"Comical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rivals—for this was clear as daylight to me. Berlioz seemed to be pleasantly affected by the attitude of gay spontaneity I adopted with him. His usual short, almost reserved, manner thawed visibly during the friendly hours we passed together. He told me many comical things about Meyerbeer, and the impossibility of escaping from his flattery, which was dictated by his insatiable thirst for laudatory articles. The first performance of his Prophet had been preceded by the customary diner de la veille, and when Berlioz excused himself for staying away, ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... fiddlers begins to dance, and caper and plays, fit to make one burst with laughter that sees and hears them. Then they go on again and crys as before, with the greatest majesty and gravity immaginable, none of this comical crew being seen so much as to smile all the time, when as spectators are almost bursten with laughing. This is the true origin of the proverb, for this custome of gavelage is a certain tribute that every house pays to the ... when he ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... events, tragic, pathetic, comical and otherwise, took place upon a stage made particularly fit by nature and the ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... how late it was, began to take their leave. Marian went with them, and Patty, after the last one had gone, returned to the dining-room, to find her father regarding the table with a look of comical dismay. ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... issued "Cock Robin, a pretty gilded toy for either girl or boy," in which the early cut on page 12 was used. This rare edition has the following comical variation ...
— Banbury Chap Books - And Nursery Toy Book Literature • Edwin Pearson
... 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
... comical look. "There's a lot of scaffolding at the bottom of St. James's Street. Should we have it down to-night? Or what do you say to a packet of dynamite in the ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... 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 |
