"Comical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... A more comical result of the Braddock affair was that it made Franklin for a time a military man and a colonel. He had escaped being a clergyman and a poet, but he could not escape that common fate of Americans, the military ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... I've autoptical, optical proof That he's prowling and growling at large in the land. Hear his pestiferous Clamour vociferous, Gurgles and groans of the beastliest brand. Some may regard his contortions as comical. But I've the proof that ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... that I call this fair play," said Saltash with a comical twist of the eyebrows. "I didn't expect all these developments in ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... occasion, however, Jane ventured still farther; her grimaces were almost irresistible, and she had a most comical manner of imitating the master's attitudes when his eye was not upon her, and putting on a demure countenance when he turned towards ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the little roselit saloon, and as he welcomed the stranger Culver drew Hilary aside. There was much mystery on his comical face. ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... as to the derivation of which you seem to be in some perplexity, is in Norwegian Vaegmaleri. Vaeg, pronounced "Vegg," signifying wall, and Maleri "picture," pronounced almost the same as in Scotch, and derived from at male, to paint. Siccan is in Danish sikken, used more about something comical than great, and scarcely belonging to the written language, in which slig, such, and slig en, such a one, would be the equivalent. I need not remark that as to the written language Danish and Norwegian is the same, ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... dodge down frequently to save our heads from the bridges which the farmers build right across the canal. The ladies have to be warned and assisted. There are narrow escapes and shouts of laughter. And when the dinner bell is rung by a comical negro every one rushes for the dining room. I am introduced again to the American oyster, raw, fried, and stewed. It is the most delicious of discoveries among the new viands. Then we have wonderful roast turkey, chicken, and the greatest variety ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... Jocko straightened up like a veteran, looked sleepily around, and raising his right paw, saluted in military fashion. The movement pushed the hat back on his head, and gave a swaggering look to the forlorn figure that was irresistibly comical. ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... rush out with the other boys and vent his emotions in whoops of delight. He knew that some little plot was being concocted for his birthday, but never dreamed of anything so grand as asking the whole school, Teacher and all. The effect of the invitation was seen with comical rapidity, for the boys became overpowering in their friendly attentions to Ben. Even Sam, fearing he might be left out, promptly offered the peaceful olive-branch in the shape of a big apple, warm ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... you manage to perform such an acrobatic feat?" cried Jack, now that anxiety was appeased, unable to resist a smile at the remembrance of the pretty, comical picture, and the undignified descent to the ground; but Mollie snapped him up sharply, her sense of humour absolutely eclipsed by ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Mother Philippa introduced Evelyn to Sister Mary John. And while she explained that she had heard from the Reverend Mother that Miss Innes had promised to sing at Benediction, Sister Mary John sat watching Evelyn, her large brown eyes wide open. Her eagerness was even a little comical, and Evelyn smiled through her growing liking for this nun. She was unlike any other nun she had seen. Nuns were usually formal and placid, but Sister Mary John was so irreparably herself that while the others presented feeble imitations ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... historical-comical-philosophical way of going to work is that it leaves one with the feeling that poetry is a sort of intellectual game, entirely removed from the jostling pressure of actual life, and that poets when once dead are shoved into their academic pigeon-holes to be labelled like things under ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... as have existed, they alone should enjoy the benefits that are in cities, without having ever contributed to them anything of their own; but far more serious is it that, while there are not even any tragical or comical poets who do not always endeavor to do or say some good thing or other in defence of the laws and policy these men, if peradventure they write, write of policy, that we may not concern ourselves in ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... was the reason. I come along an' caught him at it. Comical, wasn't it? I 'most laughed. I saw you slip back into the brush, but I'd got so far along with it I couldn't help finishin'. You thought the wrong ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... I didn't think—" he began, as soon as he got his breath; but just then his eye fell upon the comical figure of Jan. He was walking towards the fire, dripping mud and water from every point, and Mark's wrath was turned into hearty laughter at this sight. In it he was joined by all the others as soon as they saw the ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... errors of taste) that I should be inclined to assign it to a friend or pupil of Lyly, were it not bound up with Blount's Sixe Court Comedies[122], and therein said to be written by "the onely Rare Poet of that time, the wittie, comical, facetiously quicke, and unparalleled John Lilly master of arts." It is clever in construction, but undeniably tedious. It shows that Lyly had learnt much from Udall, Stevenson, and Gascoigne, and perhaps its chief point of interest is that it links these writers to the later realists, Ben Jonson, ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... she takes and comes successfully out of, the prouder they are of her. They adopted her, with grave and formal military ceremonies of their own invention—solemnities is the truer word; solemnities that were so profoundly solemn and earnest, that the spectacle would have been comical if it hadn't been so touching. It was a good show, and as stately and complex as guard-mount and the trooping of the colors; and it had its own special music, composed for the occasion by the bandmaster ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... had rung through the dim old shop, while the gay, lightsome step passed among the dusty treasures. Now she seldom smiled or sang, and among the few bits of comedy in her sad days, were the visits of Kit Nubbles, her grandfather's errand boy, a shock-headed, shambling, comical lad, whose devotion to the beautiful child verged on worship. Appreciating Nell's loneliness, Kit visited the shop as often as possible, and the exquisite oddity and awkwardness of his manner so amused her that at sight of him she would give way to genuine ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... with a comical shrug, "the idea is that we all spend one or two mornings every week studying stiff old Madonnas and Magdalenes and saints! I love noble and beautiful paintings as well as any one, but I wonder if I can ever learn anything that will make ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... pointed to the bulgy-looking casket of sweet sleeping sounds—sleeping generally so far as Villiers was concerned, but ready to wake at the first touch of the master-hand. Villiers glanced at it with a comical air of admiring vanquishment. ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... this moment. Stay," she cried, pausing. "I beg, dear Prince, to give you back these deeds. 'Twas you who liked the farm—I have not seen it; and it was you who wished to benefit the peasants. And, besides," she added, with a comical change of tone, "I should ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... laughed heartily as she saw him coming along, pale, and holding on to his horse's mane as it bounced him up and down. His very appearance of a "beau cavalier" made his awkwardness and timidity all the more comical. ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... advanced upon the bacchants in the midst of their orgies. At the same instant, from the direction of the city and unseen by him, a tall rider on a lofty steed, cloak flying to the breeze, swept by like an apparition; greeted only with a comical yell of astonishment and derision from one of the females, as like a spectre it swept by. But the hilarious band before him was too much preoccupied with the performance of its mockeries to have observed ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... the works of HICHENS; Hand in hand they sampled the bazaars; Ate the sweetmeats cooked in native kitchens; Flew about in sumptuous motor-cars; Golfed where once great HANNIBAL was scheming; Joked where luckless DIDO once held sway; For the finest jokes were always streaming From the lips of comical ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... her quiet way—you know Lizzie's quiet way (something of the old, privileged house-cat about her); never a sign in expression or tone to show whether she herself saw or appreciated the humour of anything she was telling, no matter how comical it might be. She had witnessed two tragedies, and had found a dead man in the bush, and related the incidents as though ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... there ought to be respect, is always ridiculous. No one would put his hat down when he had scarcely paid the ordinary compliments if he knew how comical it looks. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... brink of a grim despair, He happened to think of a quaint old fellow, A comical customer, rusty and slow, But who used to be an elegant beau, In dress and manner quite comme il faut; And who, because he happened to know How to play on the violoncello, Which he'd learned for fun long time ago, Before his ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of the guests. Captain Atherton had seen the little suit in an antique shop in England. He had purchased it, believing that some such occasion as the present might occur, when the droll coat and trousers, the little waistcoat, and the comical cap would be just the thing for a slender lad to wear. Walter Langdon was indeed a quaint figure, as, with Captain Atherton, he went forward to greet Aunt Judith, and be introduced to ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks
... and the others. He positively sings a requiem to the 'fathers' in the person of the Kirsanovs, and especially Paul Kirsanov, having shown up their aristocratic idealism, their sentimental aestheticism, almost in a comical light, ay almost in caricature, as he himself has justly pointed out. In the prominent representative of the 'children,' Bazarov, he recognized a certain moral force, the energy of character, which favourably contrasts this strong ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... A comical charade is a performance representing the word "imitation." The spectators are informed that the charade about to be performed can be exhibited to only one person at a time. One person is accordingly admitted into the room in which the actors ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... and yet he warn't exactly like a Lunnon actor, as I have seen 'em in Lunnon, either, but more like a clever fellow who acted for the spree of the thing. He had sich droll jests, and looked so comical, yet not commonlike, but always what I calls a gentleman,—just as if one o' ye two were doing a bit of sport to please your friends. Well, he drew hugely, and so he did, every time he came, so that the great families in the neighbourhood would go to hear him; and he lodged ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... no one who could help grinning at Ferdinand Frog's news—he looked so comical. And old Mr. Crow, who was noted for his rudeness, even burst out ...
— The Tale of Ferdinand Frog • Arthur Scott Bailey
... worship," cautiously spake Dan, "he be the most comical thing you ever clapped eyes on. He says he be Master Anthony, your worship's new son that is to ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... 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
... little boy, very inquisitive. When he did anything, Sue followed his leadership. They had many adventures, some comical ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Keeping Store • Laura Lee Hope
... on to his head. He was up in a minute, but his forehead had struck against the jawbone of a dead buck, and the blood was pouring from it down his hairy face. His companion laughed brutally at the accident, for there are some natures in the world to which the sight of pain is irresistibly comical, but the injured man cursed aloud, trying to staunch the flow with the lappet ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... 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 ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... said Pauline. "If I were up there in the sky, shouldn't I laugh at them. How comical it is! Did they give thanks for ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... the appeal for explicit assent in Whitwell's eye, and he went on: "If I'd done that fellow a good turn, in spite of him, or if I'd held him up to something that he allowed was right, and consented to, I should want to keep a sharp lookout that he didn't play me some ugly trick for it. He's a comical devil," Whitwell ended, rather inadequately. "How d's it look to you? Seen anything lately that seemed to tally ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... deprecatory and comical lips as he imagined that that medal would purchase him the right to sigh dolorously in front of whatever stomacher it finally adorned. He could pour out odes in the learned tongue, for the space of a week, a day, or an afternoon according to the rank, the kindness or ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... corrugated iron blinds of the shops are pulled down; all the carriages have disappeared; the only sign of life in the Escolta is the comical little tram-car, loaded down with little brown men dressed in white, the driver tooting a toy horn, and all the passengers dismounting ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... turning round with a comical look as he reached the gangway, "ye haven't got a bottle of potheen, the raal cratur, have ye? It would just be after comforting me ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... unrivalled feat of art even in these last chapters neither to lose the light comical touch, nor to lapse into undisguised profanation. It was only feasible by veritable dancing on the tight-rope of sophistry. In the Moria Erasmus is all the time hovering on the brink of profound truths. But ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... the house through the front door, and it struck me as comical to see a copy of one of Andrew's magazines lying on the living-room table with "The Revolt of Womanhood" printed across it in red letters. "Here goes for the revolt of Helen McGill," I thought. I sat down ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... know, mademoiselle," he replied as he placed his hand on his heart. And inspired with the wish to say something pretty or comical, which might serve to enliven the meeting, he added: "You see, your health has been taking a rest. Now it will ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... present comical performance was to exercise a great influence in the principal personages of our history, was a work-girl at Madame Lardot's. One word here on the topography of the house. The wash-rooms occupied the whole of the ground floor. The little courtyard was used to hang out on wire ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... or more had Dioneo's story moved the modest ladies to laughter, so quaint and comical did his words appear to them; then, whenas he had made an end thereof, the queen, knowing the term of her sovranty to be come, lifted the laurel from her head and set it merrily on that of Filostrato, saying: "We shall presently ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... 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 ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... age was concerned, she might properly have held on to her name of baby, she couldn't with propriety, because there was Gilbert then, and he was baby. Moreover, she gradually became so indescribably quaint and bewitching and comical and saucy that every one sought diminutives for her; nicknames, fond names, little names, and all sorts of words that tried to describe her charm (and couldn't), so there was Poppet and Smiles and Minx and Rogue and Midget and Ladybird and finally Nan and Nannie ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... way of showing it," said the doctor, looking round him with a comical expression, "to deprive me of my companion, and leave me as lonely as Simon Stylites on the ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... eyelid cocked in comical suggestion. Instead of narrowing ominously, as they might have twelve hours before, Denny's own eyes lighted appreciatively at the statement. He even waited an instant while he pondered with ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... designed purely for the diversion and merriment of the reader. Pieces of pleasantry and mirth have a secret charm in them to allay the heats and tumults of our spirits, and to make a man forget his restless resentment. The main design of this weekly paper will be to entertain the town with the most comical and diverting incidents of human life, which in so large a place as Boston will not fail of a universal exemplification. Nor shall we be wanting to fill up these papers with a grateful interspersion of more ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... turn preacher, he got so interested 'bout church matters. He was easy excited 'bout anything; and when he went into a thing it was in dead earnest, shore!—"jist flew off the handle," as I heerd a comical feller git off onct. And him and Bills was up and at it ever' night—prayin' and shoutin' at the top o' the'r voice. Them railly did seem like good times—when ever'body jined together, and prayed and shouted ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... again and puts on such a comical face that it's no wonder the girls giggled. And that one act maps out the Count for me. He's just one of them middle aged cut-ups that's amusin' to have around, if the sessions ain't too frequent. Follow the young ladies, would he? Say, ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... keep them from getting too anxious," Semi-Colon told him, readily enough, for his greatest delight was to spread information. "The committee on sports has arranged several comical entertainments. There's going to be several sack races to begin with; climbing the greased pole for another thing; catching a greased pig for another; and a three-foot ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... all this you will judge what a comical little cuss Betty is, but all the same I am quite serious in urging you to come home before I ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... or more beneficial to the public, than what their master had before achieved; nor is there any one, who, with the same disinterestedness, has guarded his design from the imputation of a pecuniary motive. It is comical to observe what they say in their prefaces. Between praise to sustain their choice of a model, and blame to make room for their pretended amendments, they are often placed in as awkward a dilemma, as that which was contrived when grammar was identified with compilation. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... imaginable pains to write himself down an ass. By his own ostentatious confessions, the only intellectual comprehensiveness to which he can lay claim is an astonishingly comprehensive ignorance. In view of this, his sage discoursings upon grave questions of political and social economy have about as comical an effect as the moralizings of a harlequin. But he is a lively describer of what passes under his eyes, and his sketches of what he heard and saw among the planters and on the plantations are doubtless authentic. However, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... no more fail than that gas can fail to burn when you put a light to it. It's all absolute. My half-million is as right as if it were lying to my credit in the Bank of England. Oh, that reminds me," he went on in a slightly altered tone—"it's damned comical, but I've got to ask you for a little money. I've only got about seven pounds at my bank, and just at the minute it would give me away fearfully to let Semple know I was hard up. Of course he'd let me have anything I wanted—but, you can see—I don't like to ask ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... are very amusing 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, it does not matter much; ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... of that awful vision so perilously close before them, and the natural uncertainty which attended such a reckless venture, Waldo could not repress a chuckle at that comical conclusion, so frequently used towards himself when their uncle was coaxing them to ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... far revert to the subject that I related to the priest how that, several years before, exactly the same sort of mischance befell me in one of Anfossi's arias as had just befallen him. I painted the period of my connection with the sisters in tragi-comical colours, and, distributing many a keen side-blow, I let them feel the superiority, which the ripe experiences, both of life and of art, of the years that had elapsed in the interval had given me over them. 'And a good ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... brought to deliver their opinions—the vivacity and fury with which each finally defends his own, menacing the instant death of the patient if any other treatment be observed, seemed all to the public highly comical, and led many reflecting men to think Lisette was not far wrong in contending that a patient should not be said to die of a fever or a consumption, but of four doctors and two apothecaries. The farce enlarged the sphere of Moliere's enemies, but as the poet suffered none ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... kind of creature can she be in private life, I wonder? I wonder if she wears that costume all the time, and if she springs to her meals from a horizontal bar. Of course she rocks the baby to sleep on the trapeze." And Van Twiller went on making comical domestic tableaux of Mademoiselle Zabriski, like the clever, satirical dog he was, ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... of way. Before each procession marched a swineherd playing on a rustic pipe, the sounds from which primitive instrument seemed to exercise Circean enchantment upon the rude flocks. It was inexpressibly comical to watch the masses of swine after they had been enclosed in the "folds"—huge tracts fenced in and provided with shelters at the corners. Each herd knew its master, and as he passed to and fro would salute him with a delighted squeal, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... the shop-sign of the tobacconists. Besides being ruthlessly caricatured, he is usually pictured with a scowl, his lidless eyes as wide open as those upon a Chinese junk-prow or an Egyptian coffin-lid. Often even, he has a pipe in his mouth—a comical anachronism, suggestive to the smoker of the dark ages that knew no tobacco, before nicotine made the whole world of savage and of civilized kin. Legless dolls and snow-men are named after this foreigner, whose name is associated almost entirely ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... from the painful necessity of dying for their country, who were glad to get a game of tennis, down below the walls there, after strenuous office-work in which they had written "Passed to you" on many "minutes," or had drawn the most comical caricatures of their immediate chief, and of his immediate ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... of its comical-looking snout, the porpoise swam off, as if inviting Bud to join in the fun and games. A whole school of the creatures ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... 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 ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... embassies, tilts and tournaments, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, plays: then again, as in a new shifted scene, treasons, cheating tricks, robberies, enormous villanies in all kinds, funerals, burials, deaths of princes, new discoveries, expeditions, now comical, then tragical matters.' He appears to have purchased indiscriminately almost everything that ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... son, had not one of his brother's characteristics; he had no gentle courtesies, no quiet ways. Except when asleep, he was never known to be still for a moment. One glance at his fiery head, at his comical face, would show plainly that he was a very imp of mischief. He was kind-hearted—he would not willingly injure the smallest living thing—but his wild, ungovernable spirit, his sense of the ludicrous in all and every ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... usually easy and steady and not too comical, both had a certain kind of expression, now—like amused and secretive gorillas. Frank wasn't sure whether he got the meaning of this or not, but right then he felt sort of sympathetic to ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... photographs which she had to copy in colors he thundered in his disdain (Oh, how amused she was at his comical fury!) at these heads of imbeciles, frozen in solemn smiles. That the dear eyes of his Luce should have to apply themselves to reproducing and her hands to tracing the pictures of these mugs seemed to him a profanation. No, it was too revolting! Copies from the museums were more worth while. But ...
— Pierre and Luce • Romain Rolland
... indefatigable "snapper-up of unconsidered trifles," and his store is the most comical olla podrida of heterogeneous merchandise that I ever saw. There is nothing you can ask for but what he has,—from crowbars down to cambric-needles; from velveteen trousers up to broadcloth coats ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... a shady nook, just off Katahdin's reflection in the river, while Iglesias sketched him. Meanwhile I, analyzing my view, presently discovered a droll image in the track of a land-avalanche down the front. It was a comical fellow, a little giant, a colossal dwarf, six hundred feet high, and should have been thrice as tall, had it had any proper development,—for out of his head grew two misdirected skeleton legs, "hanging down and dangling." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... This comical apparition is composed of three distinct animals one upon the other—or, rather, of two living beings carrying a bier between them. The paguro crab is born with the lower part of his case unprotected,—a most excellent tid-bit, tender and savory for hungry fishes. The necessity ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... coincidence appears to be too remarkable to have been merely accidental; and it seems probably that, in the course of his multifarious reading, Southey had met with the work in question, had been struck with the comical absurdity of these names, and had unconsciously retained them ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.01 • Various
... carrying his valise, to be well packed with the shell-box, gun, bag and a lunch basket. Mr. Kincaid's duck-dog, named Curly, lay crouched in the bottom like a soft warm mat. Bobby had met Curly before. He was a comical seal-brown dog, covered with compact tight curls all over his body. When Bobby petted him, they felt springy. His face, head and ears, however, were smooth and silky. He had yellow eyes, and an engaging disposition. To the touch his body, ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... lines, half comical, half pathetic, in which the "sweet harper" is assured as some requital for a hard life and a cruel death, that the Pantisocrats will raise a "solemn cenotaph" to his memory "Where Susquehana pours his untamed stream." Long afterwards, Coleridge described Pantisocracy in The Friend as ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... year 1760, there lived, at Paris, a little fellow, who was the darling of all the wags of his acquaintance. Nature seemed, in the formation of this little man, to have amused herself, by giving loose to half a hundred of her most comical caprices. He had some wit and drollery of his own, which sometimes rendered his sallies very amusing; but, where his friends laughed with him once, they laughed at him a thousand times, for he had a fund of absurdity in himself that was more pleasant than ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... when he arrived. The Judge was a very short man, so plump that he seemed all face and waistcoat. When he had rolled in upon two little turned legs, and sat down at his desk, all you could see of him was two little eyes, one broad pink face, and about half of a comical, big wig. Scarcely had the jurors taken their seats, when Mrs. Bardell's lawyers brought in the lady herself, half hysterical, and supported by two tearful lady friends. The ushers called for silence ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... at Laura with a comical expression. "What an ass I was! Wouldn't the Ritz have been more to ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... that there can be no cutting of throats but it must be for her. If this is tragical, I would fain know what is comical. Well, upon this they spy the body of Sempronius; and Marcia, deluded by the habit, it seems, takes him ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... this young lady at least as outspoken as most of her unexpatriated sisters; there was something almost comical in her despondency. But she had by no means caught, as it seemed to me, the American tone. Whatever her tone was, however, it had a fascination; there was something dainty about it, and yet it ...
— The Pension Beaurepas • Henry James
... doing that, but they say the comical and the tragical are always chasing each other, which can get in first, and it was so with us, for just as I had got to an end with the solemn words, 'Out of the depths we cry unto thee, O Lord, Lord hear our cry,' in ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... 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 ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... over it in stifled rebellion or resigned apathy. Some would be called beautiful anywhere: they were graceful in form, had fine regular features and lovely, expressive eyes; others were attractive only on account of their animation; while one comical little negro girl, who had somehow got mixed with the Malay race, was as ugly as a Hottentot, and a veritable imp of darkness, as I afterward learned, so far as mischief was concerned. The girls were dressed in calico, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... man is not without recognition among women: for instance, by Dolly Winthrop in "Silas Marner," who is content with bread for herself, but bakes cake for children and men, whose "stomichs are made so comical, they want a change—they do, I know, God help 'em.") I have applied it to man and woman, and possibly it was here that I thought that you would have profited by the doctrine. I fear that this note will be almost illegible, but I ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... element, the comical, that's involved in so many tragedies," he explained. "Your father's weakness for 'cure' of nervousness, and his shrinking from the ridicule he's suffered because of it—there's the explanation of why he was out there ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... cup-board, chairs, and every place, to be sure there were no eaves-droppers. Then she sat down on a stool and slided it along towards him. He edged his chair a little closer towards her, so by the time she began her communication their heads almost touched. It was comical to see the old man's various facial expressions while the child talked. He would squint his eyes like he was trying to sight something away ahead of him, puffed out his cheeks till they resembled an inflated bellows. Finally, slapped his thigh vigorously, blurting out, ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... constitution made mountains of his petty sins in this kind. On reaching the fresh air he was sufficiently unsteady to incline the row of three at one moment as if they were marching to London, and at another as if they were marching to Bath—which produced a comical effect, frequent enough in families on nocturnal homegoings; and, like most comical effects, not quite so comic after all. The two women valiantly disguised these forced excursions and countermarches as well as they could from Durbeyfield, their cause, and from ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... upon the journey. But, by the cross of Saint Andrew, I will move Crevecoeur in thy behalf; and, as he truly fears that Duke Charles may be provoked against the King to the extremity of falling foul, I think it likely he may grant thy request, though, by my honour, it is a comical one!" ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... pretty—" began Peace, but at that moment she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror, and stopped so abruptly, with such a comical look of dismay and despair in her eyes, that the whole group burst out laughing. Peace joined in their merriment, and then soberly said, "I look like a chicken when the down is turning to feathers. What can I do about it? I can't ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... old, and, by the peculiar fashion in which he recovered his balance, he seemed to be crippled also. But the next moment he was laughing, though his mood was far from hilarious. For, with an agility as comical as it was surprising, the moonstone-seller gathered up his ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... air of the clumsy lad was so comical as to beguile Berenger into a laugh. Yet Berenger's own feeling would go back to his first meeting with Diane; and as he thought of the eyes then fixed on him, he felt that he was under a trial ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... connections, the De Sellons and the De la Rives. On this occasion, when the travellers reached M. de la Rive's villa at Presinge, Camille, looking terribly in earnest, and with an air of importance, made the more comical by the little red costume he was wearing, went straight to his host with the announcement that the postmaster had treated them abominably by giving them the worst horses, and that he ought to be ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... altogether he may carry a presence full of majesty and beauty, perchance in some one defectious piece we may find a blemish: now in his parts, kinds, or species (as you list to term them), it is to be noted, that some poesies have coupled together two or three kinds, as tragical and comical, whereupon is risen the tragi-comical. Some in the like manner have mingled prose and verse, as Sanazzar and Boethius. Some have mingled matters heroical and pastoral. But that cometh all to one in this ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... things our eyes discover as we walk along on Market street. Such a medley—infinite, incongruous, comical, pathetic, motley ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... man with comical dignity, turning to Morhange, "I call you to witness the strange manners of your companion. I am here in my own house ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... The situation was comical as well as tragical. Just as Jerry said, each of the late inmates of the overturned bullboat, after being buffeted about furiously for several minutes, had succeeded in wildly scrambling ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... 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," says ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... her hands and gazing with an air of comical commiseration at Mr Croft's serious face. "I should think not!" and away ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... knowledge which will enable him to lead, and so benefit his fellows. There must be tact, however; the negro student must have his craft well ballasted or he may lose self-control, which may possibly lead to somewhat comical results. Thus, Mr Miller tells of "A circular issued by a young man, scarcely thirty years of age, the sum-total of whose knowledge would be scarcely equal to that of a Yale sophomore, who advertises himself as Rev. ——, A.M., B.D., Ph.D., D.D. It is more ...
— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike
... days' time there was a very comical twinkle in his eye, as he informed her that the new number of the "Traveller" was in no favour at the Homestead, "there was such a want of original thought in it." Ermine felt her imprudence in having risked the betrayal, but all she did was to look at him with her full, steady ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... an inspired man. Every inch of him is inspired—you might almost say inspired separately. He stamps with his feet, he tosses his head, he sways and swings to and fro; he has a wizened-up little face, irresistibly comical; and, when he executes a turn or a flourish, his brows knit and his lips work and his eyelids wink—the very ends of his necktie bristle out. And every now and then he turns upon his companions, nodding, signaling, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... brushing the ground with his tail, with a rapid motion, from side to side, nose in the air, eyes fixed upon the bell, and throat sending out a prolonged howl so long as the ringing continued. The din was deafening, and far from musical, but it was a comical sight, vastly enjoyed by the young Travillas, ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... as light; for it was a frequent trick of their proprietor's to snatch at his spectacles and wipe the mist from them with a bandana handkerchief. Unglazed, his eyes showed a blank and indiscriminate ferocity which Manvers found exceedingly comical. ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... personalities have given spirit to the proceedings, which were getting very dull. Lord Holland made a violent speech, and Lord Carnarvon a clever one, which was violent enough too, on Rastelli's affair. Lord Holland made one or two little speeches which were very comical. Lord Lauderdale made a violent speech the other day, and paid himself in it a great many compliments. It must be acknowledged that the zeal of many of the Peers is very embarrassing, displayed as it is not in the elucidation of the truth, but in furtherance of that cause of which they ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Feb. 4, 1710, there was advertised a performance of the "Comical History of Don Quixote" at Drury Lane, "at the desire of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., for the benefit ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... a serious problem to solve, and their ideas of its solution were almost comical. Thus, one statesman recommended the organization of a special force recruited from the ranks of vagrants and criminals and stationed permanently in the northern islands, A more practical programme was the formation of a local militia. But ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... opportunity of this form. Many Action Pictures are indoors, but the abstract theory of the Action Film is based on the out-of-door chase. You remember the first one you saw where the policeman pursues the comical tramp over hill and dale and across the town lots. You remember that other where the cowboy follows the horse thief across the desert, spies him at last and chases him faster, faster, faster, and faster, and finally ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... laughed at the story, for Woofer, as they began to call him immediately, told it in a most comical manner. They all took to him immensely, and regarded him as quite ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer lay imprisoned at Oxford, and under sentence of death. Nearly every day somebody was exhibited in the pillory—women as well as men—the most frequent charge being, as it appears in the diary of that comical speller, Mr Henry Machyn—"spekyng yll of good Qwen Mare." The difficulty which presents itself to the present generation is, how else her subjects could well speak of her proceedings. However, they could have held their peace. Probably the discreet portion of the ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... and doings, reliable or unreliable, that have been handed down to us, are extremely comical, looking at them from our religious standpoint in these days; for instance, Drake's method of dealing with insubordination, his idea of how treason was to be stamped out, and the ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... retain a charmingly comical remembrance of the last visit I paid Dr. Channing, at Newport; when, wishing to take me into his garden, and unwilling to keep me waiting while he muffled himself up, according to his necessary usual precautions, he caught up Mrs. Channing's bonnet ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... this comical universe I don't laugh at, my little Blanquette," said he. "I am like good old Montaigne—I rather laugh than weep, because to laugh ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... 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 ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... unconscious of the nearness of any living thing besides themselves. The mother-deer was browsing, now and again, and at times the fawn, playful as a young kitten, would kick its heels, or butt its head against its mother's side, and both would squeal in a comical way. ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... self-communion of the lonely man into a long conversation." There are many accounts, given by contemporaries, of her minute carefullness for him and unwearied devotion to him. Some make the picture a little comical, from the excess of coddling; but all agree as to the unfailing and affectionate ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... Miss Agony?" asked he, with a comical expression of mingled pride and curiosity running ...
— Angel Agnes - The Heroine of the Yellow Fever Plague in Shreveport • Wesley Bradshaw
... to lower his voice, said reproachfully to his friend "Indeed, Mr Hobson, to speak ingenusly, I must needs say I don't think it over and above pelite in you to be so hard upon the young lady's acquaintance that was, now he's defunct. To be sure I can't pretend for to deny but he behaved rather comical; for not paying of nobody, nor so much as making one a little compliment, or the like, though he made no bones of taking all one's goods, and always chused to have the prime of every thing, why it's what I can't pretend to stand up for. But ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... quaint antics which often made me wonder whether they were not in some way distantly allied to the human race. For the Siberian sled-dog is unquestionably the most sagacious animal in existence, and many a time have his comical vagaries lightened my hours of despondency. In appearance the Siberian differs essentially from the Eskimo dog, and is a stronger though smaller animal, seldom of a uniform colour, being generally black and white, black ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... there is a decided mark which tells where it was—especially when she speaks or smiles. The hair on her forehead has become as pure white as the winter snows of Canada. Wrinkles on her visage have become the rule, not the exception, but as they all run into comical twists, and play in the forms of humour, they may, perhaps, be regarded as a physical improvement. She is stone deaf now, but this also may be put to the credit side of her account, for it has rendered needless ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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, and yet, in his own opinion, ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... reference to an obligation which no one understood became comical; and Bagger felt at the moment that he was on the brink of the ridiculous. Trying to collect himself, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... to look at a comical little man with a very large mouth, the owner of the place, who had been hovering about for some moments as ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... Amos has cast him off long since," and Hardy's assumption of importance was almost comical. "He is reading the names now; perhaps thinks he is called upon to protect Master Lillie. As I said before, he had best remain hidden from view. How Amos would rage if he could see his uncle at ...
— Under the Liberty Tree - A Story of The 'Boston Massacre' • James Otis
... These fruits of his skill were less beautiful in workmanship, though marked by wonderful sweetness and power of tone. Mr. Charles Reade, a great violin amateur as well as a novelist, says of these "prison" fiddles, referring to the comical grotesqueness of their form: "Such is the force of genius, that I believe in our secret hearts we love these impudent fiddles best, they are so full of chic." Paganini's favorite was a Guarnerius del Jesu, though he had no less than seven instruments of the greatest Cremona masters. Spohr, ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... the universally famous and most noted name which is subscribed to all books by what name or titles dignified or distinguished: or of what sort, species, size, dimension, or magnitude soever, pamphletary and voluminous; whether they be first or foremost, plays, either comical, tragical, comi-tragical, tragi-comical, or pastoral; godly, or profane songs or ballads; sermons high or low, popish or protestant, dissenting, independent, enthusiastical, Brownistical, heterodox, or orthodox; Philadelphian, Muggletonian, Sacheverelian, or Bangorian, quaking, rhapsodical, ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... just so, nothing more. And illness, you know, bewilders the brain, and breeds strange and maddening dreams. What signify dreams? Dreams come from the stomach and cannot signify anything. Is it not so, Daniel? I had a very comical dream just now. (He ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... do not have anything to do with him, or he will make you a heap of trouble. I tell you he is a dangerous man; the next time you meet him sound him on the question of his knowledge of English. Suddenly say something comical to him, and then watch. You are shrewd; you will soon find out he can speak English, even better ...
— A Successful Shadow - A Detective's Successful Quest • Harlan Page Halsey
... the dress by slow degrees, for the sun was burning hot, then got the cuffs clipped tightly about his wrists while Dailey and Birch fastened on the heavy corselet. The sixteen-pound boots came next, and very comical indeed the old quartermaster looked, with his white hair blowing in the wind and his blue eyes as eager and lively as those ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... the head of my own table, I saw the servant of a nobleman who dined with us cramming some chicken pattes down his throat behind the door; our own folks humorously trying to choak him, by pretending that his lord called him, while his mouth was full. Of a thousand comical things in the same way, I will relate one:—Mr. Piozzi's valet was dressing my hair at Paris one morning, while some man sate at an opposite window of the same inn, singing and playing upon the violoncello: I had not observed the circumstance, but my perrucchiere's distress was ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... vi. 23, 24.] This, as Friedrich knows, is what Austria cannot suffer; this is what will involve Austria and Russia, and Friedrich along with them, in—Friedrich, as the matter gradually unfolds itself, shudders to think what. The beginnings of this War were perhaps almost comical to the old Soldier-King; but as it gradually developed itself into complete shattering to pieces of the stupid Blind by the ambitious Purblind, he grew ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... passage beyant, and just the voice of her came through the crack o' the dure. She says, says she: 'If a body was to fall—an' fall—an' fall—and there was naught to stop him, it's comical to think where he'd light on.'... Her voice was as solemn as the church organ, 'm. Another day she says: 'If I could only git the moon out of this passage, there'd be room for my head to whirl round and ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... Nan. You make me feel awfully hollow," came from her twin brother. And the way he said this was so comical it made her laugh in ...
— The Bobbsey Twins - Or, Merry Days Indoors and Out • Laura Lee Hope
... when, on looking up, there I saw him across the room, standing looking at us with a comical expression of vexation on his countenance. His eye catching that of the captain, he immediately advanced, and ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... told me so, and therefore I have never troubled you with them, my dear," was the reply, with just the slightest shade of satire. But its bitterness passed away the moment Sybilla jumped up and came to sit down on the hearth at his feet, in an attitude of comical attention. Thereupon he patted her on the head, gently and smilingly, for he was a fond husband still, and she was such a sweet plaything for ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... of the world reveal himself with more strangely comical effect under the gown of the divine than in the sermon on "The Prodigal Son." The repentant spendthrift has returned to his father's house, and is about to ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... while a playing at push-pin, or riding astride on a hobby-horse. For how unjust is it, if when we allow different recreations to each particular course of life, we afford no diversion to studies; especially when trifles may be a whet to more serious thoughts, and comical matters may be so treated of, as that a reader of ordinary sense may possibly thence reap more advantage than from some more big and stately argument: as while one in a long-winded oration descants in commendation of rhetoric or philosophy, another in a fulsome harangue sets ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... said with such comical seriousness that Truedale laughed again, but sobered instantly when he recalled the incident of the white bantam which Jim ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... new studies, especially Latin and French, getting acquainted with new classmates and the master and his rules. In the first few Latin and French lessons the new teacher, Mr. Lyon, blandly smiled at our comical blunders, but pedagogical weather of the severest kind quickly set in, when for every mistake, everything short of perfection, the taws was promptly applied. We had to get three lessons every day in Latin, three in French, and as many in English, ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... Egger, in his very bad English. "At the school I made my possible; I did till I could no more. I have made like Mr. O'Gree; it is to say, quite a change in my life. I am waiter at a restaurant. And see me; am I not the better quite? No fear!" This cockneyism came in with comical effect. "I have enough to eat and to drink, and money in my pocket. The school may go ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... abandoned, and a newspaper man, who had been initiated, conceived the idea of making "some fun for the boys." The whole business of initiation, etc., was transformed into a series of the most stupendous practical jokes and outrageously comical proceedings ever dreamed of. The Order spread rapidly all over the Union. At Washington the lodge fitted up Marini's Hall in luxurious style, with carpets, cushioned seats, and an expensive paraphernalia. Many Senators and Representatives who had been initiated ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... short, even for a ten-year-old, and to reach the plow handles I was obliged to lift my hands above my shoulders; and so with the guiding lines crossed over my back and my worn straw hat bobbing just above the cross-brace I must have made a comical figure. At any rate nothing like it had been seen in the neighborhood and the people on the road to town looking across the field, laughed and called to me, and neighbor Button said to my father in my hearing, "That chap's too young to run a plow," ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... erect with one comprehensive sweep, he caught up his coat-skirts over his arm, and, assuming a parliamentary attitude, burst into a comical medley, composed of extracts from Jefferson Brick's and Lafayette Kettle's speeches, and Elijah Pogram's Defiance, from "Martin Chuzzlewit." Gazing at Gus, who was convulsed with suppressed merriment, ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... - a higher and more intense way of thinking of the things that go to make up nature, a higher and more ideal key of words in which to speak of them. Ramsay and Fergusson excelled at making a popular - or shall we say vulgar? - sort of society verses, comical and prosaic, written, you would say, in taverns while a supper party waited for its laureate's word; but on the appearance of Burns, this coarse and laughing literature was touched to finer issues, and learned gravity of thought ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I liked best. He was a curly black half-shepherd, small in size; and he had a sharp, intelligent face, with the brightest hazel eyes. His manner of wagging his tail seemed most comical yet convincing. Bobby wagged only the nether end and that most emphatically. He would stand up to me, holding out his forepaws, and beg. What an appealing beggar he was! Bobby's value to Haught was not inconsiderable. He was the only dog Haught ever had that would herd the pigs. On a bear hunt ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... toasts was a fancy quite new, For we drank—and you'll own 'twas benevolent too— To those well-meaning husbands, cits, parsons or peers, Whom we've any time honored by courting their dears: This museum of wittols was comical rather; Old Headfort gave Massey, and I gave your father. In short, not a soul till this morning would budge— We were all fun and frolic, and even the Judge Laid aside for the time his juridical fashion, And thro' the whole night ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... comical despair from poor Tubby, the Boy Scouts darted forward once more. On and on they pushed across country, skillfully tracking their leader by the various signs they had been taught to know and of which the present ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... as a bird sings—for his own pleasure. But I was pleased, too. His was an amiable enthusiasm, quite exempt, as it seemed, from all that bitterness, which an exclusive possession of the truth so commonly engenders. He was greatly in earnest; he knew he was right; but he could still see the comical side of things; he still had a sense of the ludicrous; and in that lay his salvation. For a sense of the ludicrous is the best of mental antiseptics; it, if anything, will keep our perishable human nature sweet, and save it from the madhouse. His discourse ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... poured the first one back when we showed our empty hands). We hesitate; he is poor, but we are so very thirsty. The next stall-keeper reads our hearts, throws a halfpenny to the butter-milk man. "There!" he says, "drink to the limit of your capacity!" and we drink. It is a comical feeling, to be beholden to a seller of small Tamil literature of questionable description; but we really are past drawing nice distinctions. Never was butter-milk so good; we get through three brass tumbler-fuls between us, and feel life worth living again. We give the good ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... red-headed Eric settled in Greenland, when Thorwald fought with the "Skraelings," and Biarni's dragon ship made the trip down the coast of Vineland about the dawn of the Christian era. We also know that the American camper was here when Columbus with his comical toy ships was blundering around the West Indies. We also know that the American camper watched Henry Hudson steer the Half Moon around Manhattan Island. It is this same American camper who has taught us to build many of the shacks to be found in ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... they were nearly a hundred yards past, and Shaddy looked at the enthusiastic collector with a comical expression on his face. ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... him, and after some comical quizzing, they decided, to their own complete satisfaction, that although the bushman's "missus" was the "littlest of all little 'uns, straight up and down," the Maluka's "knocked ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... ye can play thar till ye're tired, right on that paper, an' then ye must come into the house, an' let yer ma wash yer face;" and then Jim, realizing the comical side of all this charming dream, laughed till the woods rang again, and Benedict laughed with him. It was a kind of clearing up of the cloud of sentiment that enveloped them both, and they were ready to work. They settled, after a long discussion, upon the ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... insubordination to dark cold closets; another as given to severe drill, but neglecting manners; a third as repudiating religious teaching, and now and then preparing explosions for the masters-no, teachers. The various conversations were exceedingly bright and comical; and there were brilliant hits at existing circumstances, all a little in a socialistic spirit, which made Anna pause as she read. She really had not perceived till she heard it in her own voice and with other ears how audacious it was, ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... work of taking care of our bunks, and cuffed my ears whenever he got a chance. He made me do his share as well as my own of the labor of cleaning the stables, and feeding and caring for the horses, sitting by and giving orders with a comical exaggeration of the manner of Captain Sproule. In short, he was hazing me unmercifully—as every one on the boat knew, though some of the things he did to me I do not think the captain would have permitted if he had ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... her great amused blare. "You've already seen her and she has told you her wondrous tale? What's 'in it' is what has been in everything she has ever done—the most comical, tragical belief in herself. She thinks she's doing ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... story. Reminiscences of victory and disaster of Camp Picket, Spy, Scout, Bivouac and Siege, with feats of Daring, Bold and Brilliant Marches, Remarkable Cases of Sharp-Shooting, Hand-to-Hand Encounters, Startling Surprises, Ingenious Strategy, Celebrated Tactics, Wonderful Escapes, Comical and Ludicrous Adventures on Land and Sea; Wit, Drollery and Repartee, Famous Words and Deeds of Women, Sanitary and Hospital Scenes, Prison Experiences, Partings and Re-unions, Last Words of the Dying, with affecting illustrations of the home affections and mementoes of the ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... as a comical pendant to 'Tannhaeuser,' is, as we have already stated, Wagner's first and only attempt to write in the comic vein, and the text is full of witty and cutting allusions to the thick-headed critics (at whose hands Wagner had suffered so ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... History of Scotland. We surveyed that part of the palace appropriated to the Duke of Hamilton, as Keeper, in which our beautiful Queen Mary lived, and in which David Rizzio was murdered; and also the State Rooms. Dr. Johnson was a great reciter of all sorts of things serious or comical. I overheard him repeating here in a kind of muttering tone, a line of the old ballad, Johnny ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... pure Comedy; the rest, however they are call'd, have something of both Kinds. 'Tis not very easie to determine which way of Writing he was most Excellent in. There is certainly a great deal of Entertainment in his Comical Humours; and tho' they did not then strike at all Ranks of People, as the Satyr of the present Age has taken the Liberty to do, yet there is a pleasing and a well-distinguish'd Variety in those Characters which he thought fit to meddle with. Falstaff ...
— Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709) • Nicholas Rowe
... wife followed the giant frog to the woods very early one morning, and a comical figure it presented as it hobbled along. Arrived at the woods, the frog cried ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... and Gros-Rene are but faintly attempted; Marinette and Frosine only sketched in outline; and in the fifth act the ladies appear to have nothing else to do but to pop in and out of closets. The scenes of the French play between Albert and Metaphrastus (ii. 7); the very comical scene between Albert and Polydore (iii. 4) and the reconciliation scene between Lucile and Eraste (iv. 3), are also not rendered in the English comedy. There are very few scenes which can be compared with ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere
... into the fire thoughtfully; and then she smiled. "Forgive me, do!" she said. "I know I behaved badly next day; I could not help it. The sudden relief to my mind had sent my spirits up inordinately for one thing; and then your face! Your consternation was really comical! If I had injured you irreparably in your estimation of the value of your own opinion of people, you could not have cared more. But I am sorry, very, very sorry," she added, with feeling, "that you should have lost your ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand |
