thus, down to 1789, the middle classes and peasants bore nearly all the weight of taxation, while the peasants were also ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... were also made in the old world. The conduct of Admiral Byng in the Mediterranean excited popular clamor. The repeated disappointments and miscarriages, the delay of armaments, the neglect of opportunities, the absurd disposition of fleets, were numbered among the misfortunes which resulted from a weak and incapable ministry. Stronger men were demanded by the indignant voice of the nation, and the Duke of Newcastle, first ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... on the neighbours know it. She shrieks, yells, sings, chivies the servant, and skims plates out of the window at the passers-by. Of course, it is really not funny, but pathetic and deplorable—all the same, it is hard to keep from laughing at the absurd contrast between her actions and her appearance. I was called in by accident in the first instance; but I speedily acquired some control over her, so that now the neighbours send for me the moment the crockery begins to come through the window. She has a fair competence, so that ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... having read the letter, for it still lay on the table unopened, but because she could not read it at all! One of Captain Dunning's peculiarities was that he wrote an execrably bad and illegible hand. His English was good, his spelling pretty fair, considering the absurd nature of the orthography of his native tongue, and his sense was excellent, but the whole was usually shrouded in hieroglyphical mystery. Miss Jane could only read the opening "My dearest Sisters," and the concluding "George Dunning," nothing more. But Miss Martha could, ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... doctrine, I said that in the United States there are virtually no beggars, and I might have gone on to discuss the subject from the politico-economical point of view, showing how such indiscriminate almsgiving in perpetual driblets is sure to create the absurd and immoral system which one sees throughout Russia,—hordes of men and women who are able to take care of themselves, and who ought to be far above beggary, cringing and whining to the passers-by for alms; but ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... Lessing's dramatic criticisms will see that he did not at all overrate his obligations to his French contemporary.[250] It has been replied to the absurd taunt about the French inventing nothing, that at least Descartes invented German philosophy. Still more true is it that ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... back to how he had felt yesterday about Topham's warning and how he himself had held the absurd belief that if Don Cazar was going to be in trouble, Drew himself wanted to be there. That was yesterday. But still he pointed his horse south—to the place where Hunt Rennie would return, ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... thousand roubles?" he asked. But his mother remained profitably silent over the preparation of the family soup. The fire now blazed with the additional wood that had been heaped upon it. The little voice repeated the absurd question, and the mother shouted, "Silence! Don't ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... literature had been cultivated with extreme diligence, the drama had hitherto been totally neglected. With the exception of a graceful opera by Bjerregaard, which enjoyed a success sustained over a quarter of a century, the only writings in dramatic form produced in Norway between 1815 and 1850 were the absurd lyrical farces of Wergeland, which were devoid of all importance. Such a thing as a three-act tragedy in blank verse was unknown in modern Norway, so that the youthful apothecary in Grimstad, whatever he was doing, was not slavishly ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... undertakers were called in to screw down the coffin in my presence. My mother afterwards called me to her room, and told me that she was much troubled about the cross. The amulet being of great value, my uncle Aylwin of Alvanley had tried to dissuade her from carrying into execution what he called 'the absurd whim of a mystic'; but my mother urged my promise, and there had been warm words between them, as my mother told me—adding, however, 'and the worst of it is, that scamp Wynne, whom your uncle introduced ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... in power to discriminate between the possible and the absurd, and so old wives' tales, acute speculations, and truthful observations are strangely jumbled together. With rare exceptions they did not contrive new conditions to bring about phenomena which Nature did not spontaneously exhibit—they did not experiment. They attempted to solve the universe ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... rugs strewed the floor. Ibrahim had set sticks of incense burning in silver holders. Upon the dining-room table, beyond the screen of mashrebeeyah work, still stood the tawdry Japanese vase. And the absurd cuckoo clock uttered its foolish ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... the dignity of the frog. "The frog he would a-wooing go" is not, perhaps, disrespectful, although flippant; but "whether his mother would let him or no" is a gross insult. Of course, it is a matter upon which no self-respecting frog ever consults his mother; but the absurd jingle is immortal, and the frog's dignity suffers by it. Then there is a certain pot-bellied smugness of appearance about the frog that provokes a smile in the irreverent. Still, the frog has received some consideration in his time. The great Homer himself ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... of their bridal compact came back to Nick: the absurd agreement on which he and Susy had solemnly pledged their faith. But was it so absurd, after all? It had been Susy's suggestion (not his, thank God!); and perhaps in making it she had been more serious than he ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... In this report the absurd doctrines of nullification and secession are canvassed, and it is shown that they never can be carried out in practice but by a dissolution of the Union. The encouragement given by the policy of the administration to the unjust claims ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... approaching it from a grotesque angle. It came, as Chesterton points out in his own inimitable way, 'into the inner chamber by coming down the chimney.' Which demonstrates the ever nearness of pathos to humour, of the absurd ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... arrangements, that, as there were many wise matters which were conducted in a very foolish manner, so there were many foolish matters conducted very wisely. No greater exemplification of it could be given, than the wise and religious rules of the absurd and blasphemous ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... while a gale was blowing, and saw the waves raging as they raged when Virgil looked upon them. At Venice, then the gayest spot in Europe, the traveller spent the Carnival, the gayest season of the year, in the midst of masques, dances, and serenades. Here he was at once diverted and provoked, by the absurd dramatic pieces which then disgraced the Italian stage. To one of those pieces, however, he was indebted for a valuable hint. He was present when a ridiculous play on the death of Cato was performed. Cato, it seems, was in love with a daughter of Scipio. The lady ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... which Cervantes threw so carelessly from him, and which he regarded only as a bold effort to break up the absurd taste for the fancies of chivalry, has been established by an uninterrupted and an unquestioned success ever since, as the oldest classical specimen of romantic fiction, and as one of the most remarkable monuments of modern genius. But Cervantes is entitled to a higher ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... the absurd phantasmagoria, was going to speak again; but to her horror she discovered that the power of speech had left her. She had for some time been struck with a kind of whispering and tittering about her. In order to make out whence this proceeded, she leaned ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... The absurd cruelty of permitting thousands of women each year to go through abortions to prevent the aggravation of diseases for which they are under treatment assuredly cannot be much longer ignored by the medical profession. Responsibility for the inestimable damage ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... The absurd and improper treatment proposed in the work we have noticed, can afford but little hope to any but the hypochondriacal dyspeptic; he may fly to any measures, however desperate or ludicrous; for "a mind diseased no medicine can cure." Let ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... procession, evening brought the march of Garotte's Kalathumpians. They were carried on three long drays, each drawn by four horses, half of them white, half black. They were an outlandish crew of comedians, dressed after no pattern, save the absurd- clowns, satyrs, kings, soldiers, imps, barbarians. Many had hideous false-faces, and a few horribly tall skeletons had heads of pumpkins containing lighted candles. The marshals were pierrots and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... had not finished telling his amusing story. The humours of railway building in South America appealed to his keen appreciation of the absurd, and he told his instances of ignorant prejudice and as ignorant cunning very well. Now, Mrs. Gould gave him all her attention as he walked by her side escorting the ladies out of the room. Finally all three ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... at a cuff. "Well, look at it from this angle. Before you discovered that your marriage was a sham, you were prepared to assume a few obligations and some of them may still subsist. The man with the absurd name can tell you what they are. Surely you are not a slacker. This ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... was hard at work, and that, before proceeding to coercive measures, Mr. Forster was getting together all the trustworthy evidence that could be obtained as to the state of the country. As an instance of the absurd rumours flying about, I may mention that I was in the presence of two Irish peers solemnly assured that a "rising in the West" was imminent, and not only imminent, but fixed for the 31st October. Now, who has not heard at any time ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... that joy of the running, there was a joy of his own, an instinct and a sense, virgin and shy, absolved from memory. He found it, when Winny Dymond ran before him, in the slender, innocent movement of her hips under her thin tunic, in the absurd flap-flapping of the door-knocker plat on her shoulders, in the glances flicked at him by the tail of her eye as she wheeled from him in the endless pursuit and capture and approach and flight, as she was parted, was flung from him and returned to him in the windings ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... was too much afraid of being hindered not to set out immediately after having received my license, so as to take advantage of the escort of some of the deputies with whom I had a slight acquaintance. I also hoped to avoid M. de Lamont's leave-takings, but I was not fortunate enough to do this. The absurd man, learning that I was on the point of departure, came rushing headlong into the court where the carriages stood, having first disordered his hair and untied his scarf, so as to give himself a distracted appearance, and thus he threw himself on his knees between me ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the harmonium with a pipe in his mouth. Three men who have camped in Black Canyon for a week are lying like dogs on the floor. They are all over six feet high, immovably solemn, neither smiling at the general hilarity, nor at the absurd changes which are being rung on the harmonium. They may be described as clothed only in boots, for their clothes are torn to rags. They stare vacantly. They have neither seen a woman nor slept under a roof for six months. Negro songs ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... Chateaugiron,' said Monsieur de Vaudrey, looking round at the crowd with a mixture of calm assurance and ironical contempt—'I thank you, in my nephew's name, for having burned the absurd tree which obstructed the entrance to his chateau; you planted it, and it was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... trying to say with all this? Goodness Dorante! You have outdone yourself by exposing me to the absurd ...
— The Middle Class Gentleman - (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) • Moliere
... boiling rapids, in the sudden attack of wild beast and hostile man, or in the unexpected approach of any danger; men who, having been well tried, needed not to boast, and who, having carried off triumphantly their respective brides many years ago, needed not to decorate their persons with the absurd finery that characterised their younger brethren. They were comparatively few in number, but they composed a sterling band, of which every man was a hero. Among them were those who occupied the high positions of bowman and steersman, and when we tell the reader that on these two men frequently ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... newspaper, at the very time when its proprietor and editor was sojourning at Marienbad with the Prince of Wales, and in daily intercourse with the British heir apparent, who was naturally supposed to know the truth about young Hahnke's death. Perhaps the most striking and convincing evidence of the absurd fabrication of this story, which has given much sorrow, both to the emperor and empress, is to be found in the fact that the young officer's father remained at the head of the emperor's military cabinet, and ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... any woman. Captain Oakley had been severely beaten by a smaller man. It was pitiable, but also undignified; and Milly's anxieties about his teeth and nose, though in a certain sense horrible, had also a painful suspicion of the absurd. ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... remarks on the difficulties experienced by him in meeting the literary requirements of the day, and the peculiar demands of editors; his opinion of Mr. Carlyle; the present condition of the stage, the absurd pretensions of actors, and the delusions attempted respecting the "legitimate" drama; the question of the laureateship, and his own qualifications for holding that office; his habits of reading; and finally an avowal of his religious opinions. ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... the duets out of the great song-books which Jim, grumbling, had been forced to bring under his arm from the Rectory. Mrs. Bute, perforce, was obliged to adopt a decent demeanour towards the little adventuress—of course being free to discourse with her daughters afterwards about the absurd respect with which Sir Pitt treated his sister-in-law. But Jim, who had sat next to her at dinner, declared she was a trump, and one and all of the Rector's family agreed that the little Rawdon was a fine boy. They respected a possible ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "is a saint; very kind-hearted; all the refugees are fond of him; for, Excellenza, a liberal may have his virtues. Oho! Here comes a journalist," said Giardini, as a man came in dressed in the absurd way which used to be attributed to a poet in a garret; his coat was threadbare, his boots split, his hat shiny, and his overcoat deplorably ancient. "Excellenza, that poor man is full of talent, and incorruptibly honest. He was born into ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... darkness, the veldt awoke. Animals that had dozed through the hot hours and grazed through the cooler hours in somnolent content now quivered alert. There were runnings here and there, the stamp of hoofs, sharp snortings as taut nerves stretched. Zebras uttered the absurd small-dog barks peculiar to them; ostriches boomed; jackals yapped; unknown birds uttered hasty wild calls. Numerous hyenas, near and far away, moaned like lost souls. Kingozi listened as to the voice of an old acquaintance telling familiar things; the men chattered on, their whole attention within ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... English gentleman—Christian, manly, and enlightened—is more, I believe, than Guizot or Sismondi could comprehend; it is a finer specimen of human nature than any other country, I believe, could furnish'. Nevertheless, our travellers would imitate foreign customs without discrimination, 'as in the absurd habit of not eating fish with a knife, borrowed from the French, who do it because they have no knives fit for use'. Places, no less than people, aroused similar reflections. By Pompeii, Dr. Arnold was not particularly impressed. ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... which I am more familiar, but the mesmeric method has long been known, and the modification of this, which might be called the imaginative method, has been made familiar during the last fifty years under the popular name of psychology, and sometimes under the absurd name of electro-biology. ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various
... read of the raising of Lazarus, and yet refrain from raising a 'law case whether his heir might lawfully detain his inheritance bequeathed unto him by his death, and he, though restored to life, have no plea or title unto his former possessions.' Or we might take the inverse transition from the absurd to the sublime, in his meditations upon hell. He begins by inquiring whether the everlasting fire is the same with that of our earth. 'Some of our chymicks,' it appears, 'facetiously affirm that, at the last fire, all shall be crystallised ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... not insult me by supposing that I credit the absurd fable, with what object I cannot tell, respecting M. de Guiche having been wounded by a wild boar. No, no, monsieur; the real truth is known, and, in addition to the inconvenience of his wound, M. de Guiche runs the risk of losing his ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... persons whose companionship could be preferred to that of Baron von Konigstein, still Vivian sometimes regretted that his friend and Mr. St. George had not continued their rides. The presence of the Baron seemed always to have an unfavourable influence upon the spirits of Miss Fane, and the absurd and evident jealousy of Mr. St. George prevented Vivian from finding in her agreeable conversation some consolation for the loss of the sole enjoyment of Lady Madeleine's exhilarating presence. Mr. St. George ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... was very self-reliant and mature for his age, there was no reason for a hasty engagement—and there was Mr. Kastager! Ida was a splendid little girl, Mrs. Kastager was a very well-bred woman of excellent family, and Kastager himself was capable, rich, and honest, but there was a hint of the absurd about him. A smile came upon people's lips and a twinkle into their eyes when any ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen
... And accordingly the absurd experiment was made. Afterwards, John asked himself a thousand times why he had not foreseen the inevitable result. But the explanation is almost too simple to be recorded: he wished to convince a friend that he would attempt ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... not tell you until I have endeavoured to consider the matter from every point of view. For I should be ashamed of us if we were driven in our perplexity to admit the absurd consequences of which I speak. But if we find the solution, and get away from them, we may regard them only as the difficulties of others, and the ridicule will not attach to us. On the other hand, if we utterly fail, I suppose that we ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... like her more and more. In a house where Bruce lived it was certainly a wonderful help to have a third person often present—if it was the right person. The absurd irritations and scenes of fault-finding that she had become inured to, but which were always trying, were now shorter, milder, or given up altogether. Bruce's temper was perennially good, and got better. Then the constant illnesses that ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... been shamefully duped," said Lady Belamour, "but it is well that it is no worse; nor shall I visit our offences on your father if you show your penitence by absolute submission. The absurd ceremony you went through was a mere mockery, and the old fool, Belamour, showed himself crazed for consenting to such an improper frolic on the part of my son. Whether your innocence be feigned or not, however, I cannot permit you to go out of my custody until ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his harsher mood returning upon him, Iglesias found a certain bitter enjoyment in setting forth the extreme meagreness of his life before this light-hearted, unsubstantial piece of womanhood. Again he classed her with the absurd and exquisite little dogs as something superfluous, out of relation to ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... in what character? On that last subject, be sure, no mercy was shown to her by many a Bideford dame, who had hated the poor girl simply for her beauty; and by many a country lady, who had "always expected that the girl would be brought to ruin by the absurd notice, beyond what her station had a right to, which was taken of her," while every young maiden aspired to fill the throne which Rose had abdicated. So that, on the whole, Bideford considered itself as going on as well without poor Rose as it had done with her, or even better. And though she lingered ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... For some seconds the absurd battle continued, and then, as unexpectedly as he had begun it, the boy gave it up, and as the fiddler laughed harshly, and the fiddle screeched, threw himself on the warm, ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... witchcraft, when with gloomy faces and in unsightly dress the poor fanatics sacrificed every pleasure on the altar of duty; the time when Sunday was a day of horror to children from its gloom, a day when every innocent amusement was forbidden. After religion's infancy comes youth. At that stage, the absurd dress and gloomy faces were not considered essential adjuncts to religion, but free discussion was not allowed upon religious subjects. Everything must be taken for granted, without any investigation on the part of ...
— Bohemian Society • Lydia Leavitt
... and unpopularity, and even that no bishop was sent to superintend the exertions, or sustain the efficacy, or cement the connexion of the Church in America with the Church in England. The whole of the united provinces were, by the absurd fiction of a sinecure law, "in the diocese of London!" Of course, in the first collision, the Church was swept away like chaff before the wind. An Episcopal Church has since risen in its room; but it ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... large landholders, could enter into such engagements: and thus there grew up a class of tax-farmers and contractors, who, in the rapid growth of their wealth, in their power over the state to which they appeared to be servants, and in the absurd and sterile basis of their moneyed dominion, quite admit of comparison with the speculators on the stock exchange ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... a hostile tone beginning with the words "We have always feared" and a guarded, half-column leader, opening with the phrase: "It is a deplorable sign of the times" what was, in effect, an austere, general rebuke to the absurd infatuations of the investing public. She glanced through these articles, a line here and a line there—no more was necessary to catch beyond doubt the murmur of the oncoming flood. Several slighting references by name to de Barral revived her animosity ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... who embraces Islam becomes a Musalli. The Sikh Mazhbis, who are the descendants of sweeper converts, have done excellent service in our Pioneer regiments. The Hindu of the Panjab in his avoidance of "untouchables" has never gone to the absurd lengths of the high caste Madrasi, and the tendency is towards a ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... The absurd impulse to run out after Jacobus (for I had been startled, too) once repressed, I took a chair, placed it not very far from her, sat down deliberately, and began to talk about the garden, caring not what I said, but using a gentle caressing intonation as one talks to soothe ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... writing the 'Heptameron' and some religious books,—the first survives, the others are forgotten, wit and indelicacy being sometimes better literature preservers than holiness; lax court morals and the absurd chivalry business were in full feather, and the joust and the tournament were the frequent pastime of titled fine gentlemen who could fight better than they could spell, while religion was the passion of their ladies, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Parables, they deal with first principles under the simplest forms. They convey knowledge of the world, shrewd lessons of virtue and vice, of common sense and sense of humour, of the seemly and the absurd, of pleasure and pain, success and failure, in narratives where the plot moves briskly and dramatically from a beginning to an end. They treat, not of the corner of a nursery or a playground, but of the world at large, and life in perspective; of forces ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... to have settled into permanency. Of course it was only the ridiculous fashion of the world he once knew, but he could not free himself of the fancy that Priscilla was more her real self in the shabby trappings than she had ever been in the absurd ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... like his father, a zealous Zoroastrian. His faith was exposed to considerable trial. Never was there a time of greater religious ferment in the East, or a crisis which more shook men's belief in ancestral creeds. The absurd idolatry which had generally prevailed through Western Asia for two thousand years—a nature-worship which gave the sanction of religion to the gratification of men's lowest propensities—was shaken to its foundation; ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... Island, which lay directly in her track, but which it was manifest her pilot could not discern from the deck. In a few moments she was stationary. All this I could plainly perceive, although the hull of the vessel was invisible. Some idea may be formed of the obscurity occasioned by the fog, from the absurd stories that were waggishly put abroad at the time of the accident. It was gravely asserted that the first notice the sentinel had of her approach, was a poke in the side from her jibboom, which knocked him over into the moat and ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... by which it was hoped the people might rule more directly, and prevent a few men from overcoming the wishes of the many. One of these methods was the direct primary, so that the voters might choose their candidates themselves, instead of leaving it to the absurd conventions, where large crowds of men are hired to fill the galleries, yell for one candidate, and try ...
— Theodore Roosevelt • Edmund Lester Pearson
... And on waking, though the absurd masquerading of words and thoughts had ceased, she was still weighed down with the horror of the dream, which she knew had a corresponding reality still more awful. And there was no adversary to all this anguish; everybody acquiesced, nay, everybody ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... the cab, and coming forward with confidence opened the door and stepped in. As Arthur drove off the blood surged to his head and his heart in a way that made his ears sing. It seemed impossible that the absurd should turn out wisdom at the first jump. As he drove along he wondered over the capacities of art. No two individuals could have been more unlike in essentials than Edith Conyngham and Sister Claire. Now it would appear ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... to say that the Ambrones and Ligurians were of one stock, and some writers conclude that they were both Celts. This may be so or it may not, for evidence is wanting. Of all the absurd parade of learning under which ancient history has been buried by modern critics, the weightiest and the most worthless part is that which labours to discover the relationship of people of whom we have only little, and that ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... or four inches in diameter. It is difficult to admit that the crocodiles swallow these stony masses accidentally, for they do not catch fish with their lower jaw resting on the ground at the bottom of the river. The Indians have framed the absurd hypothesis that these indolent animals like to augment their weight, that they may have less trouble in diving. I rather think that they load their stomach with large pebbles to excite an abundant secretion ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... tradesmen should economise paper by ceasing to send out a separate expression of thanks with every receipted bill. A further economy is suggested by a hardened creditor, who advocates the abolition of the absurd custom of sending out a quarterly statement of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 7, 1917. • Various
... Chief Justice, most strongly against him. Whatever makes for him is kept out of sight. To have been born a Roman Catholic is a crime; to have deliberately adopted that faith, is a damnable sin; one for which there is no expiation. The absurd fictions of Oates and Bedlow are commended to the jury as worthy of implicit credence. The whole weight of judicial authority and influence is thrown into ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... burned it. You allowed him to be dishonored and he has resigned from the ministry. Do not think for a moment, Monseigneur, that Rabourdin ever had the absurd thought (as des Lupeaulx tries to make it believed) to change the admirable centralization ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... come from? Let me present you to Mrs. Morrison," and Miss Sherwin, with a becoming color in her face, was explaining that Mr. Carter was an old friend, and they were all talking and laughing at once in the absurd way people have sometimes, so that it was next ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard |
