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More "Comical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the room before Campbell, and shaking hands with his guests: 'Ah, Mr. Bemis; Mrs. Bemis; Aunt Mary! You've heard of our comical little coincidence—our—Mr. Bemis and my—' He halts, confused, and looks around for the moral support of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... and the queen was so overcome at the comical sight, that she nearly fell down and got the hysterics, laughing so heartily. She utterly forgot her dignity, and laughed till the tears ran down her face. She was so afraid she would scream out, that she nearly choked herself to death with her sleeve, ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... not feel the injustice and degradation of the condition, there is something inexpressibly comical in man's "citizen woman." It reminds me of those monsters I used to see in the old world, head and shoulders woman, and the rest of the body sometimes fish and sometimes beast. I used to think, What a strange conceit! but now ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... or even a ditch, the dogs were released for a bathe. They invariably leapt into the water, drank moderately, and then, if the water was too shallow for swimming, sat down in it and then lay down. Sometimes a dog temporarily at liberty would find on his own account a small water hole, and it was comical to see him taking a sitz bath in it. When the sun was hot a dog would sometimes be retained on his cord when not pulling in order that he might trot along in the shade below the kuruma. The dog of the kuruma following mine usually managed when pulling to take advantage ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... two-wheeled cart Bobby found, when finally he and Mr. Kincaid emerged from the house carrying his valise, to be well packed with the shell-box, gun, bag and a lunch basket. Mr. Kincaid's duck-dog, named Curly, lay crouched in the bottom like a soft warm mat. Bobby had met Curly before. He was a comical seal-brown dog, covered with compact tight curls all over his body. When Bobby petted him, they felt springy. His face, head and ears, however, were smooth and silky. He had yellow eyes, and an engaging disposition. To the touch his body, ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... paralysed fellow is lost to the Present. He is back in the Past—or in one of his novelettes; and in front of him, begging for mercy, as he slits their throats, or cracks open their skulls, are, indeed, hundreds of real and living men. His acting is superb. It is only made comical by the hanging legs, the fixture of the body to the seat of the chair, and the furious ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... conditions and obstacles society and family could raise would melt away in the glow of a real passion. And he wondered for a moment if American girls were not "calculating"—a word to which he had learned over here to attach a new and comical meaning. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... in the dark, you see. This thing acts just like a Chinese puzzle. They're simple enough when you know how to fit the pieces together, and you wonder why they ever stumped you. But until you do guess them—" He stopped, with a comical shrug of his shoulders to indicate his helplessness and ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the Farm - Or, Bessie King's New Chum • Jane L. Stewart
... may be! But amusing bloodshed, and comical murder. Life is a burlesque catastrophe, a terrible comedy, the mask of carnival over blood-stained cheeks. That is what life means to the artist; the artist on the stage, and the ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... table, amid the smothered mirth of the assemblage, the two jesters placed themselves opposite each other, and grinned such comical defiance that the king roared with laughter. After a variety of odd movements and feints on either side, Patch tried to bring down his adversary by a tremendous two-handed blow; but in dealing it, the weight of the hag dragged him forward, and well-nigh pitched ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... on the bank (the only one I ever experienced) presented all the features, serious and comical, usual to such occasions. At our counter happened that identical case, narrated of others, of the Frenchman, who was nearly squeezed to death in getting to the counter, and, when he received his money, did not know what to do with it. "If you got the money, I no want him; but if you no ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... her manor of Saint-Fargeau. The rupture with her father, who drove her out of doors, and denied her permission to take refuge under any other roof he owned, her consequent wanderings, at times not a little affecting, and at others comical, when directing her steps towards her place of banishment, her arrival at the ruinous chateau which has neither doors nor windows, and which is haunted by ghosts, and the attempts to embellish the tumble-down ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... funny, a. comic, comical, amusing, droll, laughable, farcical, witty, jocular, jocose, ludicrous, burlesque, facetious, risible, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... all mean? Had Ossaroo gone mad? Or had he become suddenly afflicted with the malady of Saint Vitus? His movements were altogether of a comical nature; no mountebank could have danced about with more agility; and, but for the earnestness of his cries, evidently forced from him by fear, both Karl and Caspar would have burst out into a fit of laughter. They saw, however, that ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... 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 that might ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dear, 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 ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... connection with fame, Any one else should put in a claim, In this comical competition; That excellent poem will prove A man-trap for such foolish ambition, Where the silly rogue shall be caught by the leg, And exposed ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... of a crowd of English ladies, each of whom is employed in eyeing the lady next her and asking who she is, and comical as the point of view appears to any one who reflects on the shortness of human life and the littleness of human character, the effect of these feminine weaknesses is one which no one can be sure of escaping. We are afraid that half of the Englishmen who are snobs are made ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... the stretch of tide-flats passengers from the California were wading ashore. The women were being carried pickaback—and screamed when their helpers stumbled. It was a comical sight, for several men already had tripped and fallen, and were a ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... and Helen now came to meet them, for they had become seriously alarmed for the boy: but when the disaster was related, Helen could not refrain from laughing at the comical figure John must have made when flying over Bob's head; and even Mr. Martin, though he tried to look grave, found it difficult to keep his countenance while he represented to him the impropriety and hazard of his late conduct. Little Marion, who had come ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford
... jubilation, and many the inquiries after Primrose, who had once been nearly well, but had fallen back again, and Fly, who, Mysie said, was quite well and as comical as ever when she was well, but quickly tired. She had set out in high spirits, but had been dreadfully weary all the latter part of the journey, and was to go to bed at once. She still coughed, but Mysie was bent on disproving Nurse Halfpenny's assurance that the recovery would not be complete ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... opened, and her eyes dilated with an almost comical expression of dismay. She had not a word ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... come to one of the most remarkable, and in some respects certainly the most comical, of all the episodes in which Colonel Best-Dunkley figured—the memorable march from Millain to Westbecourt. The following lengthy epistle which I wrote in my billet in the Vale of Acquin at Westbecourt the following day draws a perfectly accurate picture ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... One was young and boyish looking. The other, a few years older, was of medium height and stout beyond proportion; he wore a tweed suit of a rather big check pattern, and the coat was buttoned over a scarlet waistcoat; the straw hat, gaudily beribboned, shaded a fat, jolly, half-comical face, of the type that readily inspires confidence. He was talking to his companion animatedly when he saw Jack approaching. With a boisterous exclamation of delight he rushed up to him and clapped him ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... man uttered this question in a tone at once so comical and so touching, that Croisilles, in spite of his sadness, could not ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... something so odd in the whole affair, and something so comical and pleasant in the manner of the speaker, that the spell ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... He saw everything and he enjoyed everything. Plainly he was the miscreant. He was waddling round on his stout little legs, flourishing a huge jack-knife, and grinning as if he were going to have a big dish of whale-fat for dinner. He looked comical enough. He was dressed in seal-skin, and was bobbing up and down in his mother's seal-skin boots. The women's boots are of tanned seal-skin, bleached white and then colored. The boots of Billy's mother were very gay. They were bright red ones. When Billy ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... 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 ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... be there's no harm in trying it."—"Farewell, then, my poor, pretty, patient, black-bruised cousin," cried Pedrillo; "next time you see the doctor, let him know how his remedy has sped;" and with a comical expression of countenance, half melancholy, half mirthful, the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 350, January 3, 1829 • Various
... what a comical fellow! Don't be angry with me, mamma. When I found out that you wanted to marry NADYA to him, I felt sorry for her. And you're so good to everybody! [He kisses her hand] I didn't want you to do ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... the hands that dispense forty-cent pieces!" he cried with a comical grimace, shuffled his shoes, and ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... these transactions, the slave called to see Friend Hopper. He laughed till he could hardly stand, while he described the method he had taken to elude his old master, and the comical scene that followed with him and the constable. "I knew his weak side," said he. "I ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... Walter, as he made a comical move toward Belle. But Belle was disconsolate, and she only looked at the moon. It was almost funny, but the humor was entirely lost on the ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... feasting and drinking. Grant it be so; yet certainly in the most luxurious entertainments it is Folly must give the sauce and relish to the daintiest delicacies; so that if there be no one of the guests naturally fool enough to be played upon by the rest, they must procure some comical buffoon, that by his jokes and flouts and blunders shall make the whole company split themselves with laughing; for to what purpose were it to be stuffed and crammed with so many dainty bits, savory dishes, and toothsome rarities, if after all this epicurism, the eyes, the ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... mantle of blue-gray tufts. It is these sterile places which yield the best truffles of Perigord. Sometimes trained dogs are used to hunt for the cryptogams, but, as in the Quercy, the pig is much more frequently employed for the purpose. A comical and ungainly-looking beast this often is: bony and haggard, with a long limp tail and exaggerated ears. A collar round the neck ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... sources. Figures from history, ancient and modern, sacred and secular; characters from plays and novels from Plautus down to Walter Scott and Jane Austen; images and similes from poets of every age and every nation, 'pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical;' shrewd thrusts from satirists, wise saws from sages, pleasantries caustic or pathetic from humorists; all these throng Macaulay's pages with the bustle and variety and animation of some glittering masque and ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... the young men of the tribe did a little foot-runnin', and Mike begged 'em to let him in. It was comical to see how pleased they was. They felt so sure of him that they began pro-ratin' our belongin's among one another. They laid out a half-mile course, and everybody in camp went out to the finish-line to see the contest and to bet on it. The old chief acted as judge, bookmaker, ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... later be mentioned. The patient is indifferent so far as his basic condition is concerned, and it is only by certain stimuli that at times emotional reactions can be elicitated, some tears at a visit of a relative, an appropriate smile at a joke or a comical situation when the stupor is not too deep or an angry reaction called forth ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... least surprised of the trio, and even he had not more than begun to suspect the true state of affairs when the light was turned on. He doubled up with laughter, for it was really comical to see how eagerly Moses was delving into his oat supply, as though he feared he was now about to be divorced from his feast, and retired in disgrace, wherefore he wished to gobble all he could ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... sounds, the boy's wide mouth puckered up in a comical look of distress, and he rubbed the cuff of his jacket across his blinking eyes. Mrs. Ginniss gave him a slap, on the shoulder, intended to be playful, but actually heavy enough to have thrown a slighter person ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... school" of manners has fallen into disrepute. Sir Charles Grandison is a comical rather than a courtly figure to this generation; and the man whose manners may be described as Grandisonian is usually called a pompous and grandiloquent old prig. Certainly the elaborately dressed gentleman speaking to a lady only with polished courtesy of phrase, ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... smooth, ruddy face, and white hair, and large round spectacles behind which his eyes danced and sparkled, and a comical kindly mouth, and his clothes were of bright colours that merged into each other as easily as those of the rainbow and were as certain a sign that the sun was shining somewhere. Moreover there was in his appearance a vague but unmistakable likeness to the one person of all persons whom ...
— The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice • E. V. Lucas
... other more intangible equity or asset. One of Johnny's favourite feats was to march Yank and me up to a bar, face us, and interrogate us according to an invariable formula. We must have presented a comical sight—I with my great bulk and round, fresh face alongside the solemn, lank, and leathery Yank; both of us drawn up at attention, and solemn as ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... the old cylinder makeshift was burning merrily did he return to his patient; then, standing straight before her, he looked down with an air of childish dignity that would have been comical had it been ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... were loitering about the carriage; as he pushed through them, he heard them questioning why travellers should on so hot a morning of spring sit muffled up in a close, dark carriage when they could take their ease beneath trees in the inn-garden. One man laughed out at the Princess and the comical figure she made with her scarlet cloak drawn tight about her face. Wogan himself had bought that cloak in Strasbourg to guard his Princess from the cold of the Brenner, and guessed what discomfort its ermine ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... of the universe, whether a jack-in-a-box or a comet. She had only known Aunt Maria for the last four years, and she had not yet got used to her rough-and-ready mannish ways, nor learned to see any sense in her philosophizings. Looking upon her as a comical character, and supposing that she talked mainly for the fun of the thing, she was disposed to laugh at her doings and sayings, though mostly meant ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... long, long, A singing a comical song, song, song, The lane that I went was so long, long, long, And the song that I sung was so long, long, long, And so I ...
— Aunt Kitty's Stories • Various
... far back on his head, and the sun fell full on his face. Even at this distance, the resemblance to his sister was so marked as to be almost comical. The eyes were the same. The nose, with its unmistakable upward turn, a burlesque on the short, straight one which lent piquancy to Winifred's face. The soft, subtle curve of her cheek developed in Jimmy to a hardened rotundity inevitably suggesting the desire to pinch it, which one feels toward ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... into the tray, Alice began to throw in the other things one after another, and toss the whole about with a carelessness that looked as if all would go wrong, but with a confidence that seemed to say all was going right. Ellen gazed in comical wonderment. ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... object beneath a triple linen cloth, like some consecrated paten. It was a Faenza platter representing little Loves flitting away pursued by apothecary lads armed with enormous syringes. The chase abounds in grimaces and in comical postures. One of the charming little Loves is already fairly spitted. He is resisting, fluttering his tiny wings, and still making an effort to fly, but the dancer is laughing with a satanical air. Moral: Love conquered by the colic. This ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... has always been comical, even when I didn't feel well myself, to see the husbands come into the club after a big night; each wearing upon his face, as plainly as if they had been physical scratches, the marks of the wifely ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... Brazilian's attitude and expression, gave, alike to Crevel and to the baron, an identical shock of curiosity and anxiety. Both were struck by the same impression and the same surmise. And the manoeuvre suggested in each by their very genuine passion was so comical in its simultaneous results, that it made everybody smile who was sharp enough to read its meaning. Crevel, a tradesman and shopkeeper to the backbone, though a mayor of Paris, unluckily, was a little slower to ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... a capital joke, Piers disbursed the coin. Quaint, comical fellow, this brother of his I He liked him, and was beginning to ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... his will; yet not his the will, not his the power. 'Tis all Fortune's, whose puppet he is. She deals her dispensations through him. Yea, though our capers be never so comical, he laughs not. Intent upon his own business, the true hero asks little services of us here and there; thinks it quite natural that they should be acceded to, and sees nothing ridiculous in the lamentable contortions we must go ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of surprise and perplexity in her face, though half pathetic, seemed so comical that I with difficulty suppressed a laugh, because for her it was evidently no laughing matter. After giving her time, as I thought, to recover ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... of your dishevelled sentiment. And right! You must confess that nothing could have been more right. I had a mind to shout "Brava! Brava!" but I did not do that. I took a piece of cake and went out to bribe the Fyne dog into some sort of self-control. His sharp comical yapping was unbearable, like stabs through one's brain, and Fyne's deeply modulated remonstrances abashed the vivacious animal no more than the deep, patient murmur of the sea abashes a nigger minstrel on a popular beach. Fyne was beginning to swear at him in low, ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... The sausage (saucisson de Lyon) also appears to have borne the journey well, but has not yet been tasted, so the next letter from Todmorden must give the opinion upon it, but it certainly looks to me a most comical affair; and to tell last the only disagreeable thing, it is about the peaches, which were all in a dreadful mess, and quite mixed up with the bran and scarcely fit to touch, though Aunt Susan did take out one or two to see the extent of the decay. How very provoking for you ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... to them, he turned Kate round to a mirror, where she beheld her own brown eyes looking out of a face dashed over with black specks, thicker about the mouth, giving her altogether much the colouring of a very dark man closely shaved. It was so exceedingly comical, that she went off into fits of laughing, in which she was heartily joined by ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... spin the young equestrians took over the ears of the horse, enough to make all the artists of Astley's envious; and plump they went into the river, where each formed his own ring, and executed some comical "scenes in the circle," which were suddenly changed to evolutions on the "flying cord" that Dinny Dowling threw to the performers, which became suddenly converted into a "tight rope" as he dragged the voltigeurs out of the water; and for fear their blood might be chilled by the accident, ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... Luciana, the sister of his brother's wife; and the good old Aegeon, with his wife and sons, lived at Ephesus many years. Nor did the unravelling of these perplexities so entirely remove every ground of mistake for the future, but that sometimes, to remind them of adventures past, comical blunders would happen, and the one Antipholus, and the one Dromio, be mistaken for the other, making altogether a pleasant ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... us, and Henry had sprung from his horse and embraced his brother, leaving a generous coating of yeso upon the army blue. Tears of joy had ploughed two streaks through the whiting on his face, and lent a comical effect to the boyish countenance. A general handshake ensued, and Corporal Frank asked, "Where are your ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... perfect state of preservation, and more elliptical in form than any of those I have yet seen, and the School of Eloquence, where R** mounted the rostrum, and gave us an oration extempore, equally pithy, classical and comical. About sunset we got into the carriages, and ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... the thorny Sorcerer in his chair of state, and when the Wizard saw him he began to laugh, uttering comical little chuckles. ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... the humorous poems of Thomas Green Fessenden, published under the sobriquet of Dr. Caustic, or "Christopher Caustic, M. D.," may be seen an other comical example of Sapphics, which extends to eleven stanzas. It describes a contra-dance, and is entitled, "Horace Surpassed." The ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... disgust, very comical and very joyous, but as the good dame was actually coming in search of ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bells, and tufts of gay-coloured ribbons or fox-tails are put upon it. Great pride is taken in turning out a train of dogs in good style. Beads, bells, and embroidery are freely used to bedizen the poor brutes, and a most comical effect is produced by the appearance of so much finery upon the woefully frightened dog, who, when he is first put into his harness, usually looks the picture of fear. The fact is patent that in hauling the dog is put to a work from which his whole nature revolts, that is to say ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... soldiers, (heads up,) but I long to see them step out of those prim ranks, and shout and scamper. I long to stuff their little pockets full of anything—everything, that other little pets have. I want to get them round me, and tell them some comical stories to take the care-worn look out of their anxious little faces. I want to see them twist their little heads round when they hear a noise, instead of keeping them straight forward as if they were "on duty." I want to know if anybody tucks them up comfortably ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... to enter "La Martiniere," the farm of her father, Jean Martin, and she cast a glance behind her as she turned round. She saw Benoist, who looked to her very comical. She called out: "Good-morning, Benoist." He replied: "Good-morning, Martine; good-morning, mait Martin," and went ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... Sophie laughed at the comical air with which her sister repeated the sentence; yet, when her laugh was gone, there remained a slight shadow of disappointment. She, too, was unwillingly aware of ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... Tibetans. As I had pitched my Tibetan tent, they made for it, expecting to find some of their own countrymen. Their confusion was amusing when they found themselves face to face with Doctor Wilson and myself. Hurriedly removing their fur caps, they laid them upon the ground and made a comical bow. They put out their tongues full length, and kept them so until I made signs that they could draw them back, as I wanted them to answer several questions. This unexpected meeting with us frightened them ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... But let me tell you, there was a comical thing to start with. Lieutenant Hayter, one of Watson's men, was bid to the Council, but the nincompoop was huffed because he wasn't allowed precedence of the Company's captains. These naval men's airs are vastly amusing. ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... thing lay in a sort of humorous inappropriateness; and it is natural enough that pleasantry of this description should become less common, as men learn to suspect some serious analogy underneath. Thus a comical story of an ape touches us quite differently after the proposition of Mr. Darwin's theory. Moreover, there lay, perhaps, at the bottom of this primitive sort of fable, a humanity, a tenderness of rough truths; ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Pickwickians were there 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 and ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... that before "our art," as he persistently calls music, had got a root in Germany, three great schools had flourished, the English, the Flemish and the Italian—disregarding all this, he looked for the regeneration of the human species by means of the efforts of German artists alone. It is comical, and, I say, very like lunacy. Mr. Ernest Newman will have it that Wagner's was only a very mediocre intellect. The cold truth is that only a mighty intellect, gone wrong on one point, could have evolved the idea of such a new ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... why they did, They called in adventitious aid. A faithful, favourite dog ('twas thus With Tobit and Telemachus) Amused their steps; and for a while They viewed his gambols with a smile. The kitten too was comical, She played so oddly with her tail, Or in the glass was pleased to find Another cat, and ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... probably forgotten her, if he did not relate this audacious, comical and tender farce to his comrades over ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... her treatment of the lines in the scene where Celia conducts the mock marriage between Orlando and Ganymede. Another actress, whom I saw as Rosalind, said the words, "And I do take thee, Orlando, to be my husband," with a comical grimace to the audience. Helen Faucit flushed up and said the line with deep and true emotion, suggesting that she was, indeed, giving herself to Orlando. There was a world of poetry in the way she drooped over ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... 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 Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... boxes, red, green, and golden balls, tinkling glass bells, stars, paper angels, cotton-wool Santa Claus, blue birds, celluloid goldfish, mosquito netting, counterfeit stockings, nickel-plated horns, and all the comical accumulation of oddities that gathers from year to year in the box labelled CHRISTMAS TREE THINGS, FRAGILE. The box goes up to the attic, and the parent blows a faint diminuendo, achingly prolonged, on a toy horn. Titania is almost reduced to tears ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... affect us like the first movement, in which lies not only the majesty, but the mystery of genius. The sonata in D has a vigorous opening Allegro,—a long, lovely, slow movement,—a crisp Scherzo, but a peculiar Finale, one which Schumann qualifies as comical (possirlich). The sonata in G contains some of the composer's most charming, characteristic music. The opening moderato e cantabile is a tone-poem of touching pathos. The sad principal theme is supported by such soft, ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... his hands with a comical gesture. "Well, let it go at that. I suppose it explains me to call me 'professor.' Yes, I have a connection there—I draw a ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... robbed Mr. Hearl on Hounslow-Heath. I secured the dog after he had wounded me. This fracture was the handiwork of Jack Parrot (otherwise called Jack the Grinder), who broke into the palace of the Bishop of Norwich. Jack was a comical scoundrel, and made a little too free with his grace's best burgundy, as well as his grace's favourite housekeeper. The Bishop, however, to show him the danger of meddling with the church, gave him a dance at Tyburn for his pains. Not a scar but has its history. The only inconvenience I feel ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... two feet already," said Walter, in a discouraged voice, as he started wielding the paddle again. "I guess there is something wrong with our calculation, Charley." He stopped suddenly and looked up with a comical look of ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... of us have some comical peculiarity, and we would not want an animal in the house who would be sure, at some time, to expose us to laughter by his ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... greeted her astounded parent. 'You should make sure that you have got hold of the right person before you use all that terrible muscular force of yours. I do believe you have broken my shoulder bone.' She rubbed her shoulder with a comical expression of pain, and then stood up before the two men. The skirt of her dark grey dress was torn and dirty, and the usually trim Nella looked as though she had been shot down a canvas fire-escape. Mechanically she smoothed her frock, and gave a ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... nifty and feminine, but I'm darned if three or four of the other males don't catch the contagion of her woman's presence and hang round her, too, fetching her food of every kind there, feeding her spoonfuls of Aggie Tuttle's plum preserves, and all like that, one comical thing after another. Yes, sir; here was Mac Gordon and Riley Hardin and Charlie Dickman and Roth Hyde, men about town of the younger dancing set, that had knowed Hetty for years and hardly ever looked at her—here they was paying attentions to her now ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... trying for the reward?" asked Reyburn with a comical smile. "What is it, anyway?" And ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... consider them merely as realistic fiction, apart from their author, or as studies of that middle world of which he is naturally and voluntarily a citizen. We had known the nethermost world of the grotesque and comical negro and the terrible and tragic negro through the white observer on the outside, and black character in its lyrical moods we had known from such an inside witness as Mr. Paul Dunbar; but it had remained for Mr. Chesnutt to acquaint us with those regions where the paler shades dwell as ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... 