"Comical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his room smiling, and I am sure he thought I was laughing at him; but what really amused me was being called "Mr. Marten," for I had not grown accustomed to my prefix and the sound of it was most comical to me. I am afraid my taste for jokes was very different from that of ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... coaxed, and he brought it out, slowly, still suspicious. It was an angled prism of crystal, star-shaped, set in a frame which could get the star spinning like a solidopic. But it displayed a new and comical face every time ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... favorite whim. There!—the opportunity is afforded him. Away goes a little cream-colored Meadow-Moth in the most tortuous course he is capable of, and away goes Socialis in pursuit. The contest is quite comical, though I dare say it is serious enough to the Moth. The chase continues for a few yards, when there is a sudden rushing to cover in the grass,—then a taking to wing again, when the search has become too close, and the Moth has recovered his wind. Socialis chirps angrily, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... swarthy, foreign-looking, diminutive, stiff, rather comical fellow,—little figure mostly head, little head mostly face, little face mostly nose, which was by no means little—a sort of human vegetable (to my horticultural eye) running marvellously to seed in ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... cousin of hers; her beauty, and gracious ways, her foreign accent, and now her experiences of nuns and convents had come like a revelation to the little English girl in her downright, everyday life. With a comical incongruity, she could compare her in her own mind to nothing but an enchanted princess in some fairy tale; and she stood gazing first at her and then at the glass, where soft wavy brown hair and red and white daisies ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... bargaining, and gladly mingled with it, trying to laugh and study guidebooks, and listen to half-fledged explanations, but always seeing the comedy of his poor attempts. Not all those little donkeys, bells tinkling, beads shining, trotting beneath their comical burdens to the tune of shouting and belabouring, could stem this tide of deeper things the woman had let loose in the subconscious part of him. Everywhere he saw the mysterious camels go slouching through ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... that she has told you all about it?" And he turned away from his work, and looked up into our faces with a comical expression, half of fun and half ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... Mosques and Minarets, where he was laboring. Neither the mother, nor Asenath, nor Eudora ever spoke to her of him, and so his name was never heard at Terrace Hill, unless John mentioned it, as he sometimes did, drawing comical pictures of what Anna would have been by this time ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... intended as a comical pendant to 'Tannhaeuser,' is, as we have already stated, Wagner's first and only attempt to write in the comic vein, and the text is full of witty and cutting allusions to the thick-headed critics (at whose hands Wagner had suffered ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... and I surveyed this curt announcement and the rueful face behind it, until the comical side of the affair so completely overtopped every consideration that we both burst out into a ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... to her with an amused, half-comical look, but her sincere and ready performance of the duty that had unexpectedly revealed itself rapidly changed the expression of his face to one of respect and admiration. Distinct, and yet blending with the others, her voice seemed both to key up and ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... sons, worked in the shop. It was said that he never had consoled himself for her loss, for neither in first or second marriage would she have him; but with old age his feeling for her had become a sort of comical spite, half friendly and half mischievous, and he always called out ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... representing a fast little dog upon a tasteful pedestal, used often to excite my curiosity, the more because Job showed no inclination to gratify it. I managed, however, at last to get at the incident which made Job the possessor of this comical little figure, and as the circumstance worthily illustrates his character, I will relate it as the anecdote was ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... get anybody else for to-night," said Reeser, impatiently. "Let her walk through the part, and we'll see what can be done in the morning." Then seeing Nance's indignant eyes on the director, he added with a comical twist of his big mouth, ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... Blessington made a comical grimace. "But I'm working this on commercial principles," he said. "I keep the list, names and hours complete, and Lady Astrupp gazes, in blissful ignorance as to who her victims are. The whole thing ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... his cousin, Henry of Conde; but Navarre was a boy of little more than fifteen, and his cousin was not much older. Nothing could for the present be expected from such striplings; and the public, ever ready to look upon the comical side of even the most serious matters, was not slow in nicknaming them the "admiral's two pages."[684] Coligny, however, was not crushed by the new responsibility which devolved upon him. No longer hampered by the authority of one ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... Angelus Silesius (Scheffler of Breslau), who gave to the world his devotional thoughts in German Alexandrines; Father Abraham a Sancta Clara (Megerle of Swabia), a celebrated Viennese preacher, who, with comical severity, wrote satires abounding with wit and humorous observations; and Balde, who wrote some fine Latin poems on God and nature. Praetorius, A.D. 1680, the first collector of the popular legendary ballads concerning Ruebezahl and other spirits, ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... that most of Betty's little circle began to be friends in their freshman year, when they lived off the campus at Mrs. Chapin's, and Mary Brooks, the only sophomore in the house, ruled them with an autocratic hand. Betty found Helen Adams a comical and sometimes a trying roommate. Rachel Morrison and Katherine Kittredge were also at Mrs. Chapin's, and Roberta Lewis, who adored Mary Brooks and was desperately afraid of every one else in the house, though Betty Wales guessed that ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... ended on a low whistle, while his face assumed a comical expression of dismay. He turned to the lawyer. "Did you ever ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... though comical withal, and said, cheerily, "Everybody must like what brings them their daily bread. It's a grand thing for me not to have been hungry for nearly ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... optical proof That he's prowling and growling at large in the land. Hear his pestiferous Clamour vociferous, Gurgles and groans of the beastliest brand. Some may regard his contortions as comical. But I've the proof that ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... solemn occasion. Then my Lord topped off the little end of his show with the soup and great Ministers of State. And, that nothing should be left undone, the Times must have a go in at it, which it did with one of Doctor Moseley's most spicy articles, putting the whole thing into a very comical nutshell. Quoth Sam, without the thunderer's dissecting knife a London Lord Mayor would be the most beautiful of nobodys—that is, so far as sense goes. Smooth, on the nicest observation, was decidedly of the opinion that only one thing more was wanted ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... rage. He had taken me by the arm, and said, 'Go out,' without the least anger. There was dignity, a great deal of dignity, about him, and it was so inconsistent with the look of him that, I assure you, it was quite comical. But there was no anger. Perhaps he merely began to despise me ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... popular for several centuries! What could give keener delight than comical shadow-pictures, pantomimes, entertainments, etc.? Professional shadowists use wires, forms, and various devices to aid them, and that is why they get such wonderful results on the stage. Do you want to do the same thing right in your own home and entertain your friends with ...
— How Two Boys Made Their Own Electrical Apparatus • Thomas M. (Thomas Matthew) St. John
... possibility of this proving to be a success caused the boy to smile, though he looked almost comical while so doing, because his heart still hung like ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... the hound. He was so close that I saw the hair of his shoulder bristle a little when the dog came in sight. I could see the jumping of his heart on his ribs, and the gleam of his yellow eye. When the dog was wholly baulked by the water trick it was comical to see:—he could not sit still, but rocked up and down in glee, and reared on his hind feet to get a better view of the slow-plodding hound. With mouth opened nearly to his ears, though not at all winded, he panted noisily for a moment, or rather ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... to choose frocks for Miss Lethbridge; whereupon that young lady cast such a comical glance of despair at me—a glance which I think was involuntary—that it was all I could do not to burst out laughing. I saw so well what was in her mind! And if you will believe me, O'Hagan, I volunteered to go ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... impossible to say, but judging by the excerpts used in the anonymous letters, it must have constituted a particularly piquant volume or series of volumes! Thus there was one remark about the emperor which ridiculed "his intolerable swagger." There were also some comical references to Princess Victoria of Prussia, who was jilted by the late Prince Alexander of Battenberg, on the very eve of the day appointed for the wedding, and that for the sake of a little actress. This princess has since then ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... merciless urging of the panting beasts that she comes for a Zank, a "scold," with her husband. "The old storm!" murmurs Wotan, at sight of his liege lady dismounting and coming toward him with ultramajestic gait, "the old trouble! But I must stand and face her!" The scene following has a touch of comical in its resemblance to domestic scenes among less high-born characters, as, for instance, when Fricka says, "Look me in the eye! Do not think to deceive me!" or "Do you imagine that you can deceive me, who night and day ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... made a point of shouting out, whenever Jackson said any thing with a grin; that being the sign to them that he himself thought it funny; though I heard many good jokes from others pass off without a smile; and once Jackson himself (for, to tell the truth, he sometimes had a comical way with him, that is, when his back did not ache) told a truly funny story, but with a grave face; when, not knowing how he meant it, whether for a laugh or otherwise, they all sat still, waiting what to do, and looking perplexed enough; till at last Jackson roared out ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... to find, that, far from being discouraged, she seemed highly to enjoy the dilemma. She leaned forward a little on her horse, her one gloved hand, dropping the reins on his neck, nestled carelessly in his mane, while the forefinger of the other hand rested on her lip, with a comical expression of mock anxiety, as she ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... waiter bent over him, "and ginger ale for the offspring." Eleanor giggled. It was fun to be with Uncle Jimmie in a restaurant again. He always called for something new and unexpected when he spoke of her to the waiter, and he was always what Albertina would consider "very comical" when he talked to him. "But stay," he added holding up an admonitory finger, "I think we'll give the little one eau rougie this time. Wouldn't you like eau rougie, tinted water, Eleanor, the way the French ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... that go to make up nature, a higher and more ideal key of words in which to speak of them. Ramsay and Fergusson excelled at making a popular - or shall we say vulgar? - sort of society verses, comical and prosaic, written, you would say, in taverns while a supper party waited for its laureate's word; but on the appearance of Burns, this coarse and laughing literature was touched to finer issues, and learned gravity of thought and ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was comical as well as tragical. Just as Jerry said, each of the late inmates of the overturned bullboat, after being buffeted about furiously for several minutes, had succeeded in wildly scrambling on to an ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... and the other consisted chiefly in the fact that the other was on four wheels. This coach, of comical construction, called the "four-wheel-coach," held seventeen travellers, though it was bound not to carry more than fourteen. It rumbled so noisily that the inhabitants of Isle-Adam frequently said, "Here comes Pierrotin!" when he was scarcely out of the forest which crowns the ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... taken his hat when there came a knock on the door leading into the little waiting room. He hung his hat back in the closet, and dropped into his chair again with a comical expression of resignation on his face. But his voice was cheerful, when he ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... to which this slow elderly widower aspired. But Simon Burney, with that odd, all-pervading constraint still prominently apparent, mildly observed, "Waal, ez much ez I hev seen of her goin's-on, it 'pears ter me az her way air a mighty good way. An' it ain't comical that she likes it." . . . . . . . The song grew momentarily more distinct: among the leaves there were fugitive glimpses of blue and white, and at last Clarsie appeared, walking lightly along the log, clad in her checked homespun dress, and with a ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... Giorgione, painted the fairy tale of St. George, with quite the most dreadful dragon's walk, a piece of sea sand embedded with bones and half-gnawed limbs, and crawled over by horrid insects, that any one could wish to see; and quite the most comical dragon, particularly when led out for execution among the minarets and cupolas and camels and turbans and symbols of ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... awful vision so perilously close before them, and the natural uncertainty which attended such a reckless venture, Waldo could not repress a chuckle at that comical conclusion, so frequently used towards himself when their uncle was coaxing them to pose before ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... girl from her hold, and laid her in the cot, making a little murmuring sound; and boasted how she would have shown off if awake, and laughed over her droll little jealousies of his even touching the twins. As she was asleep, he might venture; and it was comical to hear him declaring that no one need mistake them for each other, and to see him trying to lay them side by side on his knees to be compared, when they would roll over, and interlace their little scratching fingers; ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... giving utterance to real laughter. It really did sound comical for that apparently slender dude to threaten to ...
— Cad Metti, The Female Detective Strategist - Dudie Dunne Again in the Field • Harlan Page Halsey
... Mrs Rose, with a comical little grimace, "but indeed I did think, when we were set at rest from the Queen Mary and her burnings, that we could have lived at peace the ones ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... returned was most comical. The Indian legend is true as gospel to squirrel nature. If he returned unexpectedly and caught one of the intruders, there was always a furious chase and a deal of scolding and squirrel jabber before peace was ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... men and say they are the wisest, just because they are the strongest?' she cried, looking fiercely at her cousin, who came stalking up with a provoking smile on the boyish face that was always very comical atop of ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... declared MacPhairrson, when he and the Boy were done laughing. "Ananias-an'-Sapphira won't hurt him. She likes all the critters she kin bully an' skeer. An' Stumpy an' that comical cuss of a Ebenezer, they be goin' to ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... wordly wisdom in the babyish face was at once so comical and so reassuring that irresistibly Max laughed too; and at the laugh, the little Jacqueline dropped to her knees beside the dressing-table ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... it is also comical, to read of her domestic battles and defeats. She put infinite wit and talent into her descriptions of them in her letters to her friends, and the whole world has read them with smiles and tears; but they were not ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... hair is smooth, they plaster it with grease and arrange it in curls. Then inserting in the middle a tuft of grass, they raise a strange and comical superstructure, surmounted by a few cockatoo feathers; or failing these, they fasten on, with the aid of a resinous gum, a few human teeth, or some bits of bone, a dog's tail, or one or two fish bones. Although the practice of tattooing is not much in favour ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... the odor from the skunk more lingering; the sweep of the buzzard in the air more majestical; the wariness of the wild turkey brighter; the bark of the prairie dog lighter; the guesses of the armadillo more comical; the upward dartings and dippings of the scissortail more lovely; the flight of the sandhill ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... Henker!" growled Peter, with a comical grimace. "Was fuer a casuist! What a swindler you'd make! I wonder you have the face to deny the debt. Well, and how did you leave Frau Sauer-Kraut?" he said, deeming it prudent to ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... comical pair, finding them infinitely diverting; and was only brought back to his immediate duty by the insistence of the small messenger, ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... it, which he proposed to do, and Pope most unreasonably attributed this advice to jealousy. In 1714 the delightful poem appeared in its present form with the machinery of sylphs and gnomes adopted from the mysteries of the Rosicrucians. Pope styles it an heroi-comical poem, and judged in the light of a burlesque it is conceived and executed with an art that is beyond praise. Lord Petre, a Roman Catholic peer, had cut off a lock of Miss Arabella Fermor's hair, much to the indignation of her family and possibly of the ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... was the best she could do for him under the circumstances," Cairy remarked philosophically. "But the child must be a bore." He laughed at the comical situation. ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... heartily at this comical conscientiousness, and after dressing, he went about his official business with as much dispatch as possible in order to arrive at the play at seven o'clock sharp, for he was now the whole public and the public ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... comical place!" Nettie exclaimed, as they glided along through "canal streets" to the hotel. "Mamma, if our streets were like these, wouldn't you fret for our precious necks every time we looked out of a window? And ...
— Eric - or, Under the Sea • Mrs. S. B. C. Samuels
... are, doggy! Good old Toby! Smell it, Toby, smell it!" He pushed the creasote handkerchief under the dog's nose, while the creature stood with its fluffy legs separated, and with a most comical cock to its head, like a connoisseur sniffing the bouquet of a famous vintage. Holmes then threw the handkerchief to a distance, fastened a stout cord to the mongrel's collar, and led him to the foot of the water-barrel. The creature ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... exclamation was made by the comical looking old man, who had entered the "Pig Pen" unperceived, and had been seated in the corner unnoticed by any of the company. He had arisen from his seat, and stood in an attitude which betokened profound interest and great astonishment. For a moment the whole ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... that I was burying a rabbit, ran his fingers through his upright, bristling hair and for a long time was silent. And as I looked at him I fancied that he was trying to think of something to say, something to lead my mind away from what he had already said. I had seen the quaint, half-comical side of his nature, and now I saw that he could be thoughtful, and in his serious mood his face was strong and rugged. His beard, cropped close, reminded me of scraps of wire, some of them rusted; and when he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand I wondered ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... lit the lamp in the sala, and the light streamed across the patio where the night moths fluttered about the white oleanders. He smiled in comical self-derision as he noticed the moths, but tossed away the ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... he was actually face to face with the problem of answering Mary's letter in ten words the youth's hand refused to write, and he stood looking at the yellow slip of paper with an intensity that was comical to the clerk. Plainly this cowboy was ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... corrugated iron blinds of the shops are pulled down; all the carriages have disappeared; the only sign of life in the Escolta is the comical little tram-car, loaded down with little brown men dressed in white, the driver tooting a toy horn, and all the passengers dismounting to assist ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... furious at being disturbed, yet with an uneasy air, half comical, half ashamed, as of being—caught. He took on a truculent, aggressive attitude, as though he knew he would have to explain himself and did not want to do so. He turned and ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... energetically, clapping their hands, stamping their feet, and rocking their bodies to and fro. These are the musicians, to whose performance the shouters keep perfect time. The grown people on this plantation did not shout, but they do on some of the other plantations. It is very comical to see little children, not more than three or four years old, entering into the performance with all their might. But the shouting of the grown people is rather solemn and impressive than otherwise. We ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... clap-trap books exciting astonishment 'in the minds of foolish persons,' the evident halting at the word 'fools,' and the smoothing of his hair, as if he must be decorous, which preceded the change to 'foolish persons,' were exceedingly comical. As for the flaming bursts, they took shape in grand tones, whose impression was made deeper, not by raising, but by lowering the voice. Your correspondent here declares that he should hold it worth his coming all the way from London in the rain in the Sunday night train were ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... the Stage without one Comical Scene or Action whereon such Cruelties have been lively personated, give me leave to acquaint you with a Comical piece of Grammatical Learning in a Reverend Religioso of these parts, sent thither to convert ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... and Pellicanus, to conceal his own emotion, looked at him with a comical grimace, and then said very kindly, though not without a feeling of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... establishes inefficiency, and a practical certainty of defeat had all her ironwork held; for the "Peacock," though only three months commissioned, was a good ship under a thoroughly capable and attentive captain. A comical remark of James in connection with this engagement illustrates the weakness of prepossession, in all matters relating to Americans, which in him was joined to a painstaking accuracy in ascertaining and stating external facts. "Two well-directed shot," he says, disabled the "Peacock's" ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... said, addressing the public, "through our inadvertency there has arisen a comical misunderstanding which has been removed; but I've hopefully undertaken to do something at the earnest and most respectful request of one of our local poets. Deeply touched by the humane and lofty object... in 'spite of his appearance... the object which has brought ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... stopping ever and anon, as if to laugh the more heartily, "stab my vitals, but you are a comical quiz. I wonder what the women would say, if they saw the dashing Edward Pepper, Esquire, walking arm in arm with thee at Ranelagh or Vauxhall! Nay, man, never be downcast; if I laugh at thee, it is only to make thee look a little merrier ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... good. The sausage (saucisson de Lyon) also appears to have borne the journey well, but has not yet been tasted, so the next letter from Todmorden must give the opinion upon it, but it certainly looks to me a most comical affair; and to tell last the only disagreeable thing, it is about the peaches, which were all in a dreadful mess, and quite mixed up with the bran and scarcely fit to touch, though Aunt Susan did take out one or two to see the extent of the decay. How very provoking ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... buttons up Policeman Rat-it-all's uniform, an' that if the wind should shift of a sudden and catch you with your eyes bulgin' out of your head like they'm doin' at this moment, happen 'twill fix you up comical for life: an' then instead of your growin' up apprenticed to a butcher, as has been your constant dream, we'll have to put you into a travellin' show for a gogglin' May-game, an' that's where your heart will be turnin' ever, far from the Old ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... medley of vanity, ignorance, malice, and fanaticism. At first it provoked our indignation, by the boldness and effrontery of its pretensions; but their very extravagance soon began to render them comical. It claims to originate views which are to overturn 'long received doctrines, national prejudices, stereotyped delusions,' &c., while any tolerable scholar in this department is perfectly familiar with them all in the works of Virey, Courtet, Bory de ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... fancy her cradle-song humming in my own Old Indian ear as I am falling asleep—although many a long year has passed since I heard it in reality, and many a long league is now between me and the land of the dear, good, black, comical, kindly ayah. Let me try whether I cannot render it, even loosely, in our own strong Anglo-Saxon tongue, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... sinking funds. What a burden capital must be to those anxious to find safe investments at high rates of interest! It looks as if interest will sink to freezing point, and capital will have to flow to other planets if that comical claim for "wages of abstinence" is to be met any longer. Perhaps it will flow to Mars, the home in exile of the old political economy. Already a beginning has been made by investments in mines which are not ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... such a fool," apologised the penitent Jack, "but the vision of the immaculate Mr. Stepney gathering wild flowers in a top hat and a morning suit certainly did appeal to me as being comical!" ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... the Restoration. He bought his knighthood to enable him to marry a rich widow who required a title, and died of a broken neck, by tumbling down-stairs when he was drunk and lighting guests to their apartments. His three comedies, 'The Comical Revenge,' 'She Would if she Could,' and 'The Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter,' excellent embodiments of the court humour of his time, were collected and printed in 8vo in 1704, and reprinted, with addition of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... don't know whether a giant ever worked with it," the policeman said, with a comical smile; "anyhow, that's what they call the needle. It's come a long way to England, and belonged to a lady called Mrs. Cleopatra. What she did with it isn't exactly known; but I reckon she didn't make her ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... of times with all sorts of variations. He had described to them how Halil had slain Ali Kermesh with a single blow of his fist, and how the latter's jaw had suddenly fallen and collapsed into a corner, all of which had seemed very comical ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... to vex, but nothing to threaten—nothing. It's all that comical dream—curse it! What tricks the brain plays us! 'Tis fair it should though. We work it while we please, and it plays when it may. The slave has his saturnalia, and flouts his tyrant. Ha, ha! 'tis time these follies were ended. I've something to ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... an unrivalled feat of art even in these last chapters neither to lose the light comical touch, nor to lapse into undisguised profanation. It was only feasible by veritable dancing on the tight-rope of sophistry. In the Moria Erasmus is all the time hovering on the brink of profound truths. But what a boon it was—still granted to ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... muttered, "I'll hev ter gin up the notion o' gittin' that comical young owel, what I hev done set my heart onto. 'Kase ef I war ter fool round Old Daddy's Window, now, whilst I war a-cotchin' o' the ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... comical. Even her aigg acted different from anybody else's." He paused, and looked across the wide, mellowing plain with the expression of easy-going gravity so common with him. Then he looked at Em'ly in the tree and the ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... manners has fallen into disrepute. Sir Charles Grandison is a comical rather than a courtly figure to this generation; and the man whose manners may be described as Grandisonian is usually called a pompous and grandiloquent old prig. Certainly the elaborately dressed gentleman speaking to a lady only with polished courtesy of phrase, ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... sure I wasn't thus more interested in the pulse of our party, under my tiny recording thumb, than in the beat of the drama and the shock of its opposed forces—vivid and touching as the contrast was then found for instance between the tragi-comical Topsy, the slave-girl clad in a pinafore of sackcloth and destined to become for Anglo-Saxon millions the type of the absolute in the artless, and her little mistress the blonde Eva, a figure rather in the Kenwigs tradition of pantalettes and pigtails, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... the shop-sign of the tobacconists. Besides being ruthlessly caricatured, he is usually pictured with a scowl, his lidless eyes as wide open as those upon a Chinese junk-prow or an Egyptian coffin-lid. Often even, he has a pipe in his mouth—a comical anachronism, suggestive to the smoker of the dark ages that knew no tobacco, before nicotine made the whole world of savage and of civilized kin. Legless dolls and snow-men are named after this foreigner, whose name is associated almost ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... high-heeled "mules" at best, was always a dangerous performance—their laughter and gayety continued in undiminished exuberance. Madame de Sevigne's keen sense of humor found so many things to ridicule. Could anything, for example, be more comical than the spectacle they presented as they walked, in state, with their long trains and high-heeled slippers, up these absurd little turret steps, feeling their way as carefully as if they were each a pickpocket or an assassin? The long line behind ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... and friendly ways. They shoulder responsibility; they do not flirt; they sort out cranks; they flee from simpers; they put down presumption. If married, they laugh heartily with their wives over any letter or episode that is comical or sentimental. If not married, they get out of things the best way they know how, with a sort of plain, manly directness. If a minister would arrogate to himself his free-born privilege of being a thorough-going man, many ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... of some of the better-class children used to come out with a comical assumption of superiority and dignity and compel their children to leave off playing with Frankie and some other poorly dressed children who used to play in that street. These females were usually overdressed and wore a lot of jewellery. Most of them ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... Shakspeare; clear and prompt, he might have stood up against Dr Johnson in close and peremptory argument; fertile and copious, he might have rivalled Burke in amplitude of declamation; while his opulent imagination and powers of comical description invest all that he utters, either with a picturesque mildness or a graphic quaintness peculiarly his own." These remarks, applicable to the Shepherd of the "Noctes," would, indeed, be much overstrained if applied to their prototype; yet it is equally certain that the leading ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... to let the facetious author have his own say on the comical contents of this very comical little work, by merely running over a few of the head and tail pieces of the several pages. We think with Mr. Hood, that "In the Christmas Holidays, or rather, Holly Days, according to one ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 402, Supplementary Number (1829) • Various
... few ponies and mounted on these they undertook to conduct the settlers to their destination. The caravan was grotesquely comical as it departed southward. The Indians upon their "Shaganappi ponies," as they are called, like mounted guards protecting the men, women and children of the Colony who trudged wearily on foot. The Indians were kind to their charge, but the Redman loves a joke, and often ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... so frightened in my life. And there was a snake song, a soft, wavy, piano, pianissimo effect, all malignant stealth and horror, and running through it were the guileless and insistently hungry twitterings of baby birds in the nest. But there were comical pieces, too, in which ludicrous adventures befell unsophisticated monkeys; and there was a whole series of spring-fever songs—some of them just rotten and nervous, and some of them sad and yearning—and ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... Compassion—judiciousness—something correctly measured. None of your dishevelled sentiment. And right! You must confess that nothing could have been more right. I had a mind to shout "Brava! Brava!" but I did not do that. I took a piece of cake and went out to bribe the Fyne dog into some sort of self-control. His sharp comical yapping was unbearable, like stabs through one's brain, and Fyne's deeply modulated remonstrances abashed the vivacious animal no more than the deep, patient murmur of the sea abashes a nigger minstrel on a popular beach. Fyne was beginning to swear at him in low, ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... like a third distinct regiment, wormed and twisted through the water like Archimedean screws, the quivering Wriggle-tails; followed in turn by the rank and file of the Trigger-fish—so called from their quaint dorsal fins being set in their backs with a comical curve, as if at half-cock. Far astern the rear was brought up by endless battalions of Yellow- backs, right ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... semi-nude barbarian of last night. I lost my presence of mind, and in my embarrassment would have left the room. But he held out his hand, saying, "Good morning, sir! Take a seat, sir!" which I did somewhat shyly, but not without a smile for his comical "sir." I spied a number of young girls peeping at us from behind curtains, while the male attendants, among whom were his younger brothers, nephews, and cousins, crouched in the antechamber on all fours. ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... answered laconically, but a strangely genial, half comical little smile was twitching at the corners of her ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... said nothing, but with a half-comical, half-displeased expression he watched the interview between that weird old woman and the fair young girl, little suspecting ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... enraged, but the recollection of the thick Dutchman in white trousers wide at the hips and narrow at the ankles, with his shoulder-straps and black bullet head, glaring at her in the light of the lamps, was so repulsively comical that she could not help a smiling grimace. Then she became anxious. The absurdities of three men were forcing this anxiety upon her: Jasper's impetuosity, her father's fears, Heemskirk's infatuation. She was very tender to the ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... looking into each with some concern. When he came to my door, he asked if I had sent a telegram to Estafetta. I told him I had. He then informed me that Estafetta had not received it. But the train was already beginning to move, so there was no further chance to get information. The comical part of the matter was that "Estafetta" merely means a post or postman, and that the directions, as Struve had given them, were to have the dispatch sent by postman from ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... kept herself from making one single fuss; and in return, he gathered wild strawberries for her, showed her a kingfisher, and took her to look in at a very grand aquarium in the fishing-tackle maker's window, where she saw some gold-fish, and a most comical little newt. And going home, they had a real good talk about their father's voyage, and how they should get on without him; and Bessie found to her great pleasure, that Sam hoped Miss Fosbrook would stay when ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a triumph more. Old-timers and young fellows alike were joining in the snake dance. Old Jerry, the janitor, was there prancing about in a comical, stiff-legged way; Mr. Stevens and half the faculty were there and every member of the school, while mothers, sisters and friends looked down from the stands and wished that they too might ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... |fine performance of the part of Mrs. | |Bayle, a "smart," good woman, and Miss | |Ruth Shepley is excellent in byplay and | |flutter as a silly, good woman. | | | | Cyril Scott is graceful and vigorous as | |a philandering husband, Dallas Anderson | |comical as a London clubman with a keener | |relish in life than he is willing to | |betray, and William McVey wise, paternal | |and weighty in that kind of a part. | | | | "The Best People" is a pleasant ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... 69: Part of them boils.—Ver. 645-6. Clarke gives this comical translation: 'Then part of them bounces about in hollow kettles; part hisses upon spits; the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... is why I selected this time to bring you here," declared Uncle John, with a comical wink. "I ordered the eruption before I left home, and I must say they've been very prompt about it, and done the thing up brown. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... a band of foragers, no doubt. But what are we going to do about it?" Hugh was nonplussed. The brown backs and bobbing heads still stretched before them in almost comical humbleness. ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... thorny Sorcerer in his chair of state, and when the Wizard saw him he began to laugh, uttering comical ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... Uncle Remus sharpen his shoe-knife. The old man's head moved in sympathy with his hands, and he mumbled fragments of a song. Occasionally he would feel of the edge of the blade with his thumb, and then begin to sharpen it again. The comical appearance of the venerable darkey finally had its effect upon the child, for suddenly he broke into a hearty peal of laughter; whereupon Uncle Remus stopped shaking his head and singing his mumbly-song, and assumed a very dignified attitude. ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... as an "insult to his rights, good sense, justice, and majesty!"[13] Pius IX. took offence at it; the Cardinals made a joke of it. This determination, this prudence, this justice, on the part of a man who held them all in his hand, appeared to them immeasurably comical. They still laugh at it. Don't name M. Edgar Ney before them, or you'll make them ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... was the desire of honour, the spirit of generous enterprise, or even the love of notoriety. By the first of these motives Pietro della Valle (the most romantic in his adventures of all true travellers) was led abroad, the latter spring set in motion my comical countryman, Tom Coriat, who by the engraver's help has represented himself at one time in full dress, making a leg to a courtesan at Venice, and at another dropping from his rags the all-too lively ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... I'm all in the dark, you see. This thing acts just like a Chinese puzzle. They're simple enough when you know how to fit the pieces together, and you wonder why they ever stumped you. But until you do guess them—" He stopped, with a comical shrug of his shoulders to indicate his helplessness and his bewilderment, and ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the Farm - Or, Bessie King's New Chum • Jane L. Stewart
... like all the best of Hood's puns. To the ear it is perfect, but so soon as you attempt to realize it to yourself, the mind is involved in an inextricable confusion of comical non sequiturs. And yet observe the gravity with which the forms of reason are kept up in the "and so." Like this is the ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... A comical charade is a performance representing the word "imitation." The spectators are informed that the charade about to be performed can be exhibited to only one person at a time. One person is accordingly admitted into the room in which the actors ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... sent to Stella during the four last years of the Queen, is a fund of entertainment. You will see his insolence in full colours, and, at the same time, how daily vain he was of being noticed by the ministers he affected to treat arrogantly. His panic, at the Mohocks is comical; but what strikes one, is bringing before one's eyes the incidents of a curious period. He goes to the rehearsal of Cato, and says the drab that acted Cato's daughter could not say her part. This was only Mrs. Oldfield. I was saying before George Selwyn, that ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... got safely home; and Master Arthur gave such a comical account of their adventure, that the Rector laughed too much to scold them, ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... held the heavy drapery aside until I had glided into the room. He then drew it briskly across the doorway and followed me to an ebony cabinet before which I had stood to look at a comical crockery pug that lay on one of its tiny shelves. He glanced over my shoulder at my interesting distraction, and was silent for a moment. I could feel his breath upon my hair and ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... of his readers and reviewers, neither of whom, with the exception of men like Sterling, and a writer in one of the Quarterlies, seemed to know what they were talking about when they spoke of it. The criticisms upon it were exceedingly comical in many instances, and the author put the most notable of these together, and always alluded to them with roars of laughter. The book has never yet received justice at the hands of any literary tribunal. It requires, indeed, a large ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... scene is shifted back to the farm and to dear old Putnam Hall, with their many pleasant associations. As before, Sam, Tom and Dick are to the front, along with several of their friends, and there are a number of adventures, some comical and some strange and mystifying. At the school the rivalries are as keen as ever, but the Rover boys are on their mettle, and prove their worth on ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... stepped into the kitchen without one kind feeling advancing to greet her. Biddy's warm Irish heart was completely closed against her, and Ike, the saucy rogue, pursed up his thick lips in a most comical manner when she appeared. But how my heart smote me when I first looked at the pale, care-worn, sad-looking creature. She was not pretty—her face bore the marks of early care and trial. She might have been well-favored in girlhood, but ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... The Bear; how comical! Instead of the lion lying down with the lamb, in Rhodesia you have The Kid ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... chuckled and shook with amusement; nor could they be blamed for giving way to this feeling, since the spectacle that met their gaze was comical enough to excite laughter on ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... consider them merely as realistic fiction, apart from their author, or as studies of that middle world of which he is naturally and voluntarily a citizen. We had known the nethermost world of the grotesque and comical negro and the terrible and tragic negro through the white observer on the outside, and black character in its lyrical moods we had known from such an inside witness as Mr. Paul Dunbar; but it had remained for Mr. Chesnutt to acquaint us with those regions where the paler shades dwell as hopelessly, ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... makes fun of persons who are somewhat above the lower classes in rank. I have mentioned those on whom he bestows comical names. He indulges in humor also at the expense of the two Scottish captains, Jamy and Macmorris, and the honest Welsh captain, Fluellen (Henry V., Act 3, Sc. 2 et passim), and shall we forget ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... permits no trace of a smile to illumine his face. Without looking right or left, the "Doctor" walks northward, raising his hat as he passes the caged and cheering crowd in Palace Yard. With the same grave countenance, not moved in the slightest degree by the comical effect of the big men in the crowd at his heels waving their hats over his head, the "Doctor" crosses Bridge Street, and walks into Parliament Street, as far as the Treasury, where a cab is waiting. Into this he gets with much deliberation, ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... With a comical expression of resignation, the young girl allowed herself to be led away, while Helen and Mrs. Brewster-Curtis took seats ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... on the savage face was almost comical, and before Tarzan could unsling his bow the fellow had turned and fled down the path crying out in alarm as ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs |
