"Humorous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... In a humorous paper written in 1732, entitled, "An Examination of certain Abuses, Corruptions, and Enormities in the city of Dublin," Swift mentions this diversion, which he ludicrously enough applies to the violent persecutions of the political parties of the day. The ceremony ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... girl pleads with her father to make peace, with humorous naivete argues with the counsellors of state, tries to bribe the seers, and finally resorts to magic. When nothing avails, she secures Carme's aid. The lock is cut, the city falls, the girl is captured by Minos—in true Alexandrian technique ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... nonsenz, and don't bodder me," responded the hungry and aggrieved Jasper, who did not appreciate the joke, the young Englishman's humorous mistake as to the result of his rifle-shot not having yet been promulgated for the benefit of those in camp. "Am none ob you gentlemens comin' to dinnah, hey?"—he called out more loudly,—"Massa Rawlins me tellee hab ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... he was nearly all in, and so instead of scolding him on account of his carelessness, he started in to make humorous remarks, just to get his chum's mind off the terrible nature of ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... his worldlings, ranging from creatures as despicable as the courtiers of Duchess Colombe to such men of power and inexhaustible resource as the Nuncio who confronts Djabal with his Druses, or the Papal Legate whose easier and half-humorous task is to dismiss to his private affairs at Lugo the four-and-twentieth leader of revolt. To the same breed with the courtiers of Colombe belong old Vane and Savile of the court of Charles. To the same breed with the Nuncio and the Legate, belongs Monsignor, who proves himself more than ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... 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 ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... already began to intoxicate her even while she still went about Clarence's house, bore his moods in silence, and imparted to Billy that half-scornful, half-humorous advice that alone seemed to penetrate the younger woman's shell of utter perversity. Mrs. Breckenridge, as usual followed by admiring and envious and curious eyes, walked in a world of her own, entirely oblivious of the persons and events about her, ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... engineer." He writhed as was his habit over his jokes, and then fell to work at the drawing again. "A book," he said, "and an axe, and a gibbet or gallows. B-a-g—that makes 'bag.' Doesn't go far, does it? Humorous duck, isn't he? Any one who can write 'ha! ha!' under a gallows has real ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Soldiers' Institutes, and encouraged soldiers in the Queen's army to rear such pets as monkeys and parrots by regulations for their transport on route and transfer marches, which afforded material for many humorous sketches and paragraphs in the pages of The Delhi Punch. Wise and considerate regulations which are continued in the existing concessions as to the carriage of "soldiers' pets" by troop trains and ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... be longer wearied with Leberfink's and Rettel's folly? They were made for each other, and were betrothed, at which Father Wacht was right glad in his own teasing, humorous way. ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... tells us, in his humorous way, how Friar Tuck lived among the Cowboys, how he adjusted their quarrels and love affairs and how he fought with them, and for them when ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... but Bart's dark face wore a very serious look. He was not at all inclined to regard serious matters in a humorous light, while Frank had faced deadly dangers many times, and had come to laugh in the face of ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... my name, must have also taken my face and form, voice and manner, for though, upon my soul, I never married Rose Cameron, there are two honest women who are ready to swear that I did!" whispered the duke, with a humorous twinkle in his eyes; for there were moments when the absurdity of ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... wickedness—deludes other and weak-minded puppets into trusting him, and then beats them with a club upon the back of the head until they die. The murders of this infamous creature, which are always executed in a spirit of jocose sang-froid, and accompanied by humorous remarks, are received with the keenest relish by the spectators and, indeed, the action is every way worthy of applause. The dramatic spirit of the Italian race seems to communicate itself to the puppets, and they perform ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... passage, the poverty stricken aspect of the stairs,—items which had prepared her on other occasions for the starvation rate of pay offered for her work,—now passed unheeded. This affectation of scanty means was humorous. Obviously, some millionaire had secured what the newspapers called "a controlling interest" in ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... have not too much a head of his own, or no head at all, had continued straight on, in the rear of a tram-car, which was slowly finding its way through the momently thickening crowd. Boyne was first aware that it was a humorous crowd when, at a turn of the street, their equipage was greeted with ironical cheers by a group of gay young Dutchmen on the sidewalk. Then he saw that the sidewalks were packed with people, who spread into the street almost to the tram, and that the house fronts were dotted with smiling ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... reply, said, "It was the first time in his life he had ever heard of special pleading on a metaphor, or a bill of indictment against a trope. But such was the turn of the learned Counsel's mind, that, when he attempted to be humorous, no jest could be found, and, when serious, no fact was visible."] guarded by holy Superstition, and to be snatched from thence ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... of Mr Jonas's greatness. Pip, in a natural spirit of emulation, then related some instances of his own depth; and Wolf not to be left behind-hand, recited the leading points of one or two vastly humorous articles he was then preparing. These lucubrations being of what he called 'a warm complexion,' were highly approved; and all the company agreed that ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... include the poems of his fellow-townsman Philodemus, who flourished about B.C. 60 or a little earlier. Like his contemporary Menippus, also a Gadarene, he wrote what were known as {spoudogeloia}, miscellaneous prose essays putting philosophy in popular form with humorous illustrations. These are completely lost, but we have fragments of the /Saturae Menippeae/ of Varro written in imitation of them, and they seem to have had a reputation like that of Addison and the English essayists of the eighteenth century. Meleager's fame ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... right. I advertised as he suggested and learned that there were thousands of novels not in use. They came to us by basketfuls and cartloads. We had novels of all kinds—historical and hysterical, humorous and numerous, but particularly numerous. You would be surprised to learn how many ready-made novels can be had on short notice. It beats quick lunch. And most of them are equally indigestible. I read one or two but I was no judge of novels. Perkins suggested that we draw lots ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... that he received the name of the doubting apostle was by no means one of those superhuman coincidences in which some naive people see portents. In later years my father used to make humorous play with its appropriateness, but in plain fact he was named after his grandfather, Thomas Huxley. I have not traced the origin ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... "bulls" and charters and proclamations and manuscripts, mostly eloquent now of the ill-faith of Serbia's neighbours. They were, however, humorous and vivacious and well-fed monks who bore no ill-will against Turk or Austrian or anyone; they were good fellows happily lodged by the Church, and without much care or sorrow of any kind; such a contrast to ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... and was to lead. It also enabled him to realise that in most situations there were points of view other than his own. He was the better for the knowledge. There were many letters to read. Most had a grave earnest tone running through them. Some were pathetic. Others were humorous and, again, others cleverly descriptive of the passing life and scenes. The trend of thought of some soldiers will be illustrated by the following:—In 1916, whilst assisting to hold the trenches in front of Messines, a member of the Battalion wrote a lengthy and comprehensive criticism ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... to the opponents of the American Constitution to agree on some plan of their own, and his humorous suggestion that if the American people had to wait for some such agreement to be reached they would go for a long time without a government, are curiously applicable to the opponents of Irish Home Rule. They are very fertile ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... There seemed nothing humorous about this reply, which was merely the statement of a fact, but an irrepressible titter ran through the school. Miss Dearborn did not enjoy jokes neither made nor understood by herself, ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... closely-cropped auburn head, and, as it raised until it overtopped her own, the girl, terrified as she was, could not but admire the sweeping blonde moustache that overshadowed a smile, half-wistful, half-humorous, which lighted up his handsome face. The ribbon of some order was worn athwart his breast; otherwise he wore court dress, which well ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... called "Field Paths and Green Lanes"; the other "Rambles Among the Hills." Both were published by Mr. Murray, and are now, I believe, out of print. They are well worth reproducing, supplying some of the most charming writing I know, full of shrewd observation, humorous fancy, and a deep, abiding sympathy with all that is beautiful in Nature. I thought I knew Louis Jennings pretty intimately in Parliamentary and social life, but I found a new man hidden in these pages—a beautiful, sunny nature, obscured in the ordinary relations of life by a somewhat brusque ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... The scorn of Johnson and the sneers of Foote would not have saved him from oblivion; he owes his unlovely notoriety to his assault upon Franklin, with all its disastrous consequences. Many years later, when Wedderburn was Lord Loughborough and Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, a humorous editor dedicated to him ironically a new edition of Franklin's "Rules for Reducing a Great Empire to ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... From a humorous account of a concert on board ship we gather that Dickens possessed a tenor voice. Writing to his daughter from ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... letters without feeling that they mirror the real man, refined of feeling, kindly and humorous, but not strong of courage, oppressed by obligations, and burdened by doubts of how he was to care for those he loved. With all his talent he could not command independence, and the lot of the man who earns less than it costs to ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... 'The Tourist,' head single or short serial articles of one and a half or two columns in length, signed or not signed, but always either well written or describing something new and interesting. 'Talk on 'Change' heads a column and a half of satirical or humorous notes, which are very much appreciated, and form a more leading feature of the paper than their merit warrants. The anecdotes are often new and always admirably told, but the comments are weak. 'The Theatres' contains one general critique of the newest play in Melbourne—sometimes ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... have as often to do violence to our feelings and to hide our hearts in fighting this great battle of life, and in discharging our duties and responsibilities. But the art of the actor excites reflections, sombre or grotesque, awful or humorous, which we are all familiar with. If any man were to tell me that he denied his acknowledgments to the stage, I would simply put to him one question—whether he ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... 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 ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... They conversed in humorous undertones, each in turn seeming to turn over the earth of some amusing reminiscence, so rapt, that as far as regarded their perception of it, the assembly might have been nowhere. Perhaps, consequently, they became observed ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... while the others were busy with their needle-work. To add a tinge of romance to the whole, we gave to each of our members the name of some flower as a soubriquet by which we might be known, and Lizzie Lincoln (our secretary) kept a humorous diary of the "Sayings and Doings of Flora's Sisterhood." Anna Lincoln was the presidentess of our society, and we gave her the name of Rose, because the queen of flowers seemed a fitting type of her majestic beauty. But the favorite of all ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... to discourage any attempt at humor for adult or child. Evidence, however, points to the fact that humor and amusement were not totally lacking in the issues of the press of at least one printer in Boston, John Boyle. The humorous satire produced by his press in seventeen hundred and seventy-five, called "The First Book of the American Chronicles of the Times," purported to set forth the state of political affairs during the troubles "wherein all our calamities are seen to flow from ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... no doubt that the part he had undertaken to play would be difficult. He could see its humorous side, but he had not been a prodigal; indeed he was by temperament and habit steady-going and industrious. The son of a small business man in Montreal, he had after an excellent education abandoned city life and gone west, where he had prospered by ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... the day a humorous incident occurred. A keeper appeared on the opposite bank of the river and excitedly warned the party that they were trespassing, requesting them to retire. To his amazement his demands were ignored, and the trespassers replied to his protests by singing "The Land Song," ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 14, 1920 • Various
... was not unkindly, although the speaker had thrown his lower jaw forward as if to pronounce the word "pup" with a humorous suggestion of a mastiff. Before Clarence could make up his mind if the epithet was insulting or not, the man put out his stirruped foot, and, with a gesture of invitation, ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... and sniffed luxuriously at his white carnation, the while a thin little smile played around the corners of his humorous mouth. "Ah," he murmured presently, "life's pretty sweet, ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... nothing happens in it; it is really expository and descriptive—a very clever partisan analysis of a situation, enlivened by a series of the most skilful character sketches with very decided partisan coloring. The sketches, therefore, offer an interesting contrast with the sympathetic and humorous portraits of Chaucer's 'Prolog.' Among the secrets of Dryden's success in this particular field are his intellectual coolness, his vigorous masculine power of seizing on the salient points of character, and his command of terse, biting phraseology, ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... will also remember all the wonderful adventures and the rollicking fun set forth in the second volume, under the title of "The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip." In this book, bristling with adventures, and made lighter, in spots, by accounts of humorous doings, was told how the boys gained fame as submarine experts. It was their fine, loyal work that interested the United States government in buying that ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... out in another room, into which the company were conducted; and there many strangely-formed creatures were exhibited, and little scenes represented, to which Noah's grandson gave explanations and made speeches which were almost as humorous and witty (to be quite so was impossible) as those of Japhet, in that wonderful and exquisite book, "Noah's Ark."[12] Two other grandsons of Noah, who bore no resemblance to any acquaintance of the family, assisted ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... on any convenient object that took his fancy, such as the crown of a little boy's head, or the shoulders of a by-stander who had no business there except to taste the brew; a proceeding which would have been deemed humorous but for the air of stern rigidity which that auctioneer's face preserved, tending to show that the eccentricity was a result of that absence of mind which is engendered by the press of affairs, and no freak of ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... well-known, anthologized The South Country; another is a passage in the mainly humorous poem called Dedicatory Ode which we have quoted in another connexion; two occur in The Four Men. All of them deal with places and country, they are all by way of being melancholy and express the quite human sadness that goes normally with ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... characterized here and there by a wealth of humor that has not been sufficiently noticed in the critical works on Sextus. Of all the authors who have reviewed Sextus, Brochard is the only one who seems to have understood and appreciated his humorous side. ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... Chicago merchant the air of a New England worthy. And Alexander, in contrast with his brother-in-law, had knotty hands and a tanned complexion that years of "inside business" had not sufficed to smooth. The little habit of kneading the palm which you felt when he shook hands, and the broad, humorous smile, had not changed as the years passed him on from success to success. Mrs. Hitchcock still slurred the present participle and indulged in other idiomatic freedoms that endeared her to Sommers. These two, plainly, were not of ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... exhibited itself more vehemently in Paris. I then related to him several anecdotes and couplets of songs, in corroboration of this. Such light passages entertained and pleased him, as men are gratified with humorous recitals, who have no ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... wasn't a guard, I'm sure. If he was guarding something, he wouldn't have ridden off and left us there. And there wasn't anything personal in it, because he waved at me like an old pal. It was a kind of humorous wave. ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... treason, mademoiselle, and no heresy or schism." I am not quite sure what he meant. I dare hardly think he had Captain Moray in his mind. I would not for the world so lessen my good opinion of him as to think him suspicious of me when no other dare; and so I put his words down to chance hitting, to a humorous fancy. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... yet a living soul which here Seemed brighter for the growth of numbered springs And clothed by Time and Pain with goodlier things Each year it saw fulfilled a fresh fleet year, Death can have changed not aught that made it dear; Half humorous goodness, grave-eyed mirth on wings Bright-balanced, blither-voiced than quiring strings; Most radiant patience, crowned with conquering cheer; A spirit inviolable that smiled and sang By might of nature and heroic need More sweet and strong than loftiest dream ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the "Trip through Ceylon" could not be gainsaid, and the humorous film caused much laughter, and boisterous merriment. Finally the announcement was made that they were now about to be treated to a most wonderful series of pictures, showing the details of how one of the best-known companies of moving-picture ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... never saw a man change his mind more openly. He got out his best brandy, he made me throw away the cigar I was smoking, and opened a fresh box. He was a convivial-looking party, with a red moustache, and a very humorous face (not unlike Tom Emmett's), and from that moment I laid myself out to attack him on his convivial flank. But he wasn't a Rosenthall, Bunny; he had a treble-seamed, hand-sewn head, and could have drunk me under the table ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... simply wonderful; and Mr. MULCASTER, as Private Dowey, typically Scottish in his cautious reservations, was admirable. Mr. EDGAR WOOD played capably as one of our many eligible but non-combatant clergymen; and the chorus of aggressively humorous charwomen, though perhaps they had rather too much to say, said it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 • Various
... as to the exact line to take, while the kindly eyes covered him with their shrewd, humorous twinkle. "You see," Thor tried to explain, "that if she could get the idea that there's any other stand to take toward trouble than that of kicking against it, she might be in a fair way to get better. At present she's like a prisoner who dashes his head against a ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... which is one of the cosiest of our beautiful Courts of Justice. Here will be continued the scintillating contest between Sir Anthony Prius, K.C., and that rising young barrister, Mr. Terry Blee-Smart, K.C. It is more than probable that the cross-examination of the humorous butcher will continue through most of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 15, 1920 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... said the captain looking up coolly, when the yells of his crew ceased for a moment; and, with a humorous twinkle in ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... smoke-blackened pipes, some tattered song-books, and old numbers of the "Covent Garden Magazine," betrayed the tastes of the artist, and accounted for the shaking hand and the bloated form. A jovial, disorderly, vagrant dog of a painter was Tom Varney. A bachelor, of course; humorous and droll; a boon companion, and a terrible borrower. Clever enough in his calling; with pains and some method, he had easily gained subsistence and established a name; but he had one trick that soon ruined him in the business part of his profession. He took a fourth of ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... writers!—by the terms of weeks and days, And dare not from least circumstances part, But take all towns by strictest rules of art. Apollo drives those fops from his abode; And some have said that once the humorous god, Resolving all such scribblers to confound, For the short Sonnet ordered this strict bound, Set rules for the just measure and the time, The easy-running and alternate rime; But above all, those licenses denied Which in these writings the lame sense supplied, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... stammered tones, Answered in turn, in verbal nothingness; The crabbed cynic might no longer rail; Nor those of sober countenance discourse In melancholy and foreboding strains; Nor light and frivolous sons of levity On others perpetrate the humorous jest; Fathers attempted to correct their sons, Who, listening with filial reverence, Heard but unknown ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... advised that it would be better for me to go to Melbourne, as I would stand a much better chance there of getting a ship on which I might work my passage to Europe. Accordingly I proceeded to Melbourne as soon as I could, and the only noteworthy incident there was my humorous interview with the French Consul. I addressed that dignified functionary in execrable French, telling him that I was a French subject and wanted to be sent back to Europe. I bungled a great deal, and when my French failed I helped myself out ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... lavishly to lather governors, sheriffs, ladies, and a great many other people, for the purpose of gaining their support and patronage, all of which afforded me a fine opportunity of getting back at him in a humorous, and at the same time effective manner, so I shot at him in verse, which I will repeat; but to a full understanding of it, I will explain that all mining claims are measured by the number of feet the claimant owns on the ledge, and the word "feet" became synonymous ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... but some said that Smith was harder. Steelman was big and good-looking, and good-natured in his way; he was a spieler, pure and simple, but did things in humorous style. Smith was small and weedy, of the sneak variety; he had a whining tone and a cringing manner. He seemed to be always so afraid you were going to hit him that he would make you want to hit him on ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... of 1812 and in the Spanish peninsula, wrote in 1833 "Wacousta or the Prophecy," a spirited romance of Indian life. In Nova Scotia the "Sayings and Doings of Sam Slick, of Slickville"—truly a remarkable original creation in humorous literature—first appeared in a Halifax paper. The author, Judge Haliburton, also published as early as 1829 an excellent work in two volumes on the history of his native province. Small libraries and book stores could only ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... increasing, and the echoes of much laughter and talk floated towards the house. Farther down the street they were throwing flash-lights on white canvas in front of a great crowd, but so far the bulletins were only humorous quotations or patent-medicine advertisements, each to be saluted at the beginning with a cheer and at the end with a groan. He turned back to the table just as another boy bearing a despatch ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... dreamed when she first conceived a mild fancy for the pretty, smiling woman and her silent, humorous husband, that the pair were destined to decide her future—decide it in a way precisely opposite to that in which she had decided it herself. But so it ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... uncomfortable among them; but the thought of close mental or spiritual or physical contact with them put him in a panic, as one might be in a panic at the thought of contact with some Chinaman, or Eskimo. The women of the better class in ports importuned him, but he passed with a grave humorous smile and an unexpected courtesy. His friends' wives or acquaintances could get nothing out of him but a grave answer to any questions they might put, so that they characterized him as a stick. And at home in Ulster, whither he went after occasional voyages, where Robin ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... are written in a humorous vein, but the opening one, 'Eight O'Clock,' is a little tragedy in dialogue that is very touching. The book should afford a great deal of amusement for the discriminating reader who knows good work ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... with nothing but the American poetry of vivid purpose to light them up, where they did not wholly lack fire. But they were nearly all shrewd and friendly-looking, with an apparent readiness for the humorous intimacy native to us all. The women were dandified in dress, according to their means and taste, and the men differed from each other in degrees of indifference to it. To a straw-hatted population, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... afraid, Mr. Tippengray," said the nurse-maid, "that when your Greek version of the literature of to-day, especially its humorous portion, is translated into the American language of the future it will lose much of its point ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... remembered the cause of the Prince's first accident, and looked at the carburetter; but there was not so much as a speck of dust. For a while he continued to poke, and prod, and hammer, Sir Ralph offering humorous advice, and pretending to be sure that, if his housekeeper Felicite were on the spot, the car would start for her in an instant. The mystery only thickened, however, and to make matters worse the Prince, who had been proudly spinning ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Sigma Tau to undergo the ordeal. As she briskly delivered the opening lines, the actor stopped her. Taking the book from her, he turned to the part where Touchstone, quaintly humorous, holds forth upon ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... Marcellinus convicted of a baldhead's peeping, [Footnote: The phrase [Greek: phalakrou parakupseos] has a humorous ring to it, and I am inclined to believe, especially considering the situation, that Dio had in his mind while writing this the familiar proverb [Greek: honou parakupseos], a famous response given ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... only see that he was a 'Keshla' or ringed man {Endnote 1}, and that he had a great three-cornered hole in his forehead. In another second he removed his hand, revealing a powerful-looking Zulu face, with a humorous mouth, a short woolly beard, tinged with grey, and a pair of brown eyes keen as a hawk's. I knew my man at once, although I had not seen him for twelve years. 'How do you do, Umslopogaas?' ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... can be said of the German aristocracy as a whole. "Serenissimus" is to-day as frequently the subject of bitter, if often humorous, caricature in the comic press as ever he was. A few of the class, like Prince Fuerstenberg, Prince Hohenlohe, Count Henkel-Donnersmarck and some others engage successfully in commerce; many are practical farmers and have ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... hey-day, from which the sap has already been cut off. It is, indeed, the thing to disparage them for their very finest quality, the vividness with which they express the texture of Madrid, the animated humorous mordant conversation about ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... the life of the sea. He finally preferred his request directly to the king and shortly afterward was given, not the great sea monster he had been led to expect, but an insignificant looking craft called Le Duras. In compliment to Dr. Franklin's magazine of the name and in humorous comment of the ship's appearance, he renamed it the Bon Homme Richard, meaning the Poor Richard. But with the Poor Richard, as with the human form, the spirit which animated it was the controlling power; and the valor of ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... or its setting, with qualities amusing in themselves, quite apart from any relation to the point. Precise instruction cannot be given, but concentration along this line will of itself develop the humorous perception of the story-teller, so that, though the task may appear too difficult in prospect, it will not prove so in actual experience. But, in every instance, care must be exercised to keep the point of the story ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... humorous epilogue, farce, and buffoonery, after the mind has been agitated, softened, or sublimed by tragic scenes, has been often ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... out-of-the-way villages, where other teachers would not go. "He needed no interpreter as he passed from village to village; the frugal long-headed Northumbrians listened willingly to one who was himself a peasant of the Lowlands and who had caught the rough Northumbrian burr. His patience, his humorous good sense, the sweetness of his look, told for him, and not less the vigorous frame which fitted the peasant-preacher for the hard life ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Carlisle - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. King Eley
... 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 on the very top of his head. In fact Mr. Dundee's ...
— The Native Son • Inez Haynes Irwin
... and Mrs. Ch'in, the wife of Mr. Chia Jung, the two sisters-in-law, had, along with a number of maids, waiting-girls, and other servants, come as far as the ceremonial gate to receive them, and Mrs. Yu, upon meeting lady Feng, for a while indulged, as was her wont, in humorous remarks, after which, leading Pao-yue by the hand, they entered the drawing room and took their seats, Mrs. Ch'in ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... question is much in Heywood's humorous and satirical style: it is written in the English ballad-metre, and consists of seven seven-line stanzas, each stanza, as was not unusual with Heywood, ending with the same, or nearly the same, line. ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.22 • Various
... 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 of Canada ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... the Keltridges' became a thing of almost infinite value. Apart from the surety of the good dinner, and the cordial welcome of the pretty little hostess who, young as she was, yet understood to the full the delicate distinction between chat and chatter: apart from all this was the humorous question contained within the host. No one could ever foretell whether he would greet them on the threshold in his overcoat and goloshes, or be invisible until the dinner was announced, and then be led in by one cuff, like a guilty youngster caught among the jam pots. ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... went on in a steadier tone, "to give you some feeling of what is ahead—and to speak for your mother as well as myself. And more than that—much more than that—for the world has changed since she was here. God knows I've tried to be modern." A humorous glint came into his eyes, "Downright modern," he declared. "Have I asked you to give up your career? Not at all, I've asked you to marry Baird, and go right on with him in your work. And if you can't marry Allan Baird, after what he has done for you, how in God's ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... of jesting. His sister was grave; his father gradually sinking into dotage; Coleridge was immersed in religious subtilties and poetic dreams; and Charles Lloyd, sad and logical and analytical, was the antithesis of all that is lively and humorous. But thoughts and images stole in from other quarters; and Lamb's mind was essentially quick and productive. Nothing lay barren in it; and much of what was planted there, grew, and spread, and became beautiful. ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... the Cambridge MSS, it comes second in Milton's own hand.] And, while the two together form what may be called Milton's poetical farewell to the Divorce subject, the mood in the second, it may be noted, is more humorous than in the first. In the first Milton, still angry, clenches his fist in the face of his generation, as a generation of mere hogs and dogs, unable to appreciate any real form of the liberty for which ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... rarely beautiful; a duchess magnificent and heartless; a villain revengeful and courageous; a hero youthful, humorous, fearless and truly American;—such are the principal characters of this delightful ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... took all responsibility and proceeded most effectively in his own way. Amidon's instructions by telephone, to prepare a statement of disbursements to be made public, he regarded as one of Brassfield's jokes. His suggestion that he meant to stand on a platform of principles seemed equally humorous. To propose such ridiculous things in a perfectly serious way, and laugh at the victim's credulity in "biting" on the hoax, was quite in harmony with the relations among the members of the set to which they belonged, where practical jokes, merciless chaffing and perpetual efforts ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... an evening on which to entertain his fellow students, the entertainment consisting generally in furnishing biscuits and beer—the old, time-endorsed 'cakes and ale.' In partaking of these, smoking, relating humorous stories, chaffing each other and singing rousing songs, the evening usually passed with much bonhommie. But sometimes they were rather boisterous, or, at ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... Wodehouse went into a London bank and observed the passing parade from a high stool, but this was not quite in keeping with his tastes, and we find him next publishing a column of humorous paragraphs in the London Globe, under the head of "By the Way." Later he assumed the editorship of this department, and many of his paragraphs lived longer than the few hours' existence of most newspaper ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... young head in her arms and weep over it. A shadow had fallen on his comely youth. He looked "grumpy," as he had been accustomed to look in his darling childhood when he was about to have a croupy attack, at which times the sense of injury against all the world had been part humorous, whole poignant, ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... she decided that he had Jewish blood, and Jews were among her aversions. So, although his name was Robertson, she passed him over in favour of a tall, rather bony fair youth of about three and twenty with smooth hair and a lean, conceited humorous face. He had assurance, which she adored, and his great length made it queer to be talking to him, because she had to look high up to see his face. He always wore a light-coloured tweed suit, and a knitted tie of about ten ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... short work for the disciplined hosts the new Northern general was training, to sweep such chaff from the field of war. Vincent saw something of this in his comrade's eye, and a good deal nettled himself by the slovenly march and humorous abandon of ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... the steamer over 1600 miles, though as far as my likings go, I would as soon drive a cab in November fogs in London as be 'skipper' in this hot sun; but I shall go through with it as a duty." To his friend Mr. Young he makes humorous reference to his awkwardness in nautical language: "My great difficulty is calling out 'starboard' when I mean 'port,' and feeling crusty when I see the helmsman putting the helm ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... as he gave his breeches the true 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 idea to the surface. ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... plunged into a somewhat humorous description of his invention, his hopes, his golden dreams, his disappointments, and his chagrin. "The only admirable thing in the whole affair," he concluded, "and something that I believe never has ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... certain point,—the point where wit degenerates into mockery, and liberty into license: nature is never put to shame, and will commonly bear much more. Especially to the American sense did their humorous and comic strokes, their negro-minstrelsy and attempts at Yankee comedy, seem in a minor key. There was not enough irreverence and slang and coarse ribaldry, in the whole evening's entertainment, to have seasoned one line of some of our ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... themselves preparing their modest uniforms and pumping Dr. Gys for all sorts of information, from scratches to amputations. He gave them much practical and therefore valuable advice to guide them in whatever emergencies might arise, and this was conveyed in the whimsical, half humorous manner that seemed characteristic of him. At first Gys had shrunk involuntarily from facing this bevy of young girls, but they had so frankly ignored his physical blemishes and exhibited so true a comradeship to all concerned in the expedition, that the doctor soon ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... is described by Chaucer, as a man of the first rank in society, noble, rich, and expensively attended; he is a leader of the age, with certain humorous accompaniments in his character, that do not degrade, but render him an object of dignified mirth, but also with ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... by a few good-tempered, though somewhat humorous compliments, she thus favored them with her ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... enough about your brain, giving yourself no end of worry in this matter? Now, there must be an end to this tomfoolery. Is it a sign of insanity to notice and apprehend everything as accurately as you do? You make me almost laugh at you, I reply. To my mind it is not without its humorous side, if I am any judge of such a case. Why, it happens to every man that he once in a way sticks fast, and that, too, just with the simplest question. It is of no significance, it is often a pure accident. As I have remarked before, I am on the point ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... fairly readable English. But my profound admiration for the illustrious Hungarian romancer, and my intimate conviction that, of all continental novelists, he is most likely to appeal to healthy English taste, which has ever preferred the humorous and romantic story to the Tendenz-Roman, or novel with a purpose, have encouraged me to persevere to the end ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... as his countenance seems to indicate, he was deficient in humour, so were his contemporaries, with the sole exception of Cartwright. Witty he could be, and bitter; but he did not live in a really humorous age: and if he has none of the rollicking fun of the foxhound puppy, at least he has none of the obscene gibber ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... opportunity to kick de la Vere; yet, in some sense, he shared that redoubtable lady-killer's rebuff. He too was wondering if the social life of a Swiss hotel would permit him to seek a dance with Helen. Under existing conditions, it would provide quite a humorous episode, he told himself, to strike up a friendship with her. He could not imagine why she had adopted such an aloof attitude toward all and sundry; but it was quite evident that she declined anything in the guise ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... following it as he understood it in scorn of consequence; utterly unselfish, devoted to his friends, generous even to extravagance towards any one who had ever been connected with his fortunes or his travels; playful, light-hearted, witty, and humorous, but not without those occasional fits of black depression and nervous irritability to which ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... his volumes, and, disposing them carefully in the fireplace, set light to them. 'I wish,' he said, 'that I could put the poet there too.'" One other anecdote of the kind was often, with evident humorous appreciation, recounted by the poet. On his introduction to the Chinese Ambassador, as a "brother-poet," he asked that dignitary what kind of poetic expression he particularly affected. The great man deliberated, and then replied that his poetry might ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... Mr. Fessenden had shown symptoms of that humorous turn which afterwards so strongly marked his writings; but his first effort in verse, as he himself told me, was made during his residence at college. The themes, or exercises, of his fellow students in English composition, whether prose or rhyme, were well characterized by the lack of native ...
— Biographical Sketches - (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... little more thought, have anticipated,—conceived the notion that I meant to throw ridicule on his whole race of poetic heroes, and accordingly, as I learned from persons then in frequent intercourse with him, flew out into one of his fits of half humorous rage against me. This he now confessed himself, and, in laughing over the circumstance with me, owned that he had even gone so far as, in his first moments of wrath, to contemplate some little retaliation for this perfidious hit at ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... vent to one of those cordial and violent guffaws which are a specialty of the humorous side of the Five Towns. And he said to himself: "I should never have thought of anything as good ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... not, it must be admitted, an ideal Squire, for he was but a trifle above middle height, rather slight, and with the little stoop that tells of the man who is town-bred and by nature more given to indoor than outdoor exercises; but he was a good-looking fellow for all that, with a bright humorous face,—though at this moment rather a bored one,—large eyes set well apart, and his proper allowance of brown hair and white teeth. Altogether, it may safely be said that, not even Sir Roderick's nose could have ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... careless and sometimes irreverent behavior of young people who regarded the Shaker costumes, the solemn dances or marches, the rhythmic movements of the hands, the almost hypnotic crescendo of the singing, as a sort of humorous spectacle. I learned to know the brethren and sisters, and the Elder, as years went by, and often went to the main house to spend a day or two as the guest of Eldress Harriet, a saint, if ever there was one, or, later, with dear ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... you're not giving me any more dopes—" Then he stopped, for suddenly it all seemed wryly humorous to him. "A bunch of bloody incompetents," he said, and laughed. "This is the one thing I would never have dreamed—that a man could sleep, and wake up in a starship, and find the ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton
... 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 serene, ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... others, but bound together by special ties of adventure? An encounter with an iceberg will bring the common responsibilities and dangers to the notice of the most inveterate individualist, but even while the ship moves uneventfully forward, he, perforce, shares the feeling of oneness. There is the humorous unity which will seize the opposing parties in a court of law and make them join in laughter at some feeble judicial joke just to experience the relief of forgetting that they are there ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... less doubt, however, of your ability to get on with the Frenchman than I have with the Englishman. ... You will have difficulty—at least I should—in understanding the rather heavy, sober, non-humorous Englishman. ... He is always a self-important gentleman who regards England as having spoken pretty much the last word in all things, and who will abuse his own country, his countrymen, and institutions, frankly and with abandon, but will allow no one else this liberty. ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... Hershey introduced the speakers of the evening. Rev. G. Paul Musselman spoke briefly and was followed by the after-dinner speaker, Mr. Al Bergstrom, Superintendent of Police of Coatesville, Pa. His subject was "Nuts—I Crack Them as You Like Them," and with many interesting jokes and humorous stories he portrayed an interesting picture of the many problems that have to be met and solved by police officers. Each one privileged to hear this forceful speaker was deeply impressed with the responsibility that ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... if all his moods were sombre, and if he was never jolly sometimes like other people. Indeed he was; and although the humorous side of Hawthorne was not easily or often discoverable, yet have I seen him marvellously moved to fun, and no man laughed more heartily in his way over a good story. Wise and witty H——, in whom wisdom ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... form the very essence of poetic art. His acuteness of perception and his graceful versatility enabled him to excel in irony and in the vein of tale-telling which we find in Horace and Boccaccio, in the humorous pleasantries of love and song which are presented in Catullus and in the good popular songs of Naples, above all in the lower comedy and in farce. Italian soil gave birth in ancient times to burlesque tragedy, and in modern times to ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... learned, with such compeers, how to select and to condense from actual upper-class speech a speech that would represent the thoughts and emotions and personalities of his characters. It is far more difficult, of course, to write dialogue for upper-class people, save humorous dialogue, since, as many from Wordsworth's day on have pointed out, upper-class people do not express their thoughts and emotions as frankly as do the folk. As Mr. Yeats puts it, they look into the ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... are generally anonymous, from a lingering fear of the police. The place of printing is seldom mentioned; at least, few of the pamphlets bear the true one. The imprint, where one appears, is London, Ispahan, or Concordopolis. One humorous and distinctly libelous publication is "sold at the Islands of Saint Margaret, and distributed gratis at Paris." The pamphlet entitled "Diogenes and the Estates General" is "sold by Diogenes in ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... from the highly realistic to the purely geometric. As shown in a preceding section, plastic life forms in Chiriquian art appear to have been subject to two divergent lines of thought, the one trivial and the other serious. Through the one we have grotesque and perhaps even humorous representations of men and of animals. The figures are attached to the vessels for the purpose—perhaps for the exclusive purpose—of embellishment, and often with excellent success, as judged by our own standards ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes
... look and manner, and honest boyish voice, so unmistakably sincere, and that mild and magnificent eye, so bright and humorous still, "so like—so like!" which couldn't even see her loving, anxious face.... Thank Heaven, there was still one eye left that she could appeal to with ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... 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 ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... clearly-cut features, and the rather prominent chin, generally and mistakenly supposed to show strength of character. His pleasant, clean-shaven, slightly sunburnt face bore an expression of animation with a certain humorous anxiety natural in a man who was generally a good deal in debt and always a little in love. Further he had the advantage of a tall, strong yet supple figure, with a natural grace of movement and much personal charm. Harry knew he was good-looking and did not undervalue the fact, ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... if it were possible, have fastened on so compromising an act. Its members belonged to a higher class than those of Hardy's Society; for they included Romney the painter, Holcroft the dramatist, Horne Tooke, the humorous litterateur, and Thelwall, the ablest lecturer of the day.[276] That these men had advanced far beyond the standpoint of the Whiggish "Friends of the People," appears from a letter from one of the Norwich Radical Clubs to the London ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... the halt and oblivious of his own connection with it. The traveller was a man who looked forty-eight despite his frosted hair, and was in reality ten years older. He was tall, well beyond average height, thin, well-fashioned, with a keen kindly face, clean shaven. His mouth was humorous, and there was a certain serenity of expression and bearing that invited confidence. The boy, casting a hasty glance at him as he approached, thought him a very fine gentleman indeed: as in fact he was, in every possible meaning of ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... therefore, to convey to the public some important truths, under a humorous cover, which, without the amusement afforded by the wrapper would never ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... how I would, were dwindling rapidly. Looking back, it is easy enough to regard one's early struggles from a humorous point of view. One knows the story, it all ended happily. But at the time there is no means of telling whether one's biography is going to be comedy or tragedy. There were moments when I felt confident it was going to be the latter. Occasionally, when one is feeling ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... of Russia, with all her sins. To take the most extreme instance—Voltaire. We may question his being a philosopher at all. We may deny that he had even a tincture of formal philosophy. We may doubt much whether he had any of that human and humorous common sense, which is often a good substitute for the philosophy of the schools. We may feel against him a just and honest indignation when we remember that he dared to travestie into a foul satire the tale of his country's purest and noblest heroine; but we must ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... herself, only that he was not at that time thinking of marriage, and when his thoughts turned that way—the very day after, as it were—he met Linda Bennet and her thousands a year. But he retained a half humorous liking for this ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... quizzical little smile that Dawson gave me, nor the humorous twitch of his lips. He had contemptuously disclaimed all use of theories, yet there was more moving behind that big forehead of his than he chose to give away. Did his ideas run on parallel lines with mine; did he even ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... of the name for a novel, lest the critics might throw a doubt on the nobility. There was more of tentative humility in that which I at last adopted. The character of the girl is carried through with considerable strength, but is not attractive. The humorous characters, which are also taken from the play,—a buxom widow who with her eyes open chooses the most scampish of two selfish suitors because he is the better looking,—are well done. Mrs. Greenow, between Captain Bellfield and Mr. Cheeseacre, is ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope |