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 ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... appeared so amusing to the rogue that he did his best, by reproving words, to strengthen, for the present, the good folk in their belief. He gave a very comical report of all this to me; and as he found that it diverted me, he made a joke to me of his own wickedness. Shall I confess it? It flattered me, even by such means, to be ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... galley, but the sound expired at the sight of the distant flutter of a woman's scarf in the stern of the ship. He halted and ran his fingers through his crisp hair with an expressive gesture of almost comical perplexity; all would be plain sailing enough, with hope at the prow again, but for this—he stamped his foot to choke down the oath of qualification—this encumbrance. Adrian's wife and Madeleine's sister, as such entitled to all honour, all care, and devotion; and yet, as such again, hideously, ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... exclamation was so comical, that people nearly fell from their benches as they writhed and ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... does the man 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 ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... talent so far surpassed that of his rivals—for this was clear as daylight to me. Berlioz seemed to be pleasantly affected by the attitude of gay spontaneity I adopted with him. His usual short, almost reserved, manner thawed visibly during the friendly hours we passed together. He told me many comical things about Meyerbeer, and the impossibility of escaping from his flattery, which was dictated by his insatiable thirst for laudatory articles. The first performance of his Prophet had been preceded by the customary diner de la veille, and when Berlioz ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... sight of these thousands of little midgets each with his teacup, or his teapot, or his tin pail, throwing each his mite of water—for which he had to walk a street or so—into the ravening roaring furnace of flame was as pathetic or as comical as you please. They did not seem to have a show in ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... broke from him in this retirement. His novel, called the Expedition of Humphry Clinker, which he sent to England to be printed in 1770, though abounding in portraitures of exquisite drollery, and in situations highly comical, has not the full zest and flavour of his earlier works. The story does not move on with the same impetuosity. The characters have more the appearance of being broad caricatures from real life, than the creatures ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... and the head-waiter is such a waiter! Knowles (not Sheridan Knowles, but Knowles of the Cheetham Hill Road[28]) is an ass to him. This sounds bold, but truth is stranger than fiction. By-the-by, not the least comical thing that has occurred was the visit of the upholsterer (with some further calculations) since I began this letter. I think they took me here at the New London for the Wonderful Being I am; they were amazingly sedulous; and no doubt they looked for my being visited ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... luckily she did not meet any one, nor was she overtaken by any of those who had been at Baadshaug. She must look very comical, perspiring and tearful, with unfastened cloak, in thin shoes and with a shawl in her hand. Several times she slackened her pace, but the disturbance of her feelings was too great, and it was her ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... that were like galvanized Coppelias of Hoffmann, some, like Neel de Nehou, seemed to have been imagined in moments of exhaustion following convulsions, and were discordant notes in this harmony of sombre madness, where they were as comical and ridiculous as a tiny zinc figure playing on a ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... his tormentor by the shoulder, and pushed him into the canal. The water was not deep, and the boy, after floundering about for a few seconds, came out dripping with mud and filth, and sat down on the tow path, and looked at the horse with such a comical expression, that the Riverdale boy had to stuff his handkerchief in his mouth to ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... friends just met after a long absence. Mrs. HERSCHEL is sensible, good-humored, unpretending, and well bred; Miss HERSCHEL all shyness and virgin modesty; the Scots lady sensible and harmless; and the little boy entertaining, promising, and comical. HERSCHEL, you know, and everybody knows, is one of the most pleasing and well-bred natural characters of the present age, as well as the ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... that mother used up the last of the arnica when you did it last time tryin' to count the buttons up Policeman Rat-it-all's uniform, an' that if the wind should shift of a sudden and catch you with your eyes bulgin' out of your head like they'm doin' at this moment, happen 'twill fix you up comical for life: an' then instead of your growin' up apprenticed to a butcher, as has been your constant dream, we'll have to put you into a travellin' show for a gogglin' May-game, an' that's where your heart will be turnin' ever, far from the Old Folks at Home. ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... the pantomime of dying. Folding her hands together and closing her eyes, her lips moved as if in prayer, for a moment, then stretching out her feet she lay perfectly motionless, with a set expression in the little face which looked so comical under the broad frilled cap. Then, as if it had occurred to her that action was necessary from some one, she exchanged places with the lay figure, and tying the cap upon its head, tucked it carefully in the bed, by which she knelt, and covering her face with her hands imitated perfectly ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... their lives in the torture of captivity. So deeply interested was Romulus in what he saw that he forgot his fear and cocked his head on one side and made a queer grimace; and his motions and attitude were so comical that Moses, the idiot, grinned at him through the pickets. But the grin was not the only manifestation of pleasure that Moses gave. A peculiar vermicular movement, beginning at his feet and ending at his head, was the precursor of a slow, vacant guffaw that expressed the most intense ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... HAVE you gone and done?" said Papa, laughing and putting his hand to his cheek (whenever he did this I used to look for something particularly comical from him). "Why did you call my attention to his feet? I looked at them, and now ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... you are," said the man in black, staring at me; "but, in connection with this Mumbo Jumbo, I could relate to you a comical story about a fellow, an English servant, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... senses in the sweet wild music of her country. I still sometimes hear in fancy her cradle-song humming in my own Old Indian ear as I am falling asleep—although many a long year has passed since I heard it in reality, and many a long league is now between me and the land of the dear, good, black, comical, kindly ayah. Let me try whether I cannot render it, even loosely, in our own strong Anglo-Saxon tongue, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... you have walked in the actual steps of the Marquise. C'est ici qu'elle jouoit au mail avec cette parfaite grace—et M. le Comte aussi—ah! c'etoit un plaisir de les voir." We hardly knew whether to laugh at, or be interested by the comical Quixotism of this man, who I verily believe had, by dint of residence on the spot, and thumbing constantly a dirty old edition of Madame's letters, worked himself up to the notion that he had witnessed the scenes which he described. We were induced, in the course of our walk, to inquire ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... is a band of foragers, no doubt. But what are we going to do about it?" Hugh was nonplussed. The brown backs and bobbing heads still stretched before them in almost comical humbleness. ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... I found a better, worse luck to the villain as killed him. He was that free and ginerous, sir, that many 's the time I have said to Hannah—" She stopped, with a sudden comical gasp of terror, looking at her fellow-servants like one who had incautiously made a slip. The coroner, observing ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... lady appeared at the opposite door, ready to descend the stairs. Neither of them saw the young man. But if they had, one of them at least would have doubted the young man's sanity. He stared at the couple for a moment with a look of grotesque horror on his face that was absolutely comical. Then he turned, and ran the length of the deck, with a speed unconscious ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... his half intentional blunders, and at the laughable situations into which his artlessness would often land him. Like all the older directors, he had to say the orison in his turn. He never gave it five minutes previous consideration, and he sometimes got into such a comical state of confusion with his improvised address, that we had to bite our tongues to keep from laughing. He saw how amused we were, and it struck him as being perfectly natural. It was he who, during the course of Holy Writ, had to read M. ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... gone proudly up to take his seat of honor, and the others had returned to their back-gammon and ale, Sigurd looked at Alwin with a comical grimace. ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... his hair, with a comical face. It was a very fine face, as I knew long ago; even a noble face. A steady, clear, blue eye like his, gives one a sure impression of power in the character, and of sweetness, too. I was glad he had asked me the question, but I waited for him ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... not look very humorous in print, but they sounded comical as they came from the mouth of that raw countryman, and the ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... the sultry air, and holding their wings half-spread for coolness. All birds during the pairing season become more or less sentimental, and murmur soft nothings in a tone very unlike the grinding-organ repetition and loudness of their habitual song. The crow is very comical as a lover, and to hear him trying to soften his croak to the proper Saint Preux(1) standard has something the effect of a Mississippi boatman quoting Tennyson. Yet there are few things to my ear more melodious than his caw of a clear winter morning as it drops to you filtered through five ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... squaw showed their big white teeth and glinted their black eyes, and said, "Plenty get well, skeena mowitch," "Wagee man come plenty soon," and she could have kissed their brown faces in her joy. And then she found that they had been gathering berries on the marsh in heir queer comical baskets, and saw the skirt of her gown fluttering on the tree from afar, and the old squaw couldn't resist the temptation of procuring a new garment, and came down and discovered the "wagee" woman and child. ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... briefly that some of the canaille of our escort had carried away a bale of Dr. Barth's goods, but that the chief had made them restore the greater part of the spoil. In the first moments I could not help laughing. It was certainly comical to be robbed by one's own escort. We had now thirty-one chaouches for two whom we obtained in Tripoli. On this I ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... company of French gunners it is a comical contrast to find him winning a scholarship at Balliol College, Oxford—admittedly the most rarefied and azure-pedalled precinct in England. He matriculated at Balliol in January, 1895, and was soon known as one of the "characters" of the college. There was little of the lean and pallid clerk of Oxenford ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... had a comical experience. When he took out his breviary and began to read his morning devotions in a low tone, the savages gathered around him with looks {300} of terror and frantically signed to him to put away the book. ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... river until she came to a narrow and not particularly well—kept road which led through the opening of the hills towards which she had motioned her whip. Once or twice a smile crossed her face, and once she laughed as she thought of the comical picture which the young man had made as he struggled to dry land with the wet lamb in his arms; and the smile and her laugh made her face seem strangely girlish, because it was usually so calm, so gravely self-reliant. ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... has in like manner acquired several of the attributes of Freyr and Thor. [63] His lightning-spear, which is borrowed from Thor, appears by a comical metamorphosis as a wish-rod which will administer a sound thrashing to the enemies of its possessor. Having cut a hazel stick, you have only to lay down an old coat, name your intended victim, wish he was there, and whack away: he will howl with pain ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... and steal apples. Jack Juggler, who enacts the Vice, watches him, gets on some clothes just like his, and undertakes to persuade him "that he is not himself, but another man." The task proves too much, till he brings fist-arguments to bear; when Jenkin gives up the point, and makes a comical address to the audience, alleging certain reasons for believing that he is not himself. The humour of the piece turns mainly on this ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... Wales, Junior," it should be explained that most of Betty's little circle began to be friends in their freshman year, when they lived off the campus at Mrs. Chapin's, and Mary Brooks, the only sophomore in the house, ruled them with an autocratic hand. Betty found Helen Adams a comical and sometimes a trying roommate. Rachel Morrison and Katherine Kittredge were also at Mrs. Chapin's, and Roberta Lewis, who adored Mary Brooks and was desperately afraid of every one else in the house, though Betty ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... from designing in precious metals to the use of colour, and to engraving. In making wood engravings, however, the drudgery of it was left almost entirely to workmen, not artists. Nuremberg was also the seat of musical learning. Wagner makes this fact pathetic, comical, and altogether charming in his "Mastersingers ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... an instance of Shakespeare's power in minimis, I generally quote James Gurney's character in King John. How individual and comical he is with the four words allowed to his ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... the name of the publisher, came a new prospectus, probably the first effort of the kind, of the then youthful philosopher. This prospectus was rather an odd one, as will be seen by the following extract: 'The main design of this weekly 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 serious morals, which may be drawn from ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... he groaned out, "'fore the boarders come! She use' t' come up t' Pa's an' act up real pert an' comical; maybe if she hadn't, I'd 'a' noticed her more! Ah! if I'd only been content t' see it then, I might have saved her. I was only up t' Maud Grace's limit, but I was allus a-thinkin' I was more, an' then when she took t' the boarders ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... never become real to her. She had seen in this young gallant a nose she liked, in that a pleasant moustache, in the other a nice way of wearing clothes, in one a ridiculous fringe of hair, in another a comical way of talking. They were objects of amusement and faint wonder to her, rather than real ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... friendly ways. They shoulder responsibility; they do not flirt; they sort out cranks; they flee from simpers; they put down presumption. If married, they laugh heartily with their wives over any letter or episode that is comical or sentimental. If not married, they get out of things the best way they know how, with a sort of plain, manly directness. If a minister would arrogate to himself his free-born privilege of being a thorough-going man, many of ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... the child, she took him in her lap and tried to entertain him with a book of "Mother Goose" jingles, turning the pages slowly and concealing her emotion under the silliness of the nursery rhymes. In the midst of her comical recital about Jack and Jill who went up the hill, she ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott
... day, he came back to the Club and found a package, addressed in her hand. Out fell a little bundle of rags, topped by a comical black face, and a note. The letter of the morning was in a firm, correct hand. This was a trembling scrawl, blotted ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... be drawn into the adventure. The whole party accordingly disembarked, and were presently giving an exhibition of their talents to the assembled idlers, the Pantaloon, Harlequin and Doctor enacting a comical intermezzo which Cantapresto had that morning composed for them, while Scaramouch and Columbine joined the dancers, and the rest of the company, seizing on a train of donkeys laden with vegetables ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... the devil was almost universal. Ascetics, saints, bishops, peasants, philosophers, kings, Gregory the Great, Martin Luther, all testified that they had often seen him. The mediaval conception of the devil was sometimes comical, sometimes awful. Grimm says, "He was Jewish, heathenish, Christian, idolatrous, elfish, titanic, spectral, all at once." He was "a soul snatching wolf," a "hell hound," a "whirlwind hammer;" now an infernal "parody of God" with ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... boughs. Here they go into the boxes, red, green, and golden balls, tinkling glass bells, stars, paper angels, cotton-wool Santa Claus, blue birds, celluloid goldfish, mosquito netting, counterfeit stockings, nickel-plated horns, and all the comical accumulation of oddities that gathers from year to year in the box labelled CHRISTMAS TREE THINGS, FRAGILE. The box goes up to the attic, and the parent blows a faint diminuendo, achingly prolonged, on a toy horn. Titania is almost reduced to tears ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... Priest, a Fanatick Chaplain, and a Divine of the Church of England, &c. were spoken of as an excellent Comedy, and especially for that Part which the Fanatick Chaplain acts therein, who makes as comical and as ridiculous a Figure as he does in any of the Plays acted on the Stage. And in his Controversy with Dryden about the Royal Papers, and those of the Duchess of York, he was deem'd to have out-done that famous Satirist in tart Repartees and Reflections; and to have ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... jolly face wore such a comical look of anxiety that Randy refrained from laughing, and to change the subject asked for a schoolmate whom she had not recently seen. "Where ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... constitutions, however, must have eschewed that northern front door, and later nerves that narrow verge, and on the eastern front had been added that Gothic porch of which Emily had heard,—and a flagrantly modern Gothic porch it was, flanked by two comical little turrets, with loopholes, from which a thread-paper or Tom Thumb might have defended it. Otherwise it resembled a church porch, except for the formidable points of a sham portcullis; but there was no denying that it greatly ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... interview, detailing at some length Twichell's comical mixture of delight and chagrin at not being given time to air the fund of prepared statistics with which he had come loaded. It was as if he had come to borrow a dollar and had been offered a thousand before he could ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... throats, made the racket complete. It seemed to our listening ears, for we stuck to our beds, to be a promiscuous fight, larded with imprecations in broken English, the phrase "goddam" being repeated in the most comical way. We expected to see a lot of badly bruised men in the morning, but nothing of the kind! Nobody was hurt. It proved to be a very bloodless affair, like the scrimmages of the dogs themselves, full of sound ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... with another comical twinkle in his eyes, "I thought you seemed so intelligent, and although you have a young face, you have somehow or other an old way about you. You'll forgive my speaking frankly, my dear, but I notice that most old-young girls ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... 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
... birds go to bed, I suppose. See what a comical look this fellow has, waving its long, fine, silky antennae about. Probably it's trying to find out what it is on, looking out for another nice green leaf to eat. They do a lot of damage ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody
... had is never well cured; and, between you and me, I am often apt to imagine it has had some whimsical effect upon my brain: For I frequently find, that in my most serious discourse I let fall some comical familiarity of speech, or odd phrase, that makes the company laugh; however, I cannot but allow she is a most excellent woman. When she is in the country I warrant she does not run into dairies, but ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... self-willed, fighting each other for the right 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, which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... a trim dashing brunette, with the brightest eyes and rosiest cheeks imaginable. Her face was so healthily refreshing in the midst of malady and death, that I altogether forgot the cholera under the charm of her ardent gaze. Next me sat a comical sort of fellow, who did not delay in scraping an acquaintance, and jocularly insisted on ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... head with a comical expression of chagrin. "Can't be done, I'm afraid. But I'll come over here when I'm in the neighbourhood, if possible." Then ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... in consequence of an accident which occurred in his infancy, was slightly deformed. His right shoulder—as I understood, for I never saw him—grew out, giving an ungraceful and somewhat comical twist to his figure, which, in female eyes—youthful ones at least—sadly marred the effect of his intelligent and handsome countenance. This personal defect rendered him shy and awkward in the presence of women of his own class of society; and he had attained ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... candle-snuffer the piece would lose half its embellishments." But there has always been forthcoming a very abundant supply of stories of this kind, not always to be understood literally, however, concerning the drama under difficulties, and the comical side of the player's indigence, distresses, and quaint artifices to ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... shall I do with them?" said Peggy, with a comical glance around the room. "There's no sign of a sofa. Never mind! they are perfect beauties. Oh, and what can this be? Oh, Bertha, ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... quite know. There's nothing very comical in his appearance, is there? Only somehow one ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... her feelings. Her determination that Roger should have a pleasant evening seemed to her sufficient to account for the shining eyes she saw reflected in a mirror, and her sparkling words. She praised his selection of authors, though adding, with a comical look, "You are right in thinking I don't know much about them. The binding is just to my taste, whatever may be the contents of some of these ponderous tomes. There are a good ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... something dear to us! To see this tiny mite of warm and living flesh, and to see that it was Sylvia! To trace each beloved lineament, so much alike, and yet so different—half a portrait and half a caricature, half sublime and half ludicrous! The comical little imitation of her nose, with each dear little curve, with even a remainder of the tiny groove underneath the tip, and the tiny corresponding dimple underneath the chin! The soft silken fuzz which was some day to be Sylvia's golden glory! The delicate, sensitive lips, which were some ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... at Greta Hall, and from his letters we get the pleasantest picture of the home-loving, nonsense- loving "comical papa" who had kept the heart of a boy, even when ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... who could not understand what he said. He wanted to go to Albano, and the man was taking him to the Emissarium. We put him right, but his fury in mixed Italian, French, and English was exceedingly comical. It was unlucky that we met him at the top instead of the bottom of ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Jonson's career. Despite his many real virtues, if there is one feature more than any other that distinguishes Jonson, it is his arrogance; and to this may be added his self-righteousness, especially under criticism or satire. "Every Man Out of His Humour" is the first of three "comical satires" which Jonson contributed to what Dekker called the 'poetomachia' or war of the theatres as recent critics have named it. This play as a fabric of plot is a very slight affair; but as a satirical picture of the manners of the time, proceeding by means of vivid ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... have you. I shall have some one to box with, at any rate. Now," he added, with a comical look, "I can't induce my uncle to have a bout with me. Indeed, I should be afraid to, for he is so shortsighted he would need to wear spectacles, and ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... suddenly spread all over the Plantation, but soon reached the neighbouring ones; and we had by Noon about 600 Men, they call the Militia of the Country, that came to assist us in the Pursuit of the Fugitives: But never did one see so comical an Army march forth to War. The Men of any Fashion would not concern themselves, tho' it were almost the Common Cause; for such Revoltings are very ill Examples, and have very fatal Consequences oftentimes, in many Colonies: But they had a Respect for Caesar, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... the end of her," said Margery Burton, with a comical gesture of despair. "You've touched the button, Bessie, and Dolly will keep on telling us about the Eleanor, and how fast she is, until someone ...
— A Campfire Girl's Happiness • Jane L. Stewart
... deep when there isn't a smile lurking around the darkest corner. Neither war nor famine can wholly eliminate the comical. Yesterday afternoon some audacious youngsters asked me to chaperon a tea-party up the river. We went in a gaily decorated house-boat, made tea on a Chinese stove of impossible shape, and ate cakes and sandwiches innumerable. ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... ignorance and recklessness, merely as themes for immoral and inhuman laughter. Jonson was by no means the only poet of that day to whom the hordes of profligate and heathen nomads which infested England were only a comical phase of humanity, instead of being, as they would be now, objects of national shame and sorrow, of pity and love, which would call out in the attempt to redeem them the talents and energies of good men. But Jonson certainly sins more in this respect than any of his contemporaries. He takes ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... I got a comical answer on the tip of my tongue, when Simmons drops his collar button on the floor, and, the same as all the other collar buttons in the world, they picked out the furtherest corners of the room to roll into. The poor boob gets as red as a four-alarm fire and goes crawlin' ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... slightly in a comical twist. He had a vivid imagination, and the shattered desk suggested an exciting and pleasurable moment in the near past. Some one chuckled at the rear of the room. Andy's face broke into an ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... however, by this intelligence; and while the remainder of the punch lasted the conversation was wholly engrossed by the gentleman with the fine waistcoat, who told a great many "immense comical stories" and "confounded smart things," as he termed them, acted and spoken by lords, ladies, and young bucks of quality, of his acquaintance. At last, the grazier, pulling out a watch, of a very unusual size, and telling the hour, said that ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... as she beheld the burden in her visitor's arms. "If it ain't Miss Rest all dead an' done!" Her red hands went up in the air with such a comical tragedy, and her big eyes performed such a wide revolution in their fat, sunburnt setting that Buck half-feared an utter collapse. So he hurriedly sought to reassure her, ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... to the house, but stood so long on the doorstep in a brown study, gazing into the tangled green boskage of the cherry orchard, that Theodora finally went and opened the door before he knocked. As she brought him into the sitting-room she made a comical grimace at ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... I jest come up to tell my man, there, to go home! Levi is over from West Wallen, and wants to see him. Lord, I didn't know you'd got a party, Miss Keeler!" she continued, glancing with an irresistibly comical expression about the room. ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... of human life, and all his sophistry in confusing it with the abstract sense of obligation. It is, perhaps, scarcely fair to call attention to such a mere argumentative and literary freak; but there is something so comical in a defence of debt, however transparent, proceeding from a man to whom never in his life a bill can have been sent in twice, and who would always have preferred ready-money payment to receiving a bill ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... their wailings being interspersed with comical remarks and questions to the dead as to why he preferred to leave this world, having everything to make life comfortable. They place the corpse on a little seat in a ditch or grave four or five feet deep, and for ten days they bring food, requesting the corpse to eat. Finally, ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... just in front of the parapet. A splinter from one lifted a man's cap from his head and sent it flying. The splinter's whirr and the man's sharp exclamation brought all eyes in his direction. His look of comical surprise and the half-dazed fashion of his lifting a hand to fumble cautiously at his head raised some laughter and ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... taken the peculiar little whine it always did when she was at all put out. It was comical and yet a little irritating; but just now neither Rosalys nor Randolph was inclined to ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... from a circular hole in the clapboards, is the nest of a pair of wrens that year after year come back to rear a new family, and chirp and chatter away the summer, when their labors have ceased. If it were a few weeks later, you might get acquainted with the comical little occupants, who are as brisk and busy as if they were not in reality great grand-parents to a whole republic of wrens. See! on the top of the wood-shed, how proudly the old rooster struts along the weather-board, enjoying ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... valetudinarian austerities of sentiment and opinion. She made a pleasant mock of the amenities which passed between her mother and Glendenning, whose gingerliness in the acceptance of the old lady's condescension would, I confess, have been notably comical without this gloss. It was perfectly evident that Mrs. Bentley's favor was bestowed with a mental reservation, and conditioned upon his forming no expectations from it, and poor Glendenning's eagerness to show that he took it upon these terms ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... almost every sentence, and when he had finished the epistle, little Tantillion fell forward, his face on his arms on the table, his mirth almost choking him, while the others leaned back and roared. 'Twas only Roxholm who was not overcome, the story not seeming so comical to him as to the others, and yet there were points at which he himself could not help ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... thinking, which betray an ignorance of the first principles of scientific investigation, an incapacity for understanding what a man of science means by veracity, and an unconsciousness of the weight of established scientific truths, which is almost comical. ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... Robert Hall mentions a comical stumble made by one of the translators of Plato, who construed through the Latin and not direct from the Greek. In the Latin version hirundo stood as hirdo, and the translator, overlooking the mark of contraction, declared to the astonished world on the authority ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... effect; gird the gown with a proportionate apron, the strings of which will bind your arms and body together at the chest; put on a false nose, a pair of spectacles, a lady's frilled night-cap, and a comical conical hat; add a little red cloak, and draw the table up to a window or recess, the curtains of which pin at the back of your shoulders; and standing thus, with your hands (the old dame's feet) upon the table, you will represent the most perfect little dwarf (without arms) you can imagine; ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... lord Faruskiar and his inseparable Ghangir, it seemed that in spite of their traditional reserve, the surprising grimaces, the significant gestures, the comical intonations, had interested them to ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... knock, and Tilghman entered. The young men looked at each other in silence for a moment; Tilghman with an almost comical anxiety, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... four feet ten, the schoolmaster was comical and quizzical. He was evidently the wit of his tribe. His face was yellow and dirty; his nose was short and red, in addition to which it was turned up at the point; his eyes were small, and sloped downwards ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... every imaginable key, and to draw their claws across the strings of the guitars, making the strangest kind of music that could be heard. The Prince hastily stopped up his ears, but even then the sight of these comical musicians sent him ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... 