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More "Humorous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... so short—and so long! A thousand, perhaps ten thousand such, end to end, and we have the life of a world. And what is that? A cycle! A thing self-created, self-destructive: then of human life—nothingness. Oh, it's humorous! Our life, a ten thousandth part of that nothingness; and so full of tiny—great struggles and worries!" She was silent a moment, her throat trembling, a multitude of expressions shifting swiftly ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... "Wasp." A third truck, the "Gun," carried a Hotchkiss. The crew of the trucks numbered barely fifteen in each. The train, after passing Lord Charles Bentinck's squadron, who hailed it with a cheer and various humorous sallies, came on the enemy, about 500 strong, to ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... days passed quietly on. Mark grew a little better. Hester wrote regularly, but the briefest bulletins, to the major, seldom receiving an acknowledgment. The new earl wrote that he had been to the funeral, and described in a would-be humorous way the house and lands to which he had fallen heir. The house might, he said, with unlimited money, be made fit to live in, but what was left of the estate was literally a mere ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... of spiritual truth. It is hardly a question that Gounod has succeeded in an unrivaled degree in expressing the characters and symbolisms of Mephistopheles, Faust, and Gretchen in music not merely beautiful, but spiritual, humorous, subtile, and voluptuous, accordingly as the varied meanings of Goethe's ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... find that even the pleasure I have in mere characteristic or humorous narration is heightened by my dependence on the truth—the character ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... she stood beside his wife, far from ageing Mrs. Peyton's good looks and figure, she appeared like an equal companion, and that they mutually "became" one another. This, and the fact that they were all, including Mary Rogers, in their freshest, gayest morning dresses, awakened a half-humorous, half-real apprehension in his mind, that he was now hopelessly surrounded by a matured sex, ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... told us a humorous story of his enthusiastic fondness for Quakerism, when he was at Cambridge, and his attending one of their meetings, which had entirely cured him. When the little children came in, he was in raptures with them, and descanted upon the ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... them, and of the previous culture that had sharpened and tutored the faculty of observation. In our conscious age the frankness and naivete of the elder voyagers is impossible, and we are weary of those humorous confidences on the subject of fleas with which we are favored by some modern travellers, whose motto should be (slightly altered) from Horace,—Flea-bit, et toto cantabitur orbe. A naturalist self-sacrificing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... comic figure and one with many humorous touches. Intellect's page, Instinct, who had risen from the lily with him, was a comical fellow. When he tried to follow his master's flight he fell after the first few strokes of his wings, and usually among nettles. Only when some base advantage was to be gained on earth did this servant succeed ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... that a woman ought to be able to do this in the vast majority of cases. Her own intuition is seldom at fault. Even at the eleventh hour she may save the situation by a timely jest, a kindly bit of inconsequence, a sudden humorous inspiration—not at his expense, of course—and the man who is not a fool will see that it is not the psychological moment. Above all she must avoid being alone with him. Let her keep a child at her side, pay attention to the greatest bore, listen ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... negroes said his "Massa seemed dissatisfied with the way God had made the earth and he was always digging down the hills and filling up the hollows." Prattville was a small manufacturing town, and Lanier was about as appropriately placed there as Arion would have been in a tin-shop, but he kept his humorous outlook on life, departing from his serenity so far as to make his only attempts at expressing in verse his political indignation, the results of which he did not regard as poetry, and they do not appear in the collection of his poems. His muse was better ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... read. The conception of the conquest of the human soul by the irresistible operation of divine force is so foreign to modern thought and faith that Bunyan's similitude no longer seems a verisimilitude. The pages abound with quaint, humorous, and lifelike touches;—as where Diabolus stations at Ear-Gate a guard of deaf men under old Mr. Prejudice, and Unbelief is described as "a nimble jack whom they could never lay hold of";—but as compared ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... entered Yale, I had four definite ambitions: first, to secure an election to a coveted secret society; second, to become one of the editors of the Yale Record, an illustrated humorous bi-weekly; third (granting that I should succeed in this latter ambition), to convince my associates that I should have the position of business manager—an office which I sought, not for the honor, but because I believed it would enable ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... also conscious that many words uttered flew above his understanding. The old Italian could juggle with English almost as perfectly as he was able to do with his own language. He had his country's mastery of the phrase, the ironies, the double meanings, half malicious, half humorous, the outlook on humanity that delights to surprise—the compliment that, on closer examination, proves really to be the reverse. Mary's father voiced his emotions when the visitor had gone ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... nameless Englishman was involved in a duel. At last Rinaldo came and, after working hard at Baiardo for an hour, struck him a blow between the eyes with his mailed fist and thus tamed him. Then Rinaldo mounted him and boasted of his triumph, shouting in his humorous way: "Now Baiardo is carrying ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... Morgan than the craftier sort who make a living, or try to make a living, out of their pretended theories. Indeed, these last he treated, as they deserved, with a scathing satire quite different from his humorous and not ungenial comments on the wonderful ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... the foreign maid, warranted against sea-sickness; nor Grandcourt's own experienced valet: still less the picturesque crew, who regarded them as a model couple in high life. Their companionship consisted chiefly in a well-bred silence. Grandcourt had no humorous observations at which Gwendolen could refuse to smile, no chit-chat to make small occasions of dispute. He was perfectly polite in arranging an additional garment over her when needful, and in handing her any object that he perceived her to need, and she could not fall into ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... in the humblest quarters of American country life. No one has dealt with this kind of life better than Miss Wilkins. Nowhere are there to be found such faithful, delicately drawn, sympathetic, tenderly humorous pieces.—N. Y. Tribune. ...
— A Likely Story • William Dean Howells
... the furious Mr. Luce with great complacency. If Mr. Luce had emerged with a shot-gun in his fist and a knife in his teeth he might have presented some semblance of an outlaw. But this bow-legged man with a sack certainly did not seem savage. Hiram offered the humorous suggestion that perhaps Mr. Luce proposed to restore property, and thereby causing people to fall dead with astonishment would ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... of power, too, in the gravity with which B. tells a humorous anecdote. He invariably maintains a sober face while every body is in an agony of laughter around him. Just as it begins to subside, the echo of his own wit comes back to him, and, as if he had just caught the idea, he bursts into one little abrupt ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... humorous example of vers de societe in the English language, well illustrates the position of a parson in a family of distinction at that period.—W. ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... those fields. He was a discriminating reader, and enjoyed not only serious books, but inclined also to the lighter indulgence of romance and poetry. He was especially fond of the best French writers. He loved Moliere and Racine, and could quote with rare enjoyment the humorous scenes depicted by Balzac. He took pleasure in the drama, and was devoted to music. In Washington he could usually be found in the best seat of the theatre when a good play was to be presented or an opera was to be given. These tastes illustrate ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... words, therefore, are at the discretion of the author. Further, though the medium is mostly Latin, the native language of the spectators has been slipped in, to render a few recurrent phrases or refrains. The story is quite simple, and humorous, and is ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... points were still too potent, although none could deny that all confidence in her efficiency was shattered past repair. The situation finally reached a point where it inspired reflections of a more or less humorous order. ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... the period of the "Men and Women;" and displays, for the first time in Mr. Browning's work, a situation quite dramatic in itself, but which is nevertheless made by the characters, and imagined for them. It is a story of moral retrogression; but, setting aside its very humorous treatment, it is no "tragedy" for the reader, because he has never believed in that particular "soul," though its proprietor and his friends are justly supposed to do so. The drama is divided into two acts, of which the first represents ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... just like any other second officer, to that constable. I was moved by this solid evidence of my new dignity. Only his tone offended me. Nevertheless I gave him the tip he was looking for. Thereupon he lost all interest in me, humorous or otherwise, and walked away driving sternly before him the honest Ted, who went off grumbling to himself like a hungry ogre, and his horrible dumb little pal in the soldier's coat, who, from first to last, ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... afterwards that, when he heard this, he fairly groaned. He wasn't by any means humorous as a rule, and, so far as he was concerned, the joke had gone far enough; and he used to add as a warning that a man may go so far in a joke he can't help but go farther—'tis like hysterics with women. At any rate, he saw the soldiers coming ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... tobacco-smoke kept his thoughts among the mountains. He might have quite dozed off had not a sudden noise from within aroused him—the unmistakable crash of falling crockery. It made him laugh, a laugh of humorous expostulation. A minute or two passed, then came a timid tap at his door, and Mrs. Hopper showed ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... our fate—the Great Doom that our people used to talk of. And, after all, it's our own fault. Come to this island we would and come we did! And this is the end of it—we—we sit moveless from sun-up to sun-down, we who have soared into the clouds. But there is a humorous element in it. And if I didn't weep, I could laugh myself mad over it. We sit here helpless and watch these creatures who walk desert us daily—desert us—creatures who flew—leave us here helpless ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... watching with alert, humorous eyes, there came a curious impression, faint but distinct, like wind touching her hair; as if, that is, a door into the room had opened and shut. She leaned forward, supporting her ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... company and conversation of my departed guests, especially of Lysander, were such as to leave a void which could not easily be supplied. For my part, from some little warmth each sister betrayed in balancing the solid instruction of Lysander and the humorous vivacity of Lisardo, against each other, I thought the former had made a powerful impression upon the mind of Belinda, and the latter upon that of Almansa: for when the probability of a speedy revisit from both of them was mentioned the sisters betrayed unusual marks of sensibility; ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... larning than you've got to onderstand the thing. You see," he added, recollecting as well as he could some Latin words he had heard used by the doctor, "the narves of the rigdum flagdum in circumnavigating through the humorous rusticus, deflastigated by the horrentibus oribus sort o' twist the aures arrectos into asinos, and that you see, to a man of larning makes the whole thing as clear as one of elder ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... to Build Mental Power How to Develop Self-Confidence in Speech and Manner How to Read and Declaim How to Speak in Public How to Develop Power and Personality in Speaking Great Speeches and How to Make Them How to Argue and Win Humorous Hits and How to Hold an Audience Complete Guide to Public Speaking Talks on Talking Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases The World's Great Sermons Mail Course in Public Speaking Mail Course in Practical English How to Speak Without Notes Something to Say: How to Say ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... of native scenery, and portraits of deceased Canadians of merit, the News is a valuable and interesting addition to journalism in this country, and will be found most useful to the future generations who will people the Dominion. Nor does Canada now lack an imitator of Punch, in the humorous line. It is noteworthy that whilst America has produced humorists like 'Sam Slick,' Artemus Ward, Mark Twain, and others, no American rival to Punch has yet appeared in Boston or New York. The attempts that have heretofore been made ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot
... Turtle, who outgeneralled the Americans at the defeat of St. Clair, used to tell with humorous relish how he once trusted a white man adopted into his tribe. This white man was very eager to go with him on a raid into Kentucky, and when they were stealing upon the cabin they were going to attack, nothing could restrain his desire to be foremost. When they got within a few yards, he suddenly ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... to the burning spirits; and that with better success. And then we uncorked the bottle of wine, and sat down in a ditch with our canoe aprons over our knees. It rained smartly. Discomfort, when it is honestly uncomfortable and makes no nauseous pretensions to the contrary, is a vastly humorous business; and people well steeped and stupefied in the open air are in a good vein for laughter. From this point of view, even egg a la papier offered by way of food may pass muster as a sort of accessory ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... expression is commonplace. The words are ordinary, and they stand in their usual place. Figures of speech are not used. Yet the piece has a charm. The thoughts are homely; the expression is in perfect keeping; the style is clear, simple, direct, and natural. The closing sentence is slightly humorous. Benjamin Franklin trudging along the street, hugging a great roll of bread under each arm, and eating a third roll, must have been a ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... alluded to will be familiar to all who know the poet as distinguished from the Bard of Avon. It is found in the second "English Eclogue," under the caption of the "Grandmother's Tale," and has to do with the escapade, long famous in the more humorous annals of Southey's native city, of blear-eyed Moll, a collier's wife, a great, ugly creature whose voice was as gruff as a mastiff's bark, and who wore habitually a man's hat and coat, so that at a few yards' ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... a comic artist. He possessed a certain amount of humour, which was evoked in the first instance by the example of Cruikshank, and his abilities and desire to emulate the greater artist have enabled him unquestionably to realize many humorous designs. It is impossible, however, to examine the numerous etchings of this draughtsman, without coming to the conclusion that he is always seen at his best when not called on to exercise his purely comic ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... streets of London, I have been rudely spoken to; I have been greatly annoyed in Paris; in New York I have been subject to humorous impertinence; but in the great North-West every man has seemed to be my friend. In fact, wherever our English tongue is spoken," she wound up calmly, putting the great Austin in his place, "a ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... nursed him between them. Though Griffiths was the same age as Philip he adopted towards him a humorous, motherly attitude. He was a thoughtful fellow, gentle and encouraging; but his greatest quality was a vitality which seemed to give health to everyone with whom he came in contact. Philip was unused to the petting ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... the finest correspondents that ever wrote, and his graceful and humorous letters are still read with pleasure by all who know them. Strangely enough, his gloominess rarely found its way into his poetry, which often was highly amusing, as you know who have read John Gilpin. The ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... some of them humorous, and others deeply moving in their sentiment, are among the first things that impress the freshman. He does not comprehend the meaning of them at once, nor does he realize that they are the product of generations of students, but he soon learns that there is something more powerful ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... He understood the situation, but time was valuable and he could not waste any in humorous by-play. So without further parleying he handed Chip ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... Weir, and the rest, we have men to reckon with whenever a chronicle of English illustration is in question, but only because they did not often feel disposed to make their work merely amusing. In saying this it is not suggested that they should have tried to be always humorous or archaic, still less to bring down their talent to the supposed level of a child; but only to record the fact that they did not. For instance, Sir John Gilbert's spirited compositions to a "Boy's Book of Ballads" ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... expect ever again to face death more certainly than I thought I did then. It did not seem possible that I could go through that fire again and return alive. The grass did not grow under my feet going back. My sprinting record was probably made then. It may be possible to see the humorous side at this distance, but it was verily a life and death matter then. One may ask how such dangers can be faced. The answer is, there are many things more to be feared than death. Cowardice and failure of duty ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... The electric bell rang violently from different floors, but the young man did not heed it. He had halted the elevator between two landings, and he now seated himself on the velvet cushions and crossed one leg over the other, as though for a protracted debate. Travers gazed about him in humorous apprehension, as though alarmed at the position in which he found himself, hung as it were ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... from drowning a certain Benton Barry. Now Benton Barry was one of the wretched housebreakers. This is the summary of the opening chapter. The story is intensely interesting in its serious as well as its humorous parts. ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... like Mr. Labouchere to leave him to tell his story in his own way, only now and then, at the outset, interjecting a humorous remark, ...
— Better Dead • J. M. Barrie
... and characters may almost be considered original. Galds has abandoned the surpassing lyric quality of the Greek, so far removed from his own genius, and set the theme down into a key of everyday humanity, at times half humorous. The figure of the queen has lost at his hands its poignant tenderness, but Admetus has gained in dignity, and the dramatic movement is much heightened. The realistic visualization of Phers and Erectea, Admetus' selfish parents, the excision of the buffoonery ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... made the objective of many refugees, and the police did what they could to send the women and children out of range of fire by putting them on trains of extra length. As in all such scenes there were humorous sides to it. One old workman, while hurrying along a street was heard to say: "This is what comes of having a Liberal Government." In all, about 6,000 people left the town immediately and did not ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... president, was organized and held regular meetings. As Lincoln arose to speak, his tall form towered above the little assembly. Both hands were thrust down deep in the pockets of his pantaloons. A perceptible smile at once lit up the faces of the audience, for all anticipated the relation of some humorous story. But he opened up the discussion in splendid style, to the infinite astonishment of his friends. As he warmed with his subject, his hands would forsake his pockets and enforce his ideas by awkward gestures, but would very soon seek their easy resting-places. ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... is a person of considerable genius. I don't know if you have seen in the illustrated papers a peculiar sort of humorous illustrations usually with a considerable amount of bite in them over the name of ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... by one of his hungriest parishioners, a Mrs. McGillicuddy, one of those poor old washerwomen whose woes pile up till they are almost laughable to a less humorous heart than the little preacher's. He asked her to wait and returned to ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... give an intelligent response may well be regarded with wondering interest. The odd, we might say humorous, feature of the invention is that nature, being as it were cornered and compelled to respond, will answer nothing except to repeat what is said in her ear! The phonograph may be defined as a mechanical parrot. Unlike the ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... the like grisly sense of the humorous again stole in among the solemn phantoms of his thought. He felt his limbs growing stiff with the unaccustomed chilliness of the night, and doubted whether he should be able to descend the steps of the scaffold. Morning would break and find him there. The neighbourhood would ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... nothing humorous in the request. Erma was about to hand over her portion when a laugh from the hall above caused her to pause. Emma, Edna, and Louise were laughing and ridiculing Renee, who turned about and went off in bad ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... company of images. The severe, the frisky, the classical, the Louis Quinze, were there—from Joan of Arc in her soldierly cuirass to Leda with the swan; nay, and God forgive me for a man that knew better! the humorous was represented also. We sat and gazed, I say; we criticised, we turned them hither and thither; even upon the closest inspection they looked quite like statuettes; and yet nobody would ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... so strongly on everything that the war has brought into question for the Anglo-Saxon peoples that humorous detachment or any other thinness or tepidity of mind on the subject affects me as vulgar impiety, not to say as rank blasphemy; our whole race tension became for me a sublimely conscious thing from the moment Germany flung at us all her ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... nautical hitch forward and abaft; but on this occasion there was nothing of the kind, the indignation and disgust aroused by the skipper's arrogant and threatening speech appeared to be altogether too overpowering to allow of the escape of a humorous ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... abounding in stirring incident and in humorous descriptions. A thoroughly healthy tale to place in the hands of a boy. It ought to become popular both as a gift and ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... proper costume for private life here, I admit). Around him are grouped Chrysantheme, Oyouki, and Mademoiselle Dede the maid, all eagerly rubbing his back with little blue towels decorated with storks and humorous subjects. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... belief in the sharpness of the lines of demarcation between natural groups and in the absence of transitional forms, with all the confidence of youth and imperfect knowledge. I was not aware, at that time, that he had then been many years brooding over the species-question; and the humorous smile which accompanied his gentle answer, that such was not altogether his view, long haunted and puzzled me. But it would seem that four or five years' hard work had enabled me to understand what it meant; for Lyell, writing ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... describe some of his humorous adventures, and continued in this vein till they arrived once more at the chateau. Sometimes the countess laughed, but he could see that her sprightliness was gone. When they came under the porte cochere he sprang from his horse and assisted her to dismount; and he ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... at Madame Wachner, expecting to see in the older woman's face a humorous appreciation of the fact that L'Ami Fritz had forgotten ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... scratching her ankle as she read; she was a tall, awkward girl, younger far at twenty-one than Cherry was at eighteen, pretty in a gipsyish way, untidy as to hair, with round black eyes, high, thin cheek-bones marked with scarlet, and a wide, humorous mouth that was somehow droll in its expression even when she was angry or serious. She was rarely angry; she was unexacting, good-humoured, preferring animals to people, and unconventional in speech and manner. Her father and Anne sometimes discussed her anxiously; they ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... into silence and nursed her wrath through a long service and through a hearty rustic sermon from the text, "Peace on earth, goodwill toward men." Abner, in exacerbated mood, watched her narrowly throughout, that he might tax her, if possible, with a humorous attitude toward the preacher or a quizzical treatment of his flock. He had not yet pardoned her "ways" along Main Street, on the occasion of one or two shopping excursions. She had not hesitated to banter the admiring young clerks that held their places behind ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... ill-bestead family than theirs. But there was no grumbling. Whatever went wrong, whatever was lacking, it was "jest like aour luck," they said, and did nothing, or next to nothing, about it. Good-natured, affectionate, humorous people; after all, they got more comfort out of life than many a family whose surface conditions were incomparably better than theirs. When Jos, their oldest child and only son, broke down, had hemorrhage ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... occupied. Thus it is almost possible, by judiciously selecting from his works, and using such keys as we possess, to construct as it were a kind of autobiography. Nor, if we make due allowance for the great writer's tendency to idealize the past, and intensify its humorous and pathetic aspects, need we at all fear that the self-written story of his life should convey ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... a tomboy," he said, "but she is quite as straightforward and proud, and quick to tell you what is the right thing to do. There's no sort of shamming tolerated by these two girls. But then Wenna is gentler and quieter, and more soft and lovable, than Mabyn—in my fancy, you know; and she is more humorous and clever, so that she never gets into those school-girl rages. But it is really a shame to compare them like that; and, indeed, if any one said the least thing against one of these girls, the other would precious soon make him regret the day he was born. You don't catch me doing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... in a kindly way of his slower colleagues. The members of the Executive Council and the Faculty sometimes felt he treated them rather too much as if he were the teacher and they the pupils. His frequent humorous sallies and stories exasperated some of the more serious-minded members of his staff very much as Lincoln's sallies and stories exasperated some of the members of his Cabinet, particularly Secretary Stanton. This sense of humor was undoubtedly with Booker Washington as with Abraham Lincoln ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... of about my own age and height, but slimmer and wirier. His features were rather irregular, but an intelligent, humorous look atoned for this defect, and his bright grey eyes were the quickest I have ever seen. Though an utter stranger, there was a puzzling familiarity about him, and I tried hard to recall which of my acquaintance featured ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... admitted became interested under the preaching of Mr. Moore over a year ago, and have stood to their post manfully ever since. The present severe weather causes much acute distress. A recent case had its humorous, as well as pathetic side. In the bitter zero weather of Friday's blizzard a microscopic male beggar unfolded a doleful tale, as he basked in the warmth of the kitchen fire. He gave very unsatisfactory directions to his home, and we were unsuccessful that night in locating it. Early next morning ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 49, No. 5, May 1895 • Various
... was a man of sixty, well-preserved, with the soft, infantine quality which grease paint imparts to the skin. He had an enormous head, large dark eyes, sly and humorous, in which, as his shallow whimsical thoughts flitted through his brain, mischief glinted. He was surrounded with portraits of himself in his various successes, and above his head was a bust of himself in the ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... was so admirably adapted to this new vocation, it was, on the other hand, a source of great annoyance. Only a small class was sufficiently enlightened to comprehend my true aim in inculcating moral lessons under a partly humorous guise. All the rest, unfortunately, took me to be either one thing or the other. While some invited me to family prayer-meetings, as the most cheering and welcome relief after the fatigue of speaking, the rougher characters of the place would claim ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... a brief and humorous glance. "I always give you the plums if I can, my boy," he said. "I said to him, 'Me and my son, we're partners. Going out with him is just the same as going out with me, and p'raps a bit better, for he's got the ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... two-column interview, Mr. Ritchie would have devoted much of the space to himself, his record, his future plans. Not at all. It was all about Johnnie Dundee, for whom personally he seems to have an affectionate friendship and for whose work a rueful and decidedly humorous appreciation. He analyzed with great sapience the psychological effect on the audience of Mr. Dundee's ring-system of perpetual motion. He described with great delight a punch that Mr. Dundee had landed ...
— The Native Son • Inez Haynes Irwin
... utterances of the highest exegetical skill. But their faces shine when the discourse moralizes; it seems to take them by the button, so friendly it is,—but it looks them closely in the eye, without heat and distant zeal, with great, manly expostulation, rather, and half-humorous argument, that sometimes make the tears stand upon the lids. The florid countenances become a shade paler with listening, the dark complexions glow with a brooding religiosity. It is plain that he has a hungry people, and feeds them with what suits ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... the neck of her horse. The earl, on his side, had been looking the painter's horse up and down with a would be humorous ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... open, so simple, so candid, that we laugh at his lapses, admire his high resolves, sigh at his follies, sympathize with his spasms of repentance, and smile a misty smile at one who is humorous without meaning to be, who was deeply religious but never pious, who was highly conscientious, undoubtedly artistic, and who blundered through life, always in a turmoil, hopelessly entangled in the web of Fate, committing every crime, justifying himself in ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... the story of a missionary's family sent home for education, and is full of humorous and pathetic incidents, in the experience of a little girl, in her desire to discover and influence the home heathen among whom she ...
— Children of Borneo • Edwin Herbert Gomes
... roads of that joyous Saturday might have asked was it whippets, horses, or the ring which best explained this lank, keen-eyed, humorous-lipped, uneven-gaited fellow; but none would have suspected a masquerade in the figure offered to their eyes with an assurance so entirely devoid ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... on the Outer Hebrides is that written by Mr. W. C. Mackenzie. Proceeding in the order of chronology, the author gives a vivid series of historic summaries (enlivened by many a piquant episode and humorous touch) of the Long Island from the earliest times. The wanderings of Prince Charlie, and the condition of the country after Culloden, have never been better told than ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... a play is given in an insane asylum the inmates always laugh at the tragic moments and cry at the humorous moments. ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... judgment. These theatres were patronized by royalty: for we read that Queen Elizabeth, on the 26th of May, 1599, went by water with the French ambassadors to Paris Garden, where they saw a baiting of bulls and bears. Indeed, Southwark seems to have long been of sporting notoriety, for, in the Humorous Lovers, printed in 1617, one of the characters says, "I'll set up my bills, that the gamesters of London, Horsly-down, Southwark, and Newmarket, may come in and bait him (the bear,) here before the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 540, Saturday, March 31, 1832 • Various
... up his knife and fork again, but his appetite had gone. Whoever might be paying attention to Miss Rose at that moment he felt quite certain that it was not Mr. Ned Quince, and he trembled with anger as he saw the absurd situation into which the humorous Mr. Rose had led him. For years Little Haven had accepted his decisions as final and boasted of his sharpness to neighbouring hamlets, and many a cottager had brought his boots to be mended a whole week before their time for the sake ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... astarn, d'ee see, that a feller with white man notions has to make a study of it, if he sets up for a artist; in course, if he don't set up for a artist any sort o' shape'll do, for it don't affect the jumpin'. Ha! there they go," he exclaimed, with a humorous smile at a hearty shout of laughter which was heard just outside the hut, "enjoyin' the old 'un; but it's nothin' to wot the noo 'un'll be ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... collected one hundred and twenty stories for seventeen holidays—stories grave, gay, humorous, or fanciful; also some that are spiritual in feeling, and others that give the delicious thrill of horror so craved by boys and girls at Halloween time. The range of selection is wide, and touches all sides of wholesome boy and girl nature, and the tales ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... 7. The humorous definition of man ascribed to Plato in Diogenes Laertius, Lib. vi. 40 (Life of Diogenes), [Greek: Platonos horisamenou, anthropos esti zoon ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... to tell Hugh many deeply interesting experiments he had undertaken along those lines. He also had a fund of wonderful anecdotes, many of them quite humorous, connected with his little ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... his forte, and his attempt in this direction in the weeks that followed would have been humorous were they not so pathetic. How I did my part I cannot tell. Those weeks are to me now like the memory of an ugly nightmare. The ghostly old man moving out and in of his little daughter's room in useless, dumb agony; Ponka's woe-stricken Indian face; Joe's extraordinary and unusual ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... a lay-brother swung open the door, and two other lay-brothers entered leading between them a young novice of the order. He was a man of huge stature, dark-eyed and red-headed, with a peculiar half-humorous, half-defiant expression upon his bold, well-marked features. His cowl was thrown back upon his shoulders, and his gown, unfastened at the top, disclosed a round, sinewy neck, ruddy and corded like the bark of the fir. Thick, muscular arms, ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... New York a little brochure with scarcely any letter-press, which contained many pages of the most humorous and spirited sketches. Its title ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... student to find out and continue the particular line along which his inclinations lead him to travel, until his senior year is chiefly given over to the fullest possible development of the special subject. The fad for free electives all along the line was one of those curious phenomena, both humorous and tragic, that grew out of the evolutionary philosophy and the empirical democracy of the nineteenth century, and it wrought disaster, while the ironclad curriculum that preceded it was almost as bad along an opposite line. This project of Dr. Meiklejohn's seems ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... nation which had never heard a word ending in a consonant, this was apparently intensely humorous. They burst into loud guffaws, supplemented with resounding slaps of their cupped hands on their stomachs, at the same time raising an ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... table-cloth, but certainly not large enough for a game of marbles. In the centre of this bit of grass she planted her friend's gift. Then came our other lady, making a call, and with her best smile of humorous ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... pleasing reminiscences and projects for the future. She had certainly been distinguished by the Contessa's marked regard, and her opinion of her charm and ability was of the very highest.... No doubt her strange remark about duelling at dinner had been humorous in intention, but many a true word is spoken in jest, and the Contessa—perspicacious woman—had seen at once that Major Benjy and Captain Puffin were just the sort of men who might get to duelling (or, at any rate, challenging) about a woman. And her asking ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... young man with a humorous face and democratic manner, as became a lowly barge skipper, appeared before the Scotsman, jingling in his hand a number of bright silver dollars. Scotty ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... came in during a lesson, and at once all the pipes of the humorous /jet d'eau/ were opened: the "thumblings" and "pointerlings," the "pickers" and "stealers," as he used to call the fingers; the "falings" and "galings," meaning "f" and "g;" the "fielings" and "gielings," meaning "f" and "g" sharp, [Footnote: The names of ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... while he marveled at the sheer skill of Lund in this sort of a fencing bout. He never went far enough to arouse Carlsen's suspicions, yet he showed a keen sense of humorous appreciation of Carlsen's half-satirical sallies that, in the light of Sandy's revelation, showed the doctor considered himself the master of the situation, the winner of a game whose pieces were ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... There is a shadow of melancholy in the saying, because it implies that for Thackeray at all events that kind of glow had faded out of life. Perhaps—who knows?—he had accustomed himself, with those luminous, observant, humorous eyes, to look too deep into the heart of man, to study too closely and too laughingly the seamy side, the strange contrast between man's hopes and his performances, his dreams and his deeds. Ought one to be ashamed if that kind of generous enthusiasm, that intensity of admiration, that vividness ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... with me at Paris?" I remarked, in wonder at this strange revelation. "He certainly never struck me as an assassin. He was a shrewd man—a swindler, no doubt, but his humorous bearing and his good-nature were entirely opposed to the belief that his was ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... him had given Roy a shock for which—in spite of Tara's letter—he was unprepared. This was not the father he remembered—humorous, unruffled, perennially young; but a man so changed and tired-looking that he seemed almost a stranger, with his empty coat-sleeve and hair touched with silver at ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... Colonel invariably got his humorous effects by a good-natured but sometimes sharp ridicule, the process of which was to exaggerate the argument or travesty the cause he was attacking until it ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Juan—in itself an epitome of all the marvellous contrarieties of his character—the Vision of Judgment, the Translation from Pulci, the Pamphlets on Pope, on the British Review, on Blackwood,—together with a swarm of other light, humorous trifles, all flashing forth carelessly from the same mind that was, almost at the same moment, personating, with a port worthy of such a presence, the mighty spirit of Dante, or following the dark footsteps of Scepticism over the ruins of past ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... arrangement is only approximate. The endeavor has been made to choose those fairy tales which are most free from horrible happenings, and to omit all writings which tolerate unkindness to animals. Humorous books are designated by a star and the few sad ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... rose at her throat. She had a piece of tapestry in her hand, and as she rose to greet him, the plain, heavy folds of her gown clinging about her, and her dark hair bound closely around her head with a simplicity that was almost severe, Dartmouth again felt a humorous sense of having suddenly stepped into a ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Secretary Fowler was inconclusive. The Secretary of State chose to take a humorous attitude toward what he termed the Secretary of the Interior's midnight conference with bandits. Enoch laughed with him and then departed for his audience with ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... and one that can be, by slow degrees, acquired, even by persons who are not cultivated or clever. It is an attitude "compounded of many simples," and, like the melancholy of Jaques, it wraps us about "in a most humorous sadness." But the essential secret of Shakespeare's genius is best apprehended in the felicity of certain isolated passionate speeches, and in the magic ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... became a contributor to the Scots (afterwards National) Observer, edited by W. E. Henley, and also to the Speaker, upon its foundation in 1890. In 1887 he published his first book, Better Dead. It was a mere jeu d'esprit, a specimen of his humorous journalism, elaborated from the St James's Gazette. This was followed in 1888 by Auld Licht Idylls, a collection of the Scots village sketches written for the same paper. They portrayed the life and humours of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... expectation of similar attention. His eyes closed, and he folded his hands placidly over his chest as Natalie stepped to his side, and then he peeped slyly at her, ready to give her some characteristically humorous greeting. ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... the house or garden or what-not was done, and there was nothing left but to admire, a great part of the interest in it was gone for her. At Vailima she had almost a virgin field for her gardening activities, and her "Dutch blood" rejoiced within her. In the old California days her husband, in his humorous way, had called her "the forty-niner," but now, as he watched her, flitting in her blue dress, like a witch, in all parts of the plantation, directing, expostulating, and working with her hands when words failed, he called her "my little blue bogie planter." Writing to Miss Taylor, he ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... glanced at the presents laid out on the dining-room table, but they looked unattractive. Even the brown plush monkey she had bought for Thor with such enthusiasm seemed to have lost his wise and humorous expression. She murmured, "All right," to her mother, lit her lantern, ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... indignation to come from? That is not to be got by tricks of rhyme or manufactured by rules of metre; but let it be alive and burning in the heart of the poet, and all else will be added unto him for the perfect poem, as it was to Burns. That Burns, though he wrote in humorous satire, was moved to the writing by indignation, he tells us in his epistle to the Rev. ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... of brains this way and that at particular moments into particular ideas and combinations are matched by their equally spontaneous permanent tiltings or saggings towards determinate directions. The humorous bent is quite characteristic; the sentimental one equally so. And the personal tone of each mind, which makes it more alive to certain classes of experience than others, more attentive to certain impressions, more open ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... atmosphere of poverty, but a poverty made radiant by unselfish love. The plot of one main incident—Della's sacrifice of her hair in order to get a Christmas present for her husband—takes place in the short space of a few hours, and works out to a half-humorous, half-pathetic climax, when Della and Jim display their Christmas gifts for each other. This story has a conclusion of one paragraph in length where the author reflects upon what ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... with my speeches in the House and in my constituency, gave dire offence to the Whigs; and I was chastened with rebukes which, if not weighty, were at any rate ponderous. "Not this way," wrote the St. James's Gazette, in a humorous apostrophe, "not this way, O Junior Member for Aylesbury, lies the road to the Treasury Bench," and so, indeed, it seemed. But, on returning from an evening party at Sir Matthew Ridley's, on the 5th of June, 1883, I found a letter from Mr. Gladstone, offering me the post of Parliamentary Secretary ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... than of imaginative excellence, of propriety of expression than of grandeur of phrase. The deeper themes of the world or man were denied to him; if he touches them it is superficially, with a decorous dulness, or on their more humorous side with a gentle irony that shows how faint their hold is on him. In Addison's chat the war of churches shrinks into a puppet-show, and the strife of politics loses something of its fictitious earnestness as the humourist views it from the standpoint of a lady's ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... second, it may be observed that when a philosopher is at the same time a poet, and therefore his own rhapsodist, it is probable that he will charm the understanding of many, but certain that he will bewitch his own. The certainty is clinched when the rhapsodist is without the humorous sense. It was the possession of that which enabled Charles Lamb, who loved him, to see him "Archangel, a little damaged," and even in one dreadful moment of his life to reprove him for a too oleaginous sympathy. Lamb, in fact, was always able ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... note, prefixed by the authors to their poem, sufficiently explains what is to me one of their best humorous pieces: ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... The humorous side of things is presented by some of the groups: in the ungainly figure of the elephant of Senegal running; in the bear lying on his back in a trough and eating with great gusto some sweet morsel which he holds between his paws; and in the meditative stork standing on the back of a turtle. ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... Dooley, who was well known as a humorous character created by F.P. Dunne, made merry with the claim that the tariff had been reduced, by reading to his friend Mr. Hennessy the "necessities of life" which had been placed on the free-list and which included curling stones, teeth, sea-moss, newspapers, ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... cold through his conversation, while it seemed difficult to define its nature; and while its effects were rather perceived than felt, exciting surprise more than mirth, and never awakening the pained sense of being the object of its ridicule. That unique in humorous verse, the Long Story, is a complete and beautiful specimen of Gray's ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... his walks along the Kentish lanes and foot-paths he distributed tracts, and at every stile he crossed he would leave one having such an exhortation as "Take heed that thou stumbleth not." Yet all this was done in an honest, and, as I believe, a secretly humorous spirit of a serious nature, for Gordon was as opposed to cant and idle protestations as any man. There is a strikingly characteristic story preserved somewhere of what he did when a hypocritical, canting ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... sometimes used in this way, which at any rate keeps them from falling into the limbo of silence. Whether any of them have by this means renewed their life would be an interesting subject of inquiry; it is said that at Eton the good old word usher, used first only for humorous effect, has now found its way back into the common and colloquial ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 3 (1920) - A Few Practical Suggestions • Society for Pure English
... Henry gaily; "then we could get wood in abundance, and perhaps," he added, looking slyly over to the stove where some bread-soup was in preparation for their very temperate repast, "some better fare for dinner. But," he continued in a tone of humorous banter, which he frequently adopted, and pushing back his chair a few paces as he spoke, "while you superintend the household concerns, and give the necessary orders to the cook, I will withdraw into my study. Now, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... part angry, part, I believe, amused. He had not given up hope, and dully revolved the problem in his head, giving ever and again another jerk at the few inches of free rope that still remained unwound. A humorous sort of sympathy for the creature took hold upon me. I went up, and, not without some trouble on my part, and much distrust and resistance on the part of Neddy, got him forced backwards until the whole length of the halter was set ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... well-fitting ones at that, the Candy Man was a presentable young fellow. If his face seemed at first glance a trifle stern, this sternness was offset by the light in his eyes; a steady, purposeful glow, through which played at the smallest excuse a humorous twinkle. ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... give opportunity to the competing agents of other houses to honor Van Antwerp, Bragg & Co. with such titles as "Octopus" and "Monopoly," names that were used before "Trusts" were invented. They also called the firm in chosen companies, "Van Anteup, Grabb & Co." These were mere playful or humorous titles in recognition of the fact that this firm had, by its industry, skill and energy, captured a larger share of the patronage of the people than was agreeable to its competitors, and they, in despair of success by fair ...
— A History of the McGuffey Readers • Henry H. Vail
... order a lay-brother swung open the door, and two other lay-brothers entered leading between them a young novice of the order. He was a man of huge stature, dark-eyed and red-headed, with a peculiar half-humorous, half-defiant expression upon his bold, well-marked features. His cowl was thrown back upon his shoulders, and his gown, unfastened at the top, disclosed a round, sinewy neck, ruddy and corded like the bark of the fir. Thick, muscular arms, covered with a reddish down, ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... need much reading between the lines to realise the odds with which our officers and men have to contend, the endless discomfort and unending din. They are masters of a gallant art of metaphor which belittles the most appalling horrors of trench warfare; masters, too, of the art of extracting humorous relief ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... histories of mismated couples from different social strata are recounted with hearty simplicity, deep understanding of life, and frank recognition of human weakness, but without condemnation, tears, or pointing a moral. They made Fontane famous. Frau Jenny Treibel (1892), an exquisitely humorous picture of the Berlin bourgeoisie, and Effi Briest "the most profound miracle of Fontane's youthful art," added considerably to the fame of the gray-haired "modern," while The Poggenpuhls (1896) and Stechlin (1898) won him further laurels at a time when most writers ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... or ice is almost wholly ludicrous. Whether sleeping, quarrelling, or playing, whether curious, frightened, or angry, its interest is continuously humorous, but the Adelie penguin in the water is another thing; as it darts to and fro a fathom or two below the surface, as it leaps porpoise-like into the air or swims skimmingly over the rippling surface of a pool, ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... slip away and let her go on her journey alone. To the boy, who knew enough of the inner history of the household to enjoy the piquancy of the situation, such a trick seemed quite amusing. He went away picturing in his mind the scene at the railway station and its humorous possibilities. ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... and recanted. His invective was sometimes coarse, and his abuse was always virulent. He was not over-scrupulous in his methods of controversy; but no one can rise from a reading of his works without a feeling of liking for the vivacious, cultured, impulsive, humorous, irrepressible Welshman. Certainly no Welshman can regard the man who wrote so lovingly of his native land, and who championed her cause so valiantly, except with real gratitude ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... he said, in humorous distress. "The girls appear to be holding a meeting over there in the dressing-room, and the men are in the smoker! I'm going to round 'em up! How do you do, Miss Brown? Gad, you look so like your aunt,—and she WAS a beauty, Ella!—that I could kiss you for it, ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... Harold Lind always gave the effect of dancing when he walked. He always, moreover, gave the effect of extreme youth and of the utmost joy and mirth in life itself. He regarded everything and everybody with a smile as of humorous appreciation, and yet the appreciation was so goodnatured ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... last beheld it. The 'bo-fet,' or double corner-cupboard, where the china was formerly kept, had disappeared, its place being taken by a plain board. The tall old clock, with its ancient oak carcase, arched brow, and humorous mouth, was also not to be seen, a cheap, white-dialled specimen doing its work. What these displacements might betoken saddened his humanity less than it cheered his primitive instinct in pointing out how her ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... has its humorous side, and I have tried to answer it good-humoredly. But it seems to me that it also has a very serious import. Why is there all this wrangling as to whether man is the descendant of a lower animal or not? Why cannot people examine the ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... ever, has the tour of the Globe been made by so large a party of Americans. The public and private receptions tendered them at every point have been most brilliant in character, and the trip has abounded with humorous and interesting incidents, which every American, whether or not he be a lover of the ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick
... better!" she exclaimed vehemently. "There won't be anybody to ask me every day or two if I've made my strike yet? And how much gold I brought back to-day? And all the other fool questions that seem so humorous to questioners and hearers, but which hurt and sting and rankle when you're sick at heart with disappointment, and gritting your teeth to keep up your courage and your belief in yourself. Oh I know! Daddy didn't know I knew, but ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... to elicit, whether in comedy or tragedy. The book will enhance Mr. Boothby's reputation and bring him into the very front rank of emotional writers, as well as confirm our opinion of him as a most powerful imaginative author. His humorous vein is fascinating and attractive. His pathos is true, and often most ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... very minor matters. He has great variety, also, of narrative forms: elaborate allegories; love stories of many kinds; romances, both religious and secular; tales of chivalrous exploit, like that related by the Knight; humorous extravaganzas; and jocose renderings of coarse popular material—something, at least, in virtually every ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... from one to the other with a humorous eye. "It seems to me that the Venerable Company of Pastors have not yet expelled the ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... what he said in M. Maniera's right ear?" asked M. Moncharmin, with a gravity which he thought exceedingly humorous. ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... parlour was a wonderful experience! Imagine a portly woman of sixty, with a shrewd humorous face, talking with French vivacity, and with many homely turns of phrase drawn straight from that life of the soil and the peasants amid which she worked; a woman named in one of General Castelnau's Orders of the Day and entitled to wear the Legion ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in one of her most bewitching moods—even the old Highland word "fey" scarcely described her many brilliant variations from grave to gay, from gay to romantic, and from romantic to a kind of humorous-satiric vein which moved her to utter quick little witticisms which might have seemed barbed with too sharp a point were they not so quickly covered with a sweetness of manner which deprived them of all malice. She looked her best, too,—she had robed herself in ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... were at target practice, and an Irish sergeant, Byrne, was assisting him by keeping up a continuous flow of comments and criticisms that showed the keenest enjoyment of the situation. Byrne was the only man I noticed who seemed to regard the fight as in any way humorous. For at Guasimas, no one had time to be flippant, or to exhibit any signs of braggadocio. It was for all of them, from the moment it started, through the hot, exhausting hour and a half that it lasted, a most serious proposition. The conditions were exceptional. The men had ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... the lines of demarcation between natural groups and in the absence of transitional forms, with all the confidence of youth and imperfect knowledge. I was not aware, at that time, that he had then been many years brooding over the species-question; and the humorous smile which accompanied his gentle answer, that such was not altogether his view, long haunted and puzzled me. But it would seem that four or five years' hard work had enabled me to understand what it meant; for Lyell, writing to ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... character, and succeeded in making the Parsees laugh heartily at his caricature of the Hindus, while he convulsed the Hindus with his clever skits on the Parsees. He also made effective reference to the Great Eastern and her work, bringing out the humorous aspects of telegraphy and of quick ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... all the talking. Maggie fancied that, all his life, he had persisted in the same gentle humorous fashion without any especial attention as to the wisdom, agreement or even existence of his audience. She fancied that all men who wrote books did that. They had to talk to "clear their ideas." She raised ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... leaving her exalted with the consciousness that she was wanted—to have him go thus from her and straightway fall into the trap which Mrs. Artemas unaffectedly baited—the trap of which he had not once but many times obliquely alluded to in half-humorous, half-genuine terms of fear—it was, ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... beginning of the seventeenth century, Dr. Corbett, Bishop of Oxford and Norwich, wrote a very humorous satire on the fairy superstition, called "The Fairies' Farewell, a proper new ballad to be sung or whistled to the tune of Meadow Brow." Perhaps I cannot better take leave of these very curious imaginary people, than to employ a couple of stanzas ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... is possibly the humorous visiting-card that Beethoven sometimes sent to his friends, with the inscription Wir bleiben die Alten ("We are the same as ever"), and on reversing the card, a couple of asses stared them in the face! Frau Eyloff told me of a similar card that ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... want him to come in that way? It would most likely lead to an engagement. And then I should have to listen to his praises continually. Yes, it would be rather hard on me;" and he laughed with a humorous sound. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... this Disraeli-looking man speak, it was in Winnipeg, when he was making his first and last trip across Canada on the railway for which he had done and ventured so much. In his semi-humorous and semi-serious way he said, "I used to state that I never expected to live long enough to see the road completed, but that when my friends would be crossing the continent upon it, I would be looking down upon them from another and better sphere; my opponents said I would ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... redeeming trait—it was an appreciation of the humorous. No man has ever been entirely lost or entirely miserable, who has had a touch of humor in him. As the Bishop put a pillow under his head and then locked the door to keep any one else out, the ridiculousness of it all came over him, ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... Garrick plays, but he wrote for that work, and the "Every-Day Book," a number of pleasant, characteristic little sketches and essays. We herewith present the reader with one of the best and most remarkable of these articles. Of course all will observe, and admire, the humorous, yet very gentle, loving, almost pathetic manner in which Elia describes the person and character of Mary's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... years when the close of his life here came April 20, 1910, in Redding, Connecticut. Once he wrote in one of his humorous moments, "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." When his life here ended, tributes were received from every land. He was mourned as few men have ever been. Why? Because he knew people; he loved them and interested them. Because, in his most ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... Turnbull made a humorous grimace; then he said: "We seem to be talking in a kind of shorthand; but I won't pretend not to understand you. What you mean is this: that you learnt about all your saints and angels at the same time as you learnt about ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... priceless relic, the Tower of the Grand Constable and the entire historic Chateau of Ham, and equally the Castle of Peronne, a jewel of beauty—all in one corner of the Vallois! On the smoking wreck of Peronne, they left a humorous placard: ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... face was a study; he was apparently a humorous individual. But Miss Molasses addressed her remarks to Frank Lovell; and Frank, as in duty bound, replied. That girl was evidently making up to him, and, thinking he was fond of field-sports, pretended to take an interest ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... by the relief I felt that they took my indiscretion in such good part, and saw only—what I failed to see myself—the humorous side of the incident. ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... two indunas simultaneously, with their hands to their mouths. But Tyisandhlu said nothing, though a very humorous gleam seemed to steal over his fine ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... harmless, smitten into shame by he pure presence of our women and the sweet confiding smiles of our children. Among the veterans, the old pictorial satirists, we have mentioned the famous name of one humorous designer who is still alive and at work. Did we not see, by his own hand, his own portrait of his own famous face, and whiskers, in the Illustrated London News the other day? There was a print in that paper ...
— John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character • William Makepeace Thackeray
... assistance of this gifted individual, he composed his popular song of "Scotland's Hills." Introduced at a theatre in Dundee, it was received with marked approbation. It was first printed, in January 1829, in the Fife Herald newspaper, with a humorous preface by Vedder, and was afterwards copied into the Edinburgh Literary Gazette. It has since found a place in many of the collections of Scottish song, and has three different times been ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... original Mrs. Grundy. A little more withdrawn into the parlour sat a tall, strong, and serious girl, with a face of beautiful honesty and a pair of scissors stuck in her belt, doing a small piece of needlework. Two feet behind them sat a hulking labourer with a humorous face like wood painted scarlet, with a huge mug of mild beer which he had not touched, and probably would not touch for hours. On the hearthrug there was an equally motionless cat; and on the table a copy of ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... truth I made no further remarks worthy of being smiled at. That pistol kept me thinking. That she had come out to watch me, and if necessary shoot me, seemed a pretty obvious deduction, and much as I admired her nerve, it made humorous conversation a ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... theirs was very marked. There was no contrasting the spirit of the two parties. Our men, in their scratch costumes of dirty, muddy khaki, with their various assorted headdresses of woollen helmets, mufflers and battered hats, were a light-hearted, open, humorous collection as opposed to the sombre demeanour and stolid appearance of the Huns in their grey-green faded uniforms, top boots, ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... little man. Who was he? What was his real reason for coming to East Wellmouth to live—in the WINTER time? What made him spend so many hours in the old cemetery? Was he crazy, as some people declared, or merely "kind of simple," which was the opinion of others? Mr. Pulcifer's humorous summing-up was freely quoted. ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... time to literature. His career as an author does not offer us any extraordinary situations. He owed his success, and later on his glory, to severe and prolonged work. His literary talent manifested itself while he was still a student. He began his career with humorous short stories which were published in various newspapers. They brought him enough for the bare necessities ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... heard, however, was not of a sad or gloomy nature. These sturdy men enjoyed humorous yarns, and as Dane listened to several, he joined in the laughter that ensued. One, especially, appealed to him. It was told by a big strapping fellow, who hitherto had taken little ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... the fierce republican, with humorous fierceness, "you can be a great writer, but a little play-actor you shall never be," and he took up his ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... subject crowded on his brain; that he often read what he had written as if it had been the composition of another, and was amused; that it was the greatest pleasure to him to compose those light and trifling pieces, humorous and satirical, which had been so often successful. He holds Voltaire to have been the most extraordinary genius that ever lived, on account of his universality and fertility; talked of Scott and his wonderful labour ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... an All-World railway was freely discussed in the English and French Press by persons with no practical experience whatsoever of either Siberia or Alaska. Their opinions would, therefore, have been equally valuable with reference to a railway across the moon or planet Mars. From a humorous point of view, some of the letters published were well worth perusal, notably those of a French gentleman, who, in the Paris New York Herald, repeatedly drew my attention to the fact that he "claimed the paternity of the scheme to unite France and America by rail," and ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... over which is a curious bridge built with one arch. The parish is the largest in the kingdom, including the whole Forest of Dartmoor. William Browne of Tavistock, and the author of Britannia's Pastorals, gives a humorous description of Lydford in the reign of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 387, August 28, 1829 • Various
... his birth, would have mentioned such words from his father. But this is not so, and therefore these words of Gloucester at the very beginning of the piece, were merely intended as a communication to the public—in a humorous form—of the fact that Gloucester has a legitimate son and an ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... at her, seemingly sure of a humorous answering look to his pleasantry. It was not wholly denied. She yielded to a touch of amusement with a cool smile, and hastened her steps. The man kept pace without effort. Luckily, the car stood only a few feet away, with Renaud, or rather Hand, at the curb, holding ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... a half-humorous, half-apologetic exhibition of the rude utensils of the living room, and then the young men turned away as the two girls entered the open door of the second room. Neither Christie nor Jessie could for a moment understand the delicacy which kept ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... another rather humorous sketch, which represented a native in the act of carrying a kangaroo, the height of the man being three feet. The number of drawings in the cave could not altogether have been less than from fifty to sixty, but the majority of them consisted of men, kangaroos, etc., the figures being carelessly ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... given to one John Harrison by the Humane Society for rescuing from drowning a certain Benton Barry. Now Benton Barry was one of the wretched housebreakers. This is the summary of the opening chapter. The story is intensely interesting in its serious as well as its humorous parts. ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... the locket nor at the hand which held it, but into his eyes. In hers the wrath was gone; there was even a humorous sparkle under the heavy lashes. She made no sign that she saw the jeweled miniature. She was thinking how strong he was, how handsomely dignity and ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... a full, accurate, and interesting history. The History of New York, by Martha J. Lamb, is not so full as might have been wished, but is otherwise unexceptionable. New York is fortunate in having the most graphic and humorous history of its early days that any city in the world ever had, but nobody except Diedrich Knickerbocker himself ever claimed a great amount of accuracy and truthfulness for ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... DUBLIN.—At a meeting of the Dublin Corporation, Mr. T. D. Sullivan, M.P., editor of the Nation, was elected Lord Mayor of the city for this year. Mr. Sullivan is known all over the world, wherever Irishmen congregate, by his fine and stirring humorous and pathetic ballads for the Irish people. Personally, Mr. Sullivan is a gentle and gentlemanly man, much beloved by his family and a large circle of friends. He has always preserved the high-minded and patriotic traditions of ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... and he on his side, too, does not recognise them. The chief peculiarity of Lieutenant Hlopakov consists in his continually for a year, sometimes two at a time, using in season and out of season one expression, which, though not in the least humorous, for some reason or other makes everyone laugh. Eight years ago he used on every occasion to say, "'Umble respecks and duty," and his patrons of that date used always to fall into fits of laughter and make him repeat ''Umble respecks ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... look, however, would have revealed, to any one who could read faces, a lovable and almost tender light behind the eye's sharp twinkle and a kindly, humorous twist to the stubborn mouth. Hot temper, the physiognomist would have read, and obstinacy. But there the catalogue of faults would have ended abruptly. The rest was warm heart, trustfulness, eager ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... of humor. The ability to see and to show just how foolish or funny some situations are will turn many a tragedy of childhood into a comedy. Whenever children laugh at the distresses or faults of others, help them to laugh at their own. Cultivate the habit of seeing the odd, the whimsical, the humorous side of things. A sound sense of kindly humor often will save ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... proffered hand and held it, while, with a humorous glance at his friend, he said: "See here, Hilland, I hold an indisputable proof that it's time you appeared on the confines of civilization and gave an account ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... the dying would be easy enough; it's the living an old maid I shouldn't like," said Diana, with no intention of being humorous. "Although I wouldn't mind being an old maid VERY much if I could be one like Miss Lavendar. But I never could be. When I'm forty-five I'll be horribly fat. And while there might be some romance about a thin old maid there couldn't ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... about this with that sly shrewdness so characteristic of him, so well symbolized by his mulberry badge—a humorous shrewdness almost, which makes him one of the most delightful rogues in history, just as he was one of the most debonair and cultured. He may indeed be considered as one of the types of the subtle, crafty, selfish politician that was ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... well—and lifting his 'wide-awake' with a burlesque salutation, which, I suppose, would have charmed the 'Plume of Feathers,' he dropped, kicked and caught his 'wide-awake,' with an agility and gravity, as he replaced it, so inexpressibly humorous, that Milly went off in a loud fit of ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... making it as humorous as he could. But when he had finished, she wasn't laughing. For a moment his impulse was to lay before her the whole story—the bitter climax, the ashen climax, which lately he had thought so beautiful. She had said that nothing in the past would matter—but this was of the future, too. Even if ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... to be lucid must prove a priceless asset to his client when he undertakes the task of bamboozling a dozen unhappy countrymen penned in a box. It is hard to picture to yourself this impressive figure giggling sycophantically at the pleasantries of a humorous judge. But he must have conformed to convention in this matter in the past, for how otherwise could he now be an ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... in my memory with Thackeray because of her visit to the author of Vanity Fair and its humorous and pathetic features. She went to London from her lonely Yorkshire home, and the great world, with its many selfish and unlovely features, made a painful impression on her. Even Thackeray, her idol, was found to have feet of clay. But this "little Puritan," as the great ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... great part of the interest in it was gone for her. At Vailima she had almost a virgin field for her gardening activities, and her "Dutch blood" rejoiced within her. In the old California days her husband, in his humorous way, had called her "the forty-niner," but now, as he watched her, flitting in her blue dress, like a witch, in all parts of the plantation, directing, expostulating, and working with her hands when words failed, he called her "my little blue bogie planter." Writing to Miss Taylor, he says: ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... discourse, which was sensible, spirited, and gay. Her frank and sprightly demeanour excited his own confidence and good-humour; and he described to her the characters of those females who had honoured them with such a spiteful mark of distinction, in terms so replete with humorous satire, that she seemed to listen with particular complacency of attention, and distinguished every nymph thus ridiculed with such a significant glance as overwhelmed her with chagrin and mortification. ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... nothing ridiculous in what is known of Ahone and Kiehtan. If they had a mythology, and if we knew the myths, doubtless they would be ridiculous enough. The savage mind, turned from belief and awe into the spinning of yarns, instantly yields to humorous fancy. As we know, mediaeval popular Christianity, in imagery, marchen or tales, and art, copiously illustrates the same mental phenomenon. Saints, God, our Lord, and the Virgin, all play ludicrous and immoral parts in Christian folk-tales. This is Mythology, ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... stage, at the house he established upon the wreck of John Brougham's Lyceum, often rise in memory, crowned with a peculiar light. Lester Wallack, in his peerless elegance; Laura Keene, in her spiritual beauty; the quaint, eccentric Walcot; the richly humorous Blake, so noble in his dignity, so firm and fine and easy in his method, so copious in his natural humour; Mary Gannon, sweet, playful, bewitching, irresistible; Mrs. Vernon, as full of character as the tulip is of colour or the hyacinth of grace, and as delicate and refined as an exquisite ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... magpies—exchanging merry greetings after their vacation; comparing notes on studies, classes and roommates; discussing the advent of new teachers, pupils and improvements, when a tall, gracious woman of, perhaps, thirty-five years suddenly appeared in the doorway, her fair face gleaming with humorous appreciation of the animated scene and babel before her, and enjoined silence with the uplifting of one ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... lifted his head sharply and met Pixie's watching eyes fixed upon him. His own glance was tense and shamed, but to his amazement hers was friendly, humorous, undismayed. There was no displeasure in her face, no hint of humiliation nor discomfiture— nothing, it would appear, but ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... polite," his son declared, in a softly growling tone which was habitual to him, but which was an indication of nothing worse than a vaguely humorous intention. "It ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... We cannot have two Agathas, and we must have one Cottager's wife; and I am sure I set her the example of moderation myself in being satisfied with the old Butler. If the part is trifling she will have more credit in making something of it; and if she is so desperately bent against everything humorous, let her take Cottager's speeches instead of Cottager's wife's, and so change the parts all through; he is solemn and pathetic enough, I am sure. It could make no difference in the play, and as for Cottager himself, when he has got his wife's speeches, I would undertake ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... from the pretext at its beginning to the capitulation at Sedan, has been a succession of surprises, where the author of the pretext was a constant sufferer. Nor is this strange. Falstaff says, with humorous point, "See now how wit may be made a Jack-a- lent, when't is upon ill employment!"[Footnote: Merry Wives of Windsor, Act V. Sc. 5.]—and another character, in a play of Beaumont and Fletcher, reveals the same evil destiny in stronger ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... matter, which was in itself a somewhat humorous thing. Slim and erect, with a long, graceful neck, and a carriage of the head which somehow suggested the environment of a court, Mrs. Handsell was distinctly, even from a distance, a pleasant person to look upon. ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... must ye be lashed hence? Tiphaine, my sword!" He turned to seize his weapon, but as he did so his gaze fell upon the blazonry of sir Nigel's shield, and he stood staring, while the fire in his strange green eyes softened into a sly and humorous twinkle. ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Duc de Saint-Simon allude with a humorous sympathy to Frontenac's appointment: "He was a man of excellent parts"—writes this garrulous chronicler—"living much in society, and completely ruined. He found it hard to bear the imperious temper of his wife; and he was given the government ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... rested on it!—his dear young hand—In the deepening chilliness, watching the ashes, she ached with the sense of her last failure; but most of the time she thought of Edith, and of what she believed she had read in those humorous, candid eyes. "She dared, before me!—to show him that she was in love with him! He doesn't care for her—I know that. But I won't have her come here, to my own house, and make love to him. How can I keep her from coming? Oh, if I could only ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... their own: I would have them only remember, that scoffing cometh not of wisdom. So as the best title in true English they get with their merriments is to be called good fools: for so have our grave forefathers ever termed that humorous kind of jesters: but that which giveth greatest scope to their scorning humours is rhyming and versing. It is already said (and as I think, truly said) it is not rhyming and versing that maketh poesy. One may be a poet without ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... the wedding, and was invited to dinner in Cadogan-place the Sunday after his return. Theodora condescended to be frankly entertained with his dry humorous account of the magnificent doings that had diverted him extremely, and caused Arthur and Violet to congratulate themselves that, in their case, Matilda had not been ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... taken advantage of very wisely by Mr. Johonnot, who has had experience in teaching and in making school-books. His selections are generally excellent. Articles by renowned naturalists, and interesting papers by men who, if not renowned, can put things pointedly, alternate with serious and humorous verse. 'The Popular Science Monthly' has furnished much material. The 'Atlantic' and the works of John Burroughs are contributors also. There are illustrations, and the compiler has some sensible advice to offer teachers in regard to ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... in the age of the senior officers and the slowness of promotion. There were majors of over fifty years of age, and if a man were a general at seventy he was considered fortunate and young. The jealousy with which younger men were regarded would have been humorous had it not come already so near to ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... ever hear of another piece of impudence like that?" said Watson. "It has its humorous side, I admit, and you're justified in laughing, but it's ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... up, as though in humorous supplication. "Because, Comrade, to this point we have not had expediters to find out such desires on the ...
— Expediter • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... names of human beings, birds, fishes, trees, plants, stones, metals, and even actions, events, and feelings, diminutives are obtained, which by their form, present the names so made in different colors; they become more naive, more childlike, eventually more roguish, or humorous, or pungent. These traits can scarcely be rendered in English; for, as Robert Ferguson remarks: "The English language is not strong in diminutives, and therefore it lacks some of the most effective means for the expression ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... consciously incurable consults at last only his lawyer: that was what made him so different from every one else. Ralph had something of this same quality, this appearance of thinking that life was a matter of connoisseurship; but in Ralph it was an anomaly, a kind of humorous excrescence, whereas in Mr. Osmond it was the keynote, and everything was in harmony with it. She was certainly far from understanding him completely; his meaning was not at all times obvious. It was hard to see what he meant for ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... and electrical experts were, for the most part, split up into two camps. Some of them said the telephone was impossible, while others said that "nothing could be simpler." Almost all were agreed that what Bell had done was a humorous trifle. But Lord Kelvin persisted. He hammered the truth home that the telephone was "one of the most interesting inventions that has ever been made in the history of science." He gave a demonstration with one end of the wire in a coal mine. He stood side ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... and admiration for his father was deep and sincere. At his home, when guests gathered round the engineer's table, the boy, with his eyes sparkling, listened to his father's "strange, humorous vein of talk," then glanced round with a smile of expectation to see how much others appreciated their host's well-told tales. "My father was always my dearest," he wrote. This was a high certificate of appreciation, when we remember he had the most devoted ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... had the third nautical entertainment of the present voyage, which was quite as varied and successful as usual. Mr. Pemberton's recitation from Tennyson, and Tab's humorous account of Father Neptune's visit to the 'Sunbeam,' were the novelties on this occasion. There were also some excellent songs by the crew, a pretty ballad by Muriel, and a reading by Tom; Mabelle being as usual the backbone and leader of the whole affair. I managed to sit through ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... a queer, humorous fashion. "The King of France thinks he has a right to what his explorers discover; the King of England—well, it was Queen Elizabeth, I believe, who laid claim to a portion called Virginia. She died, but the English ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... really a shock to me. When I had asked Andrew to mention Jaguars to his broker it was solely in the hope of hearing some humorous City comment on their futility—one of those crisp jests for which the Stock Exchange is famous. I had no idea that his broker might like to ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... read the humorous account in the Patriot and Clarion, he saw still more clearly what chance he would have had before the public in a fight with ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... death—nothing could save him. The cold perspiration on his forehead, and the glassy appearance of his eye, too plainly indicated that he had but a few minutes to live. Courtenay, shocked at the condition of the poor fellow, who was not only the most humorous, but one of the ablest seamen in the ship, knelt down on one knee beside him, and took ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... ship. He never sang of 'the rolling main,' 'the foaming billows,' 'the storm clouds,' etc. These are the stock-in-trade of the landsman; they were too real for the sailor to sing about. He had the instinct of the primitive man which forbids mention of natural forces of evil omen. But intimate or humorous matters such as the failings of his officers, the quality of the food, the rate of pay, or other grievances were treated with vigour and emphasis. Like the Britisher of to-day, he would put up with any hardship so long as he were permitted to grouse about it. The shantyman ...
— The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties • Richard Runciman Terry
... in which she worked was on the top of Campden Hill, and opened into one of the pleasant gardens of that neighbourhood. Her uncle, Charles Bentley, an elderly Academician, with an ugly, humorous face, red hair, red eyebrows, a black skull-cap, and a general weakness for the female sex, was very fond of his niece Doris, and inclined to think her a neglected and underrated wife. He was too fond of his own comfort, however, ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... good nature, innocence of heart, and love of frolic beamed from every feature of his countenance; he wished no ill to any son of Adam. He was musical and poetical, a maker and a singer of sweet songs; humorous also, speculative, discursive; his speech, though aimless and redundant, glittered with the hues of fancy, and here and there with the keenest rays of intellect. He was vain, but had no touch of pride; and the excellencies which he loved in himself, he acknowledged ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... proprietor, who is reported to have dug Walden Pond, and stoned it, and fringed it with pine woods; who tells me stories of old time and of new eternity; and between us we manage to pass a cheerful evening with social mirth and pleasant views of things, even without apples or cider,—a most wise and humorous friend, whom I love much, who keeps himself more secret than ever did Goffe or Whalley; and though he is thought to be dead, none can show where he is buried. An elderly dame, too, dwells in my neighborhood, invisible to most persons, in whose odorous ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... they were safely out of the canon, and the horses were allowed to rest a few minutes. Cummins replaced his pistol and buttoned up his duster; and the passengers fell to talking. The store-keeper from North Bloomfield began to tell a humorous story of a lone highwayman who, with a double-barrelled shot gun waylaid the Wells Fargo Express near Downieville. As he waited, with gun pointed down the road, he heard a wagon approach behind him. Coolly facing about, he levelled his gun at the ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... glance on the speaker. He noted, for the first time, the keen alertness and intellectuality of the other's face. It was a fine strong face, with a pair of luminous grey eyes, a likeable long nose, and clean-shaven, humorous mouth—a man ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... pipe as he recounts a series of impossible adventures,—those of himself and two Englishwomen, captured for ransom by Hadgi Stavros, brigand king in the Grecian mountains,—is especially characteristic of About in the humorous atmosphere of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... himself reckoned this as an advantage, though in a very different sense from that in which we are speaking. It was as a patriot, and not as an artist, that he congratulated himself on his American origin. There is a humorous struggle between his sense of the rawness and ugliness of his native land and the dogged patriotism befitting a descendant of the genuine New England Puritans. Hawthorne the novelist writhes at the ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... Hercules," was given to the public through the medium of an illustrated, journal with which he was for a long time connected as designer. In 1856 were published the illustrations for Balzac's "Contes Drolatiques" and those for "The Wandering Jew "—the first humorous and grotesque in the highest degree—indeed, showing a perfect abandonment to fancy; the other weird and supernatural, with fierce battles, shipwrecks, turbulent mobs, and nature in her most forbidding and terrible aspects. Every incident or suggestion that could possibly ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous
... the bodies of those whose minds had been united together in the world by friendship and love of art, Messer Luigi had intended that Giovan Maria should be laid to rest beside himself in the tomb that was to be erected for his own burial, together with that most humorous poet, Ruzzante, his very familiar friend, who lived and died in his house; but I do not know whether this design of the illustrious Cornaro was ever carried into effect. Giovan Maria was a fine talker, pleasant and agreeable in conversation, and very acute in repartee, insomuch that Cornaro ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... that the company and conversation of my departed guests, especially of Lysander, were such as to leave a void which could not easily be supplied. For my part, from some little warmth each sister betrayed in balancing the solid instruction of Lysander and the humorous vivacity of Lisardo, against each other, I thought the former had made a powerful impression upon the mind of Belinda, and the latter upon that of Almansa: for when the probability of a speedy revisit from both of them was mentioned the sisters betrayed unusual marks of sensibility; ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... short beard, is apparently left to Nature; but he has taken care that Nature shall do him the fullest justice. His amative enthusiasm, at which he is himself laughing, and his clever, imaginative, humorous ways, contrast strongly with the sincere tenderness and dignified ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw
... idea of what sort of people he might come upon in this country. It was, he knew, America. Americans he had always understood were the citizens of a great and powerful nation, dry and humorous in their manner, addicted to the use of the bowie-knife and revolver, and in the habit of talking through the nose like Norfolkshire, and saying "allow" and "reckon" and "calculate," after the manner of the people who live on the New Forest side of Hampshire. ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... the little pompous man gives another knock, and says 'Gen'l'men, we will attempt a glee, if you please.' This announcement calls forth tumultuous applause, and the more energetic spirits express the unqualified approbation it affords them, by knocking one or two stout glasses off their legs—a humorous device; but one which frequently occasions some slight altercation when the form of paying the damage is proposed to be gone through ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... feel so strongly on everything that the war has brought into question for the Anglo-Saxon peoples that humorous detachment or any other thinness or tepidity of mind on the subject affects me as vulgar impiety, not to say as rank blasphemy; our whole race tension became for me a sublimely conscious thing from the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... appeared Weelkes' last work, "Airs or Fantastic Spirits for three voices," a collection of lively and humorous ditties. Oliphant writes:—"For originality of ideas, and ingenuity of construction in part writing, (I allude more especially to his ballets,) Weelkes in my opinion leaves all other composers of his time far behind." The ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... not daring to meet the humorous eye of Cuthbert Broome—still contemplated the dishevelled dignity of his own ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... With a humorous look he replied, "No matter, I have the best of the bargain, for I should have to do the 'something' anyway. But what do you think of this theory, sir?" And he explained, not knowing that Walter ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... prints of native scenery, and portraits of deceased Canadians of merit, the News is a valuable and interesting addition to journalism in this country, and will be found most useful to the future generations who will people the Dominion. Nor does Canada now lack an imitator of Punch, in the humorous line. It is noteworthy that whilst America has produced humorists like 'Sam Slick,' Artemus Ward, Mark Twain, and others, no American rival to Punch has yet appeared in Boston or New York. The attempts that have heretofore been made have been generally coarse caricatures—for example, ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot
... privacy to the rites—an acolyte dabbed a large yellow patch of iodine on the victim's arm. Moving into the superheated shrine, he assisted Sergt. Lyon to tick off his name on the nominal roll, and then approached the M.O. Some doctors were bland and cheerful, others humorous, others strictly businesslike, but they all knew that this was their chance to pay off old scores. By using the sharp needle or the blunt one, and varying the angle of the stick in, they could adapt ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... interested in spite of himself in this gay, humorous young outlaw, who was so evidently superior to his brutal companions, and he would have liked to let him come to the point in his own amusing way, but the sun was getting low, and he feared to waste more time. "Cut ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... a duchess magnificent and heartless; a villain revengeful and courageous; a hero youthful, humorous, fearless and truly American;—such are the principal characters ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... Humorous writers tell us that it was a breach of good manners to ask a man his name, or what State he was from, or to examine the brand on his horse very particularly. It can be safely said that there was a great amount of truth mingled with the humor. Some of ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... predecessor's grave. He lies well, hein?— comfortable, too—looking his old church in the face and the sun on his old bones all the blessed day. Soon, in a few years, he will have company. I, too, am to lie there, I and a friend." The humorous smile was again curving his lips, and the laughter-loving nostrils were beginning to quiver. "When my friend and I lie there, we shall be a little crowded, perhaps. I said to him, when he proposed it, proposed to lie there with us, 'but we shall ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... a lively, bustling man, with a roguish twinkle in his eye, and a humorous style of talking. Some Friends, of more quiet temperaments than himself, thought he had more activity than was consistent with dignity. They reminded him that Mary sat still at the feet of Jesus, while Martha was "troubled about ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... (the word "thief" was often used in Ireland in the humorous way we sometimes use the word "rascal") said the postmaster, taking up the letter, and going to serve ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... Lamont for the President's approval, and among the numbers was a quartet called "The Student of Love," from one of my operas. Even in the anticipation of his happiness Mr. Cleveland was keenly alive to the opportunities for humorous remarks which this title might afford to irreverent newspaper men; and he said to his secretary: "Tell Sousa he can play that quartet, but he had better omit the name of it." Accordingly, "The Student of Love" was conspicuous ...
— The Experiences of a Bandmaster • John Philip Sousa
... me with a sincere desire to be of service to you, Miss Lawson," said Phil, with a half humorous touch of ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... saints of the Jewish Church human, has lit up dry technical Talmudic, discussions with flashes of freakish fun, with pun and jest and merry quibble, and has helped the race to survive (pace Dr. Wallace) by dint of a humorous acquiescence ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... more striking persons about them, can deprive of their naive and genuine individuality. Burly, homely, characteristic, he carries our attentions always with him, alike on the silent road, or in the king's palace, or his own simple shop. Wherever he is, he is always the same, shrewd, humorous, plain-spoken, seeing through all pretenses, yet never ill-natured in doing so—a character not very lofty or elevated, and to which the racy ugliness of a strong, uncultivated race seems natural—but who under that homely nature carried appreciations ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... retreat: it was there that he had several adventures which he so often related in so humorous and diverting a manner, that it would be tedious to repeat them; there it was that he administered the sacrament in so solemn a manner, that, as there did not remain a sufficient number of Swiss at Versailles to guard the chapel, Vardes was obliged to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... bar, and in the legislature that we can look for evidences of intellectual development. The only original literary works of importance were those of Judge Haliburton, who had already given us the clever, humorous creation of "Sam Slick," and also written an excellent history of Nova Scotia. In the happy and more prosperous times that followed the union of 1840, and the establishment of political liberty, intellectual development kept pace with the progress ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... philosophy and ethics. We flirted with graceful dignity. We were even humorous—in a ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... a friend named James K. Paulding proposed to start a paper, to be called "Salmagundi." It was an imitation of Addison's Spectator, and consisted of light, humorous essays, most of them making fun of the fads and fancies of New York life in those days. The numbers were published from a week to a month apart, and were continued for about ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... found traces of the man Evans, who undoubtedly did exist, and need not be considered to be a near relative of our friend Mrs. Harris. And the little joke provoked some amusement in the court; learned counsel settled their robes becomingly and leant forward to listen. They were in for a humorous speech, and the prisoner would get off with a light sentence. But the grim smile waxed duller, and it was clear that lordship was determined to make the law a terror to evil-doers. Lordship drew attention to ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... the middle of my rooms, with naked torso (this is a sufficiently proper costume for private life here, I admit). Around him are grouped Chrysantheme, Oyouki, and Mademoiselle Dede the maid, all eagerly rubbing his back with little blue towels decorated with storks and humorous subjects. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... their contact with the Celts, both in Scotland and in Ireland. Both peoples had valour, intellect, imagination: but the Celt had that which the burly angular Norse character, however deep and stately, and however humorous, wanted; namely, music of nature, tenderness, grace, rapidity, playfulness; just the qualities, combining with the Scandinavian (and in Scotland with the Angle) elements of character which have produced, in Ireland and in Scotland, two schools ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... should never allow a pupil of mine to so much as attempt it. Do not think that I wish to discourage every effort which has not an ultra-serious aim. On the contrary, I am but taking a rather roundabout way to an admission that the humorous element has, and must have at all times, a powerful attraction for the wood-carver; and to the statement of an opinion that it should not be allowed to take a prominent place in the work of a student; moreover, that it is quite possible to find in nature ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... and the humorous light crossed his face. "We couldn't take the orchard nor the meadows nor the woods nor the creek." (I think he said "medders" and "crick," and his "nor" sounded as if he put an e in it.) "There are a good many things we should have to ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... judge in the old-fashioned brougham, and the stone mason opposite to them, his great brown hands bedded on his knees, his face critically examining the city landscape. The judge talked chiefly to the young man, in his humorous and rather garrulous manner, describing for his benefit the glories of the old city. They plunged almost at once off the hill into a slum, where in the tall brick tenements women were hanging out of the windows enjoying the spring day. The sunshine and the blue sky made ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... old Maxim, Get a Reputation, and lye a Bed, not to mention how many lye a Bed before they can attain it, according to the humorous Turn of the late ingenious Mr. Farqubar; but there's at this Time a greater necessity for a Man to be wakeful, when he has acquir'd a Reputation, than at any Time before; he'll find abundantly more difficulty attend the Securing than the Attaining of the ...
— A Vindication of the Press • Daniel Defoe
... boys sat at dinner that evening Mr. Carlton inquired about their trip to the refinery, and with a humorous twinkle in ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... his own poems, as a teller of humorous stories, as a mimic, indeed as a finished actor, Riley's genius was rare and beyond question. In a lecture on the Humorous Story, Mark Twain, referring to the story of the One Legged Soldier and the different ways ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... doorway and handed Demorest the two rifles. Demorest hesitated. "Hadn't YOU better keep one?" he said, looking in his partner's eyes with his first challenge of curiosity. The sun seemed to put a humorous twinkle into Stacy's glance as he returned, "Not much! And you'd better take my revolver with you, too. I'm feeling a little better now," he said, looking at the saddlebags, "but I'm not fit to be trusted yet with carnal weapons. When the other mule ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... The old lady was very affable. In her early life she had been connected with an inn at Mauchline, and had seen the poet often. "Rabbie was a funny fellow," she said; "I ken'd him weel; and he stoppit at our hoose on his way up to Edinburgh to see the lairds." I asked her if he was not always humorous. "Nae, nae," she replied, "he used to come in and sit doun wi' his hands in his lap like a bashful country lad; very glum, till he got a drap o' whuskey, or heard a gude story, and then he was aff! He was very poorly in his latter days." ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... they were all safely back in camp, and sufficiently recovered to discover the humorous points in the episode. But they were all familiar enough with the treacherous possibilities of rough and rapid water to know that for Hobbs and his deliverer at least, there had been some serious moments during their ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... repeating the sayings of others. Often his rendering of a commonplace becomes humorous by reason of a slight verbal twist. As the boys toiled to supplant a glorious strip of primeval jungle by a few formal rows of bananas, the boss, glancing over the ruined vegetation, remarked in ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... you will illustrate this tale considerably. Not humorous pictures. No. When they are good (or bad) one's humor gets no chance to play surprises on the reader. A humorous subject illustrated seriously is all right, but a humorous artist is no fit person for such work. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... with the above title, on which Sir Alexander Boswell, Bart., founded his humorous song, with the same name, may be found in The Book of Scottish Songs, recently published in The Illustrated London Library, ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 179. Saturday, April 2, 1853. • Various
... you were sober, Gunning?" Oliver heard the General ask, with a scrutinizing look at Tom. Not with any humorous intent—more with the manner of a presiding officer at a court-martial, determined ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... along the edge of the precipice, where the plateau broke sheer off, was ticklish work; and half humorous, half melancholy thoughts went through my mind touching the absurdity of an ex-professor of Topical Linguistics in the University of Michigan being thus employed in path-hunting upon a lonely mountain-top in Mexico. Truly, adversity brings us strange bedfellows; but far stranger ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... of life is wide and varied. With unfailing faith and cheerful courage and a habit of seeing the humorous side of tragic catastrophes, she has done her work among the sick and forsaken, with no appeal to others save a certain few; and only those who have been steadied by her strong hands, and heartened by her buoyant spirit, and fed from her scant store, have knowledge or understanding ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... pressed the ashes down into the bowl of his pipe with his long emaciated fingers, and watched the little threads of smoke as they came curling out from under his thick moustache, Paul could only admit that the gravity of his bearing was inconsistent with a humorous interpretation of his words. ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... to hear him; but Willis Murch and I went. We were late and had difficulty in squeezing inside the room. Uncle Solon, as everybody called him, stood at the teacher's desk, and was talking in his quaint, homely way: a lean man in farmer's garb, with a kind of Abraham Lincoln face, honest but humorous, droll yet practical; a face afterwards well known from Maine ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... have been striking as another touch in the picture of the odd want, on the part of each, of any sense of levity in the other. Whatever escape, face to face, mother or daughter might ever seek would never be the humorous one—a circumstance, notwithstanding, that would not in every case have failed to make their interviews droll for a third person. It would always indeed for such a person have produced an impression of tension beneath the surface. "I could have done much better at the start and have ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
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