"Whimsically" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... themselves with their own affairs. The new-comer went on quietly with her unpacking, taking no notice of her room-mates, but when the gong sounded for tea she allowed Betty and Sylvia to pass, then looked half-appealingly, half-whimsically at Marjorie. ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... I daub the canvas," Madge protested, with unwonted meekness, as she drew a grey woollen sock over her hand, and pounced upon a small hole in the toe; and at that very instant, which Madge was whimsically regarding as a possible turning-point in her career, ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... of this ballad of mine that led me to think of Monna Vittoria, whom you will remember if you bear in mind the beginning of this, my history, the lady that Messer Simone of the Bardi was whimsically pledged to wed if he failed to win a certain wager that I trust you have not forgotten. And thinking of Monna Vittoria led, in due time, to a meeting with Monna Vittoria that ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Ralph, whimsically, knowing well that his voice would not carry above the roar of the brook, "I wish you'd tell me where you get all your gold! I believe I'd go digging with my finger-nails this morning if I ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... St. George replied; but, leaving the room still at his young friend's side, he added whimsically, for the latter's benefit, in a lower tone: "My ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... there's no gamble about that. But if we challenge him, the chances are—he'll revoke that benediction!" Cadman speculated whimsically. "Then we'll have all the people against us—which is to say, every prospect of success would go glimmering. No, there's nothing for it but to go ahead, ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... ever go back again now, will you?" he asked whimsically, after learning whence I came. "I must," said I, sadly. "Oh don't," said he; "tell them you can't, and just wander about the East." He transshipped shortly and disappeared, one of many passing travellers with whom one is for a few moments on common ground. Our voyage ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... where stray pebbles, loosened by the ungentle tread of pitching hoofs, skidded twice as far as in calm weather. The gray sky bent threateningly above them, wind-torn into flying scud but never showing a hint of blue. Later there might be rain, sleet, snow—or sunshine, as nature might whimsically direct; but for the present she seemed content with only the chill wind that blew the very heart out of ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... delights of beggary! It has all the humor of Rabelais with no touch of the Touraine grossness. It has something of the wisdom of Aurelius, only clad in homespun instead of the purple. The philosophy of contentment was never more merrily nor more whimsically expressed. A synod of sages could not formulate a scheme in praise of poverty more impressive than the contagious humor of his light-hearted merriment. The strolling player has the best of the argument, but he has it ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... is an ambiguous gift, Madam," says I, whimsically; "and may mean much or little. Give me leave to ask whether 't is Pursuit or Attainment as your ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... famous sea song writer, who was also a dramatist, a composer of music, an actor, a scene painter, and a manager, had constructed in Exeter Change what he whimsically called 'The Patagonian Theatre:' in truth, a simple puppet-show, upon the plan of that contrived years before by Mr. Powell, under the Piazza, Covent Garden, and concerning which Steele had written humorously in the Spectator. Dibdin, assisted by one ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... and whimsically shot into his mind the memory- picture in his nursery-book of the old woman who lived in a shoe. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, and was dimly aware of the area of the numbness that bordered the centre that was sensationless ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... Every instance of weak compliance with the whims, of devoted subjection to the power, of destructive attention to the caprices of women by men, since Eve ruined her lord with the fatal apple, was whimsically represented by the rapid ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... against the boneset but to please her mother she promised to swallow faithfully the doses of bitter tea. She thought whimsically as she drank it, "First time I knew that boneset tea is good for an aching heart. Boneset tea—it isn't that I want! I'm afraid I'm losing hold of my old faith in the ultimate triumph of sincerity and truth. Seems that men, even men like Martin Landis, don't want the old-fashioned virtues ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... later Lucile put out the light and crept into bed with a sigh. "Such a wonderful time," she breathed, "and he is good looking. Jack——" Then she smiled whimsically into the dark. "It must run ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... By the way, have you noticed any limpers around this morning—among the spectators, I mean?" he remarked, whimsically. ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... tells me he wishes he had him back, and me in the place he has instead of the one he had," answers the clerk, whimsically. "Does he know you're to command the escort in? You got him into such a scrape then that he's never ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... was still painful. There were also a good many other scars and bruises upon his body, for the cost of building a western railroad is usually heavy. Still, he had an excellent constitution, and was, while not particularly brilliant as a rule, at least whimsically contented in mind. His comrades called him the Kid, or the English Kid, perhaps on account of a certain delicacy of manner and expression which he had somehow contrived to retain, though he had spent several years in logging camps, and his age was ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... alone with Octavius, stares whimsically at him] Tavy: do you want to count for something in ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... between the conduct of the Syndic and the accused, could not but triumph, otherwise the little debauch of the former would have been condemned in the person of the latter. This trial, which terminated so whimsically, nevertheless proves that the best and the gravest institutions may become objects of ridicule when suddenly introduced into a country whose habits are not ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Cecile" he begged half-whimsically, "may I implore you to use some restraint? Inured as I am to the unbounded licence of your tongue and to the abandon that seems so inherent in you, let me assure ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... whimsically. "Jove! lady dear, isn't the blue of the sky and the sea and the gold of the sand just crying out to be the setting of a lovers' paradise? Aren't we here alone just hidden from the world, while the very gulls themselves are screaming: 'Kiss her, kiss her?' And then the fairy princess, instead ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... temper had been for a moment only. He smiled now and whimsically suggested that they write to the director of the Vatican asking that litters be provided. Why not? He grew quite enthusiastic over his description of how charming she would look between tall negro ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... saw that the Mahdists were in far greater force than Lord Wolseley or General Gordon had expected. Not until January 24 could the commander steam away southwards with 20 men of the Sussex regiment and the 190 Sudanese soldiers on the two largest of Gordon's boats—his "penny steamers" as he whimsically ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... petite!" said the fairy princess, whimsically mimicking her accent. "Ah! ah! ma belle! you think I have no eyes;—Virginie sees deep in here!" she said, laying her hand playfully on Mary's heart. "Ah, petite!" she said, gravely, and almost ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... you are surprised to learn that the more you give the more you have to give. This give-and-take of friendly conversation develops mentality, and fluency in expression. Longfellow said: "A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years' study of books," and Holmes whimsically yet none the less truthfully declared that half the time he talked to find out what he thought. But that method must not be applied ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... of loving me, you know,' he went on half whimsically. 'No one would know anything about it. It would be our secret, our little experiment. If only you'd try it. Dearest, I do love ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... He shook his head whimsically. "Chatellerault has had his laugh already, and, like the ill-mannered dog he is, he has kept it to himself. I think, Marcel, that it is our turn now. I have purposely sent Chatellerault away that he may gain no notion of the catastrophic jest ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... following her into police headquarters as there. Ever after she stayed. She took possession of the alley and of headquarters, where the reporters had their daily walk, as if they were hers by right of conquest, which in fact they were. With her whimsically grave countenance, in which all the cares of the vast domain she made it her daily duty to oversee were visibly reflected, she made herself a favorite with every one except the "beanery-man" on the corner, who denounced her angrily, when none of her friends ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... and down the hill, and then, fixing his quiet grey eyes on me, said whimsically, "I am a man of peace, and unarmed; the road is of a truth very lonely, and I have considerable sums of ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... as if you were a tailor," said Miss Bordereau whimsically; and then she added quickly, in a different manner, "This house is very fine; the proportions are magnificent. Today I wanted to look at this place again. I made them bring me out here. When your man came, just now, to learn if I would see you, I was on the point ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... would. Up to a very short time ago I thought you one of the most whimsically entertaining men I ever met, but as I said just now, a spiritual disparagement has arisen between us, a thick fog, and I wish you ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... he said whimsically. "Faith, it's no place at all for cynics. Shall we go hand in hand to find it then—in case you ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... with us at breakfast and dinner. Papa doesn't approve, doesn't believe in young men keeping a stable as Caspar does. Mamma doesn't know what she believes. I am arbitrator—it's terrible, the new generation," she broke off whimsically. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... brandy-glass, which the man had forced upon him, La Boulaye eyed him whimsically ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... said Patty whimsically; "it's a chromo- lithograph. I've often seen them in the offices of steamship companies. This one isn't framed, as they usually are, but it's only a chromo all the same. There's no mistaking its bright colouring and that badly ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... Gray's brows lifted whimsically. "Of course. How should you know? There was a clumsy attempt to do me bodily harm, to—assassinate me. Funny, isn't it? So ill considered and so impracticable.—But about this Avenger matter, if you find it inconvenient to offset my wells ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... feeling stabbed at him. The virus was still in his blood, he became suddenly aware. And then he laughed out loud, at his own camouflaging. He had known it all the time. And this trip it would be kill or cure, he said to himself whimsically. ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... "I guess," remarked Betty whimsically, just as Mollie and Amy ran down the stairs and into the room, "that we're fast becoming what you said you were the other day, Gracie—a regular ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... door open before Neale could knock at it. He came in with a smile, and glanced half-whimsically, half as if he had queer news to give, at the two people who looked so ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... heartily sorry for and ashamed of the experiment before the dinner was half over, and many times since the accident which interrupted the evening I had wondered, half-whimsically, whether my dress catching fire was not a "judgment on me." I had deeply dreaded seeing Mr. Underwood again, but as I looked into his eyes I saw nothing but ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... make it a girls' dormitory. They'll call the girls 'Susans,' I dare say; but I sha'n't mind, and I don't suppose they will either. Besides, boys would be sure to be called 'Grangers,' so what's the difference?" She smiled whimsically, and made ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... truant daughter so whimsically circumstanced as I am? I have sent my intended husband to look after my lover—the man of my father's choice is gone to bring me the man of my own: but how dispiriting is this ...
— The Duenna • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... position he had won in a community where he had experienced the unique sensation of being a pioneer in at the rebirth of a great city, as well as the outdoor sports that kept him fit, that had endeared California to Ruyler, and in time caused him whimsically to visualize New York as a sternly accusing instead of a beckoning finger. Long before he found time to play polo at Burlingame he had conceived a deep respect for a climate where a man might ride horseback, shoot, drive a racing car, or tramp, for at least eight months ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Indeed, what real interest remained to him in the world, Marianne was unable to tell. He lived and moved as one in a dream surrounded by a world of dreams. His eyes were dull from looking into the dim distance of strange thoughts, and the smile which was rarely away from his lips was rather whimsically enduring than ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... Schoverling whimsically, "I might as well show under true colors, since you have led the way," and he called in all the men. At sight of their real numbers, Selim gave a shout ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney
... Whimsically, and almost mechanically, he set himself, in his mind, to count the men. There were twenty mercenaries all told, excluding Fortunio and himself. On Arsenio he might rely not to attack him, perhaps even to come to his assistance at the finish. That left nineteen. Four he ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... art of heterogeneous parts, suggested by some whimsically designed paintings in the artificial grottoes ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... "If you disturb their order in the book, or even the position on the page, the names you send me will mean nothing to me. Not that it will be any great loss," he added whimsically. "I suppose I've become a sort of fan on this, like the business men who claim that their office work interferes with ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... sunshine, which found its way through a gap in the drawn curtains, showed that it was long past the usual hour for rising. She smiled whimsically and closed her eyes once more. She remembered now that she was not in her own little room in the other wing of the house. The curtains proved that. How often in the ten years she had been with Miss Wickham had she begged that the staring ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... together, in which Peacock, partly from conviction and partly from affectation, seems to have been pretty consistent in performing the office of a wet blanket. Testing his intellect on other people's enthusiasms, falling sedately and whimsically in love with various ladies, amongst them his future wife, but keeping such feelings as he had for the most part to himself, Peacock slipped through all the critical stages of youth till in 1816 he published "Headlong Hall." Brains ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... passed from the warmth of the little front shop where the plump girls were still filling pasteboard boxes with holiday cakes, to the brisk chill of the winter street. The little black-and-gilt sign swung and creaked in the wind. Whimsically, and with the memory of that last cream-filled cake fresh in my mind, I saluted the letters that ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... of a set purpose, under the sting of some vast injury, to inflict a great affront. A deliberately designed affront on the part of another man, it therefore remained to the end of his days. The manner in which, as time went on, he permeated the unfortunate lord's ancestry with this offence, was whimsically characteristic of Landor. The writer remembers very well when only the individual himself was held responsible in the story for the breach of good breeding; but in another ten years or so, it began to appear that his father had always been remarkable for ill manners; and ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... much like his countenance and his voice, of immense variety; sometimes plain and unpretending even to flatness; sometimes whimsically brilliant and rhetorical almost beyond the license of private discourse. He has many interesting anecdotes, and tells them very well. He is a shrewd observer; and so fastidious that I am not surprised at the awe in which many people seem to stand when in his company. Though ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... more than a temporary home, and the aspect of every one seemed somewhat changed. In fact, his career at college had disappointed his friends, and they began to doubt his being the great genius they had fancied him. He whimsically alludes to this circumstance in that piece of autobiography, "The Man in Black," in the Citizen ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... I would mind?" He smiled whimsically. "Flavia, I've had a lot of nonsense knocked out of me. It took a bad shock to cure me of Isabel, but I'm well. There's nothing left of that. In fact, I feel all full of holes where ideas have been jolted out of me—I ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... (at which only Mrs. Worden, my lady's woman, and my Polly attended) was so whimsically particular, (though I doubt some of it, at least, will appear too trifling) that I must acquaint my dear Miss Darnford with it, who is desirous of knowing all that relates to ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... old man; don't forget you're a gentleman," and then have wondered whimsically whether that was not a snobbish sentiment. The great cricket match was perhaps the most searching and awkward time they annually went through together, for Jolyon had been at Eton. They would be particularly careful during ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... cases like this. Having nothing else to do I've tried whittling—with this result. Tie it up, Lu, and explain yourself—if you can," he answered, whimsically holding out a finger he had cut ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... are twenty-one, for it is more than adequate provision for such children. If other people think fit to throw away their money, let them." I have not read the will myself, but I heard there was something queer of the sort, very whimsically expressed. The principal heir, Yefim Petrovitch Polenov, the Marshal of Nobility of the province, turned out, however, to be an honest man. Writing to Fyodor Pavlovitch, and discerning at once that he could extract nothing from him for his children's ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... whimsically. "But surely you will leave the baby," and she moved toward them again. "I will hold it," with a half grimace at her own condescension. "It seems so very good and cheerful—I thought they cried. Will ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... intend you to fall off," he said whimsically, when his knife released the strain. But his lips tightened at the outrage; and his eyes, bent upon Jack's left ankle, wore the look of one who could ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... Judith, after she had resumed her seat and I had opened the window, the minstrel having wandered to the next hostelry, where the process of converting "Love's Sweet Dream" into a nightmare was still faintly audible. Judith looked at me whimsically, as I stood breathing the comparatively fresh air and ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... last holding is occupied, and we have only a little over eleven hundred on the land." He smiled whimsically. "But they promise, they promise. Several fat years and they'll average six to ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... Maxwell whimsically, "prodigy or pearl, the Randall Protective Agency may pull Rebecca in opposite directions, but nevertheless she ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Paredes smiled whimsically. He took two faded photographs from his pocket. They were of young men, after the fashion of Blackburns, remarkably alike even without the gray, obliterating marks of ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... to Chicago," George went on, whimsically, "we're going to write up a story of our capture by two bold, bad men who gave their names as Red Mike of the Gulch and Daring Dan of the Devil's Dip or ...
— Boy Scouts on the Great Divide - or, The Ending of the Trail • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... and comradeship with Coleridge; "The South Sea House" with his daily work; "Old China" with his home life; "The Superannuated Man" with his feelings when he was retired on a pension; and finally, "Character of the Late Elia," in which Lamb whimsically writes ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... and six days, to be exact. I can keep count you know," and she smiled whimsically, "for I came on the day of my birth, the day ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... crashing rattlety-bang Agnes sprang to her feet with a nervous shriek. Ethelwynne dived for her skates and felt them carefully. "I tried to pick out the softest spot on the rug," she complained whimsically, "but there wasn't any other way to wake her up. And I simply had to have some ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... with delight. He longed to tell his father so, but unfortunately was granted no opportunity. Once, and once only, did Mr. Coddington refer to the project and that was to inquire whimsically of Peter if his friend Strong was satisfied with the preparations, and whether he had any suggestions to make. Young Strong had no suggestions, Peter declared. He thought the park perfect. And indeed it was! Neither thought nor money had been spared ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... answered whimsically. "My only client refuses to speak to me! Perhaps you could get something ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... why you shouldn't," he answered whimsically. "No one ever ought to cry before breakfast. It's shocking for the appetite and may ruin the complexion for the rest of the day. Besides,—you've ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... superabundance of the best; Judkins and the other servants treated him as the member of the family which they had been informed he was; the lively Dick, with his puppy-like friendliness, asked never an uncomfortable question, and placed Larry almost on the footing of a chum; and the whimsically smiling Miss Sherwood treated Larry exactly as she might have treated any well-bred gentleman and in every detail made good on her promise to give him a chance. In fact, in all his life Larry had never ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... lands. And wherever you went they tell me you made friends. And yet, as you embodied this Company to all these people, and so made for the fanatical loyalty that is destroying me, I suppose you and I are enemies!" He shrugged his shoulders whimsically and ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... us out on the water, for one thing," Captain Jack continued, "and we've been growing stale on shore, of late." Then he added, whimsically: "Besides, if the agents of any more foreign governments show up, they won't ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... Dolores smiled whimsically, for she was too wise to be ignorant of the fact that such men as were in that schooner must first be caught before they might be commanded. Yet the giant's plan ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... had completed it, but with a cumulative effect for her husband's general sense of her method that caused him to overflow, whimsically enough, in his corner, into an ejaculation now frequent on his lips for the relief that, especially in communion like the present, it gave him, and that Fanny had critically traced to the quaint example, the aboriginal homeliness, still so delightful, ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... It struck her, whimsically, that she had seen that look when some shabby devil called with a subscription-book. Perhaps he thought she wanted him to put his name down for so much in sympathy—or even in money... The thought made her laugh again. She saw his look change slowly to perplexity. All ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... with glee. "I've taken a lozenge," he whimsically retorted, expressing a very human delight ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... governors of the province I must caution my readers against confounding them, in point of dignity and power, with those worthy gentlemen who are whimsically denominated governors in this enlightened republic—a set of unhappy victims of popularity, who are in fact the most dependent, henpecked beings in the community, doomed to bear the secret goadings and corrections of their own ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... have to stay here until this mud dries up," went on Jimmie, "or I might feed up Stamp until he is strong enough to pull me out. Only that would take too long, I'm afraid. He's been kept on a diet of carpet tacks, lately, to judge by the many fine points about him," he added, whimsically. ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... had the pleasure of meeting you one morning in Mr. Brewster's suite, when we had an interesting talk on the subject of Mr. B.'s objets d'art. You may recall being particularly interested in a small china figure. To assist your memory, the figure to which I allude is the one which you whimsically referred to as Pongo. I informed you, if you remember, that, could the accompanying figure be secured, the ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... was close behind Maurice and saw the whole thing. He got badly wounded then, and was dangerously ill for some time afterwards, so it happened that he knew nothing about the court-martial till it was all over. When he recovered, he wrote to Maurice, offering his evidence, and"—smiling whimsically across at Kennedy—"received a haughty letter in reply, assuring him that he was mistaken in the facts and that the writer did not dispute the verdict of the court. My brother rather suspected some wild-cat business, so before he went to Australia, some years later, he placed in my hands properly ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... she was very much in earnest in her love affair, that she was jealous of Sylla Chipchase, and that though she believed Lionel Beauchamp loved her, he had not as yet declared himself. She had foolishly, and perhaps whimsically, regarded this as a test question, and she had been answered in the negative. I do not know that she was out-of-the-way foolish. Maidens like Marguerite have played "He loves me, he loves me not," many a time with a flower; and Blanche's ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... feels it in the blood. It's six years—more—since I climbed on to the shelf, and I've been quite smug and self-satisfied most of the time. There's been a twinge of regret every now and then, but nothing I couldn't whistle away. But now—" his words quickened; he spoke them whimsically, yet passionately, in her ear—"between you and me, I'd give an eye, an ear, or a leg—anything I possess in duplicate—to come off the shelf, and have one more fling. I'm stiff! I'm stiff! And, ye gods, I'm only ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... looked at them—lean lithe little men with rapid eyes and supple bodies and great repose. They gave him the same sense of strangeness that he had felt in the presence of the prince and of the woman in the Bitley Reformatory—as if, it whimsically flashed to him, they some way rhymed with a word which he did ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... lost in wonder, so numerous and so whimsically contrasted were these various objects. But amongst this motley assemblage there were some who appeared more capable of interesting her heart and her fancy. She espied those who were no sincere partakers of ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... Ringfield, looking around somewhat whimsically at so many books, on a pile of which he was obliged to sit, felt unusual ignorance. He was probably in the presence of ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... reached the door of the apartment, when Miss Vernon, whose movements were sometimes so rapid as to seem almost instinctive, overtook me, and, catching hold of my arm, stopped me with that air of authority which she could so whimsically assume, and which, from the naivete and simplicity of her manner, had an ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... whimsically. "I met a tourist with spectacles walking along Duke of Gloucester Street. 'Sir,' he said courteously, 'I am looking for Kingsborough. I am told that it is a city.' 'Sir,' I responded, with a bow that did honour to my grandfather's ghost, 'it was once a chartered city; it ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... to burlesque was not to be checked by time or place. It is not easy to imagine any thing more whimsically grotesque than the female Falstaff. A fellow near her, emulating the deep-toned organ, and the man beneath, who, though asleep, joins his sonorous tones in melodious chorus with the admirers of those two pre-eminent poets, Hopkins and Sternhold. ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... Darrow smiled whimsically. "Indeed I do, Helen," he said quietly; "that is why I don't want to touch his life. Science would ruin him quicker than an office—in the long run. What he wants is a job of action—something out West—or in the construction of our great and good city. Now, if I had a political pull, ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... appeared on the right cheek, giving the whole face an air of mischievous geniality. It was an enterprising, swashbuckling sort of mouth, the mouth of one who would lead forlorn hopes with a jest or plot whimsically lawless conspiracies against convention. In its corners and in the firm line of the chin beneath it there lurked, too, more than a hint of imperiousness. A physiognomist would have gathered, correctly, ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the kid," he said whimsically. "It should be the hardest combination in the world to bust. Are you ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... last summer, that you enjoyed keeping up the feud," she reminded, smiling whimsically ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... room, stood on the other side of the queen. For an instant Wananda closed her eyes, and some subtle sense of my own told me they were talking with each other in a way I could not hear. Wananda opened her eyes, turned to me, smiling whimsically. ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... the different administrations toward those Colonies were brought to a head by the breaking out of civil war. Lord Rockingham's ministry, which succeeded Mr. Grenville's, had, as is well known, but a brief existence, and was replaced by the cabinet so whimsically composed by Mr. Pitt, who reserved to himself the office of Privy Seal, with the Earldom of Chatham; the Duke of Grafton being the nominal head of the Treasury, but the direction of affairs being wholly in the hands of the new Earl, till the failure of his health compelled ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... the whimsically comic face of Charlie Murray, famous in film farces—with funny features and gruff ways, but a heart as soft as a mother's. With no idea to whom he was ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... commented: "A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it." Clemens was at the time contemplating a uniform edition of his books, and in one of his letters to Mr. Rogers on the matter he wrote, whimsically, "Now I was proposing to make a thousand sets at a hundred dollars a set, and do the whole canvassing myself..... I would load up every important jail and saloon in America with de luxe editions of my books. But Mrs. Clemens and the children object to this, I do not know ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... you two, I'd be mighty proud of both of you," the scientist said whimsically. "You for the job you did with Gee-Gee last night, and Scotty for pulling that fireman ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... worn to the bone with the day's work, yet the old brilliance played whimsically in his eyes. This day a wearing burden of skin packs had been added to the canoe, ladening it to the water's lip, and the vicious prodding from behind had been in consequence of ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... a big drum; and I know another whose whole existence has been a jig on a fiddle; and I know a shrill little fellow who is a fife; and I know a brassy girl who is a pair of cymbals; and once—once," repeated the parson whimsically, "I knew an old maid who was a real living spinet. I even know another old maid now who is nothing but an old music book—long ago sung through, learned by heart, and laid aside: in a faded, wrinkled binding—yellowed paper stained by tears—and haunted by an odour of rose-petals, crushed ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... whimsically that it was lucky no one else had heard that question. "So hard that my success ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... the village on the opposite bank, resided the witty but profligate Sir Richard Steele, in a house which he whimsically denominated "the hovel;" and "from the Hovel at Hampton Wick, April 7, 1711," he dedicated the fourth volume of the Tatler to Charles, Lord Halifax. This was probably about the time he became surveyor of the royal stables at Hampton Court, governor of the king's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various
... behind the huge bulk of one of those sharply-defined masses of cloud already mentioned, was seen slowly to emerge into an open area of blue space, a queer, heterogeneous, but apparently solid substance, so oddly shaped, so whimsically put together, as not to be in any manner comprehended, and never to be sufficiently admired, by the host of sturdy burghers who stood open-mouthed below. What could it be? In the name of all the vrows and ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... in mine, either," he retorted whimsically. "Really, Miss, your questions on ethics this afternoon do you credit—but they're ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... Katherine smiled whimsically as she looked after him. "My first 'romance,'" she thought. "With a baby elephant! Slim is a dear boy and I hate myself now because I used to make such fun of him." And where the passionate laments of the girls had failed to move her, the thought of Slim's offered ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... "Tired, Captain?" he asked whimsically, rubbing the sweaty mane, while the animal drew a long whistling breath and in turn rubbed the sticky brow band on ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... captivating book it is—how merry and gentle and sunny, how whimsically wise and tender! There is real humor in these pages, and for that reason, if for no other, it deserves to live. The new chapter, describing the author's pious pilgrimage to the garden of her childhood, is inimitable in its way, and should ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... stood beside her, so close that he could have placed his hand upon her shoulder. He wondered, whimsically, if she knew how cruel she seemed in appealing with her tears, her helplessness and loveliness to what was generous and chivalric in him; and, at the same time, by her words, treating him as ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... which the good man was not likely first to break, when Johnson suddenly stopped, and turning round to him, exclaimed, "Sir! don't you think that 'Me miserable' is miserable stuff?" On another occasion he thus whimsically described the different manner in which he felt himself disposed towards a Whig and a Tory. "If," said he, "I saw a Whig and a Tory drowning, I would first save the Tory; and when I saw that he was safe, not till then, ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... yet not unfriendly, place; the white straining Nereids were taking on a tinge of violet, the verdure was of a deeper hue, that was all; and the fountain plashed unhurriedly, as though measuring a reasonable interval (he whimsically imagined) between the asking of a riddle and its solution given gratis by ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... every other part of the prospect developed according to specifications and not the door," he grumbled whimsically. "Cinderella, why have you hid the door in the ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... rate," she said, whimsically smiling, "that the moral of my little exhibition has not ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... have not altogether wasted my efforts. I went to elaborate pains to bring together a perfect man and a perfect woman of what Adam called our Black Age." He smiled at them whimsically. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... fellers know whut thet means all right," drawled Old Rocks, whimsically; "but dog my cats ef I do! Do I git ther terbacker? ur do I hev ter pull my liver out tryin' ter ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... the news he seemed to think less of the distinction conferred upon him than of the unhappiness of being once more banished from his home. "It is hard—very hard," he murmured, half to himself; "yet," he added, whimsically enough (says his nephew), being struck with the seeming absurdity of such a view, "I must try to bear it. God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." Later, however, Irving speaks of this as the "crowning honor ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... turned the pulsating satin to a white-sheened, crinkly azure velvet. About eight of the morning the three men, each brain teeming with its own ambitions and its peculiar appreciation of the mysterious Mother, started off for one of their habitual rambles. Ivan was in a mood whimsically frank, but changeful; and he blew the conversation this way and that out of sheer wantonness, till presently it touched a point on which Balakirev suddenly laid a detaining hand. Gregoriev had been analyzing the character of Ophelia—the delicate, fantastic disorder of her pathetic mentality; ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... consists in good manual rubbing, or the application of a little elbow-grease, as it is whimsically termed; but our finest cabinet work requires something more, where brilliancy of polish is ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... though, Ted laughed at himself rather whimsically. That extraordinary day-dream of the slave and the Elinor Princess! It helped sometimes, to make pictures of the very impossible—even of things as impossible as that. If Elinor had only been older before the war came along ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... he said half whimsically, "do you smile? Even so I think God should smile that He had let such a thing be made. And if, as I believe, you know the truth at last, that is why you also smile. But shut your eyes, my brother," he added, stooping to do the office, "shut ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... girls to know it, they'd think it was so funny, but—" She paused uncertainly, and looked questioningly into his face. "Maybe you won't understand what I mean, but sometimes I'd like to be good myself. Awfully good, I mean." She smiled whimsically. "Wouldn't Connie scream if she could hear that? Now you won't give me away, will you? But I mean it. I don't think of it very often, but sometimes, why, Professor, honestly, I wouldn't care if I were as good as Prudence!" She paused dramatically, ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... herself had been sociable to the last degree with her neighbors, they openly preferred her taciturn companion. "It is well that virtue is its own reward, for it certainly does not get any other, in my experience," she remarked whimsically. ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... folk take things seriously and studiously. In New York they take them fiercely, whimsically. Like most generalizations, this one has possibly more exceptions than inclusions. But it ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... first unfolding itself with the episode of Cleve and Berg and whimsically surrounding itself with the fantastic idyl of the Princess of Conde, had attained vast and misty proportions in the brain of its originator. Few political visions are better known in history than the "grand design" of Henry for rearranging the map of the world at the moment when, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Providence has taken care that the seeds of knowledge and wisdom shall be preserved from age to age, in spite of the inevitable decay of the works in which they were first produced? We see that Nature has wisely, though whimsically provided for the conveyance of seeds from clime to clime, in the maws of certain birds; so that animals, which, in themselves, are little better than carrion, and apparently the lawless plunderers of the orchard and the corn-field, are, in fact, Nature's carriers to disperse ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... down in a window of the south room to nurse her doll. She nodded and laughed dutifully when her father, going forth at last to the still pools and the brook courses, with his tackle in hand, looked back and nodded whimsically at her. ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... blank at this, and, suddenly realising that they were not very familiar with American coins, Patty explained the joke. They saw it, of course, but seemed to think it not very good, and Sinclair whimsically insisted on calling it, "a shilling to Bob," which ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... shining down on her, calm and bright and constant through the skylight. There was no world about her. She was sunk in a pit of blackness, with but that small square of pallid light framing the star that she had so whimsically and oh, so ineffectually named. Miss Longnecker must be right; it was Gamma, of the constellation Cassiopeia, and not Billy Jackson. And yet she could ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... Mrs. Byron, whimsically—"although you have a certain odious professional air, too. What did you do when you ran away so scandalously from that stupid school in the north? How do you earn your living? Or DO you ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... many amusing anecdotes of the infinite respect with which the country people of New England view and address persons of their own grade, and the utter disregard of decent ceremony which they evince towards all others: there appeared something so whimsically exaggerated in these stories, that I never had received them as veritable history; and when the Duke of Saxe Weimar told of the coachman's inquiring "Are you the man going to Portland? because, if you are, I'm the gentleman that's a going to drive you," I set it down for a good joke, illustrative, ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... hurt you much—matrimony," he observed whimsically, as he dropped the hand. "You look just like you always did—with your hat on." In the West, not to say in every other locality, there is a time-honored joke about matrimony, for certain ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... are alone, too. You have a perfect right to do as you please with your money, and I have an equally perfect right to accept your gifts. We are all afraid of the world, aren't we? That's probably at the bottom of my doddering. Cutty, what is love?" she broke off, whimsically. ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... will make a handsome thing out of his sugar this year. I wouldn't wonder but you're being educated on maple-sugar money. You better make your bow of thanks to the trees as you go through the orchard," he added whimsically. ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... there!" Beatrice opened her big eyes at him. "That," she declared whimsically, "is the top of the world, and it is mine. I found it. I want to go ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... throwing herself into an easy chair, and covering her face with her hands. "Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!" She opened her fingers and looked whimsically at her cousin, who, despising this stage business, ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... other grounds, since probably it deceived nobody. They lived a very tranquil life, and Clara had no grief of her own unless it was that there seemed to be no great things she could do for him. One day when she whimsically complained of this, he said: "I'm very glad of that. Let's try to be equal to the little sacrifices we must make for each other; they will be quite enough. Many a woman who would be ready to die for her husband makes ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... looks odd to you, Sarge, to see me in this rig?" he asked whimsically. "It beats punching cows, though—that is, when a fellow discovers that he ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... where plain brick-work is set off with pointed arches and plain tracery. Though the main groundwork of his opinions is correct, yet he has a thousand little notions, picked up from old books, which stand out whimsically on the surface ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... I'm not asking you to marry me if we should leave the island. You must give me credit for that," he argued whimsically. ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... my servants discretion," he replied whimsically, "but I can't teach 'em to use their eyes. Frau Wirth could remember nothing about this fellow except that he wasn't tall and wore ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... delight at the prospect of a ride. David lifted her up, and Joe settled her comfortably in the saddle, encircling her with his arm. Then he looked down whimsically ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... a sudden gust of wind brings clearly a last snatch of the air that Francois is playing in the distance. Lincoln raises his bead and listens, smiles whimsically to himself, ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... was nothing brave about that. I wanted to get in badly enough, but there wasn't, room. Jove! It was cold, wasn't it?" His ready smile played whimsically about his lips, and the girl felt herself curiously drawn to him. Since he chose to make light of himself, she determined to allow nothing of ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... him: "Some day I shall make it a point to see Lutie. I will shake hands with her. You see, George dear," she went on whimsically, "I don't in the least object to divorcees. They are not half as common as divorces. And as for your contention that if you and Lutie had a child to draw you together, I can only call your attention to the fact that there are fewer divorces among people who have ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... interrupted by Astronomia's mother Physica. This dialogue is a specimen of the whole piece: very flat, and very gross. Yet the piece is still curious,—not only for its absurdity, but for that sort of ingenuity, which so whimsically contrived to bring together the different arts; this pedantic writer, however, owes more to the subject, than the subject derived from him; without wit or humour, he has at times an extravagance of invention. As for instance,—Geographus ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... Baudet's excellence in his art?), favour would not be wanting for the greatest ballade-maker of all time. Great as would seem the incongruity, it may have pleased Charles to own a sort of kinship with ragged singers, and whimsically regard himself as one of the confraternity of poets. And he would have other grounds of intimacy with Villon. A room looking upon Windsor gardens is a different matter from Villon's dungeon at Meun; yet each in his own degree had been tried in ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... up on deck?" he said, whimsically. "I thought we'd sent the passengers below and battened down ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... one, counts lovers in her train. And indeed, even by her kindest friends, Edinburgh is not considered in a similar sense. These like her for many reasons, not any one of which is satisfactory in itself. They like her whimsically, if you will, and somewhat as a virtuoso dotes upon his cabinet. Her attraction is romantic in the narrowest meaning of the term. Beautiful as she is, she is not so much beautiful as interesting. She is pre-eminently Gothic, and all the more so since she has set herself ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was on Miss Cullam's mind; yet she kept step with Ruth when they came to the corridor on which the rooms of the three Briarwoods opened. Ruth could always find something pleasant to say. This woman with the care-graved countenance smiled whimsically as she listened, keeping at the ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson
... towards a couple of moated hedges, whimsically barbed in odd spots, and emerge into a park or open space leading into an unhealthy-looking road. It seems all plain sailing to the road—unless you know the R.E., in which case you will not be surprised to find your ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 23, 1916 • Various
... He smiled whimsically at Ruth. "My left hand is rather in need of attention, Miss Clinton. I suppose I am so deeply in your bad graces that I may not hope for—er—the ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... and I caught the perfume of a rose on her breast. "Monsieur, we are all rejoiced to see you safe." Her tone took, half-whimsically, the note of court and compliment. The fingers that I still held were berry stained. She showed them to me with a laugh and a light word, and so made excuse to draw them away. Her hair had grown long enough to blow into her eyes, and ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... "Well, Doctor," said Grosvenor whimsically, "what is your verdict— favourable, or otherwise? I remember now that I was bitten by a beastly snake, last night, and that you did several things to me that made me feel horribly queer, but I don't quite remember how I got to the tent. Was the ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... of the house return to the effigy with quick beating of the drums, and again double themselves up in solemn lengthy curtsies. Perhaps the most interesting, because the most accomplished, were the solo male dancers, each performer displaying his own particular genius. The drummer beats his drum whimsically—fast and slow alternately, with no rule—just as it pleases his fancy, and the dancer always keeps time with him in all his frenzies and eccentricities, so that his movements are sometimes so slow as to be barely noticeable, and at ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor |
