"Babyish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with its fresh blue ribbons, the most elegant and proper costume she could have; but now, when she saw Fanny's pink silk, with a white tarlatan tunic, and innumerable puffings, bows, and streamers, her own simple little toilet lost all its charms in her eyes, and looked very babyish and old-fashioned. ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... first fortnight, the neighborhood had accepted Granny and Maida as the mother-in-law and daughter of a "traveling man." From the beginning Granny had seemed one of them, but Maida was a puzzle. The children could not understand how a little girl could be grown-up and babyish at the same time. And if you stop to think it over, perhaps you ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... her an energetic shake, and knitting her brow in a childish frown, "that's babyish. You'll strike on every rock and bend before each gale if you talk in such a fashion. Don't be a fool, Nellie; pluck up some spirit, and show Ada Irvine you're above her contempt." Winnie spoke as if possessed with all the wisdom of the ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... on the boat,' remarked Ruby; who, by the way, was good to look at—a black-eyed lass with regular features and lots of pink and white complexion. Pearl, languidly sipping her beer, nodded in the affirmative. This person, evidently the younger of the two, had a babyish face, big innocent blue eyes, and a profusion of fluffy yellow hair. She did not appeal as much to my sense of the beautiful as the dark one did; but I have always been partial to brunettes. She told me later that she was twenty—which figure was enough for me to know, I suppose. Oh, I understand ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... of affairs, forager, financier—overcome at last with the fulness of the situation, made a really babyish square mouth, and threw himself ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... Vivian, thankful that another shared her sensation. "So have I. I feel about as big as a field-mouse, and I think I know why. You just know a girl like her would never fall off a horse, or run away from a gun, or—do anything babyish like that. And just imagine daring to live all alone in a little cabin like this! I'd die! ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... speaks in poetry," laughed Eric. "That was Florence Percival, who led the class in mathematics, as I'm a living man. By many she is considered the beauty of her class. I can't say that such is my opinion. I don't greatly care for that blonde, babyish style of loveliness—I prefer Agnes Campion. Did you notice her—the tall, dark girl with the ropes of hair and a sort of crimson, velvety bloom on her face, ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... front of a long facade of a somewhat severe building, and a little careless man in a shooting jacket and knickerbockers ran down the steps. He had a weak, fair moustache and dull, blue, babyish eyes; his features were insignificant, but his manner extremely pleasant and hospitable, This was the Duke of Aylesbury, perhaps the largest landowner in Europe, and known only as a horsebreeder until he began to write abrupt little letters about the Budget. He led the French Duke ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... paler than her sister: of a certain babyish prettiness. She had Mrs. Oldrieve's weak mouth and ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... the man's side, and until I called upon Ann I felt quite in sympathy with him. And still I cannot tell you, dearest Floyd, what changed my mind, unless it was the sight of that sick boy. He was sleeping when I went in, and was muttering over a babyish prayer, which quite touched me. I had no opportunity to talk with him, nor the girl either. She was riding with Horace, and Everett tells me that he (Horace) is quite infatuated ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... officer's family, that like the D——-s had been bound up in friendship with ours for more than a century. As she was two or three years younger than I, I had at first taken but little notice of her—probably I thought her too babyish. ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... when Our Lord wished to free me from childhood's failings, and even withdraw me from its innocent pleasures. On this occasion, instead of indulging me as he generally did, Papa seemed vexed, and on my way upstairs I heard him say: "Really all this is too babyish for a big girl like Therese, and I hope it is the last year it will happen." His words cut me to the quick. Celine, knowing how sensitive I was, whispered: "Don't go downstairs just yet—wait a little, you would cry too much if you looked ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... getting rather tired of this," said Fitz, at last. "I suppose it's very nice to them, and they feel very grateful to your father for bringing the guns and ammunition to beat off this other President fellow; but keeping on with all this seems so babyish and silly. Why can't they say, 'Thank Heaven!' and have ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... "Babyish nonsense, and rubbish, all of it!" exclaimed the aunt, and a gay smile, an after-glow of the joys of her own youth, suddenly ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... before my head got cool, and plastered over with leaves and ointment. They'd left a bit of scalp at the back, being in rather too great a hurry to do their work as handily as usual; and a new skin growed over, after a little—a babyish sort of skin, that wasn't half thick enough, and wouldn't bear no new crop of hair. So I had to eke out and keep my head comfortable with an old yellow handkercher; which I always wore till I got to San Francisco, on my way back here. I met with a priest at San Francisco, who told me ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... sister agreed. 'I think they're very nice. But they're rather babyish; you see they've always lived at home, and never had to depend on themselves at all. I think they're ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... better," she said. "I feel babyish. I should like a good square cry. But I won't have one. Don't be afraid. The motto is 'No snivelling, full steam ahead.'—But as to the stage, I'm not sure that won't prove the solution of most difficulties in the end. Sometimes it pulls badly at my heartstrings, and I shouldn't ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... heeded, by the sedulous care to avoid an accidental smile, and by the variety of disconsolate attitudes exhibited to the beholders. This species of silence has almost without exception its origin in that babyish vanity which is always gratified by exciting attention, without ever perceiving that it provokes contempt. In these cases, as nature is wholly out of the question, and the mind is guarded against its own feelings, dress and ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... young men. Skene and his wife and daughter looked in in the evening. I suppose I am turning to my second childhood, for not only am I filled drunk, or made stupid at least, with one bottle of wine, but I am disabled from writing by chilblains on my fingers—a most babyish complaint. They say that the character is indicated by the handwriting; if so, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... treasures, and human society would soon blossom as the rose. The great thing needed now by our society is more woman-influence—more woman-thought, character, and power. Our female Education is too superficial, trifling, babyish. Our girls are not half developed. Our young women do not exhibit one half their real strength and beauty. Their minds are robbed of much of their natural vigor. They are dwarfed by their ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... the throat, and had short sleeves, and very cool and sweet Patty looked in it. Her gold curls were piled high on her head, and kept there by a twist of pink ribbon. She wore no jewelry, and the simple attire was very becoming to the soft, babyish curves of her neck ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... the Van Clupps are listening to the conversation with straining ears. What strange person is this? She does not talk bad grammar, though her manner of expressing herself is somewhat quaint and foreign. But she is babyish—perfectly babyish! The idea of any well-bred woman condescending to sing the praises of her own husband in public! Absurd! "Deserves every-one's good wishes!"—pooh! her "great desire is to make him always happy!"—what utter rubbish!—and he is a "light-hearted ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... was spoken aloud and hurriedly, and Prudence leaped to her feet. Her fair hair clung about her face in damp babyish tendrils, and her face was flushed and dusty, but alight with friendly interest. She ran forward eagerly, thrusting forth ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... a recital, inches of inside measure, all the western window wet and no smoke settling, all this and a hurricane, is a flight simple, it is not babyish, it ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... the relationship demanded some affection from him. He had fancied that he was giving her affection, but he was doing nothing of the sort.... His childish troubles had been confided to servants. His babyish woes had been comforted by servants. What genuine love he had been able to give had been given to servants. She had not been the companion of his babyhood as his father had failed to be the companion of his youth. ... So far as the finer, the sweeter affairs of parenthood went, ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... because the lady, whom he had never wooed at all, does not marry him, but gives her hand (why should she not?) to the man who sues for it. Did Witchaire expect that the lady was to propose to him? The poem opens with some very babyish verses descriptive of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... she was ashamed of the bright drops that stole through her lashes from very weariness. Hugh would think her babyish and fretful. She must not forget she was Lady Redmond; so she answered without ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... to express the worth of truly worthy things, of brotherhood and garrulity, and the brief and kindly leisure of the poor. Of course, the great part of the more stolid reproaches directed against the Omarite morality are as false and babyish as such reproaches usually are. One critic, whose work I have read, had the incredible foolishness to call Omar an atheist and a materialist. It is almost impossible for an Oriental to be either; the East understands metaphysics too well for that. Of course, the ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... I could keep you always," she said, poutingly. "You look so nice and babyish!" But she knew that she could not keep him, and after a time she stood up again and sighed, and fell to stroking him thoughtfully. "I'll have you to-day, anyway," she declared, finally, with promise of enjoyment in her voice, as one who meant to make the ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... he is," she says, going up to Adolphe, and talking the babyish, caressing language of ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... abandoned the creek and turned up a deep ravine, which he followed until he came to a dip, or plateau-like plain, halfway up a broad slope. Here he found a rock on the sunny side of a grassy knoll, and stopped. It may be that little Muskwa's babyish friendship, the caress of his soft little red tongue at just the psychological moment, and his perseverance in following Thor had all combined to touch a responsive chord in the other's big brute heart, for after nosing about restlessly for a few moments Thor stretched himself out beside ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... edge of the group which had closed in about the three arrivals, Marjorie's searching eyes spied a small, flaxen-haired young woman with wide-opened blue eyes and a babyish expression, coming toward her. The latter was burdened with a heavy seal traveling case and a bag of golf sticks. She had evidently emerged from the coach behind the one from which Nella and her two companions had come. As she advanced, she gazed about her ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... these games are apt to seem "babyish" to a child and to lose interest for him. His games then work through a longer evolution before reaching their climax, as where an entire group of players instead of one has to be caught before the game is won, as in ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... my last dollar, or, better, my hopes of escaping from Farallone, that as man and wife she and the groom would never live together again. I felt terribly sorry for the groom. He had, as had I, been utterly inefficient, helpless, babyish, and cowardly—yet the odds against us had seemed overwhelming. But now as we journeyed down the river, and the distance between us and Farallone grew more, I kept thinking of men whom I had known; men physically weaker than the groom and I, who, ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... Caroline was not long in getting the soap and water ready, which she carried off to the school-room; and though Herbert at first called it a babyish game, and stood apart by the window watching the rain, he could not help joining his sister ...
— Carry's Rose - or, the Magic of Kindness. A Tale for the Young • Mrs. George Cupples
... our cradles we were dissimilar. Gage was a pattern baby, never cried for anything, and delighted everyone with her pretty ways; and I was always grabbing at father's spectacles with my podgy little fingers, and screaming for the carving-knife or any such incongruous thing. Do you know my first babyish ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... on him he was fast asleep, a rosy flush on his babyish, tearstained cheek, his red lips half parted, his curly head pillowed on his arm, and close against his soft, young throat there nestled the left hind ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... to pass our door, where stood Mrs. Tod and the baby. It stretched out its little arms to come to her, with that pretty, babyish gesture which I suppose no woman can resist. Miss March could not. She stopped, and began tossing ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... rested half open on the leather patch that covered the knee of his overalls. A picture of toilworn age, of the inevitable end of all mortal labour, he had sat for hours in the faint sunshine, smiling with his sunken, babyish mouth at the brood of white turkeys that crowded about ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... within an inch or two of the table, and then smiting it suddenly on the mahogany, "understand this: it is vulgar and puerile to confound generals with particulars. In every case there is the rule and there are the exceptions. Your questions are stupid and babyish. Ring the bell, if you ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... now saw that the cart was standing level and open, and within it there appeared a nest of brown curls and one slim, babyish hand. ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... but Universal Peace will hardly come as the result of universal preparedness for war, as these dear people seem to hope. It will only come as the result of a universal feeling that war is the most babyish and laughably idiotic thing that this poor world has evolved. Our writer says sadly that there is no hope of doing without armies—we are not angels. It is not a question of "not being angels," it is a question of not being childish lunatics. Possibly there is no hope of this either, but ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... babyish face under the fashionable hat looked at him askance. Lady Fanny's tone changed—took ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the golden memories of his boyhood, no school and endless goodies. For Hubert, sixteen years old and five feet, ten inches, in height, it was reserved to go through the disease alone. He was not seriously ill; but his whole soul revolted at the babyish nature of his complaint, and at the tedium ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... Harold Sohlberg only a little while to appreciate that he belonged to this order of artists. He had a wild, stormy, November eye, a wealth of loose, brownish-black hair combed upward from the temples, with one lock straggling Napoleonically down toward the eyes; cheeks that had almost a babyish tint to them; lips much too rich, red, and sensuous; a nose that was fine and large and full, but only faintly aquiline; and eyebrows and mustache that somehow seemed to flare quite like his errant and ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... beads glistened upon her lashes in the fulness and joy of her deliverance from doubt and fear, and before she could twinkle them back, broke into smaller brilliants upon her cheeks and the bosom of her dress. It was very babyish and foolish, but it is to be questioned whether she could have contrived a more telling situation had she studied it ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... photograph of the son Theodore, handsome, sullen, dressed in the fashion of the opening century, and there was more than one of Theodore's daughter, the last of the Melroses. Leslie had been a wide-eyed, sturdy little girl who carried a perpetually surprised, even a babyish expression into her teens, but her last pictures showed the debutante, the piquant and charming eighteen-year-old, whose knowingly tipped hat and high fur collar left only a glimpse of ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... well yourself. I was in good spirits, and quite a number of 'em. The boy wus feelin' well too. He had a little black velvet suit and a deep lace collar, and his gold curls was a hangin' down under his little black velvet cap. They made him look more babyish; but I believe Cicely kept 'em so to make him look young, she felt so dubersome about his future. But he looked sweet enough to kiss right there in ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... and nervous; his little, round, girlish face is pale and void of expression; he squints as if he were near-sighted, although his eyes are good, and his voice is soft and babyish. ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... newspaper of Alabama, recently said: "But it is a weak cry when the white man asks odds on intelligence over the Negro. When nature has already so handicapped the African in the race for knowledge, the cry of the boasted Anglo-Saxon for still further odds seems babyish. What wonder that the world looks on in surprise, if not disgust? It cannot help but say, If our contention be true that the Negro is an inferior race, then the odds ought to be on the other side, if any are to be ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... player is hard pressed or breathless, or does not wish to play, he may become immune from tagging by crossing any one finger over its neighbor on either hand, as the forefinger over the middle finger. It is considered "babyish," however, to resort to this unless there is some very good reason. A player who has had a good fair chase ought to be willing ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... understand her. She only laughs when she does something; and, nine times out of ten, it is something in which I cannot see anything to laugh at—something which— well, if it were not Cecilia, I should say was rather silly and babyish. I never did see any fun in playing foolish tricks on people, and worrying them in all sorts of ways. Hatty just enjoys it; but ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... you able, you crafty rogue, to flay two cows, new-born and babyish as you are? For my part, I dread the strength that will be yours: there is no need you should keep growing long, Cyllenian, ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... to fail in practice because he could not handle people successfully, or because he lacked the courage to face the constant reiteration of complaints and suffering by his patients. Sick people are selfish, peevish, whimsical, and babyish. It takes tact, patience, understanding, and good nature to handle ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... all help the argument, and, whatever may have been thought of them by the generation which fancied that Christ Church had refuted Bentley, are such as, in the present day, a scholar of very humble pretensions may venture to pronounce boyish, or rather babyish. The censures are not sufficiently discriminating. The authors whom Collier accused had been guilty of such gross sins against decency that he was certain to weaken instead of strengthening his case, by introducing into his charge against ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... said, giving him a sharp, admonitory clutch. "You DO. Only you're silly, and obstinate, babyish and silly and obstinate. An obstinate little boy—you DO feel wrong. And you ARE wrong. And you've got ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... "People might be frightened without making such a fuss. Molly declared she would rather not go to Paris at all. That's what I call being babyish—it isn't the feeling frightened that's babyish—for people might feel frightened and still be brave, ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... himself well in hand and talked calmly on impersonal subjects. After all, it was Katherine who made the first break when she got up to say good-bye. She was in the middle of some conventional sentence when she suddenly stopped short, and her voice trailed off in a babyish quiver. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... delicious pink, her wide hazel eyes deepen and glow, her little face light up with elfish mirth, and her round, childish figure poise itself in some coquettish attitude. Then she had such absurd little hands, with short fingers and babyish dimples, such tiny feet, and such a wealth of crinkled dark-brown hair—such bewitching little helpless ways, too, a fashion of throwing herself appealingly on your compassion which no man on earth could resist! At bottom she was a self-reliant, independent little soul, but no mortal man ever found ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... Its ideals are those of children, of girl angels, white wings, floating dresses, no sheep, but lambs. "Surely there is nothing in all the world so babyish." One can hardly imagine a man with a deep voice, with the storm of life beating his soul, amid those baby faces. If happiness in any act or attitude is perfect, it will last forever. Where is due the weariness or satiety? But if happiness be perfect, this is impossible; so life ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... flitted across Isy's face, and with it returned the almost babyish look that used to form part of her charm. Like an obedient child, she set herself to eat and drink what she could; and when she had evidently done ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... is not strange that my Thought Book seems so babyish and foolish to me when I think of all I have gone through and the millions of things I have learned, and how much better I spell than I ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... dinners were as wearisome as this. Rollins finally followed Trennahan's example and devoted himself to Caro Folsom, a yellow-haired girl with babyish green eyes, a lisp, and an astute brain. On Magdalena's left was a blond and babbling youth named Ellis, who made no secret of the fact that he was afraid of his intellectual neighbour; he stammered and blushed every ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... beautiful gold and silver clothes—"like a real prince and princess," said Mick, once when he was in a good humour—and taught to dance like fairies. For Tim's words had explained to them the meaning of these fine promises, and, though they said nothing, the little pair were far less babyish and foolish in some ways than the gipsies, who judged them by their delicate appearance and small stature, had any idea of. But still they were very young, and there is no telling how soon they would have begun to get accustomed to their strange life,—how soon even the remembrance of Grandpapa ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... his desk flared up fitfully and as he turned to lower the wick his eyes fell on Connie's picture. The uplifted babyish face came back to him as he had first seen it under floating cherry-colored ribbons, and his anger of the last half-hour melted and vanished utterly away. For the sake of those few months, when the waning fire within him had leaped despairingly toward the flame of ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... of his own voice was vaguely comforting: but the moment he began to run, he felt as if some one—or Something—was running after him. He knew there was nothing. He knew it was babyish. But what could you do if your legs were in a fearful hurry of their own accord? Besides, Tara was waiting. Somehow Tara seemed the point of safety. He didn't believe ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... but one of the little Beresfords, and she was six years old when the baby came, so she was quite a responsible person and ready to be a great help to nurse. Her round face and form assumed airs of dignity, and she strove valiantly to put away all babyish weaknesses as things ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... time the blasphemies are threadbare. Pessimism is now patently, as it always was essentially, more commonplace than piety. Profanity is now more than an affectation—it is a convention. The curse against God is Exercise I. in the primer of minor poetry. It was not, assuredly, for such babyish solemnities that our imaginary prophet was stoned in the morning of the world. If we weigh the matter in the faultless scales of imagination, if we see what is the real trend of humanity, we shall feel it most probable ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... A babyish voice babbled merrily, but the sounds were all "goos" and "ahs" without any resemblance to words. Bobby may have imagined he was talking, but ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... about the minds of a certain class of people, but as to Rose's mind let me tell you that in comparison with hers yours is absolutely infantile, my adventurous friend. It would be contemptible if it weren't so—what shall I call it?—babyish. You ought to be slapped and put to bed." There was an extraordinary earnestness in her tone and when she ceased I listened yet to the seductive inflexions of her voice, that no matter in what mood she spoke seemed only fit for tenderness and love. And ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... as it stands, is a sweet, innocent face—an honest girl's face—almost babyish in its transparency but... the innocence has all been put into ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... Denny, as Fritz would have said, "shut up." She could not bear it to be thought that she was babyish or "silly." Her great, great wish was to be considered quite a big girl. You could get her to do anything by telling her it would be babyish not to do it, or that doing it would be like big people, which, of course, showed that she was rather babyish in reality, as sensible ...
— The Adventures of Herr Baby • Mrs. Molesworth
... and I could only keep on stroking the child's head as I used to, when she came to seek consolation for babyish sorrows. Of course I was worried about her, and realized how helpless I was. She hadn't grown over night, naturally, yet something appeared to have been added to her stature. She was a woman now, full of ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... her r's like w's, lisping with a slightly babyish pronunciation which was at once affected and true to her character. Her voice was ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... rather not leave Dick, if you could have him—Dick will be a good boy—no?' he said, speaking in the questioning negative so common in Argentine, and addressing the pale-faced little boy in a manner far too babyish for his years. ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... heard from my husband; he was well, business prospering, would be home in the time specified, and I was sorry that I had been so foolish; the days were pleasant, and he needed change; he might have made a pleasant excursion of it if I had not been so babyish; and I told Willie of all my weakness, and I promised I would never give way again. I knew my husband was never so happy as when at home; he was ambitious in his profession, a stirring business man; it would be necessary ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... that the common charge brought against laughter, of being something babyish, or childish, or boyish—something properly appertaining to early life—is unfounded. But we of course must not be understood to speak of what is technically called giggling, which proceeds more from a looseness of the structures than from any sensation of amusement. Many young ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... separated from us by a few hours' steaming, certain peace-mongers would have been hanged long ago, and our cooing doves of peace would have had molten tar mixed with their feathers. An Italian proverb runs, "It is easy to scoff at a bull from a window," and we indulge in not a little of such babyish effrontery from our safe place in the world. Germany, on the other hand, looks out upon the world from no such safe window-seat; she is down in the ring, and must be prepared at all hazards to take care of herself. That is a reason, ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... The kites were of various shapes: bow kites, two-stick kites, and house kites. A bow kite could be made with half a barrel hoop carried over the top of a cross, but it was troublesome to make, and it did not fly very well, and somehow it was thought to look babyish; but it was held in greater respect than the two-stick kite, which only the smallest boys played with, and which was made by fastening two sticks in the form of a cross. Any fellow more than six years old who appeared on the Commons with a two-stick kite would have been met with ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... is awfully slow. I saw you playing with Dick on the grass. He makes too much noise, screaming out like that, and you only make him worse cutting up with him as you do. Between you and that boy and father, with his constant, babyish complaints, ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... thing that Aurora Rome was clever about, and that was one half of humanity—the other half. The little priest watched, like a Napoleonic campaign, the swift precision of her policy for expelling all while banishing none. Bruno, the big actor, was so babyish that it was easy to send him off in brute sulks, banging the door. Cutler, the British officer, was pachydermatous to ideas, but punctilious about behaviour. He would ignore all hints, but he would die rather than ignore a definite commission from ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... "It seems so babyish for me to be going to night school. But I wouldn't mind that if I thought it would pay. But I don't think it will pay. I can do the work quicker than they can teach me. It would be a loss of time—" he thought of her and his desire ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... perfectly presentable. Mrs. Lee had seen Duchesses as vulgar. She knew more about the practical working of government than Mrs. Lee could ever expect or hope to know. Why then draw back from this interesting lobbyist with such babyish repulsion? ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... ter me it mought be powerful public," Pete Swolford objected. He had a tall, heavy, lumpish, frame, a lackluster eye, a broad, dimpled, babyish face incongruously decorated with a tuft of dark beard at the chin. The suit of brown jeans which he wore bore token variously of the storms it had weathered, and his coarse cowhide boots were drawn over the trousers to the knee. His attention was now and again diverted from the conversation ...
— A Chilhowee Lily - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... "You're not babyish, dear; it's right and womanly to feel grief at losing Gladys; but since it has to be, I want you to conquer that grief, and not ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... rode away, he made a pretence of tying the pale pink neckerchief round his throat, it was on the influence of Miss Cunyngham's lucky sixpence—the pierced coin was secretly attached to his watch-chain—that he relied. In fact, before he had gone far from the lodge, he removed that babyish protection against the rain and stuck it in his pocket; he was not going to throw out a red ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... the velvet vest and the watch and seals, "you may as well begin by telling him that he looks a sort of babyish to me, though I don't pretend ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... audience became more enthusiastic and clamored loudly for encores. Elfreda's imitations provoked continuous laughter, and dainty Arline Thayer, looking not more than seven years old, was a delightful success from her first babyish lisp. Her song of the goblin man who stole little children to work for him in his underground cellar, with its catchy chorus of "Run away, you little children," was immediately adopted by Overton, and when later it was ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... Mrs. Penfold, looking across at Lydia. Youth, happiness, manly strength came in with him. He had no features to speak of—round cheeks, a mouth generally slightly open, and given to smiling, a clear brow, a red and white complexion, a babyish chin, thick fair hair, and a countenance neither reserved nor foolishly indiscreet. Tatham's physical eminence—and it was undisputed—lay not in his plain, good-tempered face, but in the young perfection of his athlete's form. ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... All this looks babyish in the writing, but there was a method in this self-examination. I believed that I was fated to engage in strange ventures, and I wanted to equip myself for the future. The pressing business was that of self-defence, and I turned first ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... codlin, codling; foetus, calf, colt, pup, foal, kitten; lamb, lambkin^; aurelia^, caterpillar, cocoon, nymph, nympha^, orphan, pupa, staddle^. girl; lass, lassie; wench, miss, damsel, demoiselle; maid, maiden; virgin; hoyden. Adj. infantine^, infantile; puerile; boyish, girlish, childish, babyish, kittenish; baby; newborn, unfledged, new-fledged, callow. in the cradle, in swaddling clothes, in long clothes, in arms, in leading strings; at the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Henry. Then he began to look at Sabine furtively, and caught the outline of her sweet, averted head. How irresistibly attractive she was! The exact type he admired; not too intellectual-looking, just soft and round and babyish; there was one little curl on her snowy nuque that he longed to kiss there and then. What a time she was talking to the other man! ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... purpose or not, the next Sunday was eminently unsuccessful; the Collects were imperfect, the answers in the Catechism recurred to disused babyish blunders; Fergus twisted himself into preternatural attitudes, and Valetta teased the Sofy to scratching point, they yawned ferociously at The Birthday, and would not be interested even in the pony's death. Then when they went out walking, they would not hear ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Agatha knelt by the sofa, Miss Valery leaned over her, twisting her curls and stroking down the lids over her brown eyes in the babyish, fondling ways which all good people can condescend to at times, especially ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... young to see them. And now look over to the grocery. Big sister has come out and climbed on the vegetable-stand, and is sitting in the potatoes with little sister in her lap. Little sister waves her fat, red arms in the air and shrieks in babyish delight. The old women with the shawls over their heads are talking together, crooning over the ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... that the house will be a trifle dull without you; and, of course, a young creature like you must feel it, too." And with that he took my hands, awkwardly enough, and began warming them in his own, for they were blue with cold. If Aunt Agatha had only seen him doing it, and me, with the babyish tears ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 356, October 23, 1886. • Various
... been the origin of the attraction of blood in a case which has been reported to me of a youth of 17, the youngest of a large family who are all very strong and entirely normal. He is himself, however, delicate, overgrown, with a narrow chest, a small head, and babyish features, while mentally he is backward, with very defective memory and scant powers of assimilation. He is intensely nervous, peevish, and subject to fits of childish rage. He takes violent fancies to persons of his own sex. But he appears ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... scratching out inasmuch, I should have said nevertheless. When I am not quite sure of a word, I look it out, for I always have my little dictionary close at hand, and that is a great conveyance, you know. I am trying to get over my babyish way of talking, or at least of writing, and hope ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... against it: I said to the peasants, 'For you it is easy, 330 But how about me? Whatever may happen The Elder must come To accounts with the Barin, And how can I answer His babyish questions? And how can I ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... Michelangelo's master, I shall speak in the chapter on S. Maria Novella. This picture, which represents the Adoration of the Shepherds, was painted in 1485, when the artist was thirty-six. It is essentially pleasant: a religious picture on the sunny side. The Child is the soul of babyish content, equally amused with its thumb and the homage it is receiving. Close by is a goldfinch unafraid; in the distance is a citied valley, with a river winding in it; and down a neighbouring hill, on the top of which the shepherds feed their flocks, ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... anything else. He knew vaguely he ought to rejoice with her over her wonderful stroke of luck, that savoured of the fairy-story, but everything was swamped by that one almost resentful reflection. Oh, the irony of fate! Blind fate showering torrents of gold upon this foolish, babyish household drudge; who was all emotion and animal devotion, without the intellectual outlook of a Hottentot, and leaving men of genius to starve, or sell their souls for a handful of it! How was the ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... Mrs. Snooks, I have come to buy a pound of sugar." Unfortunately the facts remain. I find that some of the shrewdest onlookers out here are just beginning to feel a sort of half doubt whether we shall ever conquer the country at all. It depends on whether the home Government and press give up their babyish "let's pretend" attitude and face ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... for my part could see that there was any disgrace in being a mother-boy. But I suppose a boy thinks he is called babyish, if the name is fastened on him. As Harry went on his errand, he no longer whistled, at least he didn't whistle much. And as he went to school next day, and next day, and next day, and found himself left out in the cold, he would have been more than ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... and grimacing.... It was different for Gertrude. How happy Gertrude must be. She was sitting with her elbows on the table laughing out across the table about something.... Millie was not being horrid. She looked just as usual, pudgy and babyish and surprised and half resentful... it was her eyebrows. Miriam began looking ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... little more than seven years old, he was too much of a boy quite to enjoy his position on the master's shoulder. He felt it too babyish to be altogether honorable to the protector of Lenichen and incipient bread-winner of the family. And, therefore, he was relieved when he found himself once ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... superiority—the wordly wisdom in the babyish face was at once so comical and so reassuring that irresistibly Max laughed too; and at the laugh, the little Jacqueline dropped to her knees beside the dressing-table ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... child, with all your wishes and longings and requests, even though they were sometimes childish and often impossible to gratify? Would he have been better pleased if you had shut up everything in your own heart, and never of your own accord told him anything about your babyish plans ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... Emperor forsooth—not of France, but of Europe, continental Europe. We have only one man fit to cope with him at all, and the voice of the nation has been shouting for him; but who pays any attention to it? This state of things is childish—simply childish; or perhaps I ought to say babyish. Why, even the children on the sea-shore know, when they make their little sand walls against the tide, how soon they must be swept away. But the difference is this, that they don't live inside them, and they haven't got all that belongs to them inside them. Nobody must suppose ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... you get that far, will you come with me to the Riviera, or to Florence, or Sicily—or Cairo?" the other asked, adjusting her gold- brown wig with her babyish hands. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... gone, however, and they turned homewards, Frances felt that if she had not promised Barbara to help her mother she would have hidden herself in the attic and cried, although that would have been so "horribly babyish" for a girl of twelve that she knew she would have felt ashamed of herself afterwards; though perhaps, her pillow could have told tales of a grief confided to it that the gay-hearted Frances did ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... and wiping her mouth). No, most certainly not. (To herself.) The worst of being so babyish is—one does have to tell such a lot of taradiddles! (To H.) See what I've bought—it's ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 4, 1891 • Various
... because Bobbie was so fond of them. She did not care for them herself, for she thought that as she was ten years old they were too babyish, but Bobbie was only eight, so of course it was not to be expected of him that he would ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... cured of certain faults. "You are a very careless child," she would say. "I am afraid you will never be the neat housekeeper your grandmother was;" or, "Edna, that exhibition of temper over little things must be controlled; it is a very serious fault." Again it would be, "You are very babyish, and lack self-control; there is no need of crying over such a small matter as a little blister on your finger." And Edna wondered if she were expected to be like the Spartan boy who held the fox under his coat ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... a week of good eating and sound sleeping, and then see if you can find anything babyish ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock
... great mind to cry, by way of getting out of the scrape; but having begun as a counsellor and peacemaker, it would never do to be babyish; and on his repeating the question, she said, in a tone which she could not prevent from being lachrymose, 'You make Guy almost angry, you tease him, and when people praise him, you answer as if it would not last! And it is very unfair of you,' concluded ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... also he should not be allowed to get speech with him, if by cunning or force it could be prevented. He kept his door ajar. Presently Nurse Hannah came bustling along with an apronful of things, and let herself into a vacant room hard by. This Hannah was a young woman with a pretty and rather babyish face, diversified by a thick biceps muscle in her arm that a blacksmith need not have blushed for. And I suspect it was this masculine charm, and not her feminine features, that had won her the ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... asks Philip, presently, in a low tone, when the buzz is at its highest; "very old, I mean? She looks so babyish." ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... remarks, the Arab gave a last shake of his dingy finger monkeywards, salaamed low to the party, then shouldering his burden stalked on once more, the little captive looking after him for a minute, and then wrinkling up his mummy visage to give a weak, babyish cry. ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... grasp, I am afraid it would have maddened me beyond hope of reclamation. I have made shipwreck; but a yet sadder fate might have overtaken me, and at least my soul has outridden the storm, thanks to your frail babyish hands, so desperately strong when they grappled that awful night with suicidal sin. Few women have suffered more keenly than I, and yet, in ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... with their assumed roles, their table manners were not impeccable, and many fists pounded on the table, while babyish voices said: "Me wants me thupper," or "Div me some beddy-butter!" But though the bowls and mugs betokened infantile fare, the supper really served included dainty salads and sandwiches, followed by ices, jellies and cakes, and was fully enjoyed by the healthy appetites ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... been crying," he said, in a slightly reproving tone. "I am afraid you do a great deal more of that than is good for you. It is a very babyish habit, and you must try to break ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... nurses scoffed at his moans, and thought it babyish, for a muscular man over six feet to show so many signs of pain. I think that from some cause, the surgeon felt vindictive toward him, and that his subordinates took their cue from him. When I went to give him lemonade, he would ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... age, you know," she said. "He couldn't always be as gentle and loving as when he was a child. A young man would think that so babyish. He wants, as he says, to be independent, and not tied to a woman's apron-string. But in his heart of hearts he loves me best in the whole world, and he wouldn't have been ashamed to let me see it at such a moment. And I should have had a precious memory of him for ever. You shake ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... at all; she only stumbled to her feet in blind haste and hurried away, knowing that collapse into undignified babyish crying was inevitable, and anxious to get away to some place where she might be hidden from the eyes of the others. In that crowded little house there was not much chance of privacy, however, and when Katherine entered the bedroom, ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... a "coon song," and she sang the words of it. They were simple words, childish words, almost babyish, but full of tenderness and love. The little black boy could think of nothing but his Loo-loo. In the night when he was sleeping he awoke and he was weeping, for he was always, always dreaming of his Loo-loo, ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... wealth and fame, and an entry into those circles whither I wished to return, to exercise the royal privileges of a man of genius. You all saw nothing in that masterpiece but the blunder of a young man fresh from college, a babyish fiasco. Your jokes clipped the wings of a throng of illusions, which have never stirred since within me. You, dear Emile, alone brought soothing to the deep wounds that others had made in my heart. You alone will admire my 'Theory of the Will.' I devoted most of my time to that ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... backward and forward and nursing your foot seem rather foolish,—indeed you have perhaps often been told that they are both foolish and babyish,—but, as you say, you "can't help it," and there is a good reason for it. The howl is a call for help; and if the hurt were due to the bite of a wolf or a bear, or the cut had gone deep enough to open an artery, ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson |
