"Puck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... homes for old ladies? Oh, Mother, you know Father would never consent to that. Neither would Uncle Tom nor Big Josh. She would hate it and then there's Uncle Billy and the horses—Cupid and Puck—to say ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... jacket-pockets, and her short hair curling up round her velvet cap, struts cheerfully forth out of the obscurity of the past in my memory; her studio, I think, adjoined that of Gibson, of whom I remember nothing whatever. Her most notable production at that time was a Puck sitting on a toadstool, with a conical shell of the limpet species by way of a cap; he somehow resembled his animated and clever creator. Miss Hosmer's face, expressions, gestures, dress, and her manifestations ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... was walking the parlor floor, and Horace sitting on the sofa, as rigid as the marble elf Puck, just over his head. Prudy and Dotty had joined hands, and were crying softly on the rug. As the police had been notified of Fly's loss, all the family had to do was to wait. A servant was at the nearest telegraph office, with a horse and carriage, and at the first ...
— Little Folks Astray • Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)
... head be smathered, what the puck do I care about it?' O'Flaherty broke out. 'Ah, why the devil, Puddock, do you keep them ould women's charrums and devilments about you?—you'll be the death of some ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... gentleman to betake himself to study and prayer, and enforced this pious advice by a sound caning, administered on the spot. But it was in his own house that he was most unreasonable and ferocious. His palace was hell, and he the most execrable of fiends, a cross between Moloch and Puck. His son Frederic and his daughter Wilhelmina, afterwards Margravine of Baireuth, were in an especial manner objects of his aversion. His own mind was uncultivated. He despised literature. He hated infidels, papists, and metaphysicians, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... quarrel heated and the plot thickened, with the maliciousness of Puck, and the haughtiness of an empress of Blenheim, invented the most cruel insult that ever architect endured!—one perfectly characteristic of that extraordinary woman. Vanbrugh went to Blenheim with his lady, in a company from Castle Howard, another ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... than in table-turning ghosts, and less than in apparitions. I am not bound to find either sceptics or spiritualists in plausible explanations. But when they insist on an alternative to their respective theories, I suggest Puck as at least equally credible with Satan, Shakespeare, or the parrot-cry of imposture. It is the very extravagance of illogical temper to call on me to furnish an explanation because I say 'we know far too little of the thing itself to guess at its causes;' ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... and the slightly receding chin that caused his short, tightened upper lip to look indrawn and strained; and the big, ungainly, jutting ears consorted oddly with the serious look of high purpose that marked his face in repose. It was as though Puck had turned poet and then had turned preacher. One looked at the fleshy lower lip and the jutting ears, and thought of a careless, impish creature; one looked at the shapely, pointing nose and the kindly, unflinching eyes, and thought of a man reckless of himself in the pursuit of ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... FAIRY WAYS. In which we chiefly distinguish—1, The active presence of the Sprites in a human habitation. 2, Their masquerading. 3, Their dispatch of human victuals. 4, The liability of Elfin limbs to human casualties. 5, The personality of that saucy Puck, our tiny ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... tongue: "The Devil's skewer to Mikey Brian! and bad luck to the Currah thoro'bred cut! Not the eighth part of an inch of 'air there is amongst the set of us. What will the master say? Never mind; we've got the fi'pennies! Come to dinner!—by the Puck ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 28, 1841 • Various
... lad got married to her, thinking he'd have her fortune. The woman died after—God be merciful to her!—and left the two of them as poor as they were before. Well, one night a man that knew them was passing to the fair of Puck, and he came in and asked would they give him a lodging for that night. They gave him what they had and welcome; and after his tea, when they were sitting over the fire—the way we are this night—the man asked them how they were so poor-looking, and ...
— In Wicklow and West Kerry • John M. Synge
... and Mrs Newton were lamenting over the news—as I supposed: but when I began to listen, I found all that was over and done with. First, the merits of Puck, the fat pug, were being discussed, and then the wretchedness of being unable to buy or wear French cambrics, and the whole history of Mrs Newton's last cambric gown: they washed it, and mended it, and ripped it, and made it up again. And then Grandmamma's ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... the best winter games either outdoors or in a rink. The game of shinney or "bandy" as it is called in England has been modified in this country by substituting a flat piece of rubber weighing a pound called a "puck" for the india rubber lacrosse ball, which weighs but four ounces. The best hockey sticks are made of ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... freakish spirit who delights rather to perplex and frighten mankind than either to serve or seriously hurt them. The Esprit Follet of the French, Shakespeare's Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, and Shellycoat, a spirit who resides in the waters, and has given his name to many a rock and stone on the Scottish coast, belong to the class of bogles. One of Shellycoat's pranks is thus narrated:—Two men in a very dark night, approaching the banks of the Ettrick, heard ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... ... my affections are in a state of perfect tranquillity." But she admitted he was her "only fellowship and support," and confiding at length the truth about Irving, surrendered in the words, "Decide, and woe to me if your reason be your judge and not your love." In this duel of Puck and Theseus, the latter felt he had won and pressed his advantage, offering to let her free and adding warnings to the blind, "Without great sacrifices on both sides, the possibility of our union is an empty dream." At the eleventh hour, when, in her own words, ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... imagination had been taken captive by the trees, and thus Harald Kaas had taken HER. The estate, the climate, the exclusive possession of her part of the house: this was the bait which she had chosen. Harald Kaas was only a kind of Puck who had to be taken along with it. But it is doubtful whether this conjecture was any nearer the truth. No one ever really knew. She was not one of those whom it is ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... in there," indicating the swinging doors. "Puck was right. What fools these mortals be! Something for nothing will always ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... She dun shoot back sayin' dat if it wasn't foh her takin' in washin' dere wouldn't be any fireside."—Puck. ...
— The Suffrage Cook Book • L. O. Kleber
... are under the governance of a set of metallurgic divinities, who agree with the Cabiri, Hephaesti, Telchines, and Idaean Dactyli. The Brownies and Fairies are of the same kindred as the Lares of Latium. "The English Puck, the Scottish Bogle, the French Esprit Follet, or Goblin, the Gobelinus of monkish Latinity, and the German Kobold, are only varied names for the Grecian Kobalus, whose sole delight consisted in perplexing the human ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... the poem called Les Indolents, with its ribald refrain, like the laughter of a light-footed Puck flitting across the ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... tales, huge, cloud-girt spirits of oppressive solemnity. In reality most people wear motley all day long and the fairy powers are leprechauns, tricksy, irresponsible sprites, willing enough to make merry with those who can laugh with them; but players of all Puck's tricks on ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... is the picture of the hounds with "ears that sweep away the morning dew"; from England, all this out-door woodland life, the clown's play and the clowns themselves,—Bottom with his inimitable conceit, and his fellows, Snug, Quince, and the rest. English is all Puck's fairy lore, the cowslips tall, the red-hipt humble-bee, Oberon's bank, the pansy love-in-idleness, and all the lovely imagery of the verse. English is the whole scenic background, and the "Wood near Athens" is plainly the Stratford ...
— Shakespeare's Christmas Gift to Queen Bess • Anna Benneson McMahan
... laughing and chuckling for all the world like a wicked Puck, bent upon mischief, joyfully and solely devised for a confusion of his enemies, particularly ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... Cottrell very well. He is very mischievous; though not malicious, unless you interfere with his personal comfort; rather given to playing tricks upon his fellow-creatures; but he is more of a Puck than a Mephistopheles.—Good morning, Mr. Cottrell. Pray come and give an account of yourself. Sylla tells me you have been ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... superstition, it seems, are less objectionable than our own folk lore; the tremendous shades of Brahma and Budhu, of Juggernaut and the goddess Kali, with their uncouth images and horrid worship, are harmless when compared with Puck, the Pixies, and Robin Goodfellow; and Caste, Suttee, and Devil-worship[3] are evils of less magnitude than cairns, kist-vaens, and cromlechs. The mental balance must be peculiarly constructed that could lead to such a decision. Certainly H. N. is no Rhadamanthus. "Dat ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 214, December 3, 1853 • Various
... of the sleighbells died away across the snow, Hi offered to read jokes to Anna from "Pickings from Puck," which he had selected as a Christmas present from Kate, if she would consent to have supper in the sitting-room, where it was warm and cosy. Anna began to pop the corn, and Hi to read the jokes with more effort than he would have expended ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... the signature of this article. The "Echoes of Paris" were signed Puck. Puck? Who was this Puck? How could an unknown, an anonymous writer, a retailer of scandals, be possessed of his secret? For Andras believed that his suffering was a secret; he had never had an idea that any one could ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... I protested that I had not; I had fed him in the morning in her own presence; the darling was in his usual health and spirits when we left, but—intercede for me, Puck, and you aerial imps of mischief, for no other spirit will—I could not help murmuring in audible soliloquy, "The carcase of that mongoose, which was on the square outside this morning, ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... now relieved them from the necessity of a tedious existence. Considered, again, merely as an orator, Mr. Whistler seems to me to stand almost alone. Indeed, among all our public speakers I know but few who can combine so felicitously as he does the mirth and malice of Puck with the ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... one thing, and his deeds another. Through Puck as his instrument, his jealousy at once begins to make matters worse instead of better for the lovers. Notice the delicate appropriateness of Oberon's means of influence, namely Puck and the two flowers, the first being 'Cupid's flower,'—Love in idleness—the second 'Dian's bud,' introduced later ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... Woolner, informs me of one little peculiarity in the external ear, which he has often observed both in men and women, and of which he perceived the full significance. His attention was first called to the subject whilst at work on his figure of Puck, to which he had given pointed ears. He was thus led to examine the ears of various monkeys, and subsequently more carefully those of man. The peculiarity consists in a little blunt point, projecting from the inwardly folded margin, or helix. When present, it is developed ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... grouping everywhere. Surely Titania has been in this spot, breathing exquisite beauty upon the flowers, or, perhaps, Flora's dainty self. The blue-bells, these yellow-chaliced butter-cups, are fit haunts for fairies, and, perchance, wild Puck, or Prospero's good Ariel has been slumbering in them. But let us draw near to the fine old house which stands in this new Eden. It was here that we first met the little castle-builders—the child Bell and Mortimer. The place is not changed ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... episode, or rather, the episode about the Greek letter which never was written, is, if possible, more flagrantly rigmarolish. The-cop-and-bore-and-woman digression contains some remarkable description as a kind of solace to the Puck-led traveller; the other is bare of any such comfort. The Bishop's old housekeeper, who was De Quincey's landlady, told him, it seems, that the Bishop had cautioned her against taking in lodgers whom she did not know, and De Quincey was very angry. As he thought he could write Greek much better ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... was very sorry then, and gave the creature to Mary Rivers. He was such a beauty! I hope the perdition has gone with him, for I don't like Mary Rivers at all. I had to give the poor beasty to somebody, and Mary Rivers happened to be there. I told her that Puck was connected with Apollyon, but she didn't mind that. Puck was worth twenty guineas, and I daresay she ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... o' ten. Old Tom hed been goun' from bed tull worse, ploughun' up an' down the fields an' talkun' an' mutterun' tull humself. On the marnun' o' the day I mind me, he was suttun' on the bench outside the kutchen, a-futtun' the handle tull a puck-axe. Unbeknown, the monster eediot crawled tull the door an' brayed after hus fashion ot the sun. I see old Tom start up an' look. An' there was the monster eediot, waggun' uts bug head an' blunkun' an' brayun' like the great bug ass ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... the eye when he would sing to you praises of the month of May. It is a month presided over by the spirits of mischief and madness. Pixies and flibbertigibbets haunt the budding woods: Puck and his train of midgets are busy ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... be good, dear," had been the verdict of the Commissioner's wife when she had first seen little Puck Merryon, the ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... at some time given ear to the whispers that tell of long-lost treasures, of forgotten cities, of Atlantis swallowed by the sea? It is* not only children who love the tales of Fairyland. How happily we have read Kipling's 'Puck of Pook's Hill,' De la Motte Fouque's 'Undine,' Kenneth Grahame's 'Wind in the Willows,' or F.W. Bain's Indian stories. The recent fairy plays—Barry's "Peter Pan," Maeterlinck's "Blue Bird," and the like—have been enormously successful. Say what we will, ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... dressing-gown and hastened to the room appropriated to their patron saint, which I entered at one door just as little Eva Dudley appeared at another. Without being in the least a beauty, Eva has the most charming face I know; merry and bright as Puck's, or as her own life, which from its earliest dawn has been joyous as a bird's carol. She gazed now with eager delight on the toys exhibited by her brothers and sisters, without, apparently, one thought of herself, till Robert ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... hours. Julien was in the mood for this final and fierce attack upon Le Jour and all the powers that stood behind it. He held up Falkenberg to derision—the charlatan of modern politics, the Puck of Berlin, whose one sincerity was his hatred for England, and one capacity, the giant capacity for mischief! He wound up his article with a scathing and personal denunciation of Falkenberg, and a splendidly worded appeal ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... butter-churn, and while he was dancing his fantastic shape in the churn, in vain the dairymaid would labor to change her cream into butter. Nor had the village swains any better success; whenever Puck chose to play his freaks in the brewing copper, the ale was sure to be spoiled. When a few good neighbors were met to drink some comfortable ale together, Puck would jump into the bowl of ale in the likeness of a roasted ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... must be classed by themselves, are not wanting in local flavor. Herrick's fairy world is an immeasurable distance from that of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Puck and Titania are of finer breath than Herrick's little folk, who may be said to have Devonshire manners and to live in a miniature England of their own. Like the magician who summons them from nowhere, they are fond of color and perfume and substantial feasts, and indulge in heavy ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Jack Horner, sits Miss Hosmer's Puck. Opposite is a mate production, which she never put on exhibition. It is Ariel, perched hiding in a honeysuckle, and leaning slyly out to play on an AEolian harp ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... presently! Oh, shan't we, though! The Grim maniac! he has gone to detect me! And he'll break in upon Thurston and Marian's interview. Won't there be an explosion! Oh, Jupiter! Oh, Puck! Oh, Mercury! What fun—what delicious fun! Wr-r-r-r! I can scarcely contain myself! Begone, Maria! Vanish! I want all the space in this room to myself! Oh, fun alive! What a row there'll be! Me-thinks I hear the ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... of such magazines as Life, Judge, Puck and Punch were drawn on extensively; also magazines having humorous pages or columns, such as the Literary Digest, Ladies' Home Journal, Everybody's, Harper's; also Bindery Talk and various other house organs. According to Samuel Johnson "A ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... V. be unskillful &c. adj.; not see an inch beyond one's nose; blunder, bungle, boggle, fumble, botch, bitch, flounder, stumble, trip; hobble &c. 275; put one's foot in it; make a mess of, make hash of, make sad work of; overshoot the mark. play tricks with, play Puck, mismanage, misconduct, misdirect, misapply, missend. stultify oneself, make a fool of oneself, commit oneself; act foolishly; play the fool; put oneself out of court; lose control, lose control of oneself, lose one's head, lose one's cunning. begin at the wrong end; do things by halves ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... da'kies dat have lived an' died since Ham, De whistlin'est I evah seed was ol' Ike Bates's Sam. In de kitchen er de stable, in de fiel' er mowin' hay, You could hyeah dat boy a-whistlin' pu'ty nigh a mile erway,— Puck'rin' up his ugly features 'twell you could n't see his eyes, Den you 'd hyeah a soun' lak dis un f'om ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... a mind whose sensitive fear of danger to its own dignity hindered it from criticism elsewhere. Things might have been worse for Louis's Puck-like idea of mis-mating his Hermia ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... would be Flowers. And all over the playgrounds they were playing rounders and bowling twisters and lobs. And from here and from there came the sounds of the cricket bats through the soft grey air. They said: pick, pack, pock, puck: little drops of water in a fountain slowly falling in the ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... who lives in one of the great mountains of the Blue Ridge and owns all the game. Others are the Little Men, probably the two Thunder boys; the Little People, the fairies who live in the rock cliffs; and even the Detsata, a diminutive sprite who holds the place of our Puck. One unwritten formula, which could not be obtained correctly by dictation, was addressed to the "Red-Headed Woman, whose hair hangs down ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... Puck lay down again discontentedly, put his nose on his paws, and feigned slumber, one restless eyelid betraying the hollowness of the pretence. Presently he rolled over—and chancing to roll on a spiky ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... his Century be achieved, Larkspurs and tiger-lilies humbled, Geraniums of their fire bereaved, And calceolarias torn and tumbled. With fairy craft from dusk to dawn Quaint Puck himself may bowl half-volleys, But I have vowed, by love and lawn, To weed one thistle ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... Puck, while the dew is sweet; Come to the dingle where fairies meet. Know that the lilies have spread their bells O'er all the pools in our mossy dells; Stilly and lightly their vases rest On the quivering sleep of the waters' breast, Catching the sunshine thro' leaves that throw To their scented ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... dress was all priceless lace that touched David's artistic perception. He could imagine the girl as deeply in earnest as going through fire and water for her convictions. Also he could imagine her as Puck or Ariel—there was rippling laughter in every note of ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... preparing to resume his nap just where he had left off when his master so rudely aroused him. Joan had hushed her sobs, although now and again a long, shuddering sigh shook her little body from head to foot, as with small, smudgy fingers she gently stroked her brother's cheek. Puck, the monkey, had skipped nimbly from his perch on the chimney of the caravan and found another more to his mind on top of Tonio's woolly head, where he sat glowering and grinning at the group, as if he wanted to ask, only he couldn't in words, "What's the matter, friends? ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... say, to have given a good "construe" is a feather in one's cap. "To be second to your tutor is all a man has to hope for," he said, with that mellow laugh which it was so pleasant to hear. "I hope I know my place, Jock. We had no such godlike beings in my time. Old Puck, as we used to call him, was my tutor. He had a red nose, which was the chief feature in his character. He looked upon us all as his natural enemies, and we paid him back with interest. Did I ever tell of that time when we were going to Ascot in a ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... laughter of his characters or are lighted with their smiles. We may pass pleasant hours in the company of his joyous creations, such as Rosalind in As You Like It, or Portia in The Merchant of Venice, or Puck as the spokesman for A Midsummer Night's Dream, who ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... and the grotesque. Take away the romantic mysteries, the kings and knights and big-sounding titles, and Mardi-Gras would die, down there in the South. The very feature that keeps it alive in the South—girly-girly romance—would kill it in the North or in London. Puck and Punch, and the press universal, would fall upon it and make merciless fun of it, and its first exhibition ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... telling dear Mrs. Sartoris (however unnecessarily) that I and my wife remember her with the old feeling—I trust she is well and happy to heart's content. Pen is quite well and rejoicing just now in a Sardinian pony on which he gallops like Puck on a dragon-fly's back. My wife's kind regard and best wishes go with those of, Dear Leighton, yours affectionately ever, ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... constantly over-rated. He pays the penalty of his over-whelming reputation: his fame is chiefly in the mouths of those who know him not at all, and use their hats for speaking-trumpets. We have in English no approximately decent translation of him. Someone said that Pope served him as Puck served Bully Bottom, what time Peter Quince was moved to cry: "Bless thee Bottom, how thou art translated!" It is not so; to call Pope an ass would be to wrong a faithful and patient quadruped; than which Pope was as much greater in intellect as he was less in all ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... on being grateful. He turned the talk to Brooklyn. He was neat and explicit—and almost funny—in his description of an outdoor presentation of Midsummer Night's Dream, in which a domestic and intellectual lady weighing a hundred and eighty-seven stageside had enacted Puck. As they sat after dinner, as Claire shivered, he produced a knitted robe, and pulled it about her shoulders, smiling at her in a lonely, hungry way. ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... would, in a rage, endeavour to catch him, for the purpose of inflicting punishment, the young urchin, proud of being able to out-strip her, notwithstanding his lameness, would run round the room, laughing like a little Puck, and mocking at all her menaces. In a few anecdotes of his early life which he related in his "Memoranda," though the name of his mother was never mentioned but with respect, it was not difficult to perceive that the recollections she had ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... his sleep,' he said. 'Why could they not dance in the day-time?—not when all respectable leaves and flowers were sleeping! making such a noise, especially that mischievous Puck!' ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... Junius ever dealt in more furious words than Macaulay, who had not the excuse of controversy or passion. Frederick William of Prussia was "the most execrable of fiends, a cross between Moloch and Puck"; "his palace was hell"; compared with the Prince, afterwards Frederick the Great, "Oliver Twist in the workhouse, and Smike at Dotheboys Hall were petted children." It would be difficult for Mark ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... assaults my senses, the same which her note exhaled. But now that fragrance streams from her delicate, graceful form in its princess gown of pale yellow with red bows. She dances and flutters about the room with so mysterious and elf-like a grace as though she were playing Puck in the "Midsummer Night's Dream," the part in which she first ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... believe the rogue has a kindness for me, in remembrance of certain apples and nuts, which my usual companion, who delights in his wit, is accustomed to dole out to him. But it is a Robin Goodfellow nevertheless, a perfect Puck, that loves nothing on earth so well as mischief. Perhaps the horse may be the ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... Ariel, just a streak of Puck, Much Antony, of Hamlet most of all, And something of the ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... of the story probably cost him more effort than he would have us believe. The result, at least, lacks spontaneity. We never feel for a moment that we are living invisible amidst the characters, but we sit aloof like Puck, thinking: "Lord, what fools these mortals be!" His supernatural machinery is as undignified as the pantomime properties of Jack the Giant-killer. The huge body scattered piecemeal about the castle, the unwieldy sabre borne by a hundred men, the helmet "tempestuously ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... an Englishman," Kinsley admitted. "It is true, too, that he comes of a very ancient Norfolk family. It doesn't do, however, to build too much upon that. From all I can learn of him, he is a sort of Puck, a professional mischief-maker. I don't suppose there's anything an outsider could find out which would be really useful to us, but all the same, if I had the time, I should certainly go down ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in here," said Puck: "let's go and see how it looks outside." Bang! went his head, right ...
— Harper's Young People, April 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... soul," said Carew, "ye never heard the like of it. He hath a voice as sweet and clear as if Puck had burst a ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... literature needful? By all means let us dream, on midsummer nights, of fond lovers led through devious paths to happiness by Puck; of virtuous dukes—one finds such in fairyland; of fate subdued by faith and gentleness. But may we not also, in our more serious humours, find satisfaction in thinking with Hamlet or Coriolanus? May not both Dickens and Zola have their booths in Vanity Fair? If literature is to be a help to ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... "thorough" are originally the same word, and in Shakespeare's time both forms were used for the preposition. Cf. Puck's song in "Midsummer Night's Dream," "Thorough bush, ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... mother to help them get up some sort of a play in which they could take part. Gyp had asked Miss Gray to be allowed to help in the make-up room, even if she did nothing more than pass the little jars of cream and sticks of paint. And to Jerry had been assigned the especial task of shoving Puck, who was sadly rattle-brained, upon the stage, when ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... Feiners," O'Farrell played up to me, unoffended. "Still, as a brother of one, I'm bound to search, if it takes all night. A sister's a sister. And mine is quite a valuable asset." He tossed me this hint with a Puck-like air of a private understanding established between us. Yes, "Puck-like" describes him: a Puck at the same time merry and malicious, ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the red squirrel, because he returns to me hourly. He is the most frisky, diverting, and altogether impish of all our wild creatures. He is a veritable Puck. All the other wild folk that cross my field of vision, or look in upon me here in my fragrant hay-barn study, seem to have but one feeling about me: "What is it? Is it dangerous? Has it any designs upon me?" But my appearance seems to awaken other feelings ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... and spread in artistic light and perspective; and between the two (if we do not press our illustration beyond clear limits) was a heat-lightning-like play of mind, showing itself, at one moment, in unexpected flashes of poetic analogy, at another in Puck-like mischief, and again ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... she said, stroking the affectionate animal, which was licking its mistress's gentle hand; "poor Puck! you'll have to love me very much after Dick goes away. I like to be loved, doggie; but no one in this house believes in love except my dear boy, and it is lonely when not a single creature cares, for you. I should like ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... passages from Shakespeare, and arrange her room to represent appropriately the stage scene. Her first visit to the theater was when she was about twelve, one winter's evening, to see a fairy piece called "Puck." The house was only a short distance from her home at Louisville, and she and her little brother presented themselves at the entrance door hours before the time announced for the performance. The door-keeper ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... stop—first let me kiss away that tear)— Thou tiny image of myself! (My love, he's poking peas into his ear!) Thou merry, laughing sprite! With spirits feather-light, Untouched by sorrow, and unsoiled by sin— (Good heavens! the child is swallowing a pin!) Thou little tricksy Puck! With antic toys so funnily bestuck, Light as the singing bird that wings the air— (The door! the door! he'll tumble down the stair!) Thou darling of thy sire! (Why, Jane, he'll set his pinafore afire!) Thou imp of mirth and ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... Is, after all ideal, Or in the Immaterial furl'd Alone resides the Real, FREED ONE! there's wail for thee this hour Through thy loved Elves' dominions[33]; Hush'd is each tiny trumpet-flower, And droopeth Ariel's pinions; Even Puck, dejected, leaves his swing[34], To plan, with fond endeavour, What pretty buds and dews shall keep Thy ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... Failed, The Brushwood Boy, The Many Inventions Captains Courageous Naulahka, The (With Wolcott Collected Verse Balestier) Day's Work, The Plain Tales from the Hills Departmental Ditties and Puck of Pook's Hill Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads Rewards and Fairies Diversity of Creatures, A Sea Warfare Eyes of Asia, The Seven Seas, The Five Nations, The Soldier Stories France at War Soldiers Three, The Story From Sea to Sea of the Gadsbys, and In History of England, A Black ...
— The Eyes of Asia • Rudyard Kipling
... In Deacon's Orders She Combeth Not Her Head She Cometh Not, She Said Trial of a Servant Trail of the Serpent Essays of a Liar Essays of Elia Soap and Tables AEsop's Fables Pocketbook's Hill Puck of Pook's Hill Dentist's Infirmary Dante's ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... Smith his address, and when he gets home he can go and prove to him that he's a flat. (Laughter.) You remember in a play of Shakespeare there's a little chap that says he'll put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes. His name was Puck, gentlemen. Mr. Smith won't do it quite so quick—not this journey, at any rate—but who knows what these young scientific fellows will be a-doing of next? Mr. Smith's aeroplane hasn't got a name, I believe, but he'd better christen it Puck, which is the ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... is of the same plastic kind as his conception of character or passion. "It glances from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven." Its movement is rapid and devious. It unites the most opposite extremes; or, as Puck says, in boasting of his own feats, "puts a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes." He seems always hurrying from his subject, even while describing it; but the stroke, like the lightning's, is sure as it is sudden. He takes the widest possible range, but from that ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... King, having quarrelled with his fairy partner, vows never to be reconciled to her till he shall find two lovers constant through peril and temptation. To seek such a pair his 'tricksy spirit,' Puck, has ranged in vain through the world. Puck, however, hears the sentence passed on Sir Huon of Bordeaux, a young knight, who, having been insulted by the son of Charlemagne, kills him in single combat, and is for this condemned by the monarch to travel to Bagdad to slay him who ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... presence? How he would lean toward them, as he dwelt upon "the blessed of all God's handiwork," compared their bright eyes to "day-stars" that lit up the dark recesses of his own clouded imagination; and how he would revel, like another Puck, among the rays and beams of smiles called forth by his own happy compliments—and how he would change from all this, and in an instant seemingly arm himself with the thunderbolts of Jove, which he would dash with appalling ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... military affairs, almost as difficult to find, at times, by his own followers, as by the enemy. He was the true model of a partisan in a country, like ours, of swamp and thicket; leading the pursuing foe, like Puck, "through bog and through briar," till he wearied out his patience, exhausted his resources, and finally laid him open for defeat. He seldom lingered long in any one spot, changing his ground frequently, with Indian policy; his scouts, well ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... waves of Lake Ontario for fifty miles and ploughing a tornado-track through a dense forest, terminated in a treetop near Sackett's Harbor, Jefferson county, New York, at 2.20 P.M.—twelve hundred miles in nineteen hours and forty minutes! Puck's promise ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... let Puck coming whirling round, And set his foot to whisking, Hundreds with him throng the ground, Frolicking ...
— Faust • Goethe
... Hodges to turn from his work of training young clergymen at the Episcopal Seminary, at Cambridge, and write one of the most successful series of Bible stories for children ever printed; and then he supplemented this feature for children by publishing Rudyard Kipling's "Just So" stories and his "Puck of Pook's Hill." He induced F. Hopkinson Smith to tell the best stories he had ever heard in his wide travels in "The Man in the Arm Chair"; he got Kate Douglas Wiggin to tell a country church experience of hers in "The Old Peabody Pew"; and Jean Webster her knowledge of almshouse life ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... "Puck" was the little dog's name, and he appeared in a fair way of "putting a girdle round the earth," if not in forty minutes like his elfish namesake, at least in an appreciable limited space of time, Teddy never being content except he carried about the unfortunate ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... not pretend to have touched upon all the myths referring to Fairies, as thus strictly defined; and the Kobolds and Puck, the Household Spirits and Mischievous Demons, have scarcely been so much as mentioned. Want of space forbids our going further. It is hoped, however, that enough has been said, not merely to give the readers an idea of the Fairy Mythology correct as far as ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... with seeming reluctance, she turned her head towards him, and—oh, thou mischievous Puck, that sometimes takest upon thee the semblance of Eros, what skill is thine! . . . there were tears in her eyes—real tears—bright, large tears that welled up and fell through her long lashes in the most beautiful, ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... women do not know much of life. Pooh! I, Puck, who have dwelt for many of my days on their boudoir cushions, and eaten of their dainty little dinners, and been smuggled under their robes even into operas, balls, and churches, tell you that is an utter fallacy. They do not choose you to know ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... with a convenient chain and rope to prevent too sudden a descent. It has been suggested that through this gap the Romans passed from their moored fleets to the fortified settlements above. It was at one time possible to descend by another opening higher up the cliff to a ledge called "Puck Church Parlour." This is now inaccessible except to seabirds. The well-known view of the "Seven Sisters" is taken hereabouts and the disused "Belle Tout" lighthouse stands up well on the western slopes of Beachy Head, looking no ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... th'unpleasant quyre of frogs still croking Make us to wish theyr choking. 350 Let none of these theyr drery accents sing; Ne let the woods them answer, nor theyr eccho ring. [Ver. 341.—The Pouke (Puck is a generic term, signifying fiend, or mischievous imp) ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... Watts Phillips, first declared himself in Punch with a few examples of his art, which George Cruikshank had fostered. They lasted up to 1846, but amounted to very little. He gave more attention to "Puck," of which Chatto was the editor; and when, a few years afterwards, he joined "Diogenes" as its cartoonist, he gave full rein to ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... "Many thanks, good Puck," replied the lady; "we are well placed; but dear me, we haven't brought, or we have lost, our vinaigrette; we positively cannot go without it. What can our ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... has oddly described M'Cruslick, the being whose name was conferred upon this gentleman, as something between Proteus and Don Quixote. It is the name of a species of satyr, or esprit follet, a sort of mountain Puck or hobgoblin, seen among the wilds and mountains, as the old Highlanders believed, sometimes mirthful, sometimes mischievous. Alexander Macleod's precarious mode of life and variable spirits occasioned ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... should we demand of Heine that he should be a hero, a patriot, a solemn prophet, any more than we should demand of a gazelle that it should draw well in harness? Nature has not made him of her sterner stuff—not of iron and adamant, but of pollen of flowers, the juice of the grape, and Puck's mischievous brain, plenteously mixing also the dews of kindly affection and the gold-dust of noble thoughts. It is, after all, a tribute which his enemies pay him when they utter their bitterest dictum, ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... PUCK. "Now the hungry lion roars, And the wolf behowls the moon; Whilst the heavy ploughman snores, All with, weary task fordone. Now the wasted brands do glow, Whilst the scritch-owl, scritching loud, Puts the wretch, that lies in woe, ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... "Goodfellow, Puck and goblins, Know more than any book. Down with your doleful problems, And court the sunny brook. The south-winds are quick-witted, The schools are sad and slow, The masters quite omitted The lore we care ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... he had not shrunk morbidly from human contacts. Sheila's Irish mother had wooed and won him and had made a merry midsummer madness in his life, as brief as a dream. Sheila was all that remained of it. But, for all her quietness, the shadow of his broken heart upon her spirit, she was a Puck. She could make laughter and mischief for him and for herself—not for any one else yet; she was too shy. But that might come. Only, Puck laughter is a little unearthly, a little delicate. The ear of Millings might not be attuned.... ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... may solve. It is useless to criticize genius or a miracle, except to increase its wonder. Who remembers anything in "Crusoe" but the touch of the wizard's hand? Who associates the Duke of Athens, Hermia and Helena, with Bottom and Snug, Titania, Oberon and Puck? Any literary master mechanic might real off ten thousand yards of the Greek folks or of "Pericles," but when you ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... separate order of beings, living on this earth, but invisible and immaterial to us. Able, however, occasionally to manifest their presence; known in almost all countries and ages as demons not necessarily bad, gnomes, fairies, kobolds, elves, goblins, Puck, &c. ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... a similar example, from our own art, in the Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Who can look at this exquisite little creature, seated on its toadstool cushion, and not acknowledge its prerogative of life,—that mysterious influence which in spite of the stubborn understanding ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... and through its mazy ringlets, Titania may have led her elfin rout, Or Ariel fanned it with his gauzy winglets, Or Puck danced in the bowl to ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... males in that community, and that of the females it has described it has selected only those who are enamoured of men or disinclined to them. The fact, of course, is that the fairy world is peopled very much as our own, and that, with great respect to Shakespeare, an Ariel, a Puck, a Titania, a Peas-blossom are abnormal. It is as rare to find a fairy capable of discerning man as the converse is rare. I have known a person intensely aware of the Spirits that reside, for instance, in flowers, in the wind, in rivers and hills, none the ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... I feel fairies all round me, the good folk, meet companions for young poets. How Coleridge, more especially, fits in to such surroundings! 'Fairies?' say you. Well, there's odds of fairies, and of the sort I mean Coleridge was the absolute Puck. 'Puck?' says you. 'For shame!' says you. No, d—n it! I'll stick to that. There's odds o' fairies, and often enough I think the world is nothing else; troops, societies, hierarchies—S.T.C., a supreme hierarch; ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... I remember her sitting at a window singing and fervently keeping time with her head, the little black Puck of a grandson meanwhile amusing himself with ornamenting her red-and-yellow turban with green dandelion-curls, which shook and trembled with her emotions, causing him perfect ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... devotion rare among a sex with whom devotion is happily a common trait, but there was a maternal quality in her affection accounted for by the fact that although Mr. Tutt was, to be sure, an old man in years, he had occasionally an elfin, Puck-like perversity which was singularly boyish, at which times she felt it obligatory for her own self-respect to call him to order. Thus, whenever Tutt seemed to be incubating some evasion of law which seemed more subtly plausible than ordinary she ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... Puck wouldn't put a girdle around for forty dollars) shook gleefully while I read this eminently ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne |
