"Comical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... boughs. Here they go into the boxes, red, green, and golden balls, tinkling glass bells, stars, paper angels, cotton-wool Santa Claus, blue birds, celluloid goldfish, mosquito netting, counterfeit stockings, nickel-plated horns, and all the comical accumulation of oddities that gathers from year to year in the box labelled CHRISTMAS TREE THINGS, FRAGILE. The box goes up to the attic, and the parent blows a faint diminuendo, achingly prolonged, on a toy horn. Titania is almost reduced to tears ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... Priest, a Fanatick Chaplain, and a Divine of the Church of England, &c. were spoken of as an excellent Comedy, and especially for that Part which the Fanatick Chaplain acts therein, who makes as comical and as ridiculous a Figure as he does in any of the Plays acted on the Stage. And in his Controversy with Dryden about the Royal Papers, and those of the Duchess of York, he was deem'd to have out-done that famous Satirist in tart Repartees and Reflections; and to have ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... jolly face wore such a comical look of anxiety that Randy refrained from laughing, and to change the subject asked for a schoolmate whom she had not recently seen. "Where ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... constitutions, however, must have eschewed that northern front door, and later nerves that narrow verge, and on the eastern front had been added that Gothic porch of which Emily had heard,—and a flagrantly modern Gothic porch it was, flanked by two comical little turrets, with loopholes, from which a thread-paper or Tom Thumb might have defended it. Otherwise it resembled a church porch, except for the formidable points of a sham portcullis; but there was no denying that it greatly ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... interview, detailing at some length Twichell's comical mixture of delight and chagrin at not being given time to air the fund of prepared statistics with which he had come loaded. It was as if he had come to borrow a dollar and had been offered a thousand before he could ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... throats, made the racket complete. It seemed to our listening ears, for we stuck to our beds, to be a promiscuous fight, larded with imprecations in broken English, the phrase "goddam" being repeated in the most comical way. We expected to see a lot of badly bruised men in the morning, but nothing of the kind! Nobody was hurt. It proved to be a very bloodless affair, like the scrimmages of the dogs themselves, full of sound ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... with another comical twinkle in his eyes, "I thought you seemed so intelligent, and although you have a young face, you have somehow or other an old way about you. You'll forgive my speaking frankly, my dear, but I notice that most old-young girls ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... another as given to severe drill, but neglecting manners; a third as repudiating religious teaching, and now and then preparing explosions for the masters-no, teachers. The various conversations were exceedingly bright and comical; and there were brilliant hits at existing circumstances, all a little in a socialistic spirit, which made Anna pause as she read. She really had not perceived till she heard it in her own voice and with other ears how audacious it was, ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... birds go to bed, I suppose. See what a comical look this fellow has, waving its long, fine, silky antennae about. Probably it's trying to find out what it is on, looking out for another nice green leaf to eat. They do a lot of damage ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody
... had is never well cured; and, between you and me, I am often apt to imagine it has had some whimsical effect upon my brain: For I frequently find, that in my most serious discourse I let fall some comical familiarity of speech, or odd phrase, that makes the company laugh; however, I cannot but allow she is a most excellent woman. When she is in the country I warrant she does not run into dairies, but ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... self-willed, fighting each other for the right of way. Before each procession marched a swineherd playing on a rustic pipe, the sounds from which primitive instrument seemed to exercise Circean enchantment upon the rude flocks. It was inexpressibly comical to watch the masses of swine after they had been enclosed in the "folds"—huge tracts fenced in and provided with shelters at the corners. Each herd knew its master, and as he passed to and fro would salute him with a delighted squeal, which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... a trim dashing brunette, with the brightest eyes and rosiest cheeks imaginable. Her face was so healthily refreshing in the midst of malady and death, that I altogether forgot the cholera under the charm of her ardent gaze. Next me sat a comical sort of fellow, who did not delay in scraping an acquaintance, and jocularly insisted on ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... head with a comical expression of chagrin. "Can't be done, I'm afraid. But I'll come over here when I'm in the neighbourhood, if possible." Then ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... in consequence of an accident which occurred in his infancy, was slightly deformed. His right shoulder—as I understood, for I never saw him—grew out, giving an ungraceful and somewhat comical twist to his figure, which, in female eyes—youthful ones at least—sadly marred the effect of his intelligent and handsome countenance. This personal defect rendered him shy and awkward in the presence of women of his own class of society; and he had attained ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... candle-snuffer the piece would lose half its embellishments." But there has always been forthcoming a very abundant supply of stories of this kind, not always to be understood literally, however, concerning the drama under difficulties, and the comical side of the player's indigence, distresses, and quaint artifices to ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... shall I do with them?" said Peggy, with a comical glance around the room. "There's no sign of a sofa. Never mind! they are perfect beauties. Oh, and what can this be? Oh, Bertha, ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... quite know. There's nothing very comical in his appearance, is there? Only somehow one ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... her feelings. Her determination that Roger should have a pleasant evening seemed to her sufficient to account for the shining eyes she saw reflected in a mirror, and her sparkling words. She praised his selection of authors, though adding, with a comical look, "You are right in thinking I don't know much about them. The binding is just to my taste, whatever may be the contents of some of these ponderous tomes. There are a good ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... something dear to us! To see this tiny mite of warm and living flesh, and to see that it was Sylvia! To trace each beloved lineament, so much alike, and yet so different—half a portrait and half a caricature, half sublime and half ludicrous! The comical little imitation of her nose, with each dear little curve, with even a remainder of the tiny groove underneath the tip, and the tiny corresponding dimple underneath the chin! The soft silken fuzz which was some day to be Sylvia's golden glory! The delicate, sensitive lips, which were some ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... at Greta Hall, and from his letters we get the pleasantest picture of the home-loving, nonsense- loving "comical papa" who had kept the heart of a boy, even when ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... who could not understand what he said. He wanted to go to Albano, and the man was taking him to the Emissarium. We put him right, but his fury in mixed Italian, French, and English was exceedingly comical. It was unlucky that we met him at the top instead of the bottom of ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Jonson's career. Despite his many real virtues, if there is one feature more than any other that distinguishes Jonson, it is his arrogance; and to this may be added his self-righteousness, especially under criticism or satire. "Every Man Out of His Humour" is the first of three "comical satires" which Jonson contributed to what Dekker called the 'poetomachia' or war of the theatres as recent critics have named it. This play as a fabric of plot is a very slight affair; but as a satirical picture of the manners of the time, proceeding by means of vivid ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... have you. I shall have some one to box with, at any rate. Now," he added, with a comical look, "I can't induce my uncle to have a bout with me. Indeed, I should be afraid to, for he is so shortsighted he would need to wear spectacles, and ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... suddenly spread all over the Plantation, but soon reached the neighbouring ones; and we had by Noon about 600 Men, they call the Militia of the Country, that came to assist us in the Pursuit of the Fugitives: But never did one see so comical an Army march forth to War. The Men of any Fashion would not concern themselves, tho' it were almost the Common Cause; for such Revoltings are very ill Examples, and have very fatal Consequences oftentimes, in many Colonies: But they had a Respect for Caesar, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... the end of her," said Margery Burton, with a comical gesture of despair. "You've touched the button, Bessie, and Dolly will keep on telling us about the Eleanor, and how fast she is, until someone ...
— A Campfire Girl's Happiness • Jane L. Stewart
... deep when there isn't a smile lurking around the darkest corner. Neither war nor famine can wholly eliminate the comical. Yesterday afternoon some audacious youngsters asked me to chaperon a tea-party up the river. We went in a gaily decorated house-boat, made tea on a Chinese stove of impossible shape, and ate cakes and sandwiches innumerable. ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... ignorance and recklessness, merely as themes for immoral and inhuman laughter. Jonson was by no means the only poet of that day to whom the hordes of profligate and heathen nomads which infested England were only a comical phase of humanity, instead of being, as they would be now, objects of national shame and sorrow, of pity and love, which would call out in the attempt to redeem them the talents and energies of good men. But Jonson certainly sins more in this respect than any of his contemporaries. He takes ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... I got a comical answer on the tip of my tongue, when Simmons drops his collar button on the floor, and, the same as all the other collar buttons in the world, they picked out the furtherest corners of the room to roll into. The poor boob gets as red as a four-alarm fire and goes crawlin' ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... slightly in a comical twist. He had a vivid imagination, and the shattered desk suggested an exciting and pleasurable moment in the near past. Some one chuckled at the rear of the room. Andy's face broke into an ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... however, by this intelligence; and while the remainder of the punch lasted the conversation was wholly engrossed by the gentleman with the fine waistcoat, who told a great many "immense comical stories" and "confounded smart things," as he termed them, acted and spoken by lords, ladies, and young bucks of quality, of his acquaintance. At last, the grazier, pulling out a watch, of a very unusual size, and telling the hour, said that ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... as she beheld the burden in her visitor's arms. "If it ain't Miss Rest all dead an' done!" Her red hands went up in the air with such a comical tragedy, and her big eyes performed such a wide revolution in their fat, sunburnt setting that Buck half-feared an utter collapse. So he hurriedly sought to reassure her, ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... to the house, but stood so long on the doorstep in a brown study, gazing into the tangled green boskage of the cherry orchard, that Theodora finally went and opened the door before he knocked. As she brought him into the sitting-room she made a comical grimace at ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... I jest come up to tell my man, there, to go home! Levi is over from West Wallen, and wants to see him. Lord, I didn't know you'd got a party, Miss Keeler!" she continued, glancing with an irresistibly comical expression about the room. ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... of human life, and all his sophistry in confusing it with the abstract sense of obligation. It is, perhaps, scarcely fair to call attention to such a mere argumentative and literary freak; but there is something so comical in a defence of debt, however transparent, proceeding from a man to whom never in his life a bill can have been sent in twice, and who would always have preferred ready-money payment to receiving a bill ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... their wailings being interspersed with comical remarks and questions to the dead as to why he preferred to leave this world, having everything to make life comfortable. They place the corpse on a little seat in a ditch or grave four or five feet deep, and for ten days they bring food, requesting the corpse to eat. Finally, ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... just in front of the parapet. A splinter from one lifted a man's cap from his head and sent it flying. The splinter's whirr and the man's sharp exclamation brought all eyes in his direction. His look of comical surprise and the half-dazed fashion of his lifting a hand to fumble cautiously at his head raised some laughter and ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... taken the peculiar little whine it always did when she was at all put out. It was comical and yet a little irritating; but just now neither Rosalys nor Randolph was inclined to ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... from a circular hole in the clapboards, is the nest of a pair of wrens that year after year come back to rear a new family, and chirp and chatter away the summer, when their labors have ceased. If it were a few weeks later, you might get acquainted with the comical little occupants, who are as brisk and busy as if they were not in reality great grand-parents to a whole republic of wrens. See! on the top of the wood-shed, how proudly the old rooster struts along the weather-board, enjoying ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... valetudinarian austerities of sentiment and opinion. She made a pleasant mock of the amenities which passed between her mother and Glendenning, whose gingerliness in the acceptance of the old lady's condescension would, I confess, have been notably comical without this gloss. It was perfectly evident that Mrs. Bentley's favor was bestowed with a mental reservation, and conditioned upon his forming no expectations from it, and poor Glendenning's eagerness to show that he took it upon these terms ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... almost every sentence, and when he had finished the epistle, little Tantillion fell forward, his face on his arms on the table, his mirth almost choking him, while the others leaned back and roared. 'Twas only Roxholm who was not overcome, the story not seeming so comical to him as to the others, and yet there were points at which he himself could not help ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... thinking, which betray an ignorance of the first principles of scientific investigation, an incapacity for understanding what a man of science means by veracity, and an unconsciousness of the weight of established scientific truths, which is almost comical. ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... Robert Hall mentions a comical stumble made by one of the translators of Plato, who construed through the Latin and not direct from the Greek. In the Latin version hirundo stood as hirdo, and the translator, overlooking the mark of contraction, declared to the astonished world on the authority ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... effect; gird the gown with a proportionate apron, the strings of which will bind your arms and body together at the chest; put on a false nose, a pair of spectacles, a lady's frilled night-cap, and a comical conical hat; add a little red cloak, and draw the table up to a window or recess, the curtains of which pin at the back of your shoulders; and standing thus, with your hands (the old dame's feet) upon the table, you will represent the most perfect little dwarf (without arms) you can imagine; ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... lord Faruskiar and his inseparable Ghangir, it seemed that in spite of their traditional reserve, the surprising grimaces, the significant gestures, the comical intonations, had interested them to ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... knock, and Tilghman entered. The young men looked at each other in silence for a moment; Tilghman with an almost comical anxiety, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... four feet ten, the schoolmaster was comical and quizzical. He was evidently the wit of his tribe. His face was yellow and dirty; his nose was short and red, in addition to which it was turned up at the point; his eyes were small, and sloped downwards ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... every imaginable key, and to draw their claws across the strings of the guitars, making the strangest kind of music that could be heard. The Prince hastily stopped up his ears, but even then the sight of these comical musicians sent him ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... way—you know Lizzie's quiet way (something of the old, privileged house-cat about her); never a sign in expression or tone to show whether she herself saw or appreciated the humour of anything she was telling, no matter how comical it might be. She had witnessed two tragedies, and had found a dead man in the bush, and related the incidents ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... their bodies to and fro. These are the musicians, to whose performance the shouters keep perfect time. The grown people on this plantation did not shout, but they do on some of the other plantations. It is very comical to see little children, not more than three or four years old, entering into the performance with all their might. But the shouting of the grown people is rather solemn and impressive than otherwise. We cannot determine whether it has a religious character or not. Some ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... who adopted the novel idea of placing a "bed log" laterally beneath his stampers. The log was laid in a little cement bed which, when the battery started, was not quite dry. The effect was comical to every one but the unfortunate owners. It was certainly the liveliest, but at the same time one of the most ineffective batteries ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... syllabic measure is used in Tragedy and Comedy, which, on a first view, may appear singular. But if the Alexandrine did not appear to us peculiarly adapted to the free imitative expression of pathos, on the other hand, it must be owned that a comical effect is produced by the application of so symmetrical a measure to the familiar turns of dialogue. Moreover, the grammatical conscientiousness of French poetry, which is so greatly injurious in other species of the drama, is fully suited to Comedy, where the versification is not purchased ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... was directed at Miss Wycliffe, and was an effort to make her forget the conversation in which his animus had led him to transgress even his elastic limits with her. There was something almost comical in the concerned expression of his light blue eyes, no longer fierce, as he gazed at her. But she met this dumb ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... what she had done, but Stella's face, as she viewed the catastrophe, was so comical that Marjorie went off into peals of laughter. Molly joined in this, and the two girls ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... settled in Greenland, when Thorwald fought with the "Skraelings," and Biarni's dragon ship made the trip down the coast of Vineland about the dawn of the Christian era. We also know that the American camper was here when Columbus with his comical toy ships was blundering around the West Indies. We also know that the American camper watched Henry Hudson steer the Half Moon around Manhattan Island. It is this same American camper who has taught us to build many of the shacks to be found ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... said the man in black, staring at me; "but, in connection with this Mumbo Jumbo, I could relate to you a comical story about a fellow, an English servant, I ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... them, that he should leave Mrs Hurtle at her lodgings at Islington without any notice. It was clear enough to him that she would not consent to be so left. Then her present proposal,—though it seemed to be absurd and almost comical in the tragical condition of their present circumstances,—had in it some immediate comfort. To take her out and give her a dinner, and then go with her to some theatre, would be easy and perhaps pleasant. It would be easier, and certainly much pleasanter, because ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... once [says his biographer] reading aloud in his presence a very flattering review of his works, which had been sent him by the critic in 1848, and smiled as I came to this sentence: "His most comical pieces have always a serious end in view." "You laugh," said he, with that air of whimsical significance so natural to him, "but it is true. I have kept that to myself hitherto, but that man has found me out. He has detected the moral of ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... for flying," panted Tom, who was holding his kite with all the strength he possessed. "Something must give way soon," and something did give way. It was the string he was holding, and as it snapped he went over on his back in such a comical fashion that all, even to ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... have the house open all the time? We can run over and see the pictures and books whenever we like. I know we can, Miss Celia is so kind," began Betty, who cared for these things more than for screaming peacocks and comical donkeys. ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... and gold that you see are the gifts of courtiers to princes, made in the hope of getting something better in return." He also showed him garlands of flowers in which snares were concealed; these were flatteries and adulations, meant to deceive. But nothing was so comical as the sight of numerous grasshoppers which had burst their lungs with chirping. These, he told him, were sonnets, odes, and dedications, addressed by ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... in the main, a very kind master, though somewhat hasty and impatient. Tom and he were for ever sparring, yet neither could have done without the other; and there was something comical about Tom's disposition which well suited his master's eccentric and changeable moods. Tom evidently served as a kind of safety valve for his master's nervous system, and many an explosion of superfluous excitability he ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... comical appearance as they stood there, awaiting the sweet notes of the bugle sounding "taps;" for their pajamas were of all sorts of patterns, from gay stripes to deep solid blues ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... myself continue to live in the same style as heretofore. We appear mutually to be very well pleased with each other. Mons. S—— displays many comical qualities, and manages to insure us several hearty laughs every morning and evening,—those being the seasons when we meet. I am going to take lessons from him in the pronunciation of French. Of female society I see nothing. The only petticoat that comes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... A most comical effect was produced when we met long processions of small donkeys, so completely laden with corn, that neither their heads nor their feet remained visible. The sheaves seemed to be moving spontaneously, or ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... Mr. Wallis politely, but without anxiety. In any case his firm would not suffer, as Mr. Melrose had undertaken to see them paid, and so he was prepared to be very kind indeed to this family who had made the comical mistake of supposing him to be their father. "And now I suppose that you would like to go ashore at once and have a look at Sydney before you start ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... to a narrow and not particularly well—kept road which led through the opening of the hills towards which she had motioned her whip. Once or twice a smile crossed her face, and once she laughed as she thought of the comical picture which the young man had made as he struggled to dry land with the wet lamb in his arms; and the smile and her laugh made her face seem strangely girlish, because it was usually so calm, so gravely self-reliant. ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... with the officials at the frontier; my victory. Journey across the continent; scene in a railway carriage between Strasburg and Paris. Delivery of my despatches in Paris. Baron Seebach. The French Exposition of 1855. Arrival of Horace Greeley; comical features in his Parisian life; his arrest and imprisonment; his efforts to learn French in prison and after his release, especially at the Crmerie of Madame Busque. Scenes at the Exposition. Journey through Switzerland. Experience ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... The O'Kage Sama now was longing for the rightful substitution. His nest well feathered, he would seek safer quarters with the softer charms of O'Han. On Shu[u]zen's abrupt gesture and refusal he took his departure, almost betraying his own disgruntlement. Comical was his despairing gesture as he took his way to the ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... in view in the city," returned Jacob. "I don't need to earn much you know. I don't set up to be a dude," he added, with a comical glance at his rustic attire, "and I don't mean to board at the ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... pursue it to Georgetown so as to overtake the mail, had put the letter into the hands of a passenger, who "all but forced it from him," so anxious was this passenger to do an obliging thing, as he "knew General Washington." This passenger told his name, but it was "so comical," he could not recollect it. This was Giles's story; and the General adds that as he knew what little dependence was to be placed on the punctual conveyance of letters by a private hand, he writes this duplicate by post to repeat his request that Mr. Lear will inform him, by ...
— Washington in Domestic Life • Richard Rush
... garden walk, kicking the dirt out in two ways behind her, and then nimbly hitching back a step or two and staring and pecking at the hole that she had made. Every little while she said something to herself in a comical drawling tone, standing on one foot, and looking up at me with curious eye, as if wondering who I was, and what in the world I was there for. But who was Coachy?—an old yellowish-brown hen, all tousled ...
— Harper's Young People, October 12, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... may carry a presence full of majesty and beauty, perchance in some one defectious piece we may find a blemish: now in his parts, kinds, or species (as you list to term them), it is to be noted, that some poesies have coupled together two or three kinds, as tragical and comical, whereupon is risen the tragi-comical. Some in the like manner have mingled prose and verse, as Sanazzar and Boethius. Some have mingled matters heroical and pastoral. But that cometh all to one in this question; for if severed they be good, the conjunction ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... same genius, and followed the same studies. Both writ novels, and each of them cultivated his mother tongue. But the greatest resemblance of our two modern authors being in their familiar style, and pleasing way of relating comical adventures, I may pass it over, because I have translated nothing from Boccace of that nature. In the serious part of poetry, the advantage is wholly on Chaucer's side; for though the Englishman has borrowed many tales from the Italian, yet it appears that those of Boccace were not ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... and gave a big, hearty laugh. Matilda Markham as a "honey" was about the most comical thing ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... has fallen into disrepute. Sir Charles Grandison is a comical rather than a courtly figure to this generation; and the man whose manners may be described as Grandisonian is usually called a pompous and grandiloquent old prig. Certainly the elaborately dressed gentleman speaking to a lady only with polished courtesy of phrase, and avoiding in her ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... iron blinds of the shops are pulled down; all the carriages have disappeared; the only sign of life in the Escolta is the comical little tram-car, loaded down with little brown men dressed in white, the driver tooting a toy horn, and all the passengers dismounting ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... to Montes with a tragic look, patted him kindly on the head, looked at him for a moment with comical ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... after them with a comical smile, "this youth of New Italy! They have no more brains than a pin. When I was young, and every city had its own ruler and its own court, I should not have escorted a lady and kept her waiting outside ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... and under the trees at Naushon, no doubt carrying home large stealings from my domain there, which lost none of their value from being transferred to his pages. Next to his private readings which he gave us there, the most notable recollection is that of his intense amusement at some comical songs which our young people used to sing, developing a sense of humor which a superficial observer would hardly have discovered, but which you and I know he possessed ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... him the photographs which she had to copy in colors he thundered in his disdain (Oh, how amused she was at his comical fury!) at these heads of imbeciles, frozen in solemn smiles. That the dear eyes of his Luce should have to apply themselves to reproducing and her hands to tracing the pictures of these mugs seemed to him a profanation. ...
— Pierre and Luce • Romain Rolland
... disliked the "crabbed studies" of logic and philosophy, "his genie being naturally bent to the pleasant paths of poetry," but he was reputed at the University as afterward at Elizabeth's court, "a rare poet, witty, comical, and facetious." During his life in London he produced a number of plays and poems which have given his name a not inconsiderable place in the list of Elizabethan poets and dramatists. He is now best known, where known at all, by his prose work "Euphues," which was so much admired at Elizabeth's ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... stands of devils. They haunt his paths from the cradle to the grave. The Tamil proverb in fact says, "The devil who seizes yon in the cradle, goes with you to the funeral pile".' The fear and worship of ghosts, demons, and devils are universal throughout India, and the rites practised are often comical. The ghost of a bibulous European official with a hot temper, who died at Muzaffarnagar, in the United Provinces, many years ago, was propitiated by offerings of beer and whisky at 'his tomb. Much information on the subject is collected ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... help regarding this feature of theatrical life as so much theatrical chaos. It lacks culture, and is sometimes both bizarre and neurotic. I do not object to patter, smart give and take, in which the comical angles of life are exposed, if it is brilliant; neither have I anything to say against light comedy in which the ridiculous side of things is portrayed. This sort of entertainment may help men who have spent a busy day, crowded with anxious moments, and ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... nothing, but with a half-comical, half-displeased expression he watched the interview between that weird old woman and the fair young girl, little suspecting how ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... her to be quiet, but she would not; she grew wild, staring about and straining out her arms. "I will be no party to this folly—I will not—I will not," she said half to herself, but Palamone was listening with a comical, wry face, ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... stability which the pure democracy of Switzerland has displayed, there is something comical in the horror of all forms of direct government expressed by most constitutional writers. De Tocqueville, whom we honor for his appreciation of our own Constitution, declares "that they all tend to render the government of the people irregular ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... her eyes dilated with an almost comical expression of dismay. She had not a word to say ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... hear the lawyer utter a crow of victory, for his comical look of triumph clearly showed his feelings. I had reason to believe that he also was a suitor for the hand of my mother, but I do not think he gained much by his stratagem. Her feelings were aroused and irritated, and at length he also took his departure, after expressing a tender interest ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... It was comical work trying to make out what they meant as they began to talk to me about the terrible wild beasts I should meet, and, above all, about the orang-outangs, which they assured me were eight or nine feet high, and would look upon me, they assured me, ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... a jack-in-a-box or a comet. She had only known Aunt Maria for the last four years, and she had not yet got used to her rough-and-ready mannish ways, nor learned to see any sense in her philosophizings. Looking upon her as a comical character, and supposing that she talked mainly for the fun of the thing, she was disposed to laugh at her doings and sayings, though mostly meant ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... Cavours went every year to Switzerland to stay with their connections, the De Sellons and the De la Rives. On this occasion, when the travellers reached M. de la Rive's villa at Presinge, Camille, looking terribly in earnest, and with an air of importance, made the more comical by the little red costume he was wearing, went straight to his host with the announcement that the postmaster had treated them abominably by giving them the worst horses, and that he ought to be dismissed. "But," said M. de la Rive, "I cannot dismiss ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... across some human being. He found himself at length at the mouth of a rocky cave in which a fire seemed burning. He entered, and saw a huge forge, and a crowd of men in front of it, blowing bellows and wielding hammers, and to each anvil were seven men, and a set of more comical smiths could not be found if you searched all the world through! Their heads were bigger than their little bodies, and their hammers twice the size of themselves, but the strongest men on earth could not have handled their iron clubs more ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... all had their fishing-lines and hooks, and as soon as they were on the ground started to find a good place to fish. Dilsey got some bait from the negro boys, and baited the hooks; and it was a comical sight to see all of the children, white and black, perched upon the roots of trees or seated flat on the ground, watching intently their hooks, which they kept bobbing up and down so fast that the fish must have been very quick indeed ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... he can prophesy With a wink OF his eye, Peep with security Into futurity, Sum up your history, Clear up a mystery, Humour proclivity For a nativity. With mirrors so magical, Tetrapods tragical, Bogies spectacular, Answers oracular, Facts astronomical, Solemn or comical, And, if you want it, he Makes a reduction on taking a quantity! Oh! If any one anything lacks, He'll find it all ready in stacks, If he'll only look in On the resident ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... charms than did their residence, were in many respects scarcely less interesting. In front of the foremost hut was assembled a group of creatures with dark shining skins, which, at a first glance, and owing to their comical movements, might well have been taken for a herd of apes. Now, like those animals, they leaped the hedges and bushes, and then, like snakes, wound along the ground, or rolled down the river bank with a rapidity of motion that the eye could scarcely ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... score success with his lance, the dwarf at least had won a victory through his comical situation and ready wit. Fair ladies forgot his ugliness; the pages his ill-humor; the courtiers his vindictive slyness; the monarch the disappointment of his failure to worst the duke's fool, and all applauded the ludicrous figure, ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... in one another's fond eyes. Their fidelity was of the days of chivalry, and their simplicity comical and beautiful. Twenty years of happy and loving life were allotted them and one pledge—poor Miss Dorothy—was left alone, when little more than nineteen years old. This good old couple, having loved early and waited long, and lived together with wonderful tenderness ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... could not stab and sneer, and create new worlds more laughable than even this, like Swift, nor declaim and sap faith, like Bolingbroke, nor rhyme and glitter like Pope, nor discourse on medals and write comical "Pilgrims' Progresses" like Arbuthnot, nor pour out floods of learning like Prior in "Alma," could do things which they in their turn never equalled, (even as in Emerson's poem, "The Mountain and the Squirrel," the latter ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... broke in Paddy, with a comical twinkle of his eye, as he winked in the direction of Commodore ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... difficulty, and she rebuked him with most comical gravity, treating him as a child. He used to say that when he came to Alibi Crackaby he broke down, and Pin-Pan, Musky-Dan, Tweedle-um Twoddle-um made him roar with laughter. He said Musky-Dan especially ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... Fitzgerald, while the Colonel made a comical grimace, "suggests violence. I shall save him the trouble. I have seen much of the world, Madame—the hard side of it—and, knowing it as I do, it is scarcely probable that I should carry about my person the equivalent of four millions ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... brothers, Reuben and Burke And Nathan and Jotham and Solomon, lurk Around the corner to see him work,— Sitting cross-legged, like a Turk, Drawing the waxed end through with a jerk, And boring the holes with a comical quirk Of his wise old head, and a knowing smirk. But vainly they mounted each other's backs, And poked through knot-holes and pried through cracks; With wood from the pile and straw from the stacks ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... did. We talked for two hours. It was almost comical—the sheer delight in talking to a woman once more. I have never been what is called a woman's woman, but I always had my friends, and I suddenly realized that I ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... respects, went to the quarters assigned for their lodgings. Ever since day-break, the drums, fifes, and timbals of the army of Narvaez never ceased their music in honour of Cortes, though none of us had spoken a word to them on the subject. A comical fellow of a negro, who belonged to the band, danced for joy, shouting out; "Where are your Romans now? They never achieved so glorious a victory with such small numbers!" We could not silence these noisy fellows, till Cortes ordered them to be confined. In ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... York Tribune. These dealt frankly, in the old anti-slavery days between 1850 and 1860, with other persons of distinction in Boston, who did not see the right so clearly as Quincy did, or who at least let their interests darken them to the ugliness of slavery. Their fault was all the more comical because it was the error of men otherwise so correct, of characters so stainless, of natures so upright; and the Quincy letters got out of it all the fun there was in it. Quincy himself affected me as the finest patrician type ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... could. In fact, you told me so, and therefore I have never troubled you with them, my dear," was the reply, with just the slightest shade of satire. But its bitterness passed away the moment Sybilla jumped up and came to sit down on the hearth at his feet, in an attitude of comical attention. Thereupon he patted her on the head, gently and smilingly, for he was a fond husband still, and she was such a sweet plaything for ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... opened, and now we were much besought by the ladies. I had to deny myself with a whole series of comical excuses. Eustace performed his duty after a stiff English fashion—once with his pretty partner of the pranzo, and once again with a fat gondolier. The band played waltzes and polkas, chiefly upon patriotic airs—the Marcia Reale, Garibaldi's Hymn, &c. Men danced with ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... and after some comical quizzing, they decided, to their own complete satisfaction, that although the bushman's "missus" was the "littlest of all little 'uns, straight up and down," the Maluka's "knocked spots ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... of the choice morsels, and parodied them in an amusing manner. He never could retain an enmity very long, however, and so at the end of the banquet he parodied one of his own arias, the famous "Non piu andrai," by giving it a comical turn to suit Leporello's situation. The criticism of one of the best biographers of Mozart upon this opera is worth repeating in this connection: "Whether we regard the mixture of passions in its concerted music, the profound expression of melancholy, ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... emit heat as well as light; for it was a frequent trick of their proprietor's to snatch at his spectacles and wipe the mist from them with a bandana handkerchief. Unglazed, his eyes showed a blank and indiscriminate ferocity which Manvers found exceedingly comical. ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... a shady nook, just off Katahdin's reflection in the river, while Iglesias sketched him. Meanwhile I, analyzing my view, presently discovered a droll image in the track of a land-avalanche down the front. It was a comical fellow, a little giant, a colossal dwarf, six hundred feet high, and should have been thrice as tall, had it had any proper development,—for out of his head grew two misdirected skeleton legs, "hanging down and dangling." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... soon clinging to Jerry's shell. He was dripping from head to foot, and not being at all a handsomely-formed or good-looking youth, he presented a most comical appearance. ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... struck Tom as so comical that he was compelled to laugh outright; he simply couldn't help it. It was just such a joke as he might have played years before, perhaps on old Josiah ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer |
