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More "Comical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... if well carried out, and even with little preparation may be made very pretty or very comical, whichever may be desired. It is perhaps better to attempt comical ones if you have not much time in which to arrange them, as the costumes are generally easier to manage, and if you are obliged to use garments not quite in keeping with the characters, ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... says, "The devil who seizes yon in the cradle, goes with you to the funeral pile".' The fear and worship of ghosts, demons, and devils are universal throughout India, and the rites practised are often comical. The ghost of a bibulous European official with a hot temper, who died at Muzaffarnagar, in the United Provinces, many years ago, was propitiated by offerings of beer and whisky at 'his tomb. Much information on the subject ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... comparatively unimportant development of the fast, but to the outside public, who swarm to the exhibition, the Signor presents a decidedly dilapidated and ludicrous appearance. He has lost eight pounds more since yesterday. It was somewhat comical to watch him eyeing a stout young nurserymaid, who had brought a plump baby with her. Such cannibalistic desires show that our boasted civilisation is, after all, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 12, 1890 • Various
... realm of surgery which is followed by more brilliant and gratifying results. It seems almost incredible until one has seen it in half a dozen successive cases. Not merely doctors, but teachers and nurses, develop a positive enthusiasm for it. This was the operation that led to the comical, but pathetic, "Mothers' Riots" in the New York schools. The word went forth, "The Krishts are cutting the throats of your children"; and, with the shameful echoes of Kishineff ringing in their ears, ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... newly erected cabins; the village was given over for the comfort of the frontiersmen. Edwards conducted Captain Williamson through the shops and schools, and the old borderman's weather-beaten face expressed a comical surprise. ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... remember right, was almost the only officer in civilian clothes; he was a jovial, old, rather stout, plain man, with a wrinkled and dark-yellow face, and, in ways and manners, show'd the least of conventional ceremony or etiquette I ever saw; he laugh'd unrestrainedly at everything comical. (He had a great personal resemblance to Fenimore Cooper, the novelist, of New York.) I remember Gen. Pillow and quite a cluster ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... and warm. Musquitoes were the result. "When tormented by them, I found much relief in coupling the word Coleman with another of one syllable, and pronouncing them together energetically." The musquito chapter is very amusing, showing the various comical and ingenious manoeuvres of the friends to avoid their tormentors, and obtain a night's sleep. At last they entered a fishing canoe, paddled some distance from shore, and dropped the native anchor, a stone secured to a rope. They were awakened in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... Bobby, he was so clever and comical; but Mabel not only liked and petted him, but cared for him constantly; patiently ministered to his dainty appetite, and tried always to teach him good and useful things. Indeed, I am afraid that, if it had not been for ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... shock. He came to himself rapidly, but not quickly enough. He was conscious of something cold about his wrists, and a none too kindly hand dragged him to his feet. T. B. with his white beard all awry was a comical figure, but Poltavo had no sense of humour ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... to hear this. He gave a spring, and was in a moment astride of his comical steed, holding on by two feathers. The rooster carried him as smoothly and easily as a steamboat; but not quite so fast, for it took twenty-one days' paddling to accomplish the journey; but at last he was landed high and dry on the opposite bank ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... sea, a most romantic and salutary situation. One other flash broke from him in this retirement. His novel, called the Expedition of Humphry Clinker, which he sent to England to be printed in 1770, though abounding in portraitures of exquisite drollery, and in situations highly comical, has not the full zest and flavour of his earlier works. The story does not move on with the same impetuosity. The characters have more the appearance of being broad caricatures from real life, than the creatures of a rich and teeming invention. They seem rather the representation of individuals ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... vaquero—usually a short, fat man with dumpy legs, who dons a flapping sombrero, buys a new Mexican saddle, wooden stirrups, and leather riata, sometimes adding a coil of rope at left side, wears the botas with a corduroy suit at dinner at hotel, and doesn't know at all how comical an appearance he presents. The very next to pass is one of the pioneers, who, although worth a million or more, puts on no style, and surveys the mongrel in front with a twinkle in his eye. Every one should own a horse ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... get anybody else for to-night," said Reeser, impatiently. "Let her walk through the part, and we'll see what can be done in the morning." Then seeing Nance's indignant eyes on the director, he added with a comical twist of his big mouth, "Want to be ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... unfavourable; and a third, which I have forgotten. These words are given in imitation of the noises; and the natives are in some things absolutely governed by them. The Chilotans assuredly have chosen a most comical little creature for their prophet. An allied species, but rather larger, is called by the natives "Guid-guid" (Pteroptochos Tarnii), and by the English the barking-bird. This latter name is well given; for I defy any one at first to feel certain that a small dog ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... smile to illumine his face. Without looking right or left, the "Doctor" walks northward, raising his hat as he passes the caged and cheering crowd in Palace Yard. With the same grave countenance, not moved in the slightest degree by the comical effect of the big men in the crowd at his heels waving their hats over his head, the "Doctor" crosses Bridge Street, and walks into Parliament Street, as far as the Treasury, where a cab is waiting. Into this he gets with much deliberation, and, with a final waving of his hat, and ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... are, doggy! Good old Toby! Smell it, Toby, smell it!" He pushed the creasote handkerchief under the dog's nose, while the creature stood with its fluffy legs separated, and with a most comical cock to its head, like a connoisseur sniffing the bouquet of a famous vintage. Holmes then threw the handkerchief to a distance, fastened a stout cord to the mongrel's collar, and led him to the foot of the water-barrel. The creature instantly broke into a succession of high, tremulous ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the little spermophile, sometimes called the ground-squirrel, is common and not afraid to venture into the outskirts of a village. One variety wears spotted brown and yellow stripes down its back, another is gray, but all are about the size of a gray squirrel. On the western prairies are the comical little prairie-dogs. You can see them sitting up on their haunches watching the train as it carries you ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... dozen broadsides. The result, two wounded, establishes inefficiency, and a practical certainty of defeat had all her ironwork held; for the "Peacock," though only three months commissioned, was a good ship under a thoroughly capable and attentive captain. A comical remark of James in connection with this engagement illustrates the weakness of prepossession, in all matters relating to Americans, which in him was joined to a painstaking accuracy in ascertaining ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... the Irish call him, opens the drama with an extempore prayer, proving that he and the audience are good Moslems; he speaks slowly and with emphasis, varying the diction with breaks of animation, abundant action and the most comical grimace: he advances, retires, and wheels about, illustrating every point with pantomime; and his features, voice and gestures are so expressive that even Europeans who cannot understand a word of ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... the birds go to bed, I suppose. See what a comical look this fellow has, waving its long, fine, silky antennae about. Probably it's trying to find out what it is on, looking out for another nice green leaf to eat. They do a lot of damage eating leaves ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody
... With comical gravity, Sue turned upon Balcome. "How long has Hattie's father been in town?" she echoed. And as he held up all the fingers of one hand, "Oh, two—or three—or four"—a cautious testing of ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... devise a way by which he can wear it properly on his head. Some of them fanned themselves vigorously as they walked, with respectable black, old-lady fans, and the contrast with their hard, begrimed faces and sturdy frames was very comical. The men looked worn and exhausted, and their work is killing, although I believe they outlast the chair-bearers; but they were patient and cheerful like the rest, ready to laugh and share their cold lunch of corn-cake with the ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... perhaps semi-comical but wholly-pathetic thing about the whole matter is this: that though undoubtedly our little planet is part of and has a place in this great sidereal universe, and consequently all our Jacks and Jills ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... a sober side to this apparently comical picture. The common undertone to many of these stories "hot from the lips of a spaceman" is Utopia. On these other worlds there is no illness, they've learned how to cure all diseases. There are no wars, they've learned how to live peaceably. There ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... on the Elizabeth, Warburton, who had C. Gregory with him as a second, found Babbage absent, so he sent Gregory after him to bring him back, and after waiting some time, determined to go himself, and a comical sort of hunt commenced, ending in Warburton coming up with Babbage at Lake Eyre, and there carrying out the duty imposed upon him, in a manner that says little for his ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... pages, in his intercourse with artists, has met with incidents as comical as that just related of Buonamico. Some artists proceed to paint without having previously designed, or even sketched out their subject on the canvass. We know an artist, who painted a fancy portrait of a child, in a landscape, reclining on a bank beside a stream; but when he had executed the ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... with his tail, with a rapid motion, from side to side, nose in the air, eyes fixed upon the bell, and throat sending out a prolonged howl so long as the ringing continued. The din was deafening, and far from musical, but it was a comical sight, vastly enjoyed by the young Travillas, ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... of France.' To this effort the melodramatic historians of the French Revolution have done scant justice. Mr. Carlyle, for example, alludes to it only in a casual half-disdainful way, which would be almost comical were the theme less ghastly. 'At Reims,' he observes, 'about eight persons were killed—and two were afterwards hanged for doing it.' The contest of this curious passage plainly shows that he imagined these 'eight persons' ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... broke the silence once more. "Well," she drawled, coughing genteelly at the same time, "better late than never, as the saying is. I wonder who it is gits up all them comical sayings?" Apparently she had no genuine desire for light upon this mystery, as she continued, immediately: "I have a gen'leman friend that's always gittin' 'em off. 'Well,' he says, 'the best of friends must part,' and, 'Thou strikest me to the heart'—all kinds of cracks like that. He's real ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... steal apples. Jack Juggler, who enacts the Vice, watches him, gets on some clothes just like his, and undertakes to persuade him "that he is not himself, but another man." The task proves too much, till he brings fist-arguments to bear; when Jenkin gives up the point, and makes a comical address to the audience, alleging certain reasons for believing that he is not himself. The humour of the piece turns mainly on this doubt of ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... asking me to marry you?" said Beth, breaking into a smile. The position struck her as comical rather than serious. ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... delivered through the States, everywhere drawing immense crowds. His manner of delivering his discourse was grotesque and comical beyond description. His quaint and sad style contributed more than anything else to render his entertainment exquisitely funny. The programme was exceedingly droll, and the tickets of admission presented the most ludicrous of ideas. The writer presents a fac-simile ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... of sound which they rolled up as high as to the moon was partly comical and partly terrifying to the fugitive whom they were hunting. In itself, it was impotent, for he made sure no seaman in the port could run him down. But the mere volume of noise, in so far as it must awake all the sleepers in Shoreby, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... gone to the heart of the returned prodigal. Aunt Dora was ready to have sacrificed all the veal in the country in honour of Jack's repentance; and the Curate stood outside upon the threshold, looking at the scene with the strangest half-angry, half-comical realisation of the state of mind of the elder brother in the parable. He had himself been rather found fault with, excused, and tolerated, among his relations; but Jack had at once become master of the position, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... reaction. Modification of the statement will later be mentioned. The patient is indifferent so far as his basic condition is concerned, and it is only by certain stimuli that at times emotional reactions can be elicitated, some tears at a visit of a relative, an appropriate smile at a joke or a comical situation when the stupor is not too deep or an angry reaction called ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... fairy-like and poetical arithmetic in purple ink. I had the pleasure, before a half hour had passed, of making her commit more than one error in her columns, do violet violence to the neatness of her book, and adorn her thumb-nail with a comical tiny silhouette. My gossip, which had this encouraging and proud effect, was commenced easily upon familiar subjects, such as the old rose-garden and the chickens, but branched imperceptibly into more personal confidences. I found myself growing strangely confidential. Soon I had sketched ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... I would say, where we had the mutton chops and where we heard the bullfrogs on the bridge. Or that town may be circumstanced in cherry pie, a comical face at the next table, a friendly dog with hair-trigger tail, or some immortal glass of beer on a bench outside a road-inn. These things make that town as a flame in the darkness, a flame on a hillside to overtop my course. Many years can go grinding by without ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... o' the lad?" said Master Carew, mimicking the blacksmith in a most comical way, with a wink at the crowd, as if he had never been angry at all, so quickly could he change his face—"What will I have o' the lad?" and all the crowd laughed. "Why, bless thy gentle heart, good man, I want to turn his farthings into round gold crowns—if thou and thine infernal ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... scowling face showed that he bore Maignan no good-will, and that but for my presence he might not have been so complaisant. La Trape was bringing his surgery to an end by demanding a fee, in the most comical manner possible, when the King returned to our part of the court. "What is it?" he ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... fatuous imbecility under the wisps of straight coarse hair dyed a mahogany tint, was the tindal of the crew—a kind of boatswain's or serang's mate. The other, sitting beside him on the booms, was a man nearly black, not much bigger than a large ape, and wearing on his wrinkled face that look of comical truculence which is often characteristic of men from the ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... with eyes not your own, do you, Miss Teezle?" said Lawyer Faddle with a comical leer, and a peculiar pipe ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... the mouth of a rocky cave in which a fire seemed burning. He entered, and saw a huge forge, and a crowd of men in front of it, blowing bellows and wielding hammers, and to each anvil were seven men, and a set of more comical smiths could not be found if you searched all the world through! Their heads were bigger than their little bodies, and their hammers twice the size of themselves, but the strongest men on earth could not have handled their iron clubs more stoutly or ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... very tall, thin, and brown, and reminded one of a colt; for she never seemed to know what to do with her long limbs, which were very much in her way. She had a decided mouth, a comical nose, and sharp, gray eyes, which appeared to see everything, and were by turns fierce or funny or thoughtful. Her long, thick hair was her one beauty, but it was usually bundled into a net to be out of her way. Round ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... comical divinity, who is laughed at by some, and believed by others to inhabit certain miniature temples, which are crowned with cocks with outspread wings, as that bird is supposed to be his favourite incarnation. On holidays and festivals, his temples are frequently carried about on the ...
— Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs • J. M. W. Silver
... bemoan his misadventures and see his comical discomfiture, would have upset anyone's gravity. Besides, he set the example ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... still sometimes hear in fancy her cradle-song humming in my own Old Indian ear as I am falling asleep—although many a long year has passed since I heard it in reality, and many a long league is now between me and the land of the dear, good, black, comical, kindly ayah. Let me try whether I cannot render it, even loosely, in our own strong Anglo-Saxon tongue, from the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... sadly. Few large parties are given now except those got up by the great people. When an outsider sends out invitations for a ball, or any other kind of reunion, the negotiations that go on between the swells as to whether they should patronise it or not are comical in the extreme. Should ever so slight an omission in the form of these invitations, or a mere accident in the delivery thereof, appear to them to touch their dignity, they will probably all absent ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... by Jove!" Bob ended on a low whistle, while his face assumed a comical expression of dismay. He turned to the lawyer. "Did you ever ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... which he had spoken. The lemon formed the whole pig, with four matches for his legs, two black pins for his eyes, and a narrow strip of paper, first curled round a match, for his tail. It was neither artistic nor realistic, but it was an exceedingly comical pig, and soon it began to squeak in an astonishingly pig-like voice. Then a tap at the window was heard, and a farmer's gruff voice shouted: "Have you my pig in there? ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... to shew us how the tiger must have pounced on the man, he would let go and use his hands in illustration; the old elephant would give another heave, and the fat little man would make another frantic grab at the patient mahout's hair. The whole scene was most comical, and we were ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... the solemn connection of man and wife. To be sure, there were old Marheyo and Tinor, who seemed to have a sort of nuptial understanding with one another; but for all that, I had sometimes observed a comical-looking old gentleman dressed in a suit of shabby tattooing, who had the audacity to take various liberties with the lady, and that too in the very presence of the old warrior her husband, who looked on as ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... spake Dan, "he be the most comical thing you ever clapped eyes on. He says he be Master Anthony, your worship's new son ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... turned Kate round to a mirror, where she beheld her own brown eyes looking out of a face dashed over with black specks, thicker about the mouth, giving her altogether much the colouring of a very dark man closely shaved. It was so exceedingly comical, that she went off into fits of laughing, in which she was heartily joined by all the ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... engraving. In making wood engravings, however, the drudgery of it was left almost entirely to workmen, not artists. Nuremberg was also the seat of musical learning. Wagner makes this fact pathetic, comical, and altogether charming in his "Mastersingers ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... who took part in this comedy dressed and acted as nearly as possible like Alcibiades and Socrates, you can imagine that the play, which was very comical and clever, made the Athenians ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... With a comical look in his eyes the trailer fell back. "'Pears like I ain't good enough to precede her Majesty. ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... vapor, which was at once congealed into little crystals upon their whiskers, beards, eyebrows, and eyelashes, until their faces, covered with countless snow-white prickles, were truly ludicrous. The little professor, most comical of all, resembled nothing so much as the cub of an ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... Jerry's shell. He was dripping from head to foot, and not being at all a handsomely-formed or good-looking youth, he presented a most comical appearance. ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... heartily at the comical figure cut by his two friends capering like crazy students at the Closerie des Lilas, he went ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... their footing when Jean was summoned aft, which, I allow, was very often; for there was no resisting the exhibition to all strangers of such a patent pet as this. To the Chinese in particular our comical favourite became an object of the highest admiration, for the natives of the celestial empire soon recognized in this happiest of swine the celebrated breed of their own country. Many a broad hint I got as to the ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... myself, if you please, Madam, and laugh at her into the bargain. Why, 'tis comical enough, if the little pug thought I was earnest, I must have a laugh or two at her, Madam, when I give ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... cupboard more hastily than was fitting, perhaps, and opened it. They found the object beneath a triple linen cloth, like some consecrated paten. It was a Faenza platter representing little Loves flitting away pursued by apothecary lads armed with enormous syringes. The chase abounds in grimaces and in comical postures. One of the charming little Loves is already fairly spitted. He is resisting, fluttering his tiny wings, and still making an effort to fly, but the dancer is laughing with a satanical air. Moral: Love conquered by the colic. This platter, which is very curious, and which ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... at my time of life," she interrupted. "It is certainly a career I never anticipated. And, candidly, I have doubts about its success," she laughed and shrugged, with a comical grimace. Then she patted his arm affectionately—"You had much better take Peter's advice and marry a nice girl who would mother the child and give her some brothers and sisters ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... the uttered "Vernon Lee" lies a vast renunciation half comical and wholly tragic. There are jests in the volume, and these, with the exception of Ponte dell' Angelo, have the merit of brevity; they buzz swiftly in and out, and do not wind about us with the terror of voluminous coils, as sometimes happens ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... the Virginian, "it's comical. Even her aigg acted different from anybody else's." He paused, and looked across the wide, mellowing plain with the expression of easy-going gravity so common with him. Then he looked at Em'ly in the ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... not nearly so interesting as his appearance promised. He is short; wears gold rimmed glasses; a Southern Colonel's Mustache and Goatee—and capitals are need to describe the style! He had his comical-serious little countenance topped off with a soft felt hat worn at the most rakish angle. He can't carry a tune, and really is not musical. His adopted daughter with whom he lives is rated the town's best ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... to get rid of one. I conjecture, sir, it may not be long since you shaved from the former of these motives. Upon my word, you have had good success; for one may say of your beard, that it is tondenti gravior."—"I conjecture," says Jones, "that thou art a very comical fellow."—"You mistake me widely, sir," said the barber: "I am too much addicted to the study of philosophy; hinc illae lacrymae, sir; that's my misfortune. Too much learning hath been my ruin."—"Indeed," ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... the schoolmaster was comical and quizzical. He was evidently the wit of his tribe. His face was yellow and dirty; his nose was short and red, in addition to which it was turned up at the point; his eyes were small, and sloped downwards at the inner corners ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... first witnessed Jack's comical performances, they amused him hugely, and he thought he had never before seen anything half so funny; even the annual circus, with its train of animals, and dancers, and tumblers and clowns, could not equal it. The "Jolly Scourer" was extremely comical ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... again until the following morning at breakfast. He had recovered his bird-like manner, and was full of a mysterious assassination that had just taken place in New York, all the thrilling details of which were at his fingers' ends. It was at once comical and sad to see this harmless old gentleman, with his naive, benevolent countenance, and his thin hair flaming up in a semicircle, like the footlights at a theatre, reveling in the intricacies ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... "Will, why don't you tell the girls how you enjoyed your first drink of soda water?" And seeing how I blushed, for my face was burning, he said, "I guess I had better tell them myself. I don't think you know how comical you looked." And in the most ridiculous way he could think of he described how I looked and acted on that to me never-to-be-forgotten occasion, "My first ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... and she rebuked him with most comical gravity, treating him as a child. He used to say that when he came to Alibi Crackaby he broke down, and Pin-Pan, Musky-Dan, Tweedle-um Twoddle-um made him roar with laughter. He said Musky-Dan especially was beyond ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... a little confusion, and mopped his head with comical abandon. Then he winked a most diabolical ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... "egregiously mistaken with respect to the volcanic character of (the true) 'Mount Sinai."' But without the eruption, the "fire and smoke theory," what becomes of his whole argument?[EN132] Save for the death of my friend, I should have greatly enjoyed the comical side of his subject; the horror and disgust with which he, one of the greatest of geographical innovators, regards a younger rival theory, the exodist innovation of Dr. Heinrich Brugsch-Bey. The latter is the first who has rescued the "March ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... and Mr Gunson's face relaxed into a smile, and then he too laughed heartily at the comical, horror-stricken countenance before us. ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... furious at being disturbed, yet with an uneasy air, half comical, half ashamed, as of being—caught. He took on a truculent, aggressive attitude, as though he knew he would have to explain himself and did not want to do so. He turned and ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... neighborhood of Iglau, and, in fact, through the whole of Bohemia, we saw some of the strangest teams that could well be imagined. I thought the Frankfort milkwomen with their donkeys and hearse-like carts, were comical objects enough, but they bear no comparison with these Bohemian turn-outs. Dogs—for economy's sake, perhaps—generally supply the place of oxen or horses, and it is no uncommon thing to see three large mastiffs abreast, harnessed to a country-cart. A donkey and a cow together, are sometimes ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... A still more comical mistake is related to us, of a commercial transaction that actually took place within a year or two, between parties severally situated in Boston and the city of San Francisco, California. As we consider ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... "sheep" and that the fleeces belong to him. He thinks that in his keeping is the conscience of mankind. So he imagines that his blessing is a great benefit to the faithful and that his prayers can change the course of natural events. He is a strange mixture of the serious and comical. He claims to represent God, and admits that he is almost a prisoner. There is something pathetic in the condition of this pontiff. When I think of him, I think of Lear on the heath, old, broken, touched with insanity, ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... gray dawn, while sleeping in a tent, I often awakened to hear something scamper up its steep side and then laughed to see the shadow of a comical little body toboggan down the canvas. Our pocket-knives, compasses and all other small objects were never safe unless securely packed away out of ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... daring from his servant. What she saw comforted her not a little, indeed she thought herself like to die of joy. He wondered again that such delicate little hands should have been reared on Spurnt Heath, and endured the service of the lowest; it was a half-comical content that made him send her a smiling acknowledgment; but she took it for a friendly message between them, and though the laughter in his eyes brought a mist over hers she was content. Prosper dropped asleep. Through the soft veil of her happiness she watched him patiently ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... be sure he made the best use of his eyes. The one thing which he remembered above everything else was the big poster-board near the market, covered over every inch of it with bright-colored pictures of leaping horses, trick mules, flying riders jumping through hoops, comical clowns, and, above all, a big balloon just rising out of the crowd, ...
— Harper's Young People, June 15, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Comical incidents are related of the Canadian fear in individual cases. There was a Scotch school trustee in Calgary. He had voted Whig-Liberal-dyed-in-the-wool free trade for forty years—from the traditions of reciprocity under Alexander Mackenzie. A Canadian flag was flying above the fine new Calgary ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... hope born of the boys' start from the valley below, they were among us, and Henry had sprung from his horse and embraced his brother, leaving a generous coating of yeso upon the army blue. Tears of joy had ploughed two streaks through the whiting on his face, and lent a comical effect to the boyish countenance. A general handshake ensued, and Corporal Frank asked, "Where are ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... our ammunition is climbing down to less than nothing—looks as though we were going to have a hot time soon. I turned in and helped Krylov all the morning and somehow his fat, ugly face, his little exclamations, his explosive comical rages, his sudden rough kindnesses did one a world of good. We filled the wagons and sent them back, then about midday, under a blazing hot sun, we went on with the others. Is there any place in the globe hot and suffocating quite as this ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... you write your nonsense, that I may write mine. Stick in a fine landscape, to make a display, A flower-piece, a foreground, all tinted so gay, As NATURE herself (could she see them) would strike With envy, to think that she ne'er did the like: And since some LAVATERS, with head-pieces comical, Have pronounc'd people's hands to be physiognomical, Be sure that you stuff it with AUTOGRAPHS plenty, All framed to a pattern, so stiff, and so dainty. They no more resemble folks' every-day writing, Than lines penn'd with ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Kant asks himself—and what is really his answer? "BY MEANS OF A MEANS (faculty)"—but unfortunately not in five words, but so circumstantially, imposingly, and with such display of German profundity and verbal flourishes, that one altogether loses sight of the comical niaiserie allemande involved in such an answer. People were beside themselves with delight over this new faculty, and the jubilation reached its climax when Kant further discovered a moral faculty in man—for ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... Alameda, I began to suspect that the reign of old things was over in Majorca. A little observation of the people made this fact more evident. The island costume is no longer worn by the young men, even in the country; they have passed into a very comical transition state. Old men, mounted on lean asses or mules, still enter the gates of Palma, with handkerchiefs tied over their shaven crowns, and long gray locks falling on their shoulders,—with short, loose jackets, shawls around the waist, and wide Turkish trousers ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... use the mahout's shoulders as steps. The baskets were taken off and left at a house, the elephant was turned loose in the jungle; I walked the remaining miles to Kwala Kangsa, and the driver carried my portmanteau! Such was the comical end of my first elephant ride. I think that altogether I walked about eight miles, and I was not knocked up; this says a great deal for the climate of Perak. The Malay who came with me told the people here that it ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... frankly, in the old anti-slavery days between 1850 and 1860, with other persons of distinction in Boston, who did not see the right so clearly as Quincy did, or who at least let their interests darken them to the ugliness of slavery. Their fault was all the more comical because it was the error of men otherwise so correct, of characters so stainless, of natures so upright; and the Quincy letters got out of it all the fun there was in it. Quincy himself affected me as the finest patrician type I had ever met. He was charmingly ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... 'em's comical enough," replied a husky voice from the far end of the table. "I broke somethin' inside of me laffin' at that one about your ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... took the gray from the wagon and hitched him to the carriage, substituting Old Hickory. The gray's shoulder was rubbed by his collar, and Zene reasoned that the lighter weight of the carriage would give him a better chance of healing his bruise. Thus paired the horses looked comical. Hickory and Henry evidently considered the change a disgrace to them. But they made the best of it and uttered no protest, except keeping as wide a space as possible between themselves and their new mates. ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... stared at her in such comical bewilderment as to what she meant, that she set them all off ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... velveteen, surmounted by a broad-brimmed sombrero of black glaze; while the complexion, although swarthy, was several shades lighter than that of the Indian. He was a man of diminutive stature, and with a countenance of a serio-comical cast. An expression of this kind pervaded his whole person—features and figure included—and was heightened by the presence of a singular accoutrement that hung suspended from his leathern waist-belt. ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... expression was indeed comical. He backed away from the hole through which he had just shot the raider head-first, shook his own head, stamped, and seemed to listen intently to the ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... Ben-Carime, throwing back his head with a comical expression, and fixing his eyes on vacancy, like one who is prepared to hear some trivial ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... yourself. Do you suppose for a moment the short or the long-faced fancier would accept such a bird as a gift? Certainly not; the short-faced fancier could see no beauty in it; the long-faced fancier would swear there was no use in it, etc." In these comical passages, written seriously, we see the principle which has ever guided fanciers, and has led to such great modifications in all the domestic races which are valued solely for their beauty ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... A comical potato race next sent the crowds into convulsions of laughter. And of course Paulding had to win that. How the others did rub it into the advocates of the down-river school; but they only grinned, and accepted ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... of the stars, the coat of whitewash that covered it made it possible to trace the outlines of a window in the gable that fronted the road. Some freak of the builder had turned it a quarter of the way around, giving it a comical suggestion of a man with a droop to ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... excellence is on serious subjects. There are some very delightful conversations and reflections on religion: but on lighter topics I think she falls into many absurdities; and, as to love, her heroine has very comical feelings. There are a thousand improbabilities in the story. Do you remember the two Miss Ormsdens introduced just at last? Very flat and unnatural. Madelle. Cossart is rather ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... the French Comedy a new play called Le Philosophie sans le savoir done and acted in a new stile, quite natural and moving: it has a prodigious success and deserves it extremely well. Marmontel will give us very soon upon the Italian stage his comical opera of La Bergere des Alpes. I hope it will prove very agreeable to the Publick, having been very much delighted by the rehearsal of it; the music was done by Mr Cohaut who teaches my wife to play on the luth. We expect a tragedy of the ...
— Baron d'Holbach • Max Pearson Cushing
... near as unmov'd as she had been the Night before; and at last she confessed, that the Humours of Sir John Falstaff was not the Sort of Comedy that pleased her Fancy; but that the merry Dialogues between Tom and Phillis in the Conscious Lovers, and the comical Humours of Ben and Miss Prue in Love for Love, were more suited to her Taste. I was not much surprised, because I before suspected, that whoever could sit the Play of King Lear without weeping, would see Sir John ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding
... lovely to me, and once a month I go home to my sister. We're the greatest chums ever, and her baby, Marguerite, is named for me, and she's a perfect darling! And Beek—that's her husband—is the most comical thing I ever saw; he'll go up and get Mrs. Tully—my sister rents one of her rooms,—and we have a little supper, and more cutting-UP! Or else Beek'll sit with the baby, and we girls go ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... repeated the merchant, adding, as he pointed with a comical mixture of irony and of despair to the disorder in his shop, "How can you expect me to know where I am in the ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... amusement, and when the masters' supper-bell gave the signal for the commencement of operations, every one found it difficult to retrain from shouts of laughter at the sight of the various styles of war-paint. Perhaps that of Jack Fenleigh, though simple to a degree, was most comical: his colours were described as "red and white," and his costume consisted of his night-shirt, and a large scarlet chest-protector which he had borrowed from a small boy, whose mother fondly believed him ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... little Foxey, With your coaxy Little way, You're gone for aye. I'll no longer hark To your garrulous bark, See the fleeching grimace Of your comical face, Nor be touched by your yelping When you get a skelping. You had no orthodoxy Poor Foxey, Nor a commanding spirit, Nor any great merit. The reason for sorrow, then, what is it? Just that you're missed, And that's all That shall befall The rest of us, Even the best of us. An empty chair Somewhere, ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... smiling at the comical, half-angry, half-confounded look he put on at this rather unusual ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... was to be given at Minorca in honour of the English, and the place chosen for the exhibition was a church; all which was perfectly consistent with the Romish faith. I went in the character of a fool, and met many brother officers there. It was a comical sight to see the anomalous groups stared at by the pictures of the Virgin Mary and all the saints, whose shrines were lit up for the occasion with wax tapers. The admiral, rear-admiral, and most of the captains and officers of the fleet ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... cousin!' exclaimed Donna Francesca with a comical air of commiseration, while Filippo del Monte whispered ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... Polichinelle, to whom it fell. But the other parts had all been built up into importance, with the exception of Leandre, who remained as before. The two great roles were now Scaramouche, in the character of the intriguing Sbrigandini, and Pantaloon the father. There was, too, a comical part for Rhodomont, as the roaring bully hired by Polichinelle to cut Leandre into ribbons. And in view of the importance now of Scaramouche, the play ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... cit.) gives a comical description of the Prince assuming the dress of an astrologer-doctor, clapping an old book under his arm, fumbling a rosary of beads, enlarging his turband, lengthening his sleeves and blackening his ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... amazed with these comical events, Corydon came skipping in, and told them that the priest was at church, and tarried for their coming. With that Gerismond led the way, and the rest followed; where to the admiration of all the country swains in Arden their marriages were solemnly solemnized. As soon as the priest ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... Little Belfast seemed, in the heavy heat of the forecastle, to boil with facetious fury. His eyes danced; in the crimson of his face, comical as a mask, the mouth yawned black, with strange grimaces. Facing him, a half-undressed man held his sides, and, throwing his head back, laughed with wet eyelashes. Others stared with amazed eyes. Men sitting doubled up in the upper bunks smoked short pipes, swinging bare ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... of the examined form a fruitful source of amusement for us all, and many comical instances have been published. The mistakes which are constantly occurring must naturally be innumerable, but only a few of them rise to the dignity of a blunder. If it be difficult to define a blunder, probably the best illustration of what it is will be found in the answers of the boys under ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... wore now the uniform of a Republican explorador. His crossed eye gleamed so humorously up at the Emperor, it might have been insolence, but it was only the proffered sharing of a jest. His matter-of-fact tone prevailed, and the guard stood aside. The four passed on down the street. In comical melancholy Don Tiburcio looked after them, and then he perceived that a fifth had slipped by the guard ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... Errol were taking one another's measure. The lawyer recited to his companion the conversation between Marjorie and himself relative to Timotheus. He found that Errol knew Marjorie, who had often been in his church and Sunday school in Flanders. "She's a comical little piece," he said; "her Sunday school teacher asked her who killed Goliath? and what do you think ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... gallops at full speed from the scene of his comrade's captivity. The other design shows us four tame bulls. The first submits with evident impatience to his master. The next two stand quietly, with an almost comical effect of good nature and contentment. The fourth advances slowly, browsing. In each composition the ground is indicated, not only beneath the men and animals, but above them, wherever the design affords room. It is an example of the same naive perspective which seems to have been ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... their 'thieves' Latin' dialect, their filthiness and cunning, ignorance and recklessness, merely as themes for immoral and inhuman laughter. Jonson was by no means the only poet of that day to whom the hordes of profligate and heathen nomads which infested England were only a comical phase of humanity, instead of being, as they would be now, objects of national shame and sorrow, of pity and love, which would call out in the attempt to redeem them the talents and energies of good men. But Jonson certainly sins more in this respect than any of his contemporaries. ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... without fear of the reports betraying their presence. The Senecas took the opportunity of fabricating snowshoes for the whole party, as these would be absolutely necessary for walking in the woods. Harold, Jake, and Duncan Cameron at once began to practice their use. The negro was comical in the extreme in his first attempts, and shouted so loudly with laughter each time that he fell head foremost into the snow that Peter said ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... other than common fishes, they always are worth watching. Tom Noddy was all head and no body, but they may be regarded as being nearly all body with very little head, and the two bright black eyes, which look as if they were "stuck on," give them a rather comical aspect. You will find them inquisitive, too. Put your finger in front of their tank, and they will all flock to see what it is. On the contrary, other fishes, such as the pike and carp, will remain stolid and indifferent to any movement you may make, and some, ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... thought, would have been the easiest way for the comical chap to save himself—just to slide down the string to the counter. But something ...
— The Story of a Bold Tin Soldier • Laura Lee Hope
... statement had been confused and absurd beyond belief, and had been received by the House with roars of laughter. He had sense enough to be conscious of his unfitness for the high situation which he held, and exclaimed in a comical fit of despair, "What shall I do? The boys will point at me in the street, and cry, 'There goes the worst Chancellor of the Exchequer that ever was!'" George Grenville came to the rescue, and spoke strongly on his favorite theme, the profusion with which the late war had ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Philip Carr, mining superintendent and engineer, looked from the windows with no little anxiety towards their future home in the straggling settlement below, that occasionally came in view at the turns of the long zigzagging road. A slight look of comical disappointment passed between them as they gazed upon the sterile flat, dotted with unsightly excrescences that stood equally for cabins or mounds of stone and gravel. It was so feeble and inconsistent a culmination ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... with his old cap, he bit his lips, and tried to repress the torrent that was surging in him. The outlandish old gray sweater with its rolling collar bulging up around his small, jerking throat, did not seem comical now. It made him the picture of pathos. He did not dare try to explain; that wonderful old man would only catch him in another trap and perhaps send him to state prison. His breath came quick and fast; he could no more speak ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... stifled rebellion or resigned apathy. Some would be called beautiful anywhere: they were graceful in form, had fine regular features and lovely, expressive eyes; others were attractive only on account of their animation; while one comical little negro girl, who had somehow got mixed with the Malay race, was as ugly as a Hottentot, and a veritable imp of darkness, as I afterward learned, so far as mischief was concerned. The girls were ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... and perhaps semi-comical but wholly-pathetic thing about the whole matter is this: that though undoubtedly our little planet is part of and has a place in this great sidereal universe, and consequently all our Jacks and Jills are related to all the Jacks and Jills everywhere else, yet each little human heart behaves as it ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... Prince of the Power of the Air. And he sits and he thinks: "I'm an old, old man, Mateless and chickless, the last of my clan, But I'd give the half of the days gone by To perch once more on the branches high, And hear my great-grand-daddy's comical croaks In authorized ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... something of its quality. One thinks at once of a careless abandonment of any pretension, of tireless energy and daring enterprise, of immense self-reliance, of a disrespect for the past so complete that a mummy is in itself a comical object, and the blowing out of an ill-guarded sacred flame, a delightful jest. One thinks of the enterprise of the sky-scraper and the humour of "A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur," and of "Innocents Abroad." Its dominant notes are democracy, freedom, and confidence. ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... elaborate epics, like Roland, and the romances in verse and prose, there were numberless short stories in verse (the fabliaux), which usually dealt with the incidents of everyday life, especially with the comical ones. Then there were the fables, the most famous of which are the stories of Reynard the Fox, which were satires upon the customs of the time, particularly the weaknesses of the priests ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... in the rear marched the carriers. They were a straight, strong lot, dressed according to their fancy or opportunity in the cast-off garments of the coast; comical in the ensemble, perhaps, but worthy of respect in that all day each had carried a seventy-pound load under a tropical sun, and that they were coming ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... interview, detailing at some length Twichell's comical mixture of delight and chagrin at not being given time to air the fund of prepared statistics with which he had come loaded. It was as if he had come to borrow a dollar and had been offered a thousand before he could ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... shoving off, Queerface, who had hitherto been looking over the side, chattering in the most voluble manner, made a spring and leaped in after them, and took his seat aft as if he thought himself one of them, as Paddy remarked. He looked about him in so comical a way that they all burst into fits of laughter, and when they tried to catch him to put him on board again, he leaped about so nimbly, that they were obliged to give up the chase and allow him ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... English!" he said, he "knew how bad that was." What he wanted her criticism on was—"its matter—its spirit—whichever it was, matter or spirit!" How comical that sounded! They took pains that their laugh should be noticed behind them. Flora observed both the laugh ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... A most comical sight was the cook, perched on top of his load of pans, pots, and potatoes. As his pony trotted along with the others, it looked as if the cook was in constant danger of a fall from his lofty seat, but he sat as calm and ...
— Our Little Korean Cousin • H. Lee M. Pike
... an illusion, or whether my absence from you is only a dream?" "Yes, my lord," cried she, "doubtless you were light-headed when you thought you were at Damascus." Upon this Buddir ad Deen laughed heartily, and said, "What a comical fancy is this! I assure you, madam, this dream of mine will be very pleasant to you. Do but imagine, if you please, that I was at the gate of Damascus in my shirt and drawers, as I am here now; that I entered the town with the halloo of a mob who followed and insulted me; that I fled to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... Nereus, and Bochart (Hiero. ii. 858, 880) notices the homo aquaticus, Senex Judaeus and Senex Marinus. Hole (p. 151) suggests the inevitable ouran-outan (man o' wood), one of "our humiliating copyists," and quotes "Destiny" in Scarron's comical romance (Part ii. chapt. i) and "Jealousy" enfolding ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... know you are comical, little worm? How you double yourself up and wave your head, And then stretch out and double up again, ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... theatre, Sir Tilton, making sure of escorting Vaura to the carriage, was in the act of putting her cloak over her shoulders, when Lionel offered his arm; Vaura taking it turned her head smiling her sweetest, with a word of thanks to small Everly, who returned it with a look of half-comical disappointment, and with one long step was ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... round the post, each seated on his haunches and brushing the ground with his tail, with a rapid motion, from side to side, nose in the air, eyes fixed upon the bell, and throat sending out a prolonged howl so long as the ringing continued. The din was deafening, and far from musical, but it was a comical sight, vastly enjoyed by the young Travillas, ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... refused all his offers as they intended quitting Alexandria in a few days, so he had no alternative but to submit. Still, he did not altogether throw up the game, and to win Dada's consent, at any rate, he made her laugh with a variety of comical pranks and showed her some ingenious conjuring tricks, and ere long their floating home echoed with merriment, with the clinking of wine-cups and with songs, in which even Agne was obliged to take part. Medius did not leave till near midnight and Herse then sent ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the bluejacket photographs; magnificent men, some of them, though one strong fellow looks more than comical, seated amid the photographer's rustic properties with a wreath of artificial fern leaves around him and a broadly smiling Jolly-Jack-Tar face protruding from the foliage. Some battleships, pitching and tossing in fearful photographers' gales[3] and ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... for a moment, and presently emerged with an old violin, which he began to scrape vigorously. Even his tuning was irresistibly comical; and he had not been playing a lively jig for ten minutes, before two or three couples were on their feet performing the figure. Soon an admiring circle, four deep, collected about the dancers. The sorrows of the exiles were ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... divinity, was too volatile not to be drawn into the adventure. The whole party accordingly disembarked, and were presently giving an exhibition of their talents to the assembled idlers, the Pantaloon, Harlequin and Doctor enacting a comical intermezzo which Cantapresto had that morning composed for them, while Scaramouch and Columbine joined the dancers, and the rest of the company, seizing on a train of donkeys laden with vegetables for the Venetian market, stripped ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... boudoir, where the rest of us were dressing. It was a short flight of steps, but as she held a candle, and was carrying her costume, she fell awkwardly, spraining her wrist and ankle. Finding that she was not maimed for life, Lady Ardmore turned with comical and unsympathetic haste to Francesca, so completely do amateur theatricals dry the milk of kindness in the ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... man or a' ignorant one ter swear a miser'ble wretch's life away. Let the law strengthen its own hands—that's what Meddy say. Don't kindle the sperit of Cain in every brother's breast. Oh, Meddy is plumb comical whenst she fairly gits ter goin', though it's all on account of that thar man what war growed up ...
— Wolf's Head - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... civilisation, and a German Sappho who poured forth a stream of pretentious and at the same time ludicrous complaints. The play unwittingly performed by these unpaid actors was enjoyed by our friend with all the zest the feeling of superiority can give. What a tragi-comical arrangement it is that in this world of ours everybody is laughing at everybody else! The scientists of the congress afforded Chopin an almost unlimited scope for the exercise of his wit. Among them he found so many curious ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... This comical apparition is composed of three distinct animals one upon the other—or, rather, of two living beings carrying a bier between them. The paguro crab is born with the lower part of his case unprotected,—a most ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... when Thorwald fought with the "Skraelings," and Biarni's dragon ship made the trip down the coast of Vineland about the dawn of the Christian era. We also know that the American camper was here when Columbus with his comical toy ships was blundering around the West Indies. We also know that the American camper watched Henry Hudson steer the Half Moon around Manhattan Island. It is this same American camper who has taught us to build many of the shacks to be ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... sat there drunk and dull, could no longer repress his amusement. He only saw the comical side of the incident and ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... does seem ludicrous; and no doubt if I had been there I must have been strongly tempted to laugh at the comical spectacle those six pigs must have presented. But it is the spirit of the thing that looks so bad. Growdy never harmed a boy in his life, he says, and only wants to be let alone; but they went out of their way to play a malicious trick on the old man. It took him the whole of Sunday to scrape that ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... believe you are," said the man in black, staring at me; "but, in connection with this Mumbo Jumbo, I could relate to you a comical story about a fellow, an English servant, I once met at ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... transcendent importance that exalts the lover above everything earthly, nay, indeed, above himself, and gives such a hyperphysical clothing to his physical wishes, that love becomes, even in the life of the most prosaic, a poetical episode; and then the affair often assumes a comical aspect. That mandate of the will which objectifies itself in the species presents itself in the consciousness of the lover under the mask of the anticipation of an infinite happiness, which is to be found in his union with this particular woman. ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... so full of conviction, and the answer struck Don Luis Perenna as so comical, that ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... the meeting, and the Shannon, alone, with her immensely superior armament, ought to have been a match twice over for the Essex: although, if James is right, as seems probable, it gives rather a comical turn to Porter's account of his ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... hypocrisy. The O'Kage Sama now was longing for the rightful substitution. His nest well feathered, he would seek safer quarters with the softer charms of O'Han. On Shu[u]zen's abrupt gesture and refusal he took his departure, almost betraying his own disgruntlement. Comical was his despairing gesture as he took his way to the ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... every imaginable key, and to draw their claws across the strings of the guitars, making the strangest kind of music that could be heard. The Prince hastily stopped up his ears, but even then the sight of these comical musicians sent him ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... made it, for the other's sake, retiring, not demonstrative; and perfect cheerfulness, intuitive or acquired, was either the first or second nature of both. In a very few moments Lamps was taking another rounder with his comical features beaming, while Phoebe's laughing eyes (just a glistening speck or so upon their lashes) were again directed by turns to him, and to her ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... she could do for him under the circumstances," Cairy remarked philosophically. "But the child must be a bore." He laughed at the comical situation. ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... friendly ways. They shoulder responsibility; they do not flirt; they sort out cranks; they flee from simpers; they put down presumption. If married, they laugh heartily with their wives over any letter or episode that is comical or sentimental. If not married, they get out of things the best way they know how, with a sort of plain, manly directness. If a minister would arrogate to himself his free-born privilege of being a thorough-going man, many ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... said Abraham Rubio, with a comical grimace. "Would he had done so! For then we should have owned a goodly vessel, and the Master would have saved us ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Cousins!" she said. "They've been actin' real strange the past week, ever since you was here last. Honest, I don't believe they've thought of one single thing besides each other. Werryin' and frettin' and watchin'—I'm 'most worn out with 'em. There! if it warn't so comical I should cry, and if it warn't so pitiful I should laugh. That's just the way I feel about ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... Majunke, was sent for a term of imprisonment to Ploetzensee. When the prisoners were led out for their daily walk, the leader of the Reds, John Most, met the leader of the Blacks, Majunke. The situation was comical enough to cause amusement to both; both being brilliant, they found enough interesting material for conversation, which helped them over the dreariness ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... sometimes the mothers of some of the better-class children used to come out with a comical assumption of superiority and dignity and compel their children to leave off playing with Frankie and some other poorly dressed children who used to play in that street. These females were usually overdressed and wore a lot of jewellery. Most of them ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... course of the action; if he really smooths them all off by making his fools become rational, or by reforming or punishing his villains, then there is an end at once of everything like a pleasant and comical impression. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... certainly be an oversight," said Robert, who was keenly alive to the comical side of the question. Raffles Haw, however, in deadly earnest, sat scratching away at his map ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a couple of compositions treated in a graver manner, as characteristic too as the other. We call attention to the comical look of poor Teague, who has been pursued and beaten by the witch's stick, in order to point out also the singular neatness of the workmanship, and the pretty, fanciful little glimpse of landscape that the artist has introduced in the background. Mr. Cruikshank has a fine eye for such homely landscapes, ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... denying that the comical side of the strange life appeared. I awoke, sometimes, to find the sun already shining into my cabin. I heard water rushing by, with only a thin plank between me and the depths, and I said, "How is this?" But it was all right; it was my ship on her course, sailing as no other ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... most loving and most loved—bravely he toiled, with pen and pencil, with head and heart; and while men held both their sides from laughter, he who shook them held both his sides from pain; while tears, kindly or comical, came at the touch of his genius into thousands of eyes, eyes were watching and weeping in secret by his bed-side in the lonely night, which, gazing through the cloud of sorrow on his thin features and his uneasy sleep, took ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... solemnity of the place. Little light hats quivered in all their bright-hued plumes, round arms encircled with gold leaned on the rail in order to listen more at their ease. The solemn Le Merquier had imparted to the sitting the entertainment of a play, had introduced the little comical note permitted at charitable concerts as ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... of Sir John's constitution made mountains of his petty sins in this kind. On reaching the fresh air he was sufficiently unsteady to incline the row of three at one moment as if they were marching to London, and at another as if they were marching to Bath—which produced a comical effect, frequent enough in families on nocturnal homegoings; and, like most comical effects, not quite so comic after all. The two women valiantly disguised these forced excursions and countermarches as well as they could from Durbeyfield, their cause, and from Abraham, and from themselves; ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... It is undoubtedly a most relaxing and unhealthy one, and therefore requires the more imperatively to be met by energetic and invigorating habits both of body and mind. Of these, however, the southern ladies appear to have, at present, no very positive idea. Doctor —— told us to-day of a comical application which his negro man had made to him for the coat he was then wearing. I forget whether the fellow wanted the loan, or the absolute gift of it, but his argument was (it might have been an Irishman's) that ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... martyrdom. On arriving before the statue of Pepezuch the young people decorated it with garlands. When the square of the town was reached, the theatre was stopped like the ancient car of Thespis, and the actors treated the people to a few comical drolleries in imitation of Aristophanes. From the galley the youths flung sugar-plums and sweetmeats, which the spectators returned in equal profusion. The procession closed with a number of men, crowned with green leaves, carrying on their heads loaves of bread, which, ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... devil and went into her cell. Overpowered by pain, fear and superstition, she begged him to help her out; her beseeching was taken for confession, she was burned, and a ballad which treated the trick as a jolly and comical device, was long popular in the country. Several of the judges in witch cases tell us how victims, utterly weary of their tormented lives, confessed whatever was required, merely as the shortest way to death, ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... no one who could help grinning at Ferdinand Frog's news—he looked so comical. And old Mr. Crow, who was noted for his rudeness, even burst out ...
— The Tale of Ferdinand Frog • Arthur Scott Bailey
... o'clock, an orderly came to the hut with a message that the colonel wished to speak to Lieutenant Carstairs. Harry gave his friend a comical look, as the latter rose and buckled ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... to adopt our system of the secret ballot in place of her method which placed every tenant at the mercy of the landlord and every mill hand at the mercy of the mill owner. She is now struggling in a comical way to adopt our public school system. It remains for us to teach her to be ...
— The American Revolution and the Boer War, An Open Letter to Mr. Charles Francis Adams on His Pamphlet "The Confederacy and the Transvaal" • Sydney G. Fisher
... Frosine only sketched in outline; and in the fifth act the ladies appear to have nothing else to do but to pop in and out of closets. The scenes of the French play between Albert and Metaphrastus (ii. 7); the very comical scene between Albert and Polydore (iii. 4) and the reconciliation scene between Lucile and Eraste (iv. 3), are also not rendered in the English comedy. There are very few scenes which can be compared with those ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere
... news of her Cousin Will's coming to Ilkeston. She knew plenty of young men, but they had never become real to her. She had seen in this young gallant a nose she liked, in that a pleasant moustache, in the other a nice way of wearing clothes, in one a ridiculous fringe of hair, in another a comical way of talking. They were objects of amusement and faint wonder to her, rather than real ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... by a voice so near at hand, for she had heard no footfall on the thick turf. There, in the centre of the grass-grown space, stood two comical little midgets, their smutty yet cherubic faces blooming brightly above garments highly coloured and earthy, too, as the ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... it is perfectly proper for them to do that thing; but when it comes to a grandma who hasn't a drop of Irish blood in her veins, I beg to be excused, and, what is more, I won't stand it," protested Felix, making a very comical face. ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... other three boys laughed. They were not at all unfeeling, and could appreciate the misery of their fat companion; but then Lub had such a comical way of expressing himself, and made so many ludicrous faces, that they ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... the Casterbridge toss-pots had done; and rightly not—there was none. She disliked those wretched humours of Christopher Coney and his tribe; and he did not appreciate them. He seemed to feel exactly as she felt about life and its surroundings—that they were a tragical rather than a comical thing; that though one could be gay on occasion, moments of gaiety were interludes, and no part of the actual drama. It was extraordinary how similar ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... that day, but from some cause I never knew, the boat did not leave the wharf until about dark the next evening. My company was quartered on the hurricane deck of the boat. Soon after the boat started down the river an incident befell me that looks somewhat comical now, but at that time it was to me a serious matter, and one that troubled my conscience a good deal. I had piled my knapsack, with the blanket strapped on the outside, and my other stuff, at the foot of the gun stack ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... snake song, a soft, wavy, piano, pianissimo effect, all malignant stealth and horror, and running through it were the guileless and insistently hungry twitterings of baby birds in the nest. But there were comical pieces, too, in which ludicrous adventures befell unsophisticated monkeys; and there was a whole series of spring-fever songs—some of them just rotten and nervous, and some of them sad and yearning—and some of them—I don't know just how to put it—well, some of them you ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... such a comical face that the sick and wounded all around him laughed. It did them good, and Patrick knew it, and so, in the kindness of his heart, he kept on making up faces, and never ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... not stab and sneer, and create new worlds more laughable than even this, like Swift, nor declaim and sap faith, like Bolingbroke, nor rhyme and glitter like Pope, nor discourse on medals and write comical "Pilgrims' Progresses" like Arbuthnot, nor pour out floods of learning like Prior in "Alma," could do things which they in their turn never equalled, (even as in Emerson's poem, "The Mountain and the Squirrel," the latter wisely remarks to ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... serious problem to solve, and their ideas of its solution were almost comical. Thus, one statesman recommended the organization of a special force recruited from the ranks of vagrants and criminals and stationed permanently in the northern islands, A more practical programme was the formation ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... the house, for denial or confirmation of my word. When he next looked back at me, the expression of inquiring helplessness and vague alarm on his face, as if the earth were giving way beneath his feet, was half comical, half pitiful ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... proverb in fact says, "The devil who seizes yon in the cradle, goes with you to the funeral pile".' The fear and worship of ghosts, demons, and devils are universal throughout India, and the rites practised are often comical. The ghost of a bibulous European official with a hot temper, who died at Muzaffarnagar, in the United Provinces, many years ago, was propitiated by offerings of beer and whisky at 'his tomb. Much information on the subject is collected in the articles 'Demon', 'Devils', ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... Mr. Hearl on Hounslow-Heath. I secured the dog after he had wounded me. This fracture was the handiwork of Jack Parrot (otherwise called Jack the Grinder), who broke into the palace of the Bishop of Norwich. Jack was a comical scoundrel, and made a little too free with his grace's best burgundy, as well as his grace's favourite housekeeper. The Bishop, however, to show him the danger of meddling with the church, gave him a dance at Tyburn for his pains. Not a scar but has ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... and modern, sacred and secular; characters from plays and novels from Plautus down to Walter Scott and Jane Austen; images and similes from poets of every age and every nation, 'pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical;' shrewd thrusts from satirists, wise saws from sages, pleasantries caustic or pathetic from humorists; all these throng Macaulay's pages with the bustle and variety ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... us closer, and at two P.M. we had come within hail. There was little wind, but a nasty short sea was running; and it was comical in the extreme to observe each man endeavouring to steady himself, and place his hands to his mouth for the purpose of hailing, when a sudden swell would send him rolling over Sailor's hutch, or seat him gently on the sky-light behind. After a little trouble, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... he was sometimes called, Robin Goodfellow) was a shrewd and knavish sprite, that used to play comical pranks in the neighboring villages; sometimes getting into the dairies and skimming the milk, sometimes plunging his light and airy form into the butter-churn, and while he was dancing his fantastic shape in the churn, in ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the finger at me, and laugh, saying to each other: 'That is a fool, an original, whom Nature herself has chosen as a kind of court fool to society.' No one has understood the cry of distress of my soul. Those who laughed at the comical fellow by day, little dreamed of the anguish and misery in which he ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... his will; yet not his the will, not his the power. 'Tis all Fortune's, whose puppet he is. She deals her dispensations through him. Yea, though our capers be never so comical, he laughs not. Intent upon his own business, the true hero asks little services of us here and there; thinks it quite natural that they should be acceded to, and sees nothing ridiculous in the lamentable contortions we must go through to fulfil them. Probably he is the elect of Fortune, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sentiment. And right! You must confess that nothing could have been more right. I had a mind to shout "Brava! Brava!" but I did not do that. I took a piece of cake and went out to bribe the Fyne dog into some sort of self-control. His sharp comical yapping was unbearable, like stabs through one's brain, and Fyne's deeply modulated remonstrances abashed the vivacious animal no more than the deep, patient murmur of the sea abashes a nigger minstrel on a popular beach. Fyne was beginning to swear at him in ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... presents of my dear virtuous master: Hey, you know closet for that! Mrs. Jervis. She laughed, and said, I never saw such a comical girl in my life! But go on. I will, Mrs. Jervis, said I, as soon as I have opened the bundle; for I was as brisk and as pert as could be, ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... came to look after her mother; the parish nurse, whom they loved, came in morning and evening. Paul shared the nursing with Annie. Often, in the evenings, when friends were in the kitchen with them, they all laughed together and shook with laughter. It was reaction. Paul was so comical, Annie was so quaint. The whole party laughed till they cried, trying to subdue the sound. And Mrs. Morel, lying alone in the darkness heard them, and among her bitterness was ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... and Mr. Kincaid emerged from the house carrying his valise, to be well packed with the shell-box, gun, bag and a lunch basket. Mr. Kincaid's duck-dog, named Curly, lay crouched in the bottom like a soft warm mat. Bobby had met Curly before. He was a comical seal-brown dog, covered with compact tight curls all over his body. When Bobby petted him, they felt springy. His face, head and ears, however, were smooth and silky. He had yellow eyes, and an engaging disposition. To the touch his ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... Moslem to do—especially toward a Hindu—but the Mahatma took not the slightest notice of him and walked straight past as if he had not been there. He could hear King's footsteps and mine behind him, of course, and did not need to look back, but there was something almost comical in the way he seemed to ignore our existence and go striding along alone as if on business bent. He acted as little like a priest or a fakir or a fanatic as any man I have ever seen, and no picture-gallery curator or theater usher ever did the honors ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... Mattock spoke to her brother of her recruit. He entirely trusted to her discretion; the idea of a young Irish secretary was rather comical, nevertheless. He had his joke about it, requesting to have a sight of the secretary's books at the expiry of the week, which was the length of time he granted this ardent volunteer ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... are much hunted, bear become purely nocturnal; but in the wilder forests I have seen them abroad at all hours, though they do not much relish the intense heat of noon. They are rather comical animals to watch feeding and going about the ordinary business of their lives. Once I spent half an hour lying at the edge of a wood and looking at a black bear some three hundred yards off across an open glade. It was in ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... did. We talked for two hours. It was almost comical—the sheer delight in talking to a woman once more. I have never been what is called a woman's woman, but I always had my friends, and I suddenly realized that I had missed ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... burn when you put a light to it. It's all absolute. My half-million is as right as if it were lying to my credit in the Bank of England. Oh, that reminds me," he went on in a slightly altered tone—"it's damned comical, but I've got to ask you for a little money. I've only got about seven pounds at my bank, and just at the minute it would give me away fearfully to let Semple know I was hard up. Of course he'd let me have anything I wanted—but, you can see—I don't like ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... at them, furious at being disturbed, yet with an uneasy air, half comical, half ashamed, as of being—caught. He took on a truculent, aggressive attitude, as though he knew he would have to explain himself and did not want to do so. He turned ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... her shoulders, and refuses to go on with her part;—another, however, always stands ready on the platform to supply the vacancy, until friends have coaxed, reasoned, or threatened the little pouter into obedience. These children are often very beautiful and graceful, and their comical little gestures and intonations, their clasping of hands and rolling up of eyes, have a very amusing and interesting effect. The last time I was there, I was sorry to see that the French costume had begun to make its appearance. Instead of the handsome ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... half-spread for coolness. All birds during the pairing season become more or less sentimental, and murmur soft nothings in a tone very unlike the grinding-organ repetition and loudness of their habitual song. The crow is very comical as a lover, and to hear him trying to soften his croak to the proper Saint Preux(1) standard has something the effect of a Mississippi boatman quoting Tennyson. Yet there are few things to my ear more melodious than his caw of a clear winter morning as it drops to you filtered through five ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... the room before Campbell, and shaking hands with his guests: 'Ah, Mr. Bemis; Mrs. Bemis; Aunt Mary! You've heard of our comical little coincidence—our—Mr. Bemis and my—' He halts, confused, and looks around for the moral support of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the marvellous stability which the pure democracy of Switzerland has displayed, there is something comical in the horror of all forms of direct government expressed by most constitutional writers. De Tocqueville, whom we honor for his appreciation of our own Constitution, declares "that they all tend to render the government of the people irregular in ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... a blue!" broke in Paddy, with a comical twinkle of his eye, as he winked in the direction of Commodore Cleveland, ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... know of a first-rate place for rest-cures; I think it would be wise if I just casually dropped the name of it to Mr Robert, in case. And this last craze seems so terribly infectious. Fancy Mrs Weston dabbling in palmistry! It is too comical, but I hope I did not hurt her feelings by suggesting that Peppino or you wrote the Manual, It is dangerous to make little ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... that I call this fair play," said Saltash with a comical twist of the eyebrows. "I didn't expect all these developments in so ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... I repeat it, was too short; you should have given me your opinion of the design of the heroi-comical poem which I sent you. You remember I intended to introduce the hero of the poem as lying in a paltry ale-house. You may take the following specimen of the manner, which I flatter myself is quite original. The room in which ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... idea of coming to him to be told whether her voice was most like Patti's or Melba's. I said I had thought so; and then he said that I was the nine-hundredth-and-thirty-seventh that week. 'And Martha lets them all in, every one,' he said, with such a comical look of despair that I could not help laughing outright. 'And she thinks that I have only to hear them sing, and they straightway become famous on the spot. Well, well,' he went on, 'you did not come here to hear me talk, but to listen to yourself ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... be quiet, but she would not; she grew wild, staring about and straining out her arms. "I will be no party to this folly—I will not—I will not," she said half to herself, but Palamone was listening with a comical, wry face, rubbing ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... do with them?" said Peggy, with a comical glance around the room. "There's no sign of a sofa. Never mind! they are perfect beauties. Oh, and what can this be? Oh, Bertha, ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... went to the zoo and, rubbered at the animals and birds. And I sat in the park and watched comical ball games and golf games and the like. And then I went on some of those boats that run between no place and nowhere—you get on at a pier and ride for a half hour and get off at a pier and have to call a taxi in order to find your way back ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... and after some comical quizzing, they decided, to their own complete satisfaction, that although the bushman's "missus" was the "littlest of all little 'uns, straight up and down," the Maluka's "knocked spots off ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... began by throwing up the ball perpendicularly in the air, when instantly both parties (writes an eyewitness) "formed a singular group of naked men, painted in different colours and in the most comical attitudes imaginable, holding their rackets elevated in the air to catch the ball". Whoever was so fortunate as to catch it in his net ran with it to the barrier with all his might, supported by his party; ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... or to weep— Was it comical, or was it grave? When we who had waded breast deep In passion's most turbulent wave Met out on an isle in Time's ocean, With ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... words waxed hottest at the dinner-table between his host and hostess, he would drive his hands through his shock of sandy hair, and say, with a comical glance out of his umber eyes, "Don't flirt, my friends. It makes a ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... have you. I shall have some one to box with, at any rate. Now," he added, with a comical look, "I can't induce my uncle to have a bout with me. Indeed, I should be afraid to, for he is so shortsighted he would need to wear spectacles, and I ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... old Flanders found in Rops their pictorial interpreter. Less cerebral in his abounding youth he made Paris laugh with his comical travesties of political persons, persons in high finance, and also by his shrewd eye for the homely traits in the life of the people. His street scenes are miracles of detail, satire, and fun. The one entitled ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... imagine ourselves in his place;—then we are obliged to acknowledge that he cannot possibly understand what has happened to him. And then we all burst out laughing in the face of the poor little beast, which maintains the most comical look of gravity. Jeanne wants to take him up; but he hides himself under the table, and cannot even be tempted to come out by the lure of a saucer ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... I have o' the lad?" said Master Carew, mimicking the blacksmith in a most comical way, with a wink at the crowd, as if he had never been angry at all, so quickly could he change his face—"What will I have o' the lad?" and all the crowd laughed. "Why, bless thy gentle heart, good man, I want to turn his farthings ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... at his comical look of apprehension. "I think she's quite harmless, Arthur, and perhaps you may find her really ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... medieval chivalry and the platonic love of a pure and high-souled knight. Of course it's all an ideal, and in the 'poor knight' that spirit reached the utmost limit of asceticism. He is a Don Quixote, only serious and not comical. I used not to understand him, and laughed at him, but now I love the 'poor knight,' and respect ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... belonged to her ... and here he was standing on the very spot where she had sat in her carriage, offering thanks in old quavering accents to the Almighty God for allowing her to reign for sixty years. The fact that he was able to stand on that very spot seemed comical to him. There ought to have been a burning bush on the place where "the Queen" had said her prayers. Uncle Matthew would have expected something of that sort ... but there was nothing more dramatic than this plainly-chiselled inscription. And ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... bhoy," laughed Barney, with a comical twist of his mug, "tin thousand will do for a nist egg. Wid thot for a nist egg, we ought to hatch out enough to kape us from becomin' objects of charity in ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... do not,—I make a point of reserving time for a visit to Rhoda. The last time I went, I encountered Will bringing her down stairs in his arms; and she held in her arms, as something too precious to be yielded to another, what proved on inspection to be a tiny, blue-eyed baby. It was comical to see her ready, matronly ways; and it was touching, when you thought of the past, to witness her quiet ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
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