"Droll" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... first look at me? Who put it on, and why was I so frightened that the sight of it is an era in my life? It is not a hideous visage in itself; it is even meant to be droll, why then were its stolid features so intolerable? Surely not because it hid the wearer's face. An apron would have done as much; and though I should have preferred even the apron away, it would not have been absolutely insupportable, like the mask. Was it the immovability of the mask? The ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... Eagle told Katarina and Marie. Holding their hands, she walked between them toward me, and bade them notice my height. "I am his Cloud-Mother," she said. "How droll it is that parents grow down little, while their children grow ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... can say is, good luck to you both. And please, mayn't I be the best man?" he added, with a droll accent that brought an involuntary smile to Ashby's face. "But go on. Who is the charmer? and where is ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... carts; "Babul the thief," the natives called this acacia. Higher up a torch-wood tree gleamed as if sprayed with gold, its limbs, lean and bare of foliage, holding at their extremities in wisp-like fingers bright, yellow, solitary blooms. From a tendu tree a pair of droll little brown monkeys chattered and grimaced ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... were all tarnished with ashes and soot; A bundle of toys he had flung on his back, And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack. His eyes how they twinkled; his dimples how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry; His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow. The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath. He had a broad face and ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... how that finally came about, and it might have come so much earlier if you had made your first visit with the same brigand determination as your second. And you brought Jack with you! How droll you two looked that day as you stood upon our narrow door-sill awaiting your welcome! There was no accent of paternity in your expression to justify poor little Jack's presence. The relationship between you ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... Perhaps the author of the world Is something like me, A little grotesque, A little whimsical, Serious often, Sometimes all the more serious Seen through a Fool's words With cap and jingle of bells. In this droll world There are lots of children Who are the children of fools— Like me. Good people! I bespeak your patience With Everychild Daughter ...
— The Flutter of the Goldleaf; and Other Plays • Olive Tilford Dargan and Frederick Peterson
... Dunlees took their seats to-night and looked around the room they saw a droll sight. The old lady, who had been knitting on the veranda, was seated at a small table in one corner; and on each side of her in a chair sat a cat! One cat was a gray "coon," the other an Angora; and both of them sat up ...
— Jimmy, Lucy, and All • Sophie May
... the death of Higginbottom for his own verses. But Thackeray's Novels by Eminent Hands are superior even to the Rejected Addresses. Codlingsby, the parody of Disraeli's Coningsby, may be taken as the most effective parody in our language: intensely droll in itself, it reproduces the absurdities, the affectations, the oriental imagination of Disraeli with inimitable wit. Those ten pages of irrepressible fooling are enough to destroy Disraeli's reputation as a serious romancer. No doubt they have unfairly reacted so as to dim ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... at the breakfast table which resulted in his remaining at the lights, but then he was not entirely serious. He was, of course, grateful for the kindness shown him by the odd longshoreman and enjoyed the latter's society and droll remarks as he would have enjoyed anything out of the ordinary and quaintly amusing. But now he really liked the man. Seth Atkins was a countryman, and a marked contrast to any individual Brown had ever met, but he was far from being a fool. He possessed a fund of dry common sense, and his ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... only traces of the old custom of going a-Maying were the garlands of the milk-maids and the Jack-in-the-green of the sweeps. The garland (so called) was made of silver plate, borrowed for the day, and fastened upon a sort of pyramid. Accompanying this droll garland were the maids themselves in gay dress, with ribbons and flowers, and attended by musicians who played for them to dance in the street. Sometimes a cow was dressed in festive array, with bouquets and ribbons on her horns, neck and tail, and over her back ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... the matter with you?' asked Zoulvisia. And the maid answered that she was thinking of a droll adventure told them the evening before ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... all pigeons have a tendency to do this at times, but in the Pouter it is carried to an enormous extent. The birds appear to be quite proud of their power of swelling and puffing themselves out in this way; and I think it is about as droll a sight as you can well see to look at a cage full of these pigeons puffing and blowing themselves out in ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... another, the latter instantly says I cry halves, and if the first refuse he is instantly threatened with an information. The manner in which they cheat each other has, with all its infamy, occasionally something extremely droll and ludicrous. I was one day in the shop of a Swiri, or Jew of Mogadore, when a Jew from Gibraltar entered, with a Portuguese female, who held in her hand a mantle, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... he, "I'm afraid I shall have to postpone my millennium of fagging. But I don't know what else will make men of you. And mark you, my merry men, there's more than one kind of fagging;" and he looked in a droll way—a droll way that was not in the least funny, but made the boys all wonder what Abel Newt was up ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... stories, crazy stories and stories written far into the future, as "Brigands of the Moon." These stories make light of the vast distances of space and are too weird, droll and fail to give a single shiver down my old backbone. They are strange and inhabited by strange people. No story can give the faintest idea of the space between those mighty suns of the universe. Most of them have more imagination than scientific ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... such no doubt it was) had now descended to within a hundred feet of the earth, allowing the crowd below a sufficiently distinct view of the person of its occupant. This was in truth a very droll little somebody. He could not have been more than two feet in height; but this altitude, little as it was, would have been sufficient to destroy his equilibrium, and tilt him over the edge of his tiny ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... burdens and poor health he was always in good spirits. "At breakfast and at luncheon, and also at our family dinners, he sat at the top of the table, and kept us all enlivened by his interesting conversation, by his charming anecdotes, and droll stories without end of his childhood, of people at Coburg, of our good people in Scotland, which he would repeat with a wonderful power of mimicry, and at which he would himself laugh most heartily. Then he would at other times entertain us with his talk about the most interesting ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... "we are doing The Bells. Mr. IRVING has kindly leased it to us. But we are not adhering too slavishly to the plot, nor does he wish us to; and, in fact, we have turned the part made so famous by Mr. IRVING'S father into something a shade more droll, to suit Mr. LESLIE HENSON, than whom, I take the liberty of thinking,"—here the young officer saluted—"no funnier comedian now walks the boards. We are also changing the title from The Bells ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 2, 1917 • Various
... the bank of a frog-pond, we tickled frogs with straws. Yes, and fun of the freshest we found it. Certain animals, and especially frogs, were created, shaped, and educated to do the grotesque, that men might study them, laugh, and grow fat. It was a droll moment with Nature, when she entertained herself and prepared entertainment for us by devising the frog, that burlesque of bird, beast, and man, and taught him how to move and how to speak and sing. Iglesias and I did not disdain batrachian ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... and the perfumers will be base enough to decline your paper," said Lousteau. "Stop, there is a superb engraving in the top drawer of the chest there, worth eighty francs, proof before letters and after letterpress, for I have written a pretty droll article upon it. There was something to lay hold of in Hippocrates refusing the Presents of Artaxerxes. A fine engraving, eh? Just the thing to suit all the doctors, who are refusing the extravagant gifts of Parisian satraps. You will find two or three dozen novels underneath it. Come, now, take ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... friends shrieked with laughter, but no one condescended to say what it was that was so very droll. Gervaise stood still, a little bewildered by this unexpected reception. Coupeau was so ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... Europe. He has been under the leads at Venice, and out again, deuce knows how. He has been expelled from half the cities of Italy, and has turned the story into capital in the other half. A most exorbitant, irresistible droll of a master you have there, sir; but who his decoy- duck of the moment may be, I dare say you can tell better than I. A fine young woman, and a cool hand, I could see for myself. I thought she looked waspish and gave herself more graces than were hers by nature. He has a taste for a ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... word to say that he would never marry till I was married,—but that on the day that he should hear of my wedding, he would go to the first single woman near him and propose. It was a droll thing to say; ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... over again what has been already swallowed; and, however droll this may seem to you, it is the business which all ruminants are born to. You remember the monkey's pouch, which serves him as a larder, whence he takes out his provisions as he wants to eat. The ruminant ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... too, Till his nose seemed bent To catch the scent, Around some corner, of new-baked pies, And his wrinkled cheeks and his squinting eyes Grew puckered into a queer grimace, That made him look very droll in the face, And also very wise. And wise he must have been, to do more Than ever a genius did before, Excepting Daedalus, of yore, And his son Icarus, who wore Upon their backs Those wings of wax He had read of in the old almanacs. Darius was clearly of the opinion That the air is also ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... Wheatfield, who was apparently wiping away a tear. Was the song too deep for them, or perhaps he did not sing the words distinctly, or perhaps they had laughed and he had not noticed? At any rate he would try the next verse, which was certain to amuse them. He looked as droll as he could, and by way of heightening the effect, stuck his two thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat and wagged his hands in time with ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... sayings and doings, far more like clever memoirs than the experiences of the banks of the Avon. Perhaps there was this immediate disadvantage, that hearing of a more intellectual tone of society tended to make Rachel less tolerant of that which surrounded her, and especially of Mr. Touchett. It was droll that, having so long shunned the two sisters under the impression that they were his protegees and worshippers, she found that Ermine's point of view was quite the rectorial one, and that to venerate the man ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pins from the table she noticed a little bronze figure which she had not yet seen. It was an old Italian work of Flemish taste: a nude woman, with short legs and heavy stomach, who apparently ran with an arm extended. She thought the figure had a droll air. She asked what she ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... later I became well acquainted with him, and from that time a most cordial friendship existed until his dying day. He visited me as a speaker at our State convention in Trenton, N.Y. I had him at my house at supper when my mother asked him if he would take coffee. His droll reply was: "I hope to drink coffee, madame, in heaven, but I cannot stand it in this world." After supper I informed my guest that it was customary for my good mother and myself (for I was not yet married), to have family worship immediately at the close of that meal ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... laughing matter," cried the lieutenant angrily. "It may seem very droll to you, but if I embody your conduct of the past night in a despatch your chance of ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... had dreamed life in Creeper Cottage was going to be, of all they had never doubted it was going to be, of peaceful nights passed in wholesome slumber, of days laden with fruitful works, of evenings with the poets, came into her head and made this tormented marching suddenly seem intensely droll. She laughed into her pillow till the tears rolled down her face, and the pains she had to take to keep all sounds from reaching Fritzing ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... it is an institution gives it zest for the strange mind of Pepys. He is, however, capable also of moralising. "Oh, that the King would mind his business!" he would exclaim, after having delighted himself and his readers with the most droll accounts of His Majesty's frivolities. "How wicked a wretch Cromwell was, and yet how much better and safer the country was in his hands than it is now." And often he will end the bewildering account with some such bitter ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... Farival the harrowing story of one of her accouchements, withholding no intimate detail. She was growing accustomed to like shocks, but she could not keep the mounting color back from her cheeks. Oftener than once her coming had interrupted the droll story with which Robert was entertaining some amused group of ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... sashes round their waists, with a sheath-knife and revolvers mostly stuck in them, and broad-leaved felt hats on. There were Californians, then foreigners of all sorts—Frenchmen, Italians, Germans, Spaniards, Greeks, Negroes, Indians, Chinamen. They were a droll, strange, fierce-looking crowd. There weren't many women at first, but they came pretty thick after a bit. A couple of theatres were open, a circus, hotels with lots of plate-glass windows and splendid bars, all lighted up, and ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... "A droll scene, a council of war in Boston, Admiral Tombstone, Elbow Room, Mr. Caper, General Clinton and ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... queer-looking old person, short of figure, round as a ball, his head sunk between very high and rounded shoulders, and with short stumpy legs. He was curiously attired in a whole-coloured suit of gray; a droll-shaped jacket the great collar of which reached far up the back of his head, surmounted a pair of voluminous breeches which suddenly tightened at the knee. I imagined him to be the butler in morning dishabille; and when he accosted ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... strange markings had been forgotten. Nowhere in the world—quite as little in Egypt as elsewhere—had any man the slightest clew to their meaning; there were those who even doubted whether these droll picturings really had any specific meaning, questioning whether they were not rather vague symbols of esoteric religious import and nothing more. And it was the Rosetta Stone that gave the answer to these doubters and restored to the world a ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... the background beyond, and the sky itself; beautiful rough landscapes and seascapes and skyscapes, winds and weathers, boisterous or sunny seas, rain and storm and cloud—all the poetry of nature, that he feels most acutely while his little people are being so unconsciously droll in the midst of it all. He is a king of impressionists, and his impression becomes ours on the spot—never to be forgotten! It is all so quick and fresh and strong, so simple, pat, and complete, so direct from mother Nature herself! It has about it the quality of inevitableness—those ...
— Social Pictorial Satire • George du Maurier
... my father was speaking, with a pleasant, contented face upon him, only a little roguish and droll. ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... Pommer, who was somewhat of a general favorite because of his unaffected, frank demeanor. Occasionally it became a trifle rough or rude; but you always knew where you had him. With special ardor he saluted Frau Kahle, and it looked almost droll to watch the contrast between him, a burly, corpulent fellow, and this tiny, fragile figure that ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... without exception, this story is delightfully droll, humorous and illustrated in harmony ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... altogether. Great printed sheets will be read by every one every day; and even the laziest of this lazy race will not think it labor to perform this toil. They won't like to eat in the morning without their papers, such slaves they will be to this droll greed for knowing. They won't even think it is droll, it is so ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... picked it out upon the keyboard, and (to my surprise) instantly enriched the same with well-sounding chords, and sang, as she played, with a very droll ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... case of emergency," said the droll, "we have no time to lose or to stand on the ceremony of fashionable etiquette. Here to-day, gone to-morrow—is the motto of Marseilles! Hola! Messieurs, shall we not make the most of new acquaintances when they may be ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... a droll customer, the revenue officers thought, and the longer they chatted with him the droller he became. First and last they drew from him what they considered to be some very important information. But most important of all was the report of the arrest of Teague Poteet. The deputies congratulated ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... would frequently, against his own interest, persuade a litigant of the injustice of his case, and induce him to throw it up. If not the undisputed leader of his circuit, he was the most beloved. Sometimes he disturbed the court by his droll and humorous illustrations, which called out irrepressible laughter but generally he was grave and earnest in matters of importance; and he was always at home in the courtroom, quiet, collected, and dignified, awkward as was his figure and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... be a queer sort of a beggar, I fancy." "You're another queer beggar" was the reply. "I am Gillott, the penmaker. My banker tells me you are clever, and I have come to buy some pictures." "By George!" quoth Turner, "you are a droll fellow, I must say." "You're another," said Gillott. "But do you really want to purchase those pictures," asked Turner. "Yes, in course I do, or I would not have climbed those blessed stairs this ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... Jone'," he continued, "you make a so droll sermon ad the bull-ring. Ha! ha! I swear I think you can make money to preach thad sermon many time ad the theatre St. Philippe. Hah! you is the moz brave dat I never see, mais ad the same time the ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... remarkable fact that all the queer freaks, like clubs and corals, the cranks and tomfools, in droll shapes and satanic colors, the funny poisonous looking Morels, Inkcaps, and Boleti are good wholesome food, but the deadly Amanitas are like ordinary Mushrooms, except that they have grown a little ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... unlike the pugnacious Aunt Becky, whose attack was so spirited and whose thrust so fierce; and when Lily told a diverting little story—and she was often very diverting—Aunt Becky used to watch her pleasant face, with such a droll, good-natured smile; and she used to pat her on the cheek, and look so glad to see her when they met, and often as if she would say—' I admire you a great deal more, and I am a great deal fonder of you than you think; but you know brave stoical Aunt ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... me quite agreeably. The African cannot avoid being comic. He is the grotesque element in our civilization. He will be droll even under the severest punishment. His contortions of body, his grimaces, his ejaculations of "O Lor'! O Massa!" as the paddle or the lash strikes his flesh, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... fear, she walked, not sideways as always, but erect, her chest thrown out, which gave her figure a droll, stilted air of importance. Her shoes made a knocking sound on the floor, and ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... essence of the Old Comedy, where not merely the subject, but the whole manner of treating it was sportive and jocular. The unlimited dominion of mirth and fun manifests itself even in this, that the dramatic form itself is not seriously adhered to, and that its laws are often suspended; just as in a droll disguise the masquerader sometimes ventures to lay aside the mask. The practice of throwing out allusions and hints to the pit is retained even in the comedy of the present day, and is often found to be attended with great success; although unconditionally reprobated by ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... term of contempt that rose to her lips, called forth by I know not what confused and mysterious mental ratiocination. She said: 'That woman is a demoniac.' This epithet, applied to that austere and sentimental creature, seemed to me irresistibly droll. I myself never called her anything now but 'the demoniac,' experiencing a singular pleasure in pronouncing aloud this word ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... more in detail, Clovelly is built in what was once a torrent-bed, and the village tumbles down from the top of the cliff to the very edge of Hartland Bay. The droll, Italian-like cottages cling to the hillside, or seem to grow directly out of the gray rock. At first, the street descends rather gradually and straight, but after a short distance, it zigzags first to left and then to right, twists and turns, takes one under parts of houses, ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... the laugh of a Conrad Lagrange unknown to the world. "No," he said with mock seriousness, "'doggie,' doesn't do at all. He's not that kind of a dog. His name is Czar. That is"—he added, giving full rein to his droll humor—"I gave it to him for a name. He has made it his title. He did that, you know, so I would always remember that he is ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... began a song, in the course of which he made a variety of gesticulations, not only to our entertainment, but to the great satisfaction of all the people about him. His song was to the full as musical as that of the people of Tanna, but it seemed to be of a droll or humorous nature, from his various ludicrous postures, and from the particular tone of the whole. The language was utterly distinct from that of Tanna, but not harsh or ill suited to music. It seemed likewise to have a certain metre, but very different from that slow and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... small tables, filled with many human bodies. About the walls are paintings and banners in sharp colors; above our heads hang innumerable gaudy lanterns of wood and paper. We sit in furs, shivering with the cold. The food passes endlessly, droll combinations in brown gravies—roses, sugar, and lard—duck and bamboo—lotus, chestnuts, and fish-eggs—an "eight-precious pudding." They tempt curiosity; my chop-sticks are busy. ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens
... had the States army come before the city than a Spanish captain observed—"We shall now have a droll siege—cousins on the outside, cousins on the inside. There will be a sham fight or two, and then the cousins will make it up, and arrange matters ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... some divertisement,—bid 'em come in; nay, Sir, you stir not. [Ex. Page. 'Tis for your delight, Sir, I do't; for, Sir, you must understand, a Man, if he have any thing in him, Sir, of Honour, for the case, Sir, lies thus, 'tis not the business of an Army to droll upon an Enemy—truth is, every man loves a whole skin;—but 'twas the fault of the best Statesmen in Christendom to be loose in the hilts,—you ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... I see you are. O! all the servants will lead merry lives here, now; we shall have singing and dancing in the little hall, for the Signor cannot hear us there—and droll stories—Ludovico's come, ma'am; yes, there is Ludovico come with them! You remember Ludovico, ma'am—a tall, handsome young man—Signor Cavigni's lacquey—who always wears his cloak with such a grace, thrown round his left arm, and his hat set on so smartly, ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... excitement of the moment young Bougainville recognized him and something droll flashed ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Byle, is exquisite! It is worth coming a thousand miles by stage coach and flatboat, to meet so droll an adventure with such a nondescript amphibian. He has a prodigious gift of gab, plain and ornamental. Did you take note of his metaphors? 'Rose of Sharon' is good.—By the way, we can't be far from the Bower of Bliss. We must ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... things! the darling kittens," she kept on saying, as she jumped from side to side of the basket so as, not to lose any of the droll gambols of the seven or eight little kittens that were scrambling and rolling ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... impossible to enumerate the many good things of this sort which Holmes has written, full of wit and wisdom, and of humor lightly dashed with sentiment and sparkling with droll analogies, sudden puns, and unexpected turns of rhyme and phrase. Among the best of them are Nux Postcoenatica, A Modest Request, Ode for a Social Meeting, The Boys, and Rip Van Winkle, M.D. Holmes's ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... 19.-Interministerium. Droll cause in Westminster Hall. The Duke of Cumberland and Edward Bright. Sir Ralph Gore. Bon-mots ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... With all his masterfulness he was very considerably in awe of Miss Allis. There was a not-to-be-daunted expression in her extraordinary eyes which made him feel that a love tilt with her would be a somewhat serious business. He pictured himself as an ardent lover; he would cut a droll figure in that role, he knew; emotions were hardly in his line. He might feel such an assertive emotion as love quite as strongly as anyone, in fact, did, but could he express himself with faultless consistency? He rather ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... suggested by "the affable Archangel," has perhaps been made a difficult subject in order to produce the droll fallacies of astronomers: ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... professional as to be quite amusing. He talked of the Duke, said he was a good man to do business with, quick and intelligent, and 'how well he managed that little correspondence with Huskisson,' which was droll enough, for Huskisson dined there ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Brown, Secretary of the Board of Admiralty, to whom also he wrote that Robert Morris had sent him orders to join the French frigates at Rhode Island and be under their command. "Mr. Morris," wrote Barry, "must be unacquainted with his rank or he must think me a droll kind of a fellow to be commanded by a midshipman. I assure you I don't feel myself so low a commander as to brook such orders. I suppose he will be much offended. I assure you although I serve the country for nothing I am determined ...
— The Story of Commodore John Barry • Martin Griffin
... under a bushel. In his own proper person children avoided him, but they crowded about this Santa Claus, encircling his legs, gurgling with joy when they were lifted to his shoulder, their laughter ringing through the church at his droll antics. A sense of mystery grew when he opened a pack on the pulpit stairs, a pack unfamiliar in its outward aspect to the Committee on Entertainment. Every girl had a little doll dressed in fashionable attire, and every ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... entirely devoid of expression, and they spoke like automatons. If I had understood the words, the contrast between their meaning and the machine-like movements of the actors would probably have been droll enough; but, as it was, the noise, the heat, and the smoke were so great that we ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... Cagliari, it is probable that I should have retained a much more favourable recollection of Mr Hobhouse than of Lord Byron; for he was a cheerful companion, full of odd and droll stories, which he told extremely well; he was also good-humoured and intelligent—altogether an advantageous specimen of a well-educated English gentleman. Moreover, I was at the time afflicted with a nervous dejection, which the occasional exhilaration ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... is written in a droll, satirical strain, and shows a great familiarity with the topics of ancient and modern literature. The rest of the volume consists of translations from Anacreon, Horace, and other Greek and Latin poets, and many original pieces; one of which latter, entitled "The Prodigal ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... "They are very droll," said Suzanne to the conscript in the moonlight by the studio wall. "She walked always with those big eyes that saw nothing, and yet she kisses me on both cheeks as though she were my sister, and gives me—see— ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... Club is as deliciously droll as any form of entertainment ever devised, provided one's sense of the ludicrous be strong enough to overcome the natural indignation aroused by seeing genuine poetry, the high gift of the gods, thus abused. The ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... termination est, as high'st for highest, bigg'st for biggest, though sometimes used by the poets, are always inelegant, and may justly be considered grammatically improper. They occur most frequently in doggerel verse, like that of Hudibras; the author of which work, wrote, in his droll fashion, not only the foregoing monosyllables, but learned'st for most learned, activ'st for most active, desperat'st for most desperate, epidemical'st for most ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... and distinctly—ushering in Titmouse; on whom the door was the next instant closed. He felt amazingly flustered—and he would have been still more so, if he could have been made aware of the titter which pervaded the fourteen or twenty people assembled in the room, occasioned by the droll misnomer of the servant, and the exquisitely ridiculous appearance of poor Titmouse. Mr. Quirk, dressed in black, with knee breeches and silk stockings, immediately bustled up to him, shook him cordially by the hand, and led him up to the assembled guests. "My ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... cannot but think that we live in a bad age, O tempora, O mores! as 'tis in the adage. My foot was but just set out from my cathedral, When into my hands comes a letter from the droll. I can't pray in quiet for you and your verses; But now let us hear what the Muse from your car says. Hum—excellent good—your anger was stirr'd; Well, punners and rhymers must have the last word. But let me ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... entreat him to take greater care of his invaluable life, and hint that if any calamity occurred to him, the campaign would ipso facto come to an end. Andreas knew that MacGahan was quizzing him, but it was exceedingly droll how he purred and bridled under the light touch of that genial humourist, whose merits his own countrymen, to my thinking, have never adequately recognised. The old story of a prophet having scant ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... 'tis very droll, said the lady, smiling, from the reflection that this was the second time we a had been left together by a parcel of nonsensical contingencies,—c'est bien comique, said ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... Duvall. At her side was seated her lover and affianced husband, his dark, handsome features lighted up with an expression of proud triumph, almost amounting to scorn. Then there was Corporal Grimsby, very shabby, very sarcastic, and very droll; near him sat the Honorable Timothy Tickels, wearing upon his sensual countenance a look of uneasiness, and occasionally betraying a degree of nervous agitation that indicated a mind ill at ease. At intervals he would glance suspiciously and stealthily at the Chevalier—for that ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... Thackeray's work, a melancholy conviction of the vanity of all things human. Vanitas vanitatum, as he wrote on the pages of the French lady's album, and again in one of the earlier numbers of The Cornhill Magazine. With much that is picturesque, much that is droll, much that is valuable as being a correct picture of the period selected, the gist of the book is melancholy throughout. It ends with the promise of happiness to come, but that is contained merely in a concluding paragraph. The ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... which he established in the Spanish drama, was the comic under-plot, and the witty gracioso or droll, the parody of the heroic character of the play. Much of his power over the people of his time is also to be found in the charm of his versification, which was always fresh, flowing, and effective. ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... uttered unintentionally than by premeditation. There is no such thing as being "droll to order." One evening a lady said to a small wit, "Come, Mr. ——, tell us a lively anecdote;" and the poor fellow was mute the rest ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... as that ought to be a brave fellow, a veritable hero? Well, perhaps. But I know an Indian who is called Le Blanc; that means white. And a white man who is called Lenoir; that means black. It is very droll, this affair of the names. It ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... to prepare to go in, the Doctor looked down the path to where the Divorcee was still standing. After a moment's hesitation he took her lace scarf from the back of her chair, and strolled after her. The Sculptor shrugged his shoulders with such a droll expression that we all had to smile. ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... of a touch of gum on the insect's back, and had placed in the grasp of each fly a piece of pine an inch long, cut into the shape of a rifle. The walking motion of the fly's feet twirled and balanced the stick in rather droll burlesque of musketry drill; and a dozen of these insects-at-arms, disposed in open order on the counter, were ministering to ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... "Thou'lt make a droll squire to wait in a Lord's household," said he. "Hast ever been ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... ever anybody heard a cause since the world began; Lord Newton just awakened from clandestine slumber on the bench; and the second President Dundas, with every feature so fat that he reminds you, in his wig, of some droll old court officer in an illustrated nursery story-book, and yet all these fat features instinct with meaning, the fat lips curved and compressed, the nose combining somehow the dignity of a beak with the good nature of a bottle, and the very double chin with an ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... like the Blackie we had always known that we were at our ease immediately. The sun shone in at the window, and some one laughed a little laugh somewhere down the corridor, and Deming, who is Irish, plunged into a droll description of a brand-new office boy ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... a cigarette. How very little, to be sure, escaped that swift and silent mind! At luncheon the Chief had scrupulously avoided making, the slightest allusion to the thoughts with which Desmond's mind was seething. Instead he had told, with the gusto of the born raconteur, a string of extremely droll yarns about "double crosses," that is, obliging gentlemen who will spy for both sides simultaneously, he had come into contact with during his long and varied career. Desmond had played up to him and repressed the questions which kept rising to his lips. Hence the Chief's ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... Dictator, on the other hand, appeared to enjoy an unusual flow of spirits; his laugh, which was youthful and pleasant to hear, sounded frequently from the garden; by the modulation and the changes of his voice it was obvious that he told many droll stories and imitated the accents of a variety of different nations; and before he and the young clergyman had finished their vermouth all feeling of distrust was at an end, and they were talking together like a pair ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the dry, well-kept, level road eastward, towards the Belgian frontier. She laughed and chatted as the hours went by. She had been in London last spring, she told me, and had stayed at the Savoy. The English were so droll, and lacked cachet, though the hotel was smart—especially ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... pomp this day to muster before the King and the Duke, and shops in the City are shut up every where all this day. He carried me to an ordinary by the Old Exchange, where we come a little too late, but we had very good cheer for our 18d. a-piece, and an excellent droll too, my host, and his wife so fine a woman; and sung and played so well that I staid a great while and drunk a great deal of wine. Then home and staid among my workmen all day, and took order for things for the finishing of their work, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... arguments mean in reference to any expression of thought. I delight in telling what I think, but if you ask me how I dare say so, or why it is so, I am the most helpless of mortal men. I do not even see that either of these questions admits of an answer. So that in the present droll posture of my affairs, when I see myself suddenly raised into the importance of a heretic, I am very uneasy when I advert to the supposed duties of such a personage who is to make good his thesis against all comers. I certainly shall do no ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... shouldn't complain," said she, glancing indicatively round. "One can still be out of doors, and yet not get the wetting one deserves. And the view is so fine, and these faded old frescoes are so droll." ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... the mysteries which men much wiser than I declare to pass all human understanding. Ask Decius if he can defend the faith of Athanasius against that of the Arians; he will smile, and shake his head in that droll way he has. I believe,' he added after a brief hesitancy, 'in Christ and in the ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... worst they might match their women with his, if he still came on; for themselves such a victory would be a disgrace; a set of mad women, a general in a snood, a little old drunkard, a half- soldier, and a few naked dancers; why should they murder such a droll crew? However, when they heard how the God was wasting their land with fire, giving cities and citizens to the flames, burning their forests, and making one great conflagration of all India—for fire is the Bacchic instrument, Dionysus's very birthright—, then they ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... a smile stirred about Ryder's mouth. 'I would not pain her for the world,' he said. 'She is a kindly little woman, and her hospitality is charming; but you must admit she is droll. What ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... absent, and, thirdly," sinking her voice, "she sends for her malles, which contain doubtless—who knows?—plans of London, designs of the fortresses, and perhaps a telegraphy without wires—Marconi, what do I know? Mademoiselle must admit that it has the air droll?" ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 30, 1914 • Various
... turned out to be so much less negligible than his brilliant friend. She remembered thinking him rather shy, less accustomed to society; and though in his quiet deprecating way he had said one or two droll things he lacked Mr. Popple's masterly manner, his domineering yet caressing address. When Mr. Popple had fixed his black eyes on Undine, and murmured something "artistic" about the colour of her hair, she had thrilled to the depths of her being. Even now ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... fiend than you were shown up for; to having made it impossible mother should not take proceedings." There!—she had brought it out, and with the sense of their situation turning to high excitement for her in the teeth of his droll stare, his strange grin, his characteristic "Lordy, lordy! What good will that do you?" She was prepared with her clear statement of reasons for her appeal, and feared so he might have better ones for his own that all her story came in a flash. "Well, Mr. Pitman, I want to get ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... to defend herself with much vivacity against this charge, and they continued to converse in the same light strain for some time longer; Coleman, as usual, being exceedingly droll and amusing, and the young lady displaying a decided talent for delicate and playful badinage. In order to enter con spirito into this style of conversation, we must either be in the enjoyment ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... conversation, the possessive pronoun your is sometimes used in a droll way, being shortened into your in pronunciation, and nothing more being meant by it, than might be expressed by the article an or a: as, "Rich honesty dwells, like your miser, sir, in a poor house; as, your pearl ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... meals with me, and one cat on each side of me, on stools, and we had Poll to talk to us. Now for a word or two as to the dress in which I made a tour round the isle. I could but think how droll it would look in the streets of the town in which I was born. I wore a high cap of goat's skin, with a flap that hung, down, to keep the sun and rain from my neck, a coat made from the skin of a goat too, the skirts ...
— Robinson Crusoe - In Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... quite himself again. He had settled the point which had been worrying his mind, and doubtless considered himself established as a man of sentiment in my opinion. Before we had finished our morning's stroll, he was singing as blithe as a grasshopper, whistling to his dogs, and telling droll stories: and I recollect that he was particularly facetious that day at dinner on the subject of matrimony, and uttered several excellent jokes, not to be found in Joe Miller, that made the bride elect blush and look ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... "I hope this Mr. —-, with the unpronounceable name, will disgust them with his eloquence; for B—- writes me word, in his droll way, that he is a coarse, vulgar fellow, and lacks the dignity of a bear. Oh! I am certain they will return quite sickened with the Canadian project." Thus I laid the flattering unction to my soul, little dreaming that I and mine should share in the ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... Postman and Cupid as a Link-Boy are companion pieces, painted from the same model,—a mischievous young street boy, whose simulated gravity is irresistibly droll. The artist's keen sense of humor is seen again in that most captivating little rogue, Puck. The saucy elf is perched on a mushroom, resting after a frolic, ...
— Child-life in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... Gafferson, in that forlorn environment on the Belize road, and his success in making them laugh drew him on to other pictures of the droll side of life among the misfits of adventure. The ladies visibly dallied over their tea-cups to listen to him; the charm of having them all to himself, and of holding them in interested entertainment by his discourse—these ladies ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... hard task to invent A Hundred Droll Tales, since not only have ruffians and envious men opened fire upon him, but his friends have imitated their example, and come to him saying "Are you mad? Do you think it is possible? No man ever had in the depths ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... two strange opposites two of the most dreaded of the myrmidons of Tristan l'Hermite, no less than his two chief hangmen, Trois-Echelles and Petit-Jean. Trois-Echelles was the long, cadaverous hangman; Petit-Jean was the stout, droll hangman, but when it came to a push and a pinch, both were hangmen and hung in the same manner, if not with the same manners. Petit-Jean pulled a flagon of wine from under the platform of the gallows, lifted it to his lips, ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... little dark, sir," Addison replied, with a smile as droll as his own. "But I suppose it was all because of that rainbow in the morning that you told us to look ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... the elegiac and the pathetic, indulging herself in sentimental poetry, and keeping a store thereof in her thread-case, which she had cut from the "Christian Mirror." Miss Roxy sometimes, in her brusque way, popped out observations on life and things, with a droll, hard quaintness that took one's breath a little, yet never failed to have a sharp crystallization of truth,—frosty though it were. She was one of those sensible, practical creatures who tear every veil, and lay their fingers on every spot in pure business-like ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... object which moves from place to place, and persons who are closely connected with it, so that through a series of scenes a change in the position of the object mechanically brings about increasingly serious changes in the situation of the persons. Let us now turn to comedy. Many a droll scene, many a comedy even, may be referred to this simple type. Read the speech of Chicanneau in the Plaideurs: here we find lawsuits within lawsuits, and the mechanism works faster and faster—Racine ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... and droll, Rigwoodie hags wad spean a foal, Lowping an' flinging on a crummock, I wonder didna turn ...
— Tam O'Shanter • Robert Burns
... Sir Francis is a thorough gentleman. They're not his boys, but her ladyship's, and she has spoiled 'em, I suppose. Let 'em grow wild, Grant. I say, my lad," he continued, looking at me with a droll twinkle in his eye, "they want us to train them, and prune them, and take off some of their straggling growths, eh? I think we could make a difference in ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... and a certain indescribable combination of sweetness and melancholy in his quiet smile. He never laughed audibly, but he had a quick sense of the comic, and his eye would laugh when his lips were silent. He would say queer, droll, unexpected things which passed for humour; but, save for that gleam in the eye, he could not have said them with more seeming innocence of intentional joke if he had been a monk of La Trappe looking up from the grave he was digging in order to ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... him into a scout, and drives him out of the orderly-room, out of the barrack square, to wander in Himalayan passes and ride across the deserts of Africa. Baden-Powell is a nomad. The smart cavalry officer who can play any musical instrument, draw amusing pictures, tell delightfully droll stories, sing a good song, stage-manage theatricals—do everything, in short, that qualifies a man to take his ease in country houses, loves more than any other form of existence the loneliness and the wildness of the scout's. Often, he tells us, ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... gesture of the stranger, his weak, lisping voice, his bent knees and thin hands, his very cap and long frieze coat—everything about him suggested good-nature, something innocent and droll. ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... at a distance working your way through the underwood, and seeing you through the leaves advancing with eager and rapid steps to the spot, conceals himself behind the entrance, and as you are just on the point of entering the hut, your foot just on the step, the droll sportsman puts his ugly head out of the window, as a yellow tortoise would his out of his shell, asking you, in most polite terms, what o'clock it is; or if it should chance to be raining a deluge at the time, remark ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... by all I hear; surely it is because my faith is small. Ah. me! how long? how long?—A precious discourse to me. He preached my experience.—The solution of the text was a gratification, while I heard profitably. He made a very droll remark when describing those 'who make their belly their God;' he said 'they make their kitchen their temple, their cook and butcher their priests, and their belly their God.'—I felt my soul blessed and encouraged while hearing of sin being destroyed, with an earnest longing for its accomplishment. ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... of driving forward to divert the mob; who leap and shout and caper with delight, and lash the laggers along with great indignation indeed, and with the most comical gestures. I never saw horses in so droll a state of degradation before, for they are all striped or spotted, or painted of some colour to distinguish them each from other; and nine or ten often start at a time, to the great danger of lookers-on I think, but exceedingly to my entertainment, who have the comfort ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... of them—I remember he was the adjutant—held in his hand a wax candle (three to the pound). Whether he had himself seized it in the enthusiasm of my narrative of flood and field, or it had been put there by another, I know not, but he certainly cut a droll figure. The room we were in was a small one off the great saloon, and through the half open folding-door I could clearly perceive that the festivities were still continued. The crash of fiddles and French horns, and the tramp of feet, which had lost much of their elasticity since the entertainments ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... was a droll one, was Monsieur Callow, and a gentleman too. I never had a billiard-marker like him. He could play any man, and lose by one point; and he could recite and sing; and oh, he eat so little! Every one laughed at ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... Scotland. The poetical chroniclers Barbour, Henry the Minstrel, and Wyntoun, are familiar names, as are likewise the poets Henryson, Dunbar, Gavin Douglas, and Sir David Lyndsay. But the authors of the songs of the people have been forgotten. In a droll poem entitled "Cockelby's Sow," ascribed to the reign of James I., is enumerated a considerable catalogue of contemporary lyrics. In the prologue to Gavin Douglas' translation of the AEneid of Virgil, written not later ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... his jeweled staff. Although the shaggy man cried out and tried to leap backward and escape, it proved of no use. Suddenly his own head was gone and a donkey head appeared in its place—a brown, shaggy head so absurd and droll that Dorothy and Polly both broke into merry laughter, and even Button-Bright's ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum
... whimsical resentment of his droll playfulness; she laughed with him, and taking his arm, walked up and down the porch. They talked of many things—of Louise's persistent stubbornness, and of a growing change in the conduct of Tom—his abstraction and his gentleness. He had left uncut the leaves ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... fine white boys, apprentices, and a couple of stout slaves: we had, in addition, taken on board an old apprentice of the pilot's, who as we started had volunteered to accompany his once master. This was a droll subject, a regular long-sided dare-devil of a South Carolinian: he was full three sheets in the wind when we sailed, and managed to keep the steam up by the contributions liberally proffered during our short season ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... fortune-telling book, by Bob Antrobus." In the Diary of the sprightly Louisa Josepha Adelaide, Countess of Bute (afterward so unfortunate a wife and an even more unfortunate mother), she describes a droll scene at a Scotch castle one evening, in which the unexpected statements of "The Square of Sevens" as to the lives and characters of the company "put to the blush several persons of distinction" who rashly tempted its wisdom—especially ...
— The Square of Sevens - An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note • E. Irenaeus Stevenson
... looked droll in old-fashioned long-tailed coat, ample trousers, sorrel whiskers, and ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... a proud and gorgeously upholstered lady lolling languidly in a motor car, and looking extremely pleased with herself—not without reason; and I had met two successful men of great presence, who reminded me somehow of "Porkin and Snob"; and I had noticed a droll little bundle of a baby, in a fawn-coloured woollen suit, with a belt slipped almost to her knees, and sweet round eyes as purple as pansies, who was hunting a rolling apple amongst "the wild mob's million feet"; and I had seen a worried-looking matron, frantically ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... Pierre proved droll companions, ready to jibe at anyone or anything in perfect good nature, so that it was an hour before Leonard strolled outside. As he had no further duty, he climbed a long ladder to the top of the high dock wall and walked ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... young, handsome, suave, of what the newspapers insist on calling distinguished bearing. He spoke English pleasantly but imperfectly. He possessed a capital fund of anecdote, and Warburton, being an Army man, loved a good droll story. It was a revelation to see the way he dipped the end of his cigar into his coffee, a stimulant which he drank with Balzacian frequency and relish. Besides these accomplishments, he played a very smooth hand at the great American ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... distinct account of the port. This menace cowed them down like so many bullies, and they fell into a moody but vindictive silence, their looks discovering the internal oaths of revenge. It was really droll, if the words used allow the expression, to hear how the captain blended Italian, Maltese, and Arabic oaths and abuse in his rage. Now "Santo Dio!" now "Scomunicat!" Sacrament! now "Allah!" "Imshe," ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... Gibbon reveals himself as a man with little dignity or heroism. There is a droll story that is apt to suggest itself when one thinks of Gibbon. At one time, when asking a dignified lady for her hand in marriage, he fell upon his knees in proper lover-like manner. Unfortunately Gibbon ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... went the pies, for Mrs. Smith had not much to give, and her spirit was generous, though her pastry was not of the best. It looked very droll to see pies sitting about on the thresholds of closed doors, but the cakes were quite elegant, and filled up the corners of the towel handsomely, for the apron lay in the middle, with the oranges right and left, like ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... was hanged for cutting purses, and up comes our Fox to quiz George. Says he, knowing Selwyn's penchant for horrors, 'George, were you at the execution of my namesake?' Selwyn looks him over in his droll way from head to foot and says, 'Lard, no! I never ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... this day must envy the manufacturers of the good old times when they remember that then the would-be purchaser had to look up the maker and court his pleasure. He had to sign a written contract, the terms of which sound droll enough to us. The time limit for construction was from six to twelve months and the payments were, generally, so much cash, so many casks of wine, a certain amount of corn, wheat, and potatoes, while geese, chickens, ...
— How the Piano Came to Be • Ellye Howell Glover
... right, brother; that was a droll affair:' and then, addressing himself to me, he continued, 'You remember your Uncle Terence? A funny dog he was, and in his young days the very devil for lovemaking and fighting. Look here,' said the speaker, pointing to a small circular perforation in his side, which had been neatly patched. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the very stare Says, plain as language, Sir, have you been there? Do tell me, has a Potawattomie a soul, And have the tribes a language? Now that's droll— They tell me some have tails like wolves, and others claws, Those ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... keep them for play! She's going to St. Jude's, you may be sure of it, to stare at this fine wedding, instead of being at home, in a cotton gown and white apron, making beds. Mrs. Latimer must be a droll mistress, to give her liberty in this way. What's that fly for?" sharply added Miss Corny, as one drew ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... hope, Miss Gryll, you will not laugh at Lord Curryfin: for you may be assured nothing will be farther from his lordship's intention than to say anything in the slightest degree droll. ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... up. He was a droll youth, and curiosity was his besetting sin. "Say, fellows, I wonder why he told us not to go up-stairs. I bet you there's something to be seen from up there, or he would not have told us not to go. Any of you boys willing to ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... "aye, aye." It is used as an expression of triumph and its employment in this connection is both droll and picturesque. ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... evening, when resting, in a convenient lane near the mill. They had rolled out a long peeled log on which they lounged while they whittled and talked. After Mr. Lincoln came to town the men would start him to story-telling as soon as he appeared at the assembly ground. So irresistibly droll were his "yarns" that, says Mr. Roll, "whenever he'd end up in his unexpected way the boys on the log would whoop and roll off." The result of the rolling off was to polish the log like a mirror. Long after Lincoln had disappeared from Sangamon "Abe's log" ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... in despair, Her tears falling like rain: She had never spun a thread in her life, Nor ever reeled a skein! Hark! the door creaked, and through a chink, With droll wise smile and funny wink, In stepped a little quaint old man, All humped, and crooked, and ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... her husband took her visiting she went and behaved there just as queerly as at home; when guests came to her house, she zealously served them refreshments, taking no interest whatever in what was said, and showing preference toward none. Only Mayakin, a witty, droll man, at times called forth on her face a smile, as vague as a shadow. He used ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... constant recurrence of some words in a quaint and queer connection, which gives a grotesque and somewhat repulsive mannerism to many sentences. Of these the commonest offender is 'quite;' which appears in almost every page, and gives at first a droll kind of emphasis; but soon becomes wearisome. 'Nay,' 'manifold,' 'cunning enough significance,' 'faculty' (meaning a man's rational or moral power), 'special,' 'not without,' haunt the reader as if in some uneasy dream which does not rise to the ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... a droll sort of awakening. It was, indeed, a startling anomaly that this woman of the tribe without should be standing there beside him as his wife, if his sentiments were as he had said. In their travels together she had ranged so unerringly at his ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... ordinary Satyrs, artists delighted in depicting little Satyrs, young imps, frolicking about the woods in a marvellous variety of droll attitudes. These little fellows greatly resemble their friends ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... things the assumption of the reporter of the A. Z. that Wagner himself had never conducted his Lohengrin better than Franz Lachner, appeared to me very droll. It is well known that Wagner has never heard this work, let alone conducted it!— Ignorance of this kind is, moreover, not the worst on the other side, where intentional and unintentional ignorance and lies (not to mince the matter) are ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... was generally acknowledged to be a "comedian." No one ever saw him in a temper, or heard him speak a sharp word. He had a droll, woebegone face that never smiled, but a face everybody—from the mayor to the poorest mill hand—loved and respected. How often Benson had come in from school, ill-tempered and sour-visaged at something that had gone wrong in the class-room, ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... 1710, Steele (Tatler, No. 246) dates from Lloyd's his Petition on Coffee-house Orators and Newsvendors. And Addison, in Spectator, April 23, 1711, relates this droll incident: "About a week since there happened to me a very odd accident, by reason of one of these my papers of minutes which I had accidentally dropped at Lloyd's Coffee-house, where the auctions are usually kept. Before I missed it, there were a cluster of people who had found it, and were ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... Thuvia, and Phaidor, daughter of Matai Shang. They each love John Carter. Ha-ah! but it is droll. Together for a year they will meditate within the Temple of the Sun, but ere the year is quite gone there will be no more food for them. Ho-oh! what divine entertainment," and she licked the froth from her cruel lips. "There will be no more food—except each ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... so dissatisfied," said Mr. Payton, with so droll an attempt to look gloomy that Lucile then and there threw her arms about his neck and gave him an ecstatic kiss, crying joyfully, "Oh, you are the most wonderful father ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... Rivers, with a droll inflection. They all laughed, and Burke clucked at the team. "Well, good-bye, boys; ...
— The Moccasin Ranch - A Story of Dakota • Hamlin Garland
... be born a Prince, who should one day develop into a King. It chanced that Nature had a sense of humor—so Nature paid me a droll compliment. She gave me a futile ambition to be a man—me, whom she had decided was to be ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... It was a droll procession of men with mice and a lady with a parrot that got under way and moved in among the Japanese fans and swinging lanterns of the next room in the suite of Burnett's friend. Five little individual tables were laid there and on each table lay a Japanese creature ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... probe of inquiry a little deeper. How did M. Pouillard happen to remember? Mais, it was because the young man was very droll; he was of the cold blood. When Victor, le garcon, would have brought news of the emeute, he had said, breakfast first, and ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... her heart. She acted in obedience to the dictates of the law of kindness, and she felt lighter and happier than she had done for a long time. Fred was by degrees quite cheered, and amused his companions by his droll talk for some way. Spying, however, one of his school-fellows on the rocks at a distance, he and John, joined him abruptly, and thus Emilie and ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... talk to his altered future, and the obligations and interests that lay before him; but he shrugged away from the subject, questioning her instead about the motley company at Violet Melrose's, and fitting a droll or malicious anecdote to each ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... "'Thou art a droll knave,' replies Guttorm, for he was ever fond of a joke; 'but thou art wise also, therefore I advise thee to make a pattern pair of wings for the men; ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne |