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 ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... their bodies to and fro. These are the musicians, to whose performance the shouters keep perfect time. The grown people on this plantation did not shout, but they do on some of the other plantations. It is very comical to see little children, not more than three or four years old, entering into the performance with all their might. But the shouting of the grown people is rather solemn and impressive than otherwise. We cannot determine whether it has a religious character or not. Some ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... who adopted the novel idea of placing a "bed log" laterally beneath his stampers. The log was laid in a little cement bed which, when the battery started, was not quite dry. The effect was comical to every one but the unfortunate owners. It was certainly the liveliest, but at the same time one of the most ineffective batteries ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... syllabic measure is used in Tragedy and Comedy, which, on a first view, may appear singular. But if the Alexandrine did not appear to us peculiarly adapted to the free imitative expression of pathos, on the other hand, it must be owned that a comical effect is produced by the application of so symmetrical a measure to the familiar turns of dialogue. Moreover, the grammatical conscientiousness of French poetry, which is so greatly injurious in other species of the drama, is fully suited to Comedy, where the versification is not purchased ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... was directed at Miss Wycliffe, and was an effort to make her forget the conversation in which his animus had led him to transgress even his elastic limits with her. There was something almost comical in the concerned expression of his light blue eyes, no longer fierce, as he gazed at her. But she met this dumb ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... what she had done, but Stella's face, as she viewed the catastrophe, was so comical that Marjorie went off into peals of laughter. Molly joined in this, and the two girls ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... 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 ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... said the man in black, staring at me; "but, in connection with this Mumbo Jumbo, I could relate to you a comical story about a fellow, an English servant, I ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... them, that he should leave Mrs Hurtle at her lodgings at Islington without any notice. It was clear enough to him that she would not consent to be so left. Then her present proposal,—though it seemed to be absurd and almost comical in the tragical condition of their present circumstances,—had in it some immediate comfort. To take her out and give her a dinner, and then go with her to some theatre, would be easy and perhaps pleasant. It would be easier, and certainly much pleasanter, because ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... once [says his biographer] reading aloud in his presence a very flattering review of his works, which had been sent him by the critic in 1848, and smiled as I came to this sentence: "His most comical pieces have always a serious end in view." "You laugh," said he, with that air of whimsical significance so natural to him, "but it is true. I have kept that to myself hitherto, but that man has found me out. He has detected the moral of ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... for flying," panted Tom, who was holding his kite with all the strength he possessed. "Something must give way soon," and something did give way. It was the string he was holding, and as it snapped he went over on his back in such a comical fashion that all, even to ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... have the house open all the time? We can run over and see the pictures and books whenever we like. I know we can, Miss Celia is so kind," began Betty, who cared for these things more than for screaming peacocks and comical donkeys. ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... and gold that you see are the gifts of courtiers to princes, made in the hope of getting something better in return." He also showed him garlands of flowers in which snares were concealed; these were flatteries and adulations, meant to deceive. But nothing was so comical as the sight of numerous grasshoppers which had burst their lungs with chirping. These, he told him, were sonnets, odes, and dedications, addressed by ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... in the main, a very kind master, though somewhat hasty and impatient. Tom and he were for ever sparring, yet neither could have done without the other; and there was something comical about Tom's disposition which well suited his master's eccentric and changeable moods. Tom evidently served as a kind of safety valve for his master's nervous system, and many an explosion of superfluous excitability he ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... myself continue to live in the same style as heretofore. We appear mutually to be very well pleased with each other. Mons. S—— displays many comical qualities, and manages to insure us several hearty laughs every morning and evening,—those being the seasons when we meet. I am going to take lessons from him in the pronunciation of French. Of female society I see nothing. The only petticoat that comes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... A most comical effect was produced when we met long processions of small donkeys, so completely laden with corn, that neither their heads nor their feet remained visible. The sheaves seemed to be moving spontaneously, or ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... Mr. Wallis politely, but without anxiety. In any case his firm would not suffer, as Mr. Melrose had undertaken to see them paid, and so he was prepared to be very kind indeed to this family who had made the comical mistake of supposing him to be their father. "And now I suppose that you would like to go ashore at once and have a look at Sydney before you start ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... to a narrow and not particularly well—kept road which led through the opening of the hills towards which she had motioned her whip. Once or twice a smile crossed her face, and once she laughed as she thought of the comical picture which the young man had made as he struggled to dry land with the wet lamb in his arms; and the smile and her laugh made her face seem strangely girlish, because it was usually so calm, so gravely self-reliant. ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... with the officials at the frontier; my victory. Journey across the continent; scene in a railway carriage between Strasburg and Paris. Delivery of my despatches in Paris. Baron Seebach. The French Exposition of 1855. Arrival of Horace Greeley; comical features in his Parisian life; his arrest and imprisonment; his efforts to learn French in prison and after his release, especially at the Crmerie of Madame Busque. Scenes at the Exposition. Journey through Switzerland. Experience ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... The O'Kage Sama now was longing for the rightful substitution. His nest well feathered, he would seek safer quarters with the softer charms of O'Han. On Shu[u]zen's abrupt gesture and refusal he took his departure, almost betraying his own disgruntlement. Comical was his despairing gesture as he took his way to the ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... in view in the city," returned Jacob. "I don't need to earn much you know. I don't set up to be a dude," he added, with a comical glance at his rustic attire, "and I don't mean to board at the ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... pursue it to Georgetown so as to overtake the mail, had put the letter into the hands of a passenger, who "all but forced it from him," so anxious was this passenger to do an obliging thing, as he "knew General Washington." This passenger told his name, but it was "so comical," he could not recollect it. This was Giles's story; and the General adds that as he knew what little dependence was to be placed on the punctual conveyance of letters by a private hand, he writes this duplicate by post to repeat his request that Mr. Lear will inform him, by ...
— Washington in Domestic Life • Richard Rush
... garden walk, kicking the dirt out in two ways behind her, and then nimbly hitching back a step or two and staring and pecking at the hole that she had made. Every little while she said something to herself in a comical drawling tone, standing on one foot, and looking up at me with curious eye, as if wondering who I was, and what in the world I was there for. But who was Coachy?—an old yellowish-brown hen, all tousled ...
— Harper's Young People, October 12, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... 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 question; for if severed they be good, the conjunction ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... same genius, and followed the same studies. Both writ novels, and each of them cultivated his mother tongue. But the greatest resemblance of our two modern authors being in their familiar style, and pleasing way of relating comical adventures, I may pass it over, because I have translated nothing from Boccace of that nature. In the serious part of poetry, the advantage is wholly on Chaucer's side; for though the Englishman has borrowed many tales from the Italian, yet it appears that those of Boccace were not ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... and gave a big, hearty laugh. Matilda Markham as a "honey" was about the most comical thing ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... has fallen into disrepute. Sir Charles Grandison is a comical rather than a courtly figure to this generation; and the man whose manners may be described as Grandisonian is usually called a pompous and grandiloquent old prig. Certainly the elaborately dressed gentleman speaking to a lady only with polished courtesy of phrase, and avoiding in her ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... 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
... to Montes with a tragic look, patted him kindly on the head, looked at him for a moment with comical ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... after them with a comical smile, "this youth of New Italy! They have no more brains than a pin. When I was young, and every city had its own ruler and its own court, I should not have escorted a lady and kept her waiting outside ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... and under the trees at Naushon, no doubt carrying home large stealings from my domain there, which lost none of their value from being transferred to his pages. Next to his private readings which he gave us there, the most notable recollection is that of his intense amusement at some comical songs which our young people used to sing, developing a sense of humor which a superficial observer would hardly have discovered, but which you and I know he possessed ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... him the 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. ...
— Pierre and Luce • Romain Rolland
... disliked the "crabbed studies" of logic and philosophy, "his genie being naturally bent to the pleasant paths of poetry," but he was reputed at the University as afterward at Elizabeth's court, "a rare poet, witty, comical, and facetious." During his life in London he produced a number of plays and poems which have given his name a not inconsiderable place in the list of Elizabethan poets and dramatists. He is now best known, where known at all, by his prose work "Euphues," which was so much admired at Elizabeth's ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... stands of devils. They haunt his paths from the cradle to the grave. The Tamil proverb in fact says, "The devil who seizes yon in the cradle, goes with you to the funeral pile".' The fear and worship of ghosts, demons, and devils are universal throughout India, and the rites practised are often comical. The ghost of a bibulous European official with a hot temper, who died at Muzaffarnagar, in the United Provinces, many years ago, was propitiated by offerings of beer and whisky at 'his tomb. Much information on the subject is collected ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... help regarding this feature of theatrical life as so much theatrical chaos. It lacks culture, and is sometimes both bizarre and neurotic. I do not object to patter, smart give and take, in which the comical angles of life are exposed, if it is brilliant; neither have I anything to say against light comedy in which the ridiculous side of things is portrayed. This sort of entertainment may help men who have spent a busy day, crowded with anxious moments, and ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... nothing, but with a half-comical, half-displeased expression he watched the interview between that weird old woman and the fair young girl, little suspecting how ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... her to be quiet, but she would not; she grew wild, staring about and straining out her arms. "I will be no party to this folly—I will not—I will not," she said half to herself, but Palamone was listening with a comical, wry face, ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... stability which the pure democracy of Switzerland has displayed, there is something comical in the horror of all forms of direct government expressed by most constitutional writers. De Tocqueville, whom we honor for his appreciation of our own Constitution, declares "that they all tend to render the government of the people irregular ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... her eyes dilated with an almost comical expression of dismay. She had not a word to say ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... hear the lawyer utter a crow of victory, for his comical look of triumph clearly showed his feelings. I had reason to believe that he also was a suitor for the hand of my mother, but I do not think he gained much by his stratagem. Her feelings were aroused and irritated, and at length he also took his departure, after expressing a tender interest ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... It was comical work trying to make out what they meant as they began to talk to me about the terrible wild beasts I should meet, and, above all, about the orang-outangs, which they assured me were eight or nine feet high, and would look upon me, they assured me, ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... a jack-in-a-box or a comet. She had only known Aunt Maria for the last four years, and she had not yet got used to her rough-and-ready mannish ways, nor learned to see any sense in her philosophizings. Looking upon her as a comical character, and supposing that she talked mainly for the fun of the thing, she was disposed to laugh at her doings and sayings, though mostly meant ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... Cavours went every year to Switzerland to stay with their 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 dismissed. "But," said M. de la Rive, "I cannot dismiss ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... across some human being. He found himself at length at the mouth of a rocky cave in which a fire seemed burning. He entered, and saw a huge forge, and a crowd of men in front of it, blowing bellows and wielding hammers, and to each anvil were seven men, and a set of more comical smiths could not be found if you searched all the world through! Their heads were bigger than their little bodies, and their hammers twice the size of themselves, but the strongest men on earth could not have handled their iron clubs more ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... all had their fishing-lines and hooks, and as soon as they were on the ground started to find a good place to fish. Dilsey got some bait from the negro boys, and baited the hooks; and it was a comical sight to see all of the children, white and black, perched upon the roots of trees or seated flat on the ground, watching intently their hooks, which they kept bobbing up and down so fast that the fish must have been very quick indeed ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... he can prophesy With a wink OF his eye, Peep with security Into futurity, Sum up your history, Clear up a mystery, Humour proclivity For a nativity. With mirrors so magical, Tetrapods tragical, Bogies spectacular, Answers oracular, Facts astronomical, Solemn or comical, And, if you want it, he Makes a reduction on taking a quantity! Oh! If any one anything lacks, He'll find it all ready in stacks, If he'll only look in On the resident ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... charms than did their residence, were in many respects scarcely less interesting. In front of the foremost hut was assembled a group of creatures with dark shining skins, which, at a first glance, and owing to their comical movements, might well have been taken for a herd of apes. Now, like those animals, they leaped the hedges and bushes, and then, like snakes, wound along the ground, or rolled down the river bank with a rapidity of motion that the eye could scarcely ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... score success with his lance, the dwarf at least had won a victory through his comical situation and ready wit. Fair ladies forgot his ugliness; the pages his ill-humor; the courtiers his vindictive slyness; the monarch the disappointment of his failure to worst the duke's fool, and all applauded the ludicrous figure, ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... in one another's fond eyes. Their fidelity was of the days of chivalry, and their simplicity comical and beautiful. Twenty years of happy and loving life were allotted them and one pledge—poor Miss Dorothy—was left alone, when little more than nineteen years old. This good old couple, having loved early and waited long, and lived together with wonderful tenderness ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... could not stab and sneer, and create new worlds more laughable than even this, like Swift, nor declaim and sap faith, like Bolingbroke, nor rhyme and glitter like Pope, nor discourse on medals and write comical "Pilgrims' Progresses" like Arbuthnot, nor pour out floods of learning like Prior in "Alma," could do things which they in their turn never equalled, (even as in Emerson's poem, "The Mountain and the Squirrel," the latter ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... broke in Paddy, with a comical twinkle of his eye, as he winked in the direction of Commodore ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... difficulty, and she rebuked him with most comical gravity, treating him as a child. He used to say that when he came to Alibi Crackaby he broke down, and Pin-Pan, Musky-Dan, Tweedle-um Twoddle-um made him roar with laughter. He said Musky-Dan especially ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... Fitzgerald, while the Colonel made a comical grimace, "suggests violence. I shall save him the trouble. I have seen much of the world, Madame—the hard side of it—and, knowing it as I do, it is scarcely probable that I should carry about my person the equivalent of four millions ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... brothers, Reuben and Burke And Nathan and Jotham and Solomon, lurk Around the corner to see him work,— Sitting cross-legged, like a Turk, Drawing the waxed end through with a jerk, And boring the holes with a comical quirk Of his wise old head, and a knowing smirk. But vainly they mounted each other's backs, And poked through knot-holes and pried through cracks; With wood from the pile and straw from the stacks ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... did. We talked for two hours. It was almost comical—the sheer delight in talking to a woman once more. I have never been what is called a woman's woman, but I always had my friends, and I suddenly realized that I ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... respects, went to the quarters assigned for their lodgings. Ever since day-break, the drums, fifes, and timbals of the army of Narvaez never ceased their music in honour of Cortes, though none of us had spoken a word to them on the subject. A comical fellow of a negro, who belonged to the band, danced for joy, shouting out; "Where are your Romans now? They never achieved so glorious a victory with such small numbers!" We could not silence these noisy fellows, till Cortes ordered them to be confined. In ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... York Tribune. These dealt frankly, in the old anti-slavery days between 1850 and 1860, with other persons of distinction in Boston, who did not see the right so clearly as Quincy did, or who at least let their interests darken them to the ugliness of slavery. Their fault was all the more comical because it was the error of men otherwise so correct, of characters so stainless, of natures so upright; and the Quincy letters got out of it all the fun there was in it. Quincy himself affected me as the finest patrician type ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... could. In fact, you 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)
... opened, and now we were much besought by the ladies. I had to deny myself with a whole series of comical excuses. Eustace performed his duty after a stiff English fashion—once with his pretty partner of the pranzo, and once again with a fat gondolier. The band played waltzes and polkas, chiefly upon patriotic airs—the Marcia Reale, Garibaldi's Hymn, &c. Men danced with ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... and after some comical quizzing, they decided, to their own complete satisfaction, that although the bushman's "missus" was the "littlest of all little 'uns, straight up and down," the Maluka's "knocked spots ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... of the choice morsels, and parodied them in an amusing manner. He never could retain an enmity very long, however, and so at the end of the banquet he parodied one of his own arias, the famous "Non piu andrai," by giving it a comical turn to suit Leporello's situation. The criticism of one of the best biographers of Mozart upon this opera is worth repeating in this connection: "Whether we regard the mixture of passions in its concerted music, the profound expression of melancholy, ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... emit heat as well 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
... 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
... soon clinging to Jerry's shell. He was dripping from head to foot, and not being at all a handsomely-formed or good-looking youth, he presented a most comical appearance. ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... struck Tom as so comical that he was compelled to laugh outright; he simply couldn't help it. It was just such a joke as he might have played years before, perhaps on old Josiah ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer
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