"Ludicrous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... then, of those silences that had come between them? He had been thinking, remembering, careful lest he should forget a single scruple of the whole ludicrous affair. She shuddered, remembering how she had fairly flung herself ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... like John Hawkins, and one man at least of incomparable eloquence as well as Christian earnestness, John B. Gough. But the public were not long in finding that merely to have wallowed in vice and to be able to tell ludicrous or pathetic stories from one's experience was not of itself sufficient qualification for the work of a public instructor in morals. The temperance platform became infested with swaggering autobiographers, whose glory was in their shame, and whose general influence was distinctly demoralizing. ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... other hand and kissed it tenderly. He was very fond of his mother. At this moment Pax took a little run, and jumped on to mamma's lap, where, sitting facing the company, he opened his black mouth and yawned, with a ludicrous inappropriateness worthy of any clown. It ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... when the reindeer started at a furious rate and in the wildest way. The Lapps held their reins as hard as they could and threw themselves across their sleighs and were carried in that way for a little distance. It was a most ludicrous sight, the like of which I had never seen! But they all succeeded in getting in—they were ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... when he had to say that his listeners must become like this child? when the lesson he had to present to them was that of the divine nature of the child, that of childlikeness? Would there not have been a contrast between the child and our Lord's words, ludicrous except for its horror, especially seeing he set forth the individuality of the child by saying, "this little child," "one of such children," and "these little ones that believe in me?" Even the feelings of pity and of love that would arise in a ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... to him. He seemed to be on the verge of collapse, and was positively livid with fright. In other conditions than those obtaining at the moment, such a display of terror on the part of a truculent looking, strongly built man would have been almost ludicrous; but Steingall found no humor in the spectacle. He was gazing at the Hungarian with a curious concentration, and the police captain, who had begun by thinking his colleague was saying far too much, and who was inclined to disagree with some of his ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... of ludicrous effects. For example, keep a plain background behind your piano. Make sure that, when listening to music you are not distracted by seeing a bewildering section of a picture above the pianist's head, or a silly little vase dodging, as ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... political character. To hear such a character attributed to her—to her, who was only last year boarding in a school—to her, who knew little more of politics than that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were the most amiable young couple in England—was ludicrous even in that hour of trouble. I do not exactly know how she comported herself during her examination; but I suspect she not merely laughed at the whole affair, but felt a little elated at the idea of being held as of so much importance. She was really anxious, however, about her ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... seasons when his ideas were flushed to a degree much above their common complexion. In times not credulous of inspiration, we should account for this from some natural cause; but we do not mean to account for it at all; it were sufficient to describe its effects; but they were sometimes so ludicrous, as might derogate from the dignity of the sensations which produced them to describe. They were treated indeed as such by most of Harley's sober friends, who often laughed very heartily at the awkward blunders of the real Harley, when the different faculties, which should have prevented them, ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... the mode adopted of making his estimates, that additional knowledge may perhaps alter the conclusions drawn, but can never diminish the value of the experiments." They are not open to the objections of mistaken sensations, and honest, though ludicrous, misapprehension of fallible symptoms, to which the testing of drugs homeopathically is liable, and of which another instance has just occurred in London, in the "proving" of the new medicinal agent, gonoine. They rather resemble in accuracy a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... all the spirit and wrath of the old woman: her cries of distress as she darted from one to the other, striking to the right and left with her feeble arms, her form trembling with passion, were at once ludicrous and piteous; and these were responded to by the shrill exclamations of the fierce tymbesteres, as they retorted scratch for scratch, and blow for blow. The spectators grew animated by the sight of actual outrage and resistance; the humpbacked tinker, whose unwholesome fancy one of the ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... or in any other place, his appearance would have been ludicrous. But now no one laughed. The people in the court-room began to whisper, "Hush!" fearing lest the noise of moving bodies might cause them to lose ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... important mission. I forgot not only my father's caution against vanity but also my sorrow at parting with him; my amour propre rose triumphant above every other feeling; the disagreeable lump in my throat subsided, and with an unconscious, but no doubt very ludicrous, assumption of condescending authority, I ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... even her, of Kyan's confidential disclosure, and, after some speculation as to whether or not there might be a sequel, put the whole ludicrous affair out of his mind. He worked hard in his study and at his pastoral duties, and was conscious of a pleasant feeling that he was gaining his ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... their canoes; and they received in exchange small saws, knives, nails, tin-kettles, and needles. It was pleasing to behold the exultation, and to hear the shouts of the whole party, when an acquisition was made by any one; and not a little ludicrous to behold the eagerness with which the fortunate person licked each article with his tongue, on receiving it, as a finish to the bargain, and an act of appropriation. They in no instance omitted this strange practice, however small the article; the needles even ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... young bird I know is the robin. He is perfectly sure he has a right to attention, and he intends to have it. If he is neglected too long and gets hungry, he calls loudly and impatiently, jerking himself up with a ludicrous air of stamping his feet. Even when he does condescend to go to the lawn with mamma, it is not to seek his food—far from it! It is to follow her around, and call every moment or two for something to eat. The idea that his individual exertions have anything to do with the food supply ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... version, "The Six Sillies," is in Lang's Red Fairy Book. A very fine Italian version, called "Bastienelo," is given in Crane's Italian Popular Tales. The tendency of people to "borrow trouble" is so universal that stories illustrating its ludicrous consequences have always had wide appeal. Some details of these variants are due to local environments. For instance, in the Italian story wine takes the place of beer, and it has been pointed out that there are "borrowing trouble" ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... occurred which gave me the very opportunity I wanted—a scene so ludicrous, that the steed was no longer the ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... and the neck is short. The hind legs appear to be longer, compared with the front legs, than is usual. The exposed incisor teeth, the short head and upturned nostrils, give these cattle the most ludicrous, self-confident air of defiance. The skull which I presented to the College of Surgeons has been thus described by Professor Owen:[209] "It is remarkable from the stunted development of the nasals, premaxillaries, and fore-part of the lower jaw, which ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... "Dick, you're a marvel and I'm glad adversity hasn't soured you; but you won't make enough to keep you in neckties at any business you take up. It's ludicrous to think of your running about with paint samples, but there's something pathetic in it that spoils my amusement." Her face softened and she changed her tone. "I'm a rather rich old woman, Dick, and your mother was a very dear friend of mine. You ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... great glee; and that very evening sent off to his Court a most ludicrous spicy description of the whole scene of meeting between this amiable father and child; in which he said that young Billings was the eleve favori of M. Kitch, Ecuyer, le bourreau de Londres, and which ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Queen, smiling, gave him her hand to kiss, dispensing with the form of touching her crown. Miss Martineau, who witnessed the scene, states that a foreigner who was present was made to believe by a wag that this ludicrous tumble was a part of the regular programme, and that the Lords Rolle held their title on condition of performing that feat at ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... JAMES (1745-1813).—A country gentleman of Berkshire, who pub. Poems on Various Subjects and Alfred, an Epic, translated the Poetics of Aristotle, and was Poet Laureate from 1790. In the last capacity he wrote official poems of ludicrous dulness, and was generally a jest and a byword ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... marked his inward shrinking, for she checked herself, and, slowly turning her lifeless screen, hid behind it. It was impotent deprecation translated into flesh,—at once ludicrous and painful. The young man found so much difficulty in restraining the manifestation of his distaste, that he blushed in the twilight at his own rudeness. He would do his ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... have been complete, only that it was ludicrous to those who could not but think, as I did, of the very little matter as to which the contest had been raised;—just a game of cricket which two sets of boys had been playing, and which should have been regarded as no ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... she looked haughty and handsome. Addressing her as Fraeulein Hulstrom, von Francius gave her a sharp lecture, and imitated the effect of her voice in a particularly soft passage with ludicrous accuracy. The rest of the chorus was tittering audibly, the musicians, with the exception of Courvoisier and his friend, nudging each other and smiling. She bridled haughtily, flashed a furious glance at her mentor, grew crimson, ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... newspapers and authors, too, detracting the Irish race. Men and women who have never seen the green hills of Ireland, paint Irish characters as boors and blunderers and make them say ludicrous things and use such language as is never heard within the four walls of Ireland. 'Tis very well known that Ireland is the most learned country on the face of the earth—is, and has been. The schoolmaster has been abroad there for hundreds, almost ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... a touch of vanity in his smile, as though in memory of some old, half-ludicrous story ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... other hand, some of our electric exhibitions produce mirth. For instance, the effect of electricity on the monkeys in Montalluyah—who are very sagacious, having faces white like a human being, and talking like parrots—is ludicrous in the extreme. When engaged in chewing and eating their favourite nuts, they find themselves, in spite of their cunning, raised to a great height, without seeing the man underneath their pedestal, who impels them upwards with ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... know, I suppose, that they actually keep a list of all individuals in Italy who dislike them—it must be numerous. Their suspicions and actual alarms, about my conduct and presumed intentions in the late row, were truly ludicrous—though, not to bore you, I touched upon them lightly. They believed, and still believe here, or affect to believe it, that the whole plan and project of rising was settled by me, and the means furnished, &c. &c. All this was more fomented by the barbarian agents, who are numerous ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... and tired, that, although Jerry and I could not help laughing at their ludicrous ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... Gourlay was hounded into prison, where he was broken in health and shattered in mind, and then exiled from the province for criticism of the Government which was certainly no more severe than now appears every day in Opposition newspapers. The conflict had elements of the ludicrous, too, as when Captain Matthews was ordered by his military superiors to return to England because in the unrestrained festivities of New Year's Eve he had called on a strolling troupe to play Yankee Doodle and had shouted to the company, ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... has no such courage. Collapsed altogether, he has nothing more to say for himself or his creed. Giotto hangs the cloak upon him, in Ghirlandajo's fashion, as from a peg, but with ludicrous narrowness of fold. Literally, he is a 'shut-up' Magus—closed like a fan. He turns his head away, hopelessly. And the last Magus shows nothing but his back, ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... drawings, because my attempts at taxidermy were grotesquely ludicrous; to put it plainly, they were unmitigated failures. These remarks apply to my very early attempts, for I would not have the readers think me incapable after long practice of turning out a shapely bird or a fish fair to ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... upon the waters. However, his influence did not heal up the difference, and in about a fortnight, a few days before the intended race, there occurred during our afternoon boat-practice a little row between the two antagonists, which proved a final skirmish before the severe but ludicrous battle which crowned the ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... arguments of theologians to prove the inspiration (i.e. infallibility) of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are sometimes almost ludicrous. My lamented friend, John Sterling, has thus summed up Dr. Henderson's arguments about Mark. "Mark was probably inspired, because he was an acquaintance of Peter; and because Dr. Henderson would be reviled by other Dissenters, if ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... don't that I am laughing," said Paul, whose remembrance of childhood was unconnected with any scriptural game. That he should be solemnly consulted about one seemed extremely ludicrous. ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... return to her evil ways there would be no further place for repentance. As a return for the mercy and clemency of the Church, he required her immediately to put on the female dress which his attendants had brought. There is something almost ludicrous, could we forget the tragedy to follow, in the bundle of humble clothing brought by such exalted personages, with the solemnity which became a thing upon which hung the issues of life or death. Jeanne replied with the humility ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... "It was ludicrous, but very sad, and Jake's efforts to keep order were pitiful. He called his young mistress Miss Dory, and was most anxious to screen her from the least suspicion of wrong. When I questioned him with regard to the parentage of the little girl, he wrung his hands and ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... tearing Mrs Boyce's commiseration into the smallest shreds. "Minnie," she said, speaking quite loud, almost with girlish ecstasy, "what do you think Tartar did yesterday? I never laughed so much in my life." Then she told a ludicrous story about a very ugly terrier which belonged to the squire. After that even Mrs Boyce made no further attempt. Mrs Dale and Bell both understood that such was to be the rule,—the rule even to them. Lily would speak to ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... seems a little sad to see them there, doesn't it, mamma, and I in my old gray frock?" The tears were in her eyes, but she looked up at Mrs. Warrender with a little soft laugh at herself, and at the little tragedy, or at least the suspended drama, laid up with something that was half pathetic, half ludicrous, ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... laughter rising, such was the effect. Laughter springs from unexpected causes, and nothing could be more unexpected than this termination. Never was sensation comparable to that produced by the ray of light striking on that mask, at once ludicrous and terrible. They laughed all around his laugh. Everywhere—above, below, behind, before, at the uttermost distance; men, women, old gray-heads, rosy-faced children; the good, the wicked, the gay, the sad, everybody. And even in the streets, the passers-by ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... one instant an expression of angry and almost ludicrous surprise leaped across the Spaniard's face as his teeth snapped shut. Then his whole body twisted round violently, rolled over, and lay still beside ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... music-roll to my uncle, and permitted him to dip his thumb and finger into a little porcelain snuff-box, fashioned in the shape of a pug dog, out of which she took a pinch herself with evident relish. She had a horrible squeaky voice, indulged in all sorts of ludicrous flourishes and roulades, and so you may imagine what an effect all this, combined with her ridiculous manners and style of dress, could not fail to have upon me. My uncle overflowed with panegyrics; that I could not understand, and so ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... New Zealand. Hunter River. Midnight alarm. Ludicrous scene. Changes in Officers of ship. Leave Sydney. Port Stephens. Corrobory. Gale at Cape Upstart. Magnetical Island. Halifax Bay. Astonish a Native. Description of country. Correct chart. Restoration Island. Picturesque arrival. Interview with the Natives from Torres Strait. Their weapons. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... which he was very fond. Sometimes he discovered to me honey, deposited in the clefts of rocks, or hollow trees. But if he happened to have met with neither honey nor gum, and his appetite had become sharp by his running about, I always witnessed a very ludicrous scene. In those cases, he looked for roots, which he ate with great greediness, especially a particular kind, which, to his cost, I also found to be very well tasted and refreshing, and therefore insisted ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... the dog, but the ludicrous bereavement he had sustained made him laugh, in spite of ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... are you going to convince anybody else that you are? But you'll have to excuse me for a moment—these bracelets are cutting my wrists to pieces. I must find that man who locked me up. You must stay here till I come back—I won't be a minute," and the young man darted out of the room with a ludicrous diving motion of his arms as he parted the heavy crimson silk hangings at the doorway and caromed against ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... utterly astounded. His amaze was ludicrous. And the other two men looked to stare, to equal their ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... object here was matter of curiosity; and, taking the light from her woman to examine the tapestry, she perceived, that it represented scenes from the wars of Troy, though the almost colourless worsted now mocked the glowing actions they once had painted. She laughed at the ludicrous absurdity she observed, till, recollecting, that the hands, which had wove it, were, like the poet, whose thoughts of fire they had attempted to express, long since mouldered into dust, a train of melancholy ideas passed over her mind, and she ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... Vander Thumb, the burgomasters receiving it with that reverent and silent attention which becometh an audience at a deep tragedy. Notwithstanding all this, there have not been wanting some who have represented these scenes in a ludicrous light; and Mr D—— hath been heard to say, with some concern, that he wondered a tragical and Christian nation would permit a representation on its theatre so visibly designed to ridicule and extirpate everything that is great and ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... again with a sense of superiority, which was in itself somewhat ludicrous; but as nobody is clear-sighted in their own concerns, he was quite unconscious of this. His laugh nettled Lady Randolph still more. She said, with a ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... not appear to see the others. During the progress of the meal she said little, keeping up a pretense of indifference as to what went on around her. Nevertheless her eyes strayed more than once toward the end of the table where Elfreda was entertaining the girls sitting nearest to her with a ludicrous account of what had happened to her on her way back to Overton. Miriam accidentally intercepted one of these straying glances. In it she fancied she read reproach. A quick flush rose to Laura Atkins's cheeks. Drawing down her eyebrows ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... movement desired, and it was then the duty of a company commander to see to the details of the movement that his company should make, and give the proper orders. Well, sometimes he would be badly stumped, and ludicrous "bobbles" would be the result. As for the men in the ranks, battalion drill was as simple as any other, for we only had to obey specific commands which indicated exactly what we were to do. To "form square," an antique disposition against cavalry, was a movement that was especially "trying" to ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... that the definition does not distinguish the thing designed. Nay, further, even when we perceive the turpitude tending to the destruction of its subject, we may still be sensible of a ridiculous appearance, till the ruin become imminent, and the keener sensations of pity or terror banish the ludicrous apprehension from our minds; for the sensation of ridicule is not a bare perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas, but a passion or emotion of the mind consequential to that perception; ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... of sadness enacted there, have left their impress upon the mind of Mrs. Holstein in unfading characters. And yet, amidst these there were some almost ludicrous, as for instance, that of the soldier, White, of the Twentieth Massachusetts, who, supposed to be dead, was borne, with two of his comrades, to the grave side, but revived under the rude shock with which the stretcher was set down, and looking ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... is a satirical poem, representing an action carried on by dialogue, to excite laughter by describing ludicrous characters. See Aristotle. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... to her, but she was too busy outdistancing her pursuer. It was Sheriff Coogan, puffing and huffing, the metal-and-gold cloth uniform ludicrous on his ...
— Dream Town • Henry Slesar
... pp. 62, 67; id., The Baganda (London, 1911), pp. 154 sq. Compare L. Decle, Three Years in Savage Africa (London, 1898), p. 445 note: "Before horses had been introduced into Uganda the king and his mother never walked, but always went about perched astride the shoulders of a slave—a most ludicrous sight. In this way they often travelled hundreds of miles." The use both of horses and of chariots by royal personages may often have been intended to prevent their sacred feet ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... leaping act from the springboard. He could, by this time, turn a somersault from the board, though his landing was less certain. Any part of his anatomy was liable to sustain the impact of his fall, but he fell in so many ludicrous positions that the other performers let it go at that, for it furnished them ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... the prim English lady whom Perlet was acting with such ludicrous effect, nor hear the English-French that had filled the house with roars of laughter; instead of all this, he beheld himself hurrying from the Rue Richer, hailing a cab on the Boulevard, bargaining with the man to take him to Versailles. Then once more the scene changed. He recognized ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... These words, strange and ludicrous as they seem to us, but tersely expressed the general opinion of the day; but fortunately the clear head and the undaunted will persevered, until success was at last attained, and the magnificent railway system of the present, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... Pedro,' I stammered in confusion, when I recalled the ludicrous scene, 'how foolish I must appear ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... powers than that which is involved in giving a man such faculties and capacities, if this be the only field on which they are to be exercised. If you think of what most of us do in this world, and of what it is in us to be, and to do, it is almost ludicrous to consider the disproportion. All other creatures fit their circumstances; nothing in them is bigger than their environment. They find in life a field for every power. You and I do not. 'The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have roosting-places.' ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... brass plate with the arms of Netherlands under the inscription, "Sultan of Sambir." Babalatchi's head was covered by a red turban, whose fringed ends falling over the left cheek and shoulder gave to his aged face a ludicrous expression of joyous recklessness. When the canoe was at last fastened to his satisfaction he straightened himself up, shaking down the folds of his sarong, and moved with long strides towards Almayer's house, swinging regularly his long ebony staff, ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... not horrified by the Romans, men of exemplary wisdom and famous before other nations by reason of their dignified discipline, who observed the custom of letting the worthy matrons worship and crown Priapus, the foul idol, and of leading bridal virgins before it? What is more ludicrous than that the Egyptians adored the calf Apis as ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... He was a man well skilled in his profession, but had read and thought very little on matters unconnected with it. He had no idea that the marks had any particular signification, or were anything else but common and fortuitous ones. That I became at all acquainted with their nature was owing to a ludicrous circumstance which I ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... this junto of adventurers. It is a singular but ludicrous fact—which, were I not scrupulous in recording the whole truth, I should almost be tempted to pass over in silence as incompatible with the gravity and dignity of history—that this worthy gentleman should likewise have been nicknamed from what ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... awakened the numerous echoes. Hundreds of savages were killed, hundreds wounded, and thousands ran howling into the woods. The Latin- grammar master had a spare night-cap lent him, and a long-tail coat, which he wore hind side before. He presented a ludicrous though pitiable ...
— Holiday Romance • Charles Dickens
... lunacy so that public peace is not endangered; had poor Wilbraham looked a fanatic with pale face, long hair, ragged clothes, much would have been forgiven him, but for a stout, middle-aged gentleman, well dressed, well groomed.... What could be supposed but insanity and insanity of a very ludicrous kind? ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... Emperor's orders, five days too long at Odessa—that was all—yes, you see, a little French actress who was there, who sang operettas; oh, how she did sing operettas! Offenbach, you know;" and the General tried to hum a bar or two of the 'Dites lui', with ludicrous effect. "Charming! To leave her, ah! I found that very hard. I remained five days: that wasn't much, eh, Zilah? five days? But the devil! There was a Grand Duke—well—humph! younger than I, of course—and—and—the Grand Duke was jealous. Oh! there ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... portion of the public take a morbid delight in such works as Frankenstein, that "Poor, impossible monster abhorred," who would be disgusting if he were not so extremely ludicrous: and all this search after impossible mystery, such trumpery! growing into the popular taste, is fed with garbage; doing more harm than all the preachings and poundings of optimistic Reviews will be able to remedy ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... character of these apostilles, always confused, wordy and awkward, was sometimes very ludicrous; nor did it improve after his thirty or forty years' daily practice in making them. Thus, when he received a letter from France in 1589, narrating the assassination of Henry III., and stating that "the manner in which he had been killed was that a ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... dignity, And, though alone for error meant, Sing through the air irreverent. I blame her not, the young athlete Who plants her woman's tiny feet, And dares the chances of debate Where bearded men might hesitate, Who, deeply earnest, seeing well The ludicrous and laughable, Mingling in eloquent excess Her anger and her tenderness, And, chiding with a half-caress, Strives, less for her own sex than ours, With principalities and powers, And points us upward to the clear Sunned heights of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... harmful because the pristine innocence of the mind is, they think, destroyed, and evils are suggested of which a boy might otherwise remain unconscious. To one who knows what boys really are such ideas are nothing less than ludicrous. ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... understanding how different institutions, forms, limitations, and governmental arrangements may exist in the several States, independently of, or in subordination to, the province and administration of the Federal Government. Nearly every English journal which undertakes to refer to our affairs will make ludicrous or serious blunders, if venturing to enter into details. The "Edinburgh Review" kindly volunteered to be the champion of American institutions and products in opposition to the extreme Toryism of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... cuttlefish bone, a burlesque absurdity which amused readers who knew neither of the personages. A tale of the loves of the Heron, who tried in vain to swallow the Cuttlefish bone, which broke into three pieces when he dropped it, was irresistibly ludicrous. Everybody remembers the sensation which the pleasantry made in the Faubourg Saint-Germain; it was the first of a series of similar articles, and was one of the thousand and one causes which provoked the rigorous press legislation ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... by men who sweat and toil on the stock exchange. Have you ever, my dear Quell, watched those little, grotesque brokers on a busy day? No? Well, you will say that no lunatic grimacing beneath the horns of the moon ever made such ludicrous, such useless, gestures. And for what? Money! Money to spend as idiotically as it is garnered. The world is crazy, I tell you, crazy, to toil as it does. How much cleverer are the apes who won't talk, because, if they did, they would be forced to abandon ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... in anticipation, Jesus would listen to his gusty, resonant, cheerful utterance, and sometimes laughed so at his jokes, that it was necessary to interrupt the story for some minutes. But John told tales even better than Peter. There was nothing ludicrous, nor startling, about his stories, but everything seemed so pensive, unusual, and beautiful, that tears would appear in Jesus' eyes, and He would sigh softly, while Judas nudged Mary Magdalene and excitedly ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... Frank in vain pursuit of his favourite ancient hat over that wild and windy waste, the sheep running away from him; a boat tossing at lovely Minehead; a 'native' bargaining over a crab with my mother; the wonderful Valley of Rocks, and many another scene, ludicrous or grand; for, indeed, we were for ever taking the one step between the sublime and the ridiculous! I am inclined to believe it is as well worth reading as many that have rushed into print, and it is full of precious reminiscences to Emily and me; but the younger generation may judge ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of their amusement turned sharply as they came abreast of him. His freckled, clean-shaven face looked strangely old, and the big, gold-rimmed spectacles bridged halfway down his nose added to his ludicrous appearance. He raised his eyebrows and surveyed the two ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... explode in loud speech and vehement action. Why? Because, as before, the emotion is reflected back, accumulates, and intensifies. Similarly, men who, as proved by their powers of representation, have the keenest appreciation of the comic, are usually able to do and say the most ludicrous things with ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... him. As he saw food approaching his voice ran up several tones higher, in laughable imitation of a human baby cry. This note is of course the promise of a "caw," but the a is flattened to the sound of a in bar, which makes it a ludicrous caricature of ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... the Declaration of Independence, issued by a body largely composed of slave-owners, that all men are created equal and with an inalienable right to liberty, as bringing their theories within the range of practical politics. Franklin was received with ludicrous adulation as an embodiment of republican virtue and philosophic thought. He busied himself in stirring up hostility to England. Another American envoy sought help from Prussia. Frederick showed his hatred of England by forbidding some German troops which George had hired to pass through his dominions; ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... the trap-door with his head, gave it a final thrust, and the door fell over with a loud flap, which made Jem Wimble sit up, with his face so swollen and bruised that his eyes were half-closed; and this and his dirty face gave him an aspect that was more ludicrous ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... Leone, but she did permit herself, at rare intervals, to relate some ludicrous anecdotes of people who had suffered from a severe ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... said he, rising with a countenance in which there was a considerable struggle between self-conceit and mortification, a struggle which in fact was exceedingly ludicrous in its effect, "I must only hope that you probably may ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... talent consisted in drollery, more than in serious reasoning, took his own method of exposing those opinions. He wrote a piece called The Rehearsal Transposed, in which he very successfully ridiculed Dr. Parker. This ludicrous essay met with several answers, some serious, and others humorous; we shall not here enumerate all the Rejoinders, Replies, and Animad-versions upon it. Wood himself confesses, who was an avowed enemy to Marvel, 'that Dr. Parker judged it more prudent rather to ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... her sixty-fourth year. On her monument he placed an inscription, extolling the charms of her person and of her manners; and when, long after her decease, he had occasion to mention her, he exclaimed, with a tenderness half ludicrous, half pathetic, "Pretty creature!" ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... full-of-meaning, musical Indian names ever should have been replaced by such commonplace English ones as are now frequently met with. Who can say that Chelsea is an improvement on sweet Win'nisim'met? Or that the slight elevation which joins that city to Everett, called Mount Washington (how ludicrous that must strike strangers who are familiar with the Mount Washington!), was not better as Sagamore Hill, the Indian name for it? Some of its public-spirited inhabitants are going back to that; and they dare ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... to Lingard, with the wild and stealthy aspect of a lunatic longing to whisper out an insane secret—one of those misshapen, heart-rending, and ludicrous secrets; one of those thoughts that, like monsters—cruel, fantastic, and mournful, wander about terrible and unceasing in the night of madness. Lingard looked at her, astounded but unflinching. She spoke in his ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... had at last arrived at our boma of Matamburu, the same groups of curious people, the same eager looks, the same exclamations of surprise, the same, peals of laughter, at something they deemed ludicrous in the Musungu's dress or manner, awaited us, as at Mvumi. The Arabs being "Wakonongo" travellers, whom they saw every day, enjoyed a complete immunity from the vexations which we ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... same name which, to the Vedic poet, to the Persian of the time of Xerxes, and to the modern Russian, suggests the supreme majesty of deity, is in English associated with an ugly and ludicrous fiend, closely akin to that grotesque Northern Devil of whom Southey was unable to think without laughing. Such is the irony of fate toward a deposed deity. The German name for idol—Abgott, that is, "ex-god," or "dethroned god"—sums up in a single etymology the history of the havoc wrought ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... cracking under his chin with the rising of his hair inside it. Running with him into that part of the garden which I have already described, they saw a score of creatures, to not one of which they could give a name, and not one of which was like another, hideous and ludicrous at once, gambolling on the lawn in the moonlight. The supernatural or rather subnatural ugliness of their faces, the length of legs and necks in some, the apparent absence of both or either in others, made the ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... at that self-contained, trained young woman, with feelings of almost ludicrous astonishment. I remembered the skidding car; and Richard Geddes lying with his head on Alicia's knees, and how we had both thought him dead; and myself sitting in the dust; and then the pain. But it was astounding news that ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... several seconds against the forehead of the victim. When he withdraws his thumb he secretly brings away the coin, but the victim invariably believes that he can still feel it sticking to his forehead, and his head-shaking and facial contortions to get rid of his imaginary burden are ludicrous. It is understood at the time the sentence is pronounced that he must shake the coin off and must not touch it ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... not come to London till the second of April following; and the first mention we find of Goldsmith is in connection with an incident which has its ludicrous as well as its regrettable aspect. The further success of She Stoops to Conquer was not likely to propitiate the wretched hole-and-corner cut-throats that infested the journalism of that day. More especially was Kenrick driven mad with envy; and so, in a letter addressed to the ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... contrition, his eyes being turned up, and the corners of his mouth drawn down, as Wamba expressed it, like the tassels at the mouth of a purse. Yet this demure affectation of extreme penitence was whimsically belied by a ludicrous meaning which lurked in his huge features, and seemed to pronounce his fear and repentance ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... favored the afflicted Theodora with a peculiar smile, in which, somewhat of the ludicrous prevailed over the tender, and dismissed her from his presence, with a gracious promise of a visit as early as the importance of his affairs ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... more sensible, to fall into line and acquiesce in the condemnation; then it would matter nothing whether the vulgar did or did not elect to admire Dick Benyon's peculiar friend. Yet a protest stirred within her; only her sense of the ludicrous prevented her from adopting Dick's word and asking Marchmont if he had ever seen the fellow in one of his "moments." But it would be absurd to catch up the phrase like that, and it was by no means certain that even the moments would appeal ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... so ludicrous, and yet so Pathetic, in the little man's lamentations, that I scarcely knew whether to laugh or to cry. His feelings seemed so very acute, and he himself so perfectly sincere in his moanings and groanings, that it was ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... in the after-cabin. He remembered me perfectly, and at once engaged in a most interesting conversation. He was full of curiosity about the many incidents of our great march, which had reached him officially and through the newspapers, and seemed to enjoy very much the more ludicrous parts-about the "bummers," and their devices to collect food and forage when the outside world supposed us to be starving; but at the same time he expressed a good deal of anxiety lest some accident might happen to the army in North Carolina during my absence. I explained ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... and he called himself Jim Crow. His right shoulder was drawn up high and his left leg was stiff at the knee, but he took his deformity lightly, singing as he worked. He had one favorite tune to which he had fitted words of his own, and at the end of each verse he made a ludicrous step which in time came to be known as "rocking the heel." His refrain consisted of ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... going yet,' said Flora—Arthur had looked at his hat, being in a ludicrous dismay, and not knowing what to do: 'you could never be so unkind as to think of going, Arthur—I mean Mr Arthur—or I suppose Mr Clennam would be far more proper—but I am sure I don't know what I am saying—without a word about the dear old days gone for ever, when I ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... great deal of excellent tactics was displayed in these discussions; still less, if possible, that the zeal of the disputants was all the more creditable to them for their peaceful antecedents during their whole lives; but the ludicrous side of the scene was brought out all the more strongly by the silence of these old soldiers, who alone out of the whole party had ever seen what men actually could and did do on the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... be more safe than where he was. The figure he made in his retreat—his large swelled body on the lean jade, like a tun of wine on a gantress—his anxiety to get off—his receding position—his flight after such a day of vaunting—all conspired to render the sight ludicrous in the extreme. One general burst of laughter filled the air; but the Captain held on his course, and never stopped till he arrived at Berwick. That day Hume and Isabel were wed—and a happy day it was for ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... I gasped, as the horror of my situation increased, and like a flash came the idea of being ill out in that wilderness, away from all human help and comfort; and, ludicrous is it may sound, I forgot all about Uncle Dick, and began to think of Dr Portly, who had a big brass plate upon his ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... one American example (to be found at length in S. P. R. Proceedings XVIII.) of well-recorded telepathic transmission. The incident thus transferred is trivial and even ludicrous; the fact of the transference was absolutely useless. But the case is not only none the worse for this; it is all the better. When we are trying to prove that such transmission exists, we want to keep clear, if we can, of emotional complications. If P is brooding over A's approaching death, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... jealously conceals its secrets, and intentionally leads conceited interpreters astray. There is no sight under the sun more pitiful and ludicrous at once, than the spectacle of the Prestons and the Webbs, not to mention the later incarnations of Dullness and Commonplace, undertaking to "explain" the old symbols of Masonry, and adding to and "improving" ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... Penrhyn is my—" And then he stopped. The ludicrous side of the matter had never appealed to him, but he was none the less conscious of how ridiculous the ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... found, and poor Zenobia is brought to the shore with her knees still bent in the attitude of prayer, and her hands clenched in immitigable defiance. Foster tries in vain to straighten the dead limbs. As the teller of the story gazes at her, the grimly ludicrous reflection occurs to him that if Zenobia had foreseen all 'the ugly circumstances of death—how ill it would become her, the altogether unseemly aspect which she must put on, and especially old Silas Foster's ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... moment Bob towered above them like a great avenging red angel. Then his anger left him as suddenly as it had come. Carey and the deputy presented such a pitiable sight, although ludicrous withal, that he was moved to shame to think that he had pitted his strength against such puny adversaries. He picked T. Morgan Carey out of the corner, set him on his feet, dusted him off, gave him his ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... "White Cloud," who are on a visit to England. They are truly a wild enough looking company, and helped not a little to relieve the tedium of the passage. The chief was a very grave and dignified person, but some of the braves were merry enough. One day we had a war-dance on deck, which was a most ludicrous scene. The chief and two braves sat upon the deck, beating violently a small drum and howling forth their war-song, while the others in full dress, painted in a grotesque style, leaped about, brandishing ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... informant's father, the gathering of these angry and startled weavers, when he thrust his blue bonnet on his head and rushed out to join them, was an impressive and solemn spectacle. That bloodshed was meant there can be no doubt; for starving men do not see the ludicrous side of things. The difference between the farmers and the town had resolved itself into an ugly and sullen hate, and the wealthier townsmen who would have come between the people and the bread were fiercely pushed aside. There was no nominal ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... or not. Lord W.'s letter appeared last Monday, and certainly from that time to this it never entered into anybody's head that the Duke ought to or would take it up, though the expressions in it were very impertinent. But Lord Winchelsea is such a maniac, and has so lost his head (besides the ludicrous incident of the handkerchief[7]), that everybody imagined the Duke would treat what he said with silent contempt. He thought otherwise, however, and without saying a word to any of his colleagues or to anybody but Hardinge, his second, he wrote and demanded an apology. After many letters ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... cannot imagine what you would have. One woman is too frivolous—another wants refinement—one is too indolent and exacting—and when you can make no other objection, why her style is a little too prononce"—the last words were given with ludicrous imitation of his cousin's tone. "If an angel were to descend from heaven for you, I doubt ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... length a positive heel over to that; the whole of my little world within being canted to half a right angle, and a ridiculous distortion of every single thing in my bedroom was the result. The humiliating sensation of being aground on hard unromantic mud is tempered by the ludicrous crooked appearance of the contents of your cabin and by the absurd sensation of sleeping in a corner with everything askance except the lamp flame, which, because it burns upright, looks most awry of ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... worthy of the name of a cause. Yet the men who could show that he had failed to clear up the mystery could themselves throw no light upon it. The government was especially ignorant of all that it should have known; and there is something almost ludicrous in the tone of the speech made by the President ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... look it over. The people of Victoria think it is fine. They ought to come to California and pattern after some of our playhouses. It was small, the acoustics bad and the mixtures of colors was as a crazy-quilt to me. The boxes were ludicrous in their attempt at ornamentation. The seats were long benches, upholstered with solferino-colored damask and the scenes were the merest daubs. We did not rehearse in the theater. We returned to the hotel and rehearsed in the ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... all now so wrapt in security as country dwellers, guarded by the rural police everywhere, that the following ludicrous incident may seem hardly worth a word; but in the good old days, when poor Jack was such a highway brigand that my nurses feared to take the children off the premises, and when burglars were not infrequent callers at remote residences, what happened long ago, on a certain ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... own faith promised to the Scottish settlers, did a great stroke of work in marrying the young Swiss girls to the De Meuron bachelors of German Creek. The description of the way in which the De Meurons invited families having young women in them to the wifeless cabins is ludicrous. A modern "Sabine raid" was made upon the young damsels, who were actually carried away to the De Meuron homesteads. The Swiss families which had the misfortune to have no daughters in them were left to languish in their comfortless tents. The afflictions of the earlier Selkirk ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... of Electoral Expenditure.*—Time was, and within the memory of men still living, when an English parliamentary election was attended by corrupt practices so universal and so shameless as to appear almost more ludicrous than culpable. Voters as a matter of course accepted the bribes that were tendered them and ate and drank and smoked and rollicked at the candidate's expense throughout the electoral period and were considered men of conscience indeed if they did not end ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... Liberty"; and was riotously accompanied by the grunting of a quantity of pigs brought for sale to the fair. He compared it to the 'chorus of frogs' in the satiric drama of Aristophanes; and, it being an hour of merriment, and one ludicrous association suggesting another, he imagined a political-satirical drama on the circumstances of the day, to which the pigs would serve as chorus—and "Swellfoot" was begun. When finished, it was transmitted to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... supply of the liquid on his head. They rubbed it in well, grinning with delight. They made a second and a third application before the bottle was exhausted; then they stood off to view the result of their efforts. The effect was ludicrous. The combination of coal black skin and red gold hair presented by the little negro exceeded the wildest expectations of Jimmy and Billy. They shrieked with laughter and rolled over and over on the ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... his arm, cried, with awful vehemence, "Get thee back into the tempest, and the night's Plutonian shore!" there was a sudden disappearance of the sable visages, a scuttling of feet, and the gallery audience was gone. Ludicrous as was the incident, the final touch was given when at that moment Miss Poe, who was an extraordinary character in her way, sleepily entered the room, and with a dull and drowsy deliberation seated herself ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... the attempt was little else than ludicrous. Anthony laughed fiercely to himself as he pictured the landing of the treacherous fools at Dingle, of Sir James FitzMaurice and his lady, very wretched and giddy after their voyage, and the barefooted friars, and Dr. Sanders, and the banner so solemnly ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... Both hoboes made ludicrous haste to elevate their hands as far as they could. In the excitement of the moment, having only caught glimpses of khaki uniforms, they imagined that a detachment of the State militia had been called out to search the woods for the firebugs guilty of ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... childbirth, were tainted with the Sabbatian heresy. So bitter and widespread were the charges and counter-charges, that at one moment every Jewish community in Europe stood excommunicated by the Chief Rabbis of one side or the other—a ludicrous position, whereof the sole advantage was that it brought the Ban into contempt and disuse. It was not likely that a controversy so long-standing and so impassioned would fail to permeate Poland; and, indeed, among us the quarrel, introduced as it was by Baruch Yavan, who was ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... knows—nobody that is, but a climber like herself. To those who were born and who live, no matter how quietly, in the security of a perfectly good ledge above and away from the social ladder's rungs, the evidence of one frantically climbing and trying to vaunt her exalted position is merely ludicrous. ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... and was such a charming companion. He often developed a strain of humor in the girl's society and would relate anecdotes that aroused in her spontaneous laughter, for she possessed a keen sense of the ludicrous. Yes, Gran'pa Jim was really funny, when in the mood, and as jolly a comrade as ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... mind—dominated by its physical brain and brain-born intellect—can they have a living signification. All that words can convey is that Nirvana is a sublime state of conscious rest in omniscience. It would be ludicrous, after all that has gone before, to turn to the various discussions which have been carried on by students of exoteric Buddhism as to whether Nirvana does or does not mean annihilation. Worldly similes fall short of indicating the feeling with which the graduates of Esoteric Science regard ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant
... society which it depicts is too revolting for comedy. The Silent Woman is, perhaps, the easiest of all Jonson's plays for a modern reader to follow and appreciate. There is a distinct plot to it, the situation is extremely ludicrous, and the emphasis is laid upon single humor or eccentricity, as in some of Moliere's lighter comedies, like Le Malade Imaginaire, or ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... to have been of a light and dissolute character. We are indeed told by an Indian author that numbers regretted the departure of the Persians. The drolls and players of the capital began, immediately after they went away, to amuse their countrymen with a ludicrous representation of their own disgrace; and the fierce looks and savage pride of their conquerors, which had been so late their dread, became in these imitations one of their chief sources ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... glance at some of the main questions which arise in connection with this doctrine; and, to begin with, we may state with the utmost frankness that nothing is easier than to interpret the {24} conception of Divine immanence in such a manner as to make it appear either ludicrous or hateful or simply meaningless—in any case repulsive from the religious point of view. This, to come straight to the point, is what is bound to happen when God's indwelling in man is explained as meaning that man is de facto one with his Maker. What could the general reader think when he ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... some things simply do not happen. From this extravagant summit of horror, his fears gradually receded. Such a waking nightmare even quieted his nerves when it was past; for if a possibility presents a ludicrous side, then its horror must diminish by so much. Moreover, Henry told himself that if the threat of a disaster so absolute could really be felt by him, it was his duty to rise at once, intervene, and, if necessary, summon his uncle and force May to ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts |
