"Droll" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to speak of Literature. The stranger expressed himself with enthusiastic admiration of Racine. A droll incident happened during our dialogue. My gentleman wanted to let down a little sash-window, and could n't manage it. 'You don't understand that,' said I; 'let me do that.' I tried to get it down; but succeeded no better than he. 'Monsieur,' said he, 'allow me to remark, on my side, that ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... Heaven knows how many times that comedy-proverb of Musset called 'A door must either be open or shut,' has been gravely played by the Sardinian Parliament and the prime minister!" It is with a very droll effect that a French paper has revived this curious description, a propos of the perpetual repetition of the drama played by the French Assembly and the French president, in which the constant threats of resignation on the one hand are invariably followed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... a very clever man, he was neither wise nor good. He could not bear to vex himself, nor anybody else; and, rather than be teased, would grant almost anything that was asked of him. He was so bright and lively, and made such droll, good-natured answers, that everyone liked him who came near him; but he had no steady principle, only to stand easy with everybody, and keep as much power for himself as he could without giving offence. He loved pleasure much ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he was so frightened and horrified that he wanted to run away, but his legs trembled and shook so badly that he couldn't. Then it struck him as a very funny thing for Jack to come to life, especially as the expression on his pumpkin face was so droll and comical it excited laughter on the instant. So, recovering from his first fear, Tip began to laugh; and the merry peals reached old Mombi's ears and made her hobble quickly to the hedge, where she seized Tip's collar and dragged him back to where she had ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... compensated by a man who was just behind us at the ticket window. He asked for a ticket to Asbury Park. "Single, or return?" asked the clerk. "I don't believe I'll ever come back," he said, but with so unconsciously droll an accent that the ticket seller screamed ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... as to bring up all my journal with you. My Papa has promised me, he will bring up my baby house with him. I shall send you a droll figure of a young lady,[64] in or under, which you please, a tasty head Dress. It was taken from a print that came over in one of the last ships from London. After you have sufficiently amused yourself with it I am ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... 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 only ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... 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
... 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 a net, stuck full ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... "might be produced against some of our sex, who join too readily to droll upon, and sneer at, the misfortune of any poor young creature, who has shewn too little regard for her honour: and who (instead of speaking of it with concern, and inveighing against the seducer) too lightly ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... perhaps, most of us do. At one time he was infinitely flattered by the attentions of Count Dorsay, who, no doubt, considered him a personage. This odd combination was the cause of great amusement to his friends, who were, of course, on the look out for droll incidents. There was many a story in circulation. One was that Forster, expecting a promised visit from "the Count," received a sudden call from his printers. With all solemnity he impressed the situation on his man. "Now," he said, "you will tell the Count that I have only just gone round ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... 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 ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... was dressed for her part in a white towel pinned around her and a pointed cap of paper on her head. Very droll she looked, but she was not so easy to manage as the doll. Beads she refused to swallow, but thrust them out on her small pink tongue, and she struggled violently when a drop of the medicine was given to her. In fact, her struggles made Helen's arm ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... at her with 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 level in ideas, tastes, ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... and the shelter. It was a secret source of humiliation to her that there had as yet to her knowledge been no one with whom her sister had exchanged vows; if her conviction on this subject could have expressed itself intelligibly it would have given you a glimpse of a droll state of mind—a dim theory that a bright girl ought to be able to try successive aspirants. Delia's conception of what such a trial might consist of was strangely innocent: it was made up of calls and walks ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... been a very faithful, hard-working and willing beast, with rather droll ways of his own, and we were sorry that his end should come so soon. He could never be accused of being a handsome dog, in fact he was generally ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... Kenny, his eyes droll and tender. "I suppose you belong to the ferryman's union." He dropped his knapsack into the boat and busied himself with the painter. "If the boat had two oars," he told her laughing, "or I one arm, I know I could manage. As it is, ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... told that "he should be extremely reserved on the head of pleasantry," and that "as to sallies of wit, it is still more dangerous to let them fly at random; but he may repeat the smart sayings of others if he will, or relate part of some droll ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... like you, m'sieur, some months ago. There was a little child with her, and the two were quite alone. They are very intrepid, are the English mam'zelles. She did not know a word of our language. But that was droll, m'sieur! A French demoiselle would never voyage ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... in Nuremberg. You will no doubt look down upon me with contempt since, instead of being able to mould and cast splendid statues, and such like, all I can do is to hoop casks and tubs." Reinhold burst out laughing, and cried, "Now that I call droll. I shall look down upon you—eh? because you are a cooper; why man, that's what I am; I'm nothing but a cooper." Frederick opened his eyes wide in astonishment; he did not know what to make of it, for Reinhold's dress was in keeping with anything sooner than a journeyman cooper's on travel. ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... all tarnished with ashes and soot. A bundle of toys he had flung on his back; And he looked like a pedler 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 a little round belly That shook when he laughed, like a bowl ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... for wee Dollie was never long unhappy. She had almost forgotten how vexed she had been, and she laughed as she saw small bubbles sailing, sailing away to the meadow. Softly she hummed, and then little words, describing what she saw, fitted quaintly into the droll melody— ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... one told a story which was at all verging on the marvellous, he was sure to tell another which would be still more incredible. He played the fiddle and sang to his own accompaniments, which were very droll, as he extracted very strange noises from his instrument; sometimes his bow would be on the wrong side of the bridge, sometimes down at the keys; besides which, he produced sounds by thumping the fiddle as well as by touching ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... 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 boy a brilliantly colored, splendidly noisy, tin trumpet; but hanging ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Madrid he had spoken ill of the religious orders, so as not to be out of harmony with his surroundings, considering them anachronisms, and had hurled curses against the Inquisition, while relating this or that lurid or droll story wherein the habits danced, or rather friars without habits, yet in speaking of the Philippines, which should be ruled by special laws, he would cough, look wise, and again extend his hand downwards to ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... Kuno carried him home; and they were the best of friends from that day forth. I don't say it's a discreditable story, you observe," continued Mr. Gottesheim; "but it's droll, and that's the fact. A man should think before he strikes; for, as my nephew says, man to man was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Balkan states; perhaps the case of Greece will be especially instructive. At the other, and far, end of the line will be found such other typical instances as the British, the Dutch, or, in pathetic and droll ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... graceful as May. Villebecque himself was a celebrity in characters of airy insolence and careless frolic. Their old man, indeed, was rather hard, but handy; could take anything either in the high serious, or the low droll. Their sentimental lover was rather too much bewigged, and spoke too much to the audience, a fault rare with the French; but this hero had a vague idea that he was ultimately destined to ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... And his clothes 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 of 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 a little round belly, That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... a 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 ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... unrivalled performer whose man-of-business he is, in attempting a populacity (we must coin a new word for a new thing) for which he was exquisitely unfitted. What more stiffly awkward than his essays at easy familiarity? What more painfully remote from drollery than his efforts to be droll? In the case of a man who descends so far as Mr. Seward, such feats can be characterized by no other word so aptly as by tumbling. The thing would be sad enough in any prominent man, but in him it becomes a public shame, for in the ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... Benefit of Humour in Philosophers can always do more Philosophy. Assisted by a sense of humour: Witness the droll experiment Of this same scientific gent. For he, his frugal breakfast finishing, (The eggs and bacon fast diminishing) Noted how o'er his marmalade A Wasp was buzzing undismayed. General Reflection: We all are apt to be inhosp- Attitude of Man towards Itable to the humble ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 1, 1890 • Various
... is 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
... buffoon, jester, merry-andrew, zany, harlequin, droll, punch, mime, farceur, scaramouch, grimacier jackpudding; boor, lout, gawk, gawky, lubber, put, bumpkin, churl, carl, tike; rustic, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... Gillotts and their Esterbrooks. Let us say, in every school and in every house, the child must not only learn to read and write, he must learn to draw. We cannot afford to let our young folks grow up without this power. A new French book is just now much talked about, with this droll title, "The Life of a Wise Man, by an Ignoramus." It is the story of the great Pasteur, whose discoveries in respect to life have made him world renowned. I turned to the book, eager to find out the key to such success, and I found the old story—"the child was father of the man." This philosopher, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... mamma, you droll child," Mrs. Frederick said, and those ladies accordingly met, after an absence of more than fifteen years. During Emmy's cares and poverty the other had never once thought about coming to see her, but now that she was decently prosperous in the world, her ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Be sure she thinks you half a cat. But you're a Dog and know your job: Oft have I seen you hob-a-nob, And grandly gracious to unbend With a Great Dane, your humble friend. As on the lawn with him you roll, He makes your very being droll. Yet how you set to work to flout him, To tease and gnaw and dance about him! You risk the pressure of his paws, Plunge all you are within his jaws, And, swelling to a final rage, With pin-point teeth the fight engage, While he ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... you didn't expect to hear such good French, did you, away down east here? But we speak it real well, and it's generally allowed we speak English, too, better than the British.' 'Oh,' says he, 'you one very droll Yankee, dat very good joke, Sare; you talk Indian and call it French.' 'But,' says I, 'Mister Mount shear; it is French, I vow; real merchantable, without wainy edge or shakes—all clear stuff; it will pass survey in any market—it's ready stuck and seasoned.' ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... varied the idea by placing on her stamps a tiger's head surrounded by a broad circle of inscriptions. Owing to the short comings of native art the tiger is more often droll than ferocious. ...
— What Philately Teaches • John N. Luff
... a droll way. "I should be very sorry myself to have Prudy learn to read," replied she; "but she won't keep still long enough: you needn't be ...
— Little Prudy • Sophie May
... Ambrosianae" or the London "Punch." His chair is wide, so that he can easily roll off on the floor when he wants a good time at laughing. His inkstand is a monkey, with the variations. His study-cap would upset a judge's risibilities. Scrap books with droll caricatures and facetiae. An odd stove, exciting your wonder as to where the coal is put in or the poker thrust for a shaking. All the works of Douglass Jerrold, and Sydney Smith, and Sterne, the scalawag ecclesiastic. India-rubber faces ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... was caused by the sight which the architect had invited the prefect to come and enjoy, and which was certainly droll enough. The front of the gate-keeper's house was quite grown over with ivy which framed the door and window in its long runners. Amidst the greenery hung numbers of cages with starlings, blackbirds, and smaller singing-birds. The wide door of the little house stood open, giving a view into ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... 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 in compassionate accents, "Why, ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... way, said of him that he was "as brave as ten lions, each with two tails and two sets of teeth." Sir Charles rivalled Mr. Roebuck, the radical English commoner, in the scantiness of his commendations; his droll eulogy of Sir Hugh Gough will therefore be appreciated. On the 8th of February, Sir Harry Smith made his junction with the army of his chief, and was received in terms not more flattering than just from a general who never refused to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the remark to the totally unprovided side of his table; he turned his head just in time to catch Westby's humorous mouth and droll droop of an eyelid. The other boys smiled, and Irving's ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... But there is room for everybody and everything in our huge hemisphere. Young America is like a three-year-old colt with his saddle and bridle just taken off. The first thing he wants to do is to roll. He is a droll object, sprawling in the grass with his four hoofs in the air; but he likes it, and it won't harm us. So let him roll,—let ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... and droll, Rigwoodie hags wad spean a foal, Lowping an' flinging on a crummock, I ...
— Tam O'Shanter • Robert Burns
... 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 many critics. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... for a virtuous woman to refuse a man so ugly as you represent this secretary to have been. Had he been handsome and polite, her virtue would then have been clear. I think I know who he is, and, if it were my turn, I could tell you another story about him that is no less droll." ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... 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. The success of Lope de Vega was in proportion to his rare powers. For the forty or fifty ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... "Wherefore droll?" asked Joliet, with a huge surprise, which lasted him all through his next sentence. "I come here to marry my daughter. Everything is ready; we count on your presence at the wedding; the lawyer has ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... matriculation, and signed the registrar's book on a fresh page; but when Fred had written his name under Ramsey's, and blotted it, he took the liberty of turning over the leaf to examine some of the autographs of their future classmates, written on the other side. Then he uttered an exclamation, more droll than dolorous, though it affected to be wholly the latter; for the shock to Fred was by no means so painful as ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... little 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 and falling ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... 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 ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... suppose he has been 'plucked,' as the gentlemen call it, or 'ploughed,' does your brother say? University slang is very droll. He has not taken his degree, I suppose, and they want him to work before going up again. I am sorry for your father, too, for I don't think it will be very easy to get anything into Clarence Copperhead's mind. But there is no harm at all in him, and he used to ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... anybody's goin' to be mad it ought to be me," said the cap'n, lifting his brows with that droll look he wore when he intended to indicate that he was fooling. "I guess I've got to wash my own dishes an' bake my own johnny-cake for a spell. ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... man of great drollery, and it would almost make you laugh to look at him. I never saw but one other man whose quiet, droll look excited in me the disposition to laugh, ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... of her overwrought feelings was so droll that Bessie with some difficulty refrained from laughing outright, but she knew how very real all this was to Hatty, so she exercised self-control, and ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... lie down all the evening from sheer fatigue, but she made light of her weariness, concealed the treatment she had received from the girls, and the dejection it was beginning to occasion in spite of her courage; she even made the little home group laugh by her droll accounts of the day. Then they all petted and praised and made so much of her that her spirits rose to their usual height, and she said confidently, as she went to a long night's rest, "Don't you worry, little mother; I didn't expect to get broken in to my work ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... 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 comment as the assertion "that every ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... brothers, too,—only Richard,—Oh! by the way, I did torment him this morning, he is so grave and good, and he was just beginning a nice lecture at the gate, when the driver called, and poor Richard had only time to send his love to you. Wasn't it droll, though, that lecture being cut so short?" and Annie threw herself down in the great cushioned ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... officiated as cook, whose various blunders and expedients in his novel situation, and in the wild scenes and wild kind of life into which he had suddenly been thrown, had made him a kind of butt or droll of the camp. Tom, however, began to discover an ambition superior to his station; and the conversation of the hunters, and their stories of their exploits, inspired him with a desire to elevate himself to the dignity of their order. The buffalo in such immense droves presented a ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... are finished, the author, eager to amuse himself, in spite of the small amount of merry ink remaining in the left cup, steals and bears eagerly therefrom a few penfuls with great delight. These said penfuls are, indeed, these same Droll Tales, the authority on which is above suspicion, because it flows from a divine source, as is shown in this ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... he wasn't before he will be now," said Neale, feelingly. "I'll tell you, General, Larry's red-headed, a droll, lazy Southerner, and he's made fun of by the men. But they don't understand him. They certainly can't see how dangerous he is. Only I don't mean that. I do mean ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... 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 unexpected tribute ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... doorstep a very 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
... 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, ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... to look upon me as very nearly an idiot. Just as we were going into the town of Plymouth, he eyed me from head to foot, and muttered, 'The lad's beside himself, sure enough.' In truth, I believe I was a droll figure; for my hat was stuck full of weeds, and of all sorts of wild flowers; and both my coat and waistcoat pockets were stuffed out with ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... off, and Nannie, accustomed to go wherever she pleased, strayed into the darkness and tumbled down. The incident stopped all work for a time, and created a lot of good-humoured chaff. The Irishman was especially droll, and endeavoured to carry it off by swearing he knew it was the goat, but he wanted some other fellow to have a go at it. "But no fear," said he; "every one of ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... 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 ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... exchange is perceptibly on the increase. It arises from the travelling propensities of the Americans, and the constant intercourse mutually maintained by the inhabitants of the different States. A droll or an original expression is thus imported and adopted, and, though not indigenous, soon becomes engrafted on the general stock of the language of the ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... is true; but the sweet cider is admirable, and as for the cheesecake, we would back it against all the Times Square variety that Ben De Casseres rattles about. It is delightful and surprising to find on Hudson Street an ordinary so droll and Dickensish in atmosphere, and next door is a window bearing the sign WALTER PETER. We feel sure that Mr. Holliday, were he still living in those parts, would have cajoled the owner into changing that E ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... specimen of the aboriginal civilization found here by the Spanish conqueror, Coronado, and his eager gold-seekers, in 1540. For now, as then, the members of the tribe reside together in one immense community building. It is rather droll to find among these natives of the desert the idea of the modern apartment house; but, in this place, as in all the settlements of the Pueblo Indians, communal dwellings were in existence long before the discovery of America, and the mesa of ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... a good deal after this and one of the first consequences of their doing so was that Pemberton stuck it out, in his friend's parlance, for the purpose. Morgan made the facts so vivid and so droll, and at the same time so bald and so ugly, that there was fascination in talking them over with him, just as there would have been heartlessness in leaving him alone with them. Now that the pair had such perceptions in common it was useless for them to pretend they didn't ...
— The Pupil • Henry James
... too droll—that plucky horse, dashing along with the rest, shooting over the fences, up to time, and acting like a soldier charging under command. I could just have gone down and kissed the splendid creature, and the whole crowd—thousands and thousands—set up shout after shout that you could ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... accompanied by her maid, Susan. Through a misapprehension of personalities his lordship addresses a love missive to the maid. Susan accepts in perfect good faith, and an epistolary love-making goes on till they are disillusioned. It naturally makes a droll and delightful little comedy; and is a story that is particularly ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... saw such a droll morsel lying on her napkin she laughed, sent for Kitty Gray, stroked her, and called her "Good pussy, pretty pussy; and the brightest pussy too that I ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... his pagan accordion, and the himene which will never be forgotten by the Tahitians, "Hallelujah! I'm a bum!" Kelly had gone over the water to the jails of the United States, where life is hard for minstrels who sing such droll songs. ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... language of the plains, was called the "bull-wagon boss"; the teamsters were known as "bull-whackers"; and the whole train was denominated a "bull-outfit." Everything at that time was called an "outfit." The men of the plains were always full of droll humour and exciting stories of their own experiences, and many an hour I spent in listening to the recitals of thrilling adventures and ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... she exclaimed, "this is very kind of you. You have been keeping Louise company, I hope. And see what droll things happen! It is your friend, Mr. Barnes, who has brought me home this evening, and who will take a whisky and soda before he goes. Is ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... She was diaphane, diaphanous ... impalpable as cigarette-smoke ... a little nose like nothing at all, with nostrils like infinitesimal sea-shells. Anyone could have made a mouthful of her.... Ah! Cre nom d'un chien! Life is droll. It has no common sense. It is the game of a mountebank.... I've never told you about Fleurette. It was ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... them without the mask, their cynicism forgotten, mingling cries and tears over the sorrows of the world. But neither she nor any third person would ever see their social discretion thus betrayed, and she concludes, in her droll way, "C'est une vision!" In another letter to Mme de Grignan (June 6, 1672) she says of the Duke, "Il connait quasi aussi bien ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... happened to be the case. The laird was what his country neighbours called "a droll, careless chap", with a very limited proportion of the fear of God in his heart, and very nearly as little of the fear of man. The laird had not intentionally wronged or offended either of the parties, and perceived ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... be impressed, for the first time, by a recognition of the fact that an absence of the sacred gift of humour is often a great advantage to mortal happiness, and even to mortal success. There was clearly and obviously a droll and humorous side to the career and the companionship of Captain Sarrasin and his wife. How easy it would be to make fun of them both! perhaps of her more especially. Cheap cynicism could hardly find in the civilised world ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... A droll spectacle he made, laughable even at that moment. He limped sorely, his head and neck were swathed in bandages, and beneath their ragged fringe the little eyes gleamed ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... Have his prey sent him in an iron cage? By Jove, he shall not have her! O! no, no; "He sends his younger son, the Count Paolo, To fetch Francesca back to Rimini." That's well, if he had left his reasons out. And, in a postscript—by the saints, 'tis droll!— "'Twould not be worth your lordship's while to shut Paolo in a prison; for, my lord, I'll only pay his ransom in plain steel: Besides, he's not worth having." Is there one, Save this ignoble offshoot of the Goths, Who'd write such garbage to ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... little Poem, with much of the grotesque in its half-dozen Embellishments, and some tripping work in its lines. "The End," with "Who danced at the Wedding?" and the tail-piece—a devil-bantling, rocked by imps, and the cradle lit by torches—is droll enough. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 471, Saturday, January 15, 1831 • Various
... conversation reminded me of the hunting stories I had heard in the log cabins in Indiana, and I amused myself with thinking how some of the narrators would appear among my high-bred friends. There is such a quaint vivacity and droll-cry about that half-savage western life, as always gives it a charm in my recollection. I thought of the jolly old hunter who always concluded the operations of the day by discharging his rifle at his candle after he had snugly ensconced ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... A droll little comedy of misunderstandings, told with a light touch, a venturesome spirit and an eye for ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... good business man?" said Dinney, grinning from ear to ear. "I should say! What's your business, Miss?" And having said this, he doubled up with droll laughter. ...
— Gloria and Treeless Street • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... think we free-born Yankees—descendants of the Puritan Fathers—were going to claim relationship with any of those effete European aristocracies, did you?" with a droll look at Sara. ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... always said he was lookin' forward to the day when he could afford to get as drunk as he sometimes thought he'd like to be. He was a droll sort of a cuss, Jake was. He claimed he'd been savin' up his appetite and his money for nearly three years so's he could see which would last the longest in ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... midnight lamp shall gleam As in old nights; the chaplets woven then— Withered, perhaps, by time—may grace us yet; The laurel faded is the laurel still, And some of us are heroes to ourselves. And amber wine shall flow; the blue smoke wreathe In droll disputes, with metaphysics mixed; Or float as lightly as the quick-spun verse, Threading the circle round from thought to thought, Sparkling and fresh as is the airy web Spread on the hedge at morn in silver dew. The scent of roses you remember well; In the green vases they shall bloom again. And ...
— Poems • Elizabeth Stoddard
... 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
... given the fifth hour in the day as his lecture period because he was the only one able to hold the attention of students who had already been listening to four long and difficult lectures. He enlivened the dry subject with funny stories, droll comparisons and interesting descriptions, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... stories and sang songs. Edith Overman had a keen sense of humor and she told some anecdotes that were exceedingly droll. Ethel and Edna Whitely vied in asking conundrums. Kate Hollister then related her capital story, "The ...
— How Ethel Hollister Became a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson
... Turning and screwing his mouth round, 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 ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... and his dress still bore many tokens of his former profession. His big head swayed upon his thin neck; his droll, though emaciated features constantly changed their expression, and even when he was not coughing, his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... delighted his children with romances. "Like Dr. Hopkins, he believed that the class-room should be a jolly place, and used to say that no recitation was complete without at least one good laugh. 'Laughter makes sport of work,' he said." His teaching sometimes came in a droll story. "Once there was a woodchuck.... Now, woodchucks can't climb trees. Well, this woodchuck was chased by a dog and came to a tree. He knew that if he could get up this tree the dog could not catch him. Now, woodchucks can't ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... Dec. 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
... the women with hooped petticoats and high head dresses; clergymen with five or six tier wigs; men with cocked hats and queues; and female servants with mob caps. That to Emblem Fifteen, upon the sacraments, is peculiarly droll; the artist, forgetting that the author was a Baptist, represents a baby brought to the font to be christened! and two persons kneeling before the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... 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
... one of the youths, "are just the old-fashioned arguments of BUTLER, Which it is surely droll of all things to find a sceptic ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... 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 ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... after this anecdotical digression. Saadi gives this whimsical piece of advice to a pugnacious fellow: "Be sure, either that thou art stronger than thine enemy, or that thou hast a swifter pair of heels." And he relates a droll story in illustration of the use and abuse of the phrase, "For the sake of God," which is so frequently in the mouths of Muslims: A harsh-voiced man was reading the Kuran in a loud tone. A pious ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... honour of the royal guests, a pantomimic "masque" of the gods and goddesses of Olympus is introduced. The divinities, instead of appearing in genuine Grecian attire, present themselves in the mongrel costume visual on such occasions in the time of Queen Elizabeth. This is droll enough, but more whimsical still is the style of their dancing. This, too, is meant as an imitation of the limited choregraphic savoir faire of the age. It is as if Mons. Deshayes had triumphantly ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 488, May 7, 1831 • Various
... are redolent of the hearty fun and strong masculine sense of our old friend Sam Slick. The last work of Mr. Haliburton is quite equal to the first. Every page of the 'Old Judge' is alive with rapid, fresh sketches of character; droll, quaint, racy sayings; good-humoured practical jokes; and ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... who had just administered the kick slipped and fell upon her, whereat the crowd fairly split with laughter. It was so droll! ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... loudly 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 ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... 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 ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... songs of an exquisite Leander.. . I really believe that, at the last meeting, he sung alone in this manner three quarters of an hour at different times, the assembly repeating the last line of the verse."—"How odd!" exclaims a common woman alongside of Morellet, "how droll, passing all their time here, singing in that fashion! Is that what they come here for?"—Not alone for that: after the circus-parade is over, the ordinary haranguers, and especially the hair-dresser, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... make your acquaintance. (To the girls, who are hanging on to him.) Leave me alone, children! (To ALBIN.) So you, too, are having a look at this droll tavern? ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... liveliness, which threw such a charm about the former writings of Timothy Titcomb. No story can be pronounced a failure which has vivacity and interest; and the volume before us adds to vivacity and interest vigorous sketches of character and scenery, droll conversation and incidents, a frequent and kindly humor, and, underlying all, a true, earnest purpose, which claims not only approval for the author, but respect for ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... little country village miles and miles away, and (although one of Fritz's aeroplanes flew over the church as bold as brass just before we got in) the quiet and peace of the place is very refreshing. And, droll to relate, I'm writing this in bed, with a touch of flu—such a bed, too, all soft and billowy. In ordinary life it would be condemned as a "feather" bed, but now it ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... found the girl to be natural and unaffected, without a trace of conceit, gifted with a keen sense of humour and evidently as full of the joy of living as a school-boy. He thought her laugh delightfully musical, and it was frequently and readily evoked by Burke's droll remarks or the quaint oracular sayings from the self-possessed elf on Wargrave's knee. Her admiration of and genuine affection for Mrs. Dermot was very evident ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... the fashion; she was a wit as well as a beauty; a fascinating droll; dazzling and bewitching, the idol of every youth. Eugene de Vere was roused from his premature exhaustion, and at last found excitement again. He threw himself at her feet; she laughed at him. He asked leave to follow her footsteps; she ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... it is the feather bed on which Wilford Cameron once slept, a part of Katy's "setting out," which never found its way to Madison Square. Morris himself did not think much of feathers, but he made no objection when Aunt Betsy insisted on sending over the bed kept for so many years, and only smiled a droll kind of smile when he one morning met it coming up the walk in the wheelbarrow which ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... run in the most droll vein of true rural humor. The performers seem to be made for the dances, and the dances for the performers; so well assorted are the figures to the representation. Several eminent painters in the grotesque stile, ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... day? There was a print in that paper of an assemblage of Teetotalers in "Sadler's Wells Theatre," and we straightway recognized the old Roman hand—the old Roman's of the time of Plancus—George Cruikshank's. There were the old bonnets and droll faces and shoes, and short trousers, and figures of 1820 sure enough. And there was George (who has taken to the water-doctrine, as all the world knows) handing some teetotal cresses over a plank to the table where the ...
— John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character • William Makepeace Thackeray
... household matters, but in other affairs of life. Whenever she had visitors,—and she and James were hospitable in the extreme,—she was pretty sure to end up, sooner or later, if James were present, with some droll criticism of him, as much to his delight ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... was superb, and every shade of color and character was represented. In the vernacular of the farm, the mulatto girls are called "strawberry blondes," and one that would have attracted attention anywhere was led out by a droll, full-blooded negro, who would have made the fortune of a minstrel troupe. She was tall and willowy. A profusion of dark hair curled about an oval face, not too dark to prevent a faint color of the strawberry from glowing in her cheeks. ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... steps,—(it is a long way, Monseigneur;— )and he mounted quickly, I slowly,—but always keeping my eye upon him. At last we reached this platform, and the moonlight was beautiful, and clear as day. Then my little priest sat down and began to laugh. 'Ha, my Lapui!' he said, 'Is it not droll that this should be all a lie! All this fine building, and all the other fine buildings of the kind in Paris! Strange, my Lapui, is it not, that this Cathedral should be raised to the worship of a God whom no one ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... quite possible that you will consider this information a lie. That will be quite droll. However, I am, most ...
— The Leader • William Fitzgerald Jenkins (AKA Murray Leinster)
... talk a good deal of her journey; and she told the story with so much simplicity, speaking with unfeigned gratitude and affection of the friendships she had made, and touching with quiet mirthfulness upon the droll events, as if she hardly knew herself that they were droll, that ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... many good stories which have for their point the passions of the natural man breaking forth, in members of this persuasion, in a shape more droll than distressing. One of the best of these is a north-country anecdote preserved by Francis Douglas in his Description of the East Coast of Scotland. The hero was the first Quaker of that Barclay family which produced the apologist and ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... the smiling brother of our guild who may chance to read it at some remote future day. The physician of whom I now write was one who already dreaded bleeding, thought less of medicines than his fellows, and was, in fact, exceptionally acute. He did some droll things for the sick prelate, and had reasons yet more droll for what he did, but his practice was, as may happen on the whole, wiser than his reasons for its use. His patient was a man once bulky, but now thin, overworked, worried, subject to asthma, troubled with a bad stomach, prone to ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... into a pawn-shop and bought a pistol. He was in a fever to get back to his lodgings. He found Minetti waiting for him. He tried to conceal the pistol, but he knew that Minetti had seen it. Minetti was as pleasant as one could imagine. He told the most droll stories of his life in London. It appeared that he had lived there in a hotbed of exiled radicals; but he, himself, seemed to have no convictions. Everything he described was touched with a certain ironic humor. When he rose to go ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... expressed by the repose of one small figure in the lap of a colossal effigy, which I understood to mean rest in Abraham's bosom; but the artist has bestowed far more interest and feeling upon the fate of the damned, who are all boiling in rows of immense pots. It is doubtful (considering the droll aspect of heavenly bliss as figured in the one small saint and the large patriarch) whether the artist intended the condition of his sinners to be so horribly comic as it is; but the effect is just as great, for all ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... burlesques, who resembled each other, the precieux seeking wit and believing that all literary art consisted in saying it did not matter what in a dainty and unexpected fashion; the burlesques also sought wit but on a lower plane, desiring to be "droll," buffoons, prone to cock-and-bull stories or crude pranks in thought, style, and parody. Voiture is the most brilliant representative of the preieux and Scarron the most prominent ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... droll? However, I know that there was a Sire de Quincy centuries ago, so I will look him up and let you know what ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... thousand dollars," he answered, the look of trouble deepening in his eyes, but his lips were smiling. He had a quaint sense of humor, and at his last gasp would have noted the ridiculous thing. And surely it was a droll malignity of Fate to bring him here to her whom, in this moment of all moments in his life, he wished far away. Fate meant to try him to the uttermost. This hurdle of trial ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... vehemently on Smart to stop. "What is it, Sir, a beere or a helephant?" "Go back, Smart, just under that tree. Now then stop, stand steady, while I scramble up here. I thought so, look! look! did you ever see anything so droll." So saying, he pulled out from the branches of a huge tree two quiet, wise-looking parrots, not quite fledged, that were seated side by side in a hole in the tree. They did not seem in the least discomposed, but gazed on us with great gravity. "They are neither blue nor yellow, but dear mother, ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... 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 as grave as ...
— Jimmy, Lucy, and All • Sophie May
... replied, looking at Jacquet. "Wasn't it a funeral with thirteen mourning coaches, and only one mourner in the twelve first? It was so droll we all ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... earnestness in the thing. Either there should be some side-action of mirth to make it less intense, or of tragedy to render it less photographic; and unless, Dr. Marmion, you would consent to be solemn, which would indeed be droll; or that The Padre there—how amusing they should call him that!—should cease to be serious, which, being so very unusual, would be tragic, I do not know how we are to tell the artist that he has missed a chance of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... written on the signboard: "read me, and judge if you understand! So you stopped in your journey because I called, scenting something unusual, something droll. Thus, although I am nothing, and even less, there is no one that sees me but lingers here. Stranger, I am a law of the universe. Stranger, render the law ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell |
