"Humorous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... give opportunity to the competing agents of other houses to honor Van Antwerp, Bragg & Co. with such titles as "Octopus" and "Monopoly," names that were used before "Trusts" were invented. They also called the firm in chosen companies, "Van Anteup, Grabb & Co." These were mere playful or humorous titles in recognition of the fact that this firm had, by its industry, skill and energy, captured a larger share of the patronage of the people than was agreeable to its competitors, and they, in despair of success by fair ...
— A History of the McGuffey Readers • Henry H. Vail
... order a lay-brother swung open the door, and two other lay-brothers entered leading between them a young novice of the order. He was a man of huge stature, dark-eyed and red-headed, with a peculiar half-humorous, half-defiant expression upon his bold, well-marked features. His cowl was thrown back upon his shoulders, and his gown, unfastened at the top, disclosed a round, sinewy neck, ruddy and corded like the bark of the fir. Thick, muscular arms, covered with a reddish down, ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... need much reading between the lines to realise the odds with which our officers and men have to contend, the endless discomfort and unending din. They are masters of a gallant art of metaphor which belittles the most appalling horrors of trench warfare; masters, too, of the art of extracting humorous relief ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... histories of mismated couples from different social strata are recounted with hearty simplicity, deep understanding of life, and frank recognition of human weakness, but without condemnation, tears, or pointing a moral. They made Fontane famous. Frau Jenny Treibel (1892), an exquisitely humorous picture of the Berlin bourgeoisie, and Effi Briest "the most profound miracle of Fontane's youthful art," added considerably to the fame of the gray-haired "modern," while The Poggenpuhls (1896) and Stechlin (1898) won him further laurels at a time when most writers ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... or ice is almost wholly ludicrous. Whether sleeping, quarrelling, or playing, whether curious, frightened, or angry, its interest is continuously humorous, but the Adelie penguin in the water is another thing; as it darts to and fro a fathom or two below the surface, as it leaps porpoise-like into the air or swims skimmingly over the rippling surface of a pool, ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... slip away and let her go on her journey alone. To the boy, who knew enough of the inner history of the household to enjoy the piquancy of the situation, such a trick seemed quite amusing. He went away picturing in his mind the scene at the railway station and its humorous possibilities. ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... and recanted. His invective was sometimes coarse, and his abuse was always virulent. He was not over-scrupulous in his methods of controversy; but no one can rise from a reading of his works without a feeling of liking for the vivacious, cultured, impulsive, humorous, irrepressible Welshman. Certainly no Welshman can regard the man who wrote so lovingly of his native land, and who championed her cause so valiantly, except with real gratitude ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... he said, in humorous distress. "The girls appear to be holding a meeting over there in the dressing-room, and the men are in the smoker! I'm going to round 'em up! How do you do, Miss Brown? Gad, you look so like your aunt,—and she WAS a beauty, Ella!—that I could kiss you for it, ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... Harold Lind always gave the effect of dancing when he walked. He always, moreover, gave the effect of extreme youth and of the utmost joy and mirth in life itself. He regarded everything and everybody with a smile as of humorous appreciation, and yet the appreciation was so goodnatured ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... last beheld it. The 'bo-fet,' or double corner-cupboard, where the china was formerly kept, had disappeared, its place being taken by a plain board. The tall old clock, with its ancient oak carcase, arched brow, and humorous mouth, was also not to be seen, a cheap, white-dialled specimen doing its work. What these displacements might betoken saddened his humanity less than it cheered his primitive instinct in pointing out how her ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... has its humorous side, and I have tried to answer it good-humoredly. But it seems to me that it also has a very serious import. Why is there all this wrangling as to whether man is the descendant of a lower animal or not? Why cannot people examine the ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... ever, has the tour of the Globe been made by so large a party of Americans. The public and private receptions tendered them at every point have been most brilliant in character, and the trip has abounded with humorous and interesting incidents, which every American, whether or not he be a lover of the ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick
... better!" she exclaimed vehemently. "There won't be anybody to ask me every day or two if I've made my strike yet? And how much gold I brought back to-day? And all the other fool questions that seem so humorous to questioners and hearers, but which hurt and sting and rankle when you're sick at heart with disappointment, and gritting your teeth to keep up your courage and your belief in yourself. Oh I know! Daddy didn't know I knew, but ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... to elicit, whether in comedy or tragedy. The book will enhance Mr. Boothby's reputation and bring him into the very front rank of emotional writers, as well as confirm our opinion of him as a most powerful imaginative author. His humorous vein is fascinating and attractive. His pathos is true, and often most ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... very minor matters. He has great variety, also, of narrative forms: elaborate allegories; love stories of many kinds; romances, both religious and secular; tales of chivalrous exploit, like that related by the Knight; humorous extravaganzas; and jocose renderings of coarse popular material—something, at least, in virtually every ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... from one to the other with a humorous eye. "It seems to me that the Venerable Company of Pastors have not yet expelled the ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... what he said in M. Maniera's right ear?" asked M. Moncharmin, with a gravity which he thought exceedingly humorous. ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... parlour was a wonderful experience! Imagine a portly woman of sixty, with a shrewd humorous face, talking with French vivacity, and with many homely turns of phrase drawn straight from that life of the soil and the peasants amid which she worked; a woman named in one of General Castelnau's Orders of the Day and entitled to wear the Legion ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in one of her most bewitching moods—even the old Highland word "fey" scarcely described her many brilliant variations from grave to gay, from gay to romantic, and from romantic to a kind of humorous-satiric vein which moved her to utter quick little witticisms which might have seemed barbed with too sharp a point were they not so quickly covered with a sweetness of manner which deprived them of all malice. She looked her best, too,—she had robed herself in ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... were at target practice, and an Irish sergeant, Byrne, was assisting him by keeping up a continuous flow of comments and criticisms that showed the keenest enjoyment of the situation. Byrne was the only man I noticed who seemed to regard the fight as in any way humorous. For at Guasimas, no one had time to be flippant, or to exhibit any signs of braggadocio. It was for all of them, from the moment it started, through the hot, exhausting hour and a half that it lasted, a most serious proposition. The conditions were exceptional. The men had ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... the lines of demarcation between natural groups and in the absence of transitional forms, with all the confidence of youth and imperfect knowledge. I was not aware, at that time, that he had then been many years brooding over the species-question; and the humorous smile which accompanied his gentle answer, that such was not altogether his view, long haunted and puzzled me. But it would seem that four or five years' hard work had enabled me to understand what it meant; for Lyell, writing to ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... character, and succeeded in making the Parsees laugh heartily at his caricature of the Hindus, while he convulsed the Hindus with his clever skits on the Parsees. He also made effective reference to the Great Eastern and her work, bringing out the humorous aspects of telegraphy and of quick ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... all the talking. Maggie fancied that, all his life, he had persisted in the same gentle humorous fashion without any especial attention as to the wisdom, agreement or even existence of his audience. She fancied that all men who wrote books did that. They had to talk to "clear their ideas." She raised ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... leaving her exalted with the consciousness that she was wanted—to have him go thus from her and straightway fall into the trap which Mrs. Artemas unaffectedly baited—the trap of which he had not once but many times obliquely alluded to in half-humorous, half-genuine terms of fear—it was, ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... beginning of the seventeenth century, Dr. Corbett, Bishop of Oxford and Norwich, wrote a very humorous satire on the fairy superstition, called "The Fairies' Farewell, a proper new ballad to be sung or whistled to the tune of Meadow Brow." Perhaps I cannot better take leave of these very curious imaginary people, than to employ a couple of stanzas ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... is possibly the humorous visiting-card that Beethoven sometimes sent to his friends, with the inscription Wir bleiben die Alten ("We are the same as ever"), and on reversing the card, a couple of asses stared them in the face! Frau Eyloff told me of a similar card that ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... want him to come in that way? It would most likely lead to an engagement. And then I should have to listen to his praises continually. Yes, it would be rather hard on me;" and he laughed with a humorous sound. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... this Disraeli-looking man speak, it was in Winnipeg, when he was making his first and last trip across Canada on the railway for which he had done and ventured so much. In his semi-humorous and semi-serious way he said, "I used to state that I never expected to live long enough to see the road completed, but that when my friends would be crossing the continent upon it, I would be looking down upon them from another and better sphere; my opponents said I would ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... redeeming trait—it was an appreciation of the humorous. No man has ever been entirely lost or entirely miserable, who has had a touch of humor in him. As the Bishop put a pillow under his head and then locked the door to keep any one else out, the ridiculousness of it all came over him, ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... Garrick plays, but he wrote for that work, and the "Every-Day Book," a number of pleasant, characteristic little sketches and essays. We herewith present the reader with one of the best and most remarkable of these articles. Of course all will observe, and admire, the humorous, yet very gentle, loving, almost pathetic manner in which Elia describes the person and character of Mary's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... years when the close of his life here came April 20, 1910, in Redding, Connecticut. Once he wrote in one of his humorous moments, "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." When his life here ended, tributes were received from every land. He was mourned as few men have ever been. Why? Because he knew people; he loved them and interested them. Because, in his most ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... Turnbull made a humorous grimace; then he said: "We seem to be talking in a kind of shorthand; but I won't pretend not to understand you. What you mean is this: that you learnt about all your saints and angels at the same time as you learnt about ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... priceless relic, the Tower of the Grand Constable and the entire historic Chateau of Ham, and equally the Castle of Peronne, a jewel of beauty—all in one corner of the Vallois! On the smoking wreck of Peronne, they left a humorous placard: ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... face was a study; he was apparently a humorous individual. But Miss Molasses addressed her remarks to Frank Lovell; and Frank, as in duty bound, replied. That girl was evidently making up to him, and, thinking he was fond of field-sports, pretended to take an interest ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... by the relief I felt that they took my indiscretion in such good part, and saw only—what I failed to see myself—the humorous side of the incident. ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... two indunas simultaneously, with their hands to their mouths. But Tyisandhlu said nothing, though a very humorous gleam seemed to steal over his fine ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... harmless, smitten into shame by he pure presence of our women and the sweet confiding smiles of our children. Among the veterans, the old pictorial satirists, we have mentioned the famous name of one humorous designer who is still alive and at work. Did we not see, by his own hand, his own portrait of his own famous face, and whiskers, in the Illustrated London News the other day? There was a print in that paper ...
— John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character • William Makepeace Thackeray
... assistance of this gifted individual, he composed his popular song of "Scotland's Hills." Introduced at a theatre in Dundee, it was received with marked approbation. It was first printed, in January 1829, in the Fife Herald newspaper, with a humorous preface by Vedder, and was afterwards copied into the Edinburgh Literary Gazette. It has since found a place in many of the collections of Scottish song, and has three different times been ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... original Mrs. Grundy. A little more withdrawn into the parlour sat a tall, strong, and serious girl, with a face of beautiful honesty and a pair of scissors stuck in her belt, doing a small piece of needlework. Two feet behind them sat a hulking labourer with a humorous face like wood painted scarlet, with a huge mug of mild beer which he had not touched, and probably would not touch for hours. On the hearthrug there was an equally motionless cat; and on the table a copy of ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... truth I made no further remarks worthy of being smiled at. That pistol kept me thinking. That she had come out to watch me, and if necessary shoot me, seemed a pretty obvious deduction, and much as I admired her nerve, it made humorous conversation a ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... theirs was very marked. There was no contrasting the spirit of the two parties. Our men, in their scratch costumes of dirty, muddy khaki, with their various assorted headdresses of woollen helmets, mufflers and battered hats, were a light-hearted, open, humorous collection as opposed to the sombre demeanour and stolid appearance of the Huns in their grey-green faded uniforms, top boots, ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... little man. Who was he? What was his real reason for coming to East Wellmouth to live—in the WINTER time? What made him spend so many hours in the old cemetery? Was he crazy, as some people declared, or merely "kind of simple," which was the opinion of others? Mr. Pulcifer's humorous summing-up was freely quoted. ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... time to literature. His career as an author does not offer us any extraordinary situations. He owed his success, and later on his glory, to severe and prolonged work. His literary talent manifested itself while he was still a student. He began his career with humorous short stories which were published in various newspapers. They brought him enough for the bare necessities ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... heard, however, was not of a sad or gloomy nature. These sturdy men enjoyed humorous yarns, and as Dane listened to several, he joined in the laughter that ensued. One, especially, appealed to him. It was told by a big strapping fellow, who hitherto had taken little ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... the fierce republican, with humorous fierceness, "you can be a great writer, but a little play-actor you shall never be," and he took up his ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... subject crowded on his brain; that he often read what he had written as if it had been the composition of another, and was amused; that it was the greatest pleasure to him to compose those light and trifling pieces, humorous and satirical, which had been so often successful. He holds Voltaire to have been the most extraordinary genius that ever lived, on account of his universality and fertility; talked of Scott and his wonderful labour ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... an All-World railway was freely discussed in the English and French Press by persons with no practical experience whatsoever of either Siberia or Alaska. Their opinions would, therefore, have been equally valuable with reference to a railway across the moon or planet Mars. From a humorous point of view, some of the letters published were well worth perusal, notably those of a French gentleman, who, in the Paris New York Herald, repeatedly drew my attention to the fact that he "claimed the paternity of the scheme to unite France and America by rail," and ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... over which is a curious bridge built with one arch. The parish is the largest in the kingdom, including the whole Forest of Dartmoor. William Browne of Tavistock, and the author of Britannia's Pastorals, gives a humorous description of Lydford in the reign of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 387, August 28, 1829 • Various
... his birth, would have mentioned such words from his father. But this is not so, and therefore these words of Gloucester at the very beginning of the piece, were merely intended as a communication to the public—in a humorous form—of the fact that Gloucester has a legitimate son and an ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... at her, seemingly sure of a humorous answering look to his pleasantry. It was not wholly denied. She yielded to a touch of amusement with a cool smile, and hastened her steps. The man kept pace without effort. Luckily, the car stood only a few feet away, with Renaud, or rather Hand, at the curb, holding ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... a half-humorous, half-apologetic exhibition of the rude utensils of the living room, and then the young men turned away as the two girls entered the open door of the second room. Neither Christie nor Jessie could for a moment understand the delicacy which kept ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... another rather humorous sketch, which represented a native in the act of carrying a kangaroo, the height of the man being three feet. The number of drawings in the cave could not altogether have been less than from fifty to sixty, but the majority of them consisted of men, kangaroos, etc., the figures being carelessly ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... given to one John Harrison by the Humane Society for rescuing from drowning a certain Benton Barry. Now Benton Barry was one of the wretched housebreakers. This is the summary of the opening chapter. The story is intensely interesting in its serious as well as its humorous parts. ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... the locket nor at the hand which held it, but into his eyes. In hers the wrath was gone; there was even a humorous sparkle under the heavy lashes. She made no sign that she saw the jeweled miniature. She was thinking how strong he was, how handsomely dignity and ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... a full, accurate, and interesting history. The History of New York, by Martha J. Lamb, is not so full as might have been wished, but is otherwise unexceptionable. New York is fortunate in having the most graphic and humorous history of its early days that any city in the world ever had, but nobody except Diedrich Knickerbocker himself ever claimed a great amount of accuracy and truthfulness for ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... DUBLIN.—At a meeting of the Dublin Corporation, Mr. T. D. Sullivan, M.P., editor of the Nation, was elected Lord Mayor of the city for this year. Mr. Sullivan is known all over the world, wherever Irishmen congregate, by his fine and stirring humorous and pathetic ballads for the Irish people. Personally, Mr. Sullivan is a gentle and gentlemanly man, much beloved by his family and a large circle of friends. He has always preserved the high-minded and patriotic traditions of ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... and he on his side, too, does not recognise them. The chief peculiarity of Lieutenant Hlopakov consists in his continually for a year, sometimes two at a time, using in season and out of season one expression, which, though not in the least humorous, for some reason or other makes everyone laugh. Eight years ago he used on every occasion to say, "'Umble respecks and duty," and his patrons of that date used always to fall into fits of laughter and make him repeat ''Umble respecks ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... look, however, would have revealed, to any one who could read faces, a lovable and almost tender light behind the eye's sharp twinkle and a kindly, humorous twist to the stubborn mouth. Hot temper, the physiognomist would have read, and obstinacy. But there the catalogue of faults would have ended abruptly. The rest was warm heart, trustfulness, eager ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... of humor. The ability to see and to show just how foolish or funny some situations are will turn many a tragedy of childhood into a comedy. Whenever children laugh at the distresses or faults of others, help them to laugh at their own. Cultivate the habit of seeing the odd, the whimsical, the humorous side of things. A sound sense of kindly humor often will save ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... proffered hand and held it, while, with a humorous glance at his friend, he said: "See here, Hilland, I hold an indisputable proof that it's time you appeared on the confines of civilization and gave an account ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... the dying would be easy enough; it's the living an old maid I shouldn't like," said Diana, with no intention of being humorous. "Although I wouldn't mind being an old maid VERY much if I could be one like Miss Lavendar. But I never could be. When I'm forty-five I'll be horribly fat. And while there might be some romance about a thin old maid there couldn't ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... about this with that sly shrewdness so characteristic of him, so well symbolized by his mulberry badge—a humorous shrewdness almost, which makes him one of the most delightful rogues in history, just as he was one of the most debonair and cultured. He may indeed be considered as one of the types of the subtle, crafty, selfish politician that was ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... well—and lifting his 'wide-awake' with a burlesque salutation, which, I suppose, would have charmed the 'Plume of Feathers,' he dropped, kicked and caught his 'wide-awake,' with an agility and gravity, as he replaced it, so inexpressibly humorous, that Milly went off in a loud fit of ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... making it as humorous as he could. But when he had finished, she wasn't laughing. For a moment his impulse was to lay before her the whole story—the bitter climax, the ashen climax, which lately he had thought so beautiful. She had said that nothing in the past would matter—but this was of the future, too. Even if ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... to be lucid must prove a priceless asset to his client when he undertakes the task of bamboozling a dozen unhappy countrymen penned in a box. It is hard to picture to yourself this impressive figure giggling sycophantically at the pleasantries of a humorous judge. But he must have conformed to convention in this matter in the past, for how otherwise could he now be an ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... in my memory with Thackeray because of her visit to the author of Vanity Fair and its humorous and pathetic features. She went to London from her lonely Yorkshire home, and the great world, with its many selfish and unlovely features, made a painful impression on her. Even Thackeray, her idol, was found to have feet of clay. But this "little Puritan," as the great ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... great part of the interest in it was gone for her. At Vailima she had almost a virgin field for her gardening activities, and her "Dutch blood" rejoiced within her. In the old California days her husband, in his humorous way, had called her "the forty-niner," but now, as he watched her, flitting in her blue dress, like a witch, in all parts of the plantation, directing, expostulating, and working with her hands when words failed, he called her "my little blue bogie planter." Writing to Miss Taylor, he says: ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... discourse, which was sensible, spirited, and gay. Her frank and sprightly demeanour excited his own confidence and good-humour; and he described to her the characters of those females who had honoured them with such a spiteful mark of distinction, in terms so replete with humorous satire, that she seemed to listen with particular complacency of attention, and distinguished every nymph thus ridiculed with such a significant glance as overwhelmed her with chagrin and mortification. ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... nothing ridiculous in what is known of Ahone and Kiehtan. If they had a mythology, and if we knew the myths, doubtless they would be ridiculous enough. The savage mind, turned from belief and awe into the spinning of yarns, instantly yields to humorous fancy. As we know, mediaeval popular Christianity, in imagery, marchen or tales, and art, copiously illustrates the same mental phenomenon. Saints, God, our Lord, and the Virgin, all play ludicrous and immoral parts in Christian folk-tales. This is Mythology, ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... stage, at the house he established upon the wreck of John Brougham's Lyceum, often rise in memory, crowned with a peculiar light. Lester Wallack, in his peerless elegance; Laura Keene, in her spiritual beauty; the quaint, eccentric Walcot; the richly humorous Blake, so noble in his dignity, so firm and fine and easy in his method, so copious in his natural humour; Mary Gannon, sweet, playful, bewitching, irresistible; Mrs. Vernon, as full of character as the tulip is of colour or the hyacinth of grace, and as delicate and refined as an exquisite ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... magpies—exchanging merry greetings after their vacation; comparing notes on studies, classes and roommates; discussing the advent of new teachers, pupils and improvements, when a tall, gracious woman of, perhaps, thirty-five years suddenly appeared in the doorway, her fair face gleaming with humorous appreciation of the animated scene and babel before her, and enjoined silence with the uplifting of one ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... lifted his head sharply and met Pixie's watching eyes fixed upon him. His own glance was tense and shamed, but to his amazement hers was friendly, humorous, undismayed. There was no displeasure in her face, no hint of humiliation nor discomfiture— nothing, it would appear, but ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... polite," his son declared, in a softly growling tone which was habitual to him, but which was an indication of nothing worse than a vaguely humorous intention. "It ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... We cannot have two Agathas, and we must have one Cottager's wife; and I am sure I set her the example of moderation myself in being satisfied with the old Butler. If the part is trifling she will have more credit in making something of it; and if she is so desperately bent against everything humorous, let her take Cottager's speeches instead of Cottager's wife's, and so change the parts all through; he is solemn and pathetic enough, I am sure. It could make no difference in the play, and as for Cottager himself, when he has got his wife's speeches, I would undertake ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... from the pretext at its beginning to the capitulation at Sedan, has been a succession of surprises, where the author of the pretext was a constant sufferer. Nor is this strange. Falstaff says, with humorous point, "See now how wit may be made a Jack-a- lent, when't is upon ill employment!"[Footnote: Merry Wives of Windsor, Act V. Sc. 5.]—and another character, in a play of Beaumont and Fletcher, reveals the same evil destiny in stronger ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... matter, which was in itself a somewhat humorous thing. Slim and erect, with a long, graceful neck, and a carriage of the head which somehow suggested the environment of a court, Mrs. Handsell was distinctly, even from a distance, a pleasant person to look upon. ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... must ye be lashed hence? Tiphaine, my sword!" He turned to seize his weapon, but as he did so his gaze fell upon the blazonry of sir Nigel's shield, and he stood staring, while the fire in his strange green eyes softened into a sly and humorous twinkle. ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Duc de Saint-Simon allude with a humorous sympathy to Frontenac's appointment: "He was a man of excellent parts"—writes this garrulous chronicler—"living much in society, and completely ruined. He found it hard to bear the imperious temper of his wife; and he was given the government ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... rested on it!—his dear young hand—In the deepening chilliness, watching the ashes, she ached with the sense of her last failure; but most of the time she thought of Edith, and of what she believed she had read in those humorous, candid eyes. "She dared, before me!—to show him that she was in love with him! He doesn't care for her—I know that. But I won't have her come here, to my own house, and make love to him. How can I keep her from coming? Oh, if I could only ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... their own: I would have them only remember, that scoffing cometh not of wisdom. So as the best title in true English they get with their merriments is to be called good fools: for so have our grave forefathers ever termed that humorous kind of jesters: but that which giveth greatest scope to their scorning humours is rhyming and versing. It is already said (and as I think, truly said) it is not rhyming and versing that maketh poesy. One may be a poet without ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... the wedding, and was invited to dinner in Cadogan-place the Sunday after his return. Theodora condescended to be frankly entertained with his dry humorous account of the magnificent doings that had diverted him extremely, and caused Arthur and Violet to congratulate themselves that, in their case, Matilda had not been ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... taken advantage of very wisely by Mr. Johonnot, who has had experience in teaching and in making school-books. His selections are generally excellent. Articles by renowned naturalists, and interesting papers by men who, if not renowned, can put things pointedly, alternate with serious and humorous verse. 'The Popular Science Monthly' has furnished much material. The 'Atlantic' and the works of John Burroughs are contributors also. There are illustrations, and the compiler has some sensible advice to offer teachers in regard to ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... in the age of the senior officers and the slowness of promotion. There were majors of over fifty years of age, and if a man were a general at seventy he was considered fortunate and young. The jealousy with which younger men were regarded would have been humorous had it not come already so near to ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... ever hear of another piece of impudence like that?" said Watson. "It has its humorous side, I admit, and you're justified in laughing, but it's ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... up, as though in humorous supplication. "Because, Comrade, to this point we have not had expediters to find out such desires on the ...
— Expediter • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... names of human beings, birds, fishes, trees, plants, stones, metals, and even actions, events, and feelings, diminutives are obtained, which by their form, present the names so made in different colors; they become more naive, more childlike, eventually more roguish, or humorous, or pungent. These traits can scarcely be rendered in English; for, as Robert Ferguson remarks: "The English language is not strong in diminutives, and therefore it lacks some of the most effective means for the expression ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... consciously incurable consults at last only his lawyer: that was what made him so different from every one else. Ralph had something of this same quality, this appearance of thinking that life was a matter of connoisseurship; but in Ralph it was an anomaly, a kind of humorous excrescence, whereas in Mr. Osmond it was the keynote, and everything was in harmony with it. She was certainly far from understanding him completely; his meaning was not at all times obvious. It was hard to see what he meant for ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... and electrical experts were, for the most part, split up into two camps. Some of them said the telephone was impossible, while others said that "nothing could be simpler." Almost all were agreed that what Bell had done was a humorous trifle. But Lord Kelvin persisted. He hammered the truth home that the telephone was "one of the most interesting inventions that has ever been made in the history of science." He gave a demonstration with one end of the wire in a coal mine. He stood side ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... and admiration for his father was deep and sincere. At his home, when guests gathered round the engineer's table, the boy, with his eyes sparkling, listened to his father's "strange, humorous vein of talk," then glanced round with a smile of expectation to see how much others appreciated their host's well-told tales. "My father was always my dearest," he wrote. This was a high certificate of appreciation, when we remember he had the most devoted ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... had the third nautical entertainment of the present voyage, which was quite as varied and successful as usual. Mr. Pemberton's recitation from Tennyson, and Tab's humorous account of Father Neptune's visit to the 'Sunbeam,' were the novelties on this occasion. There were also some excellent songs by the crew, a pretty ballad by Muriel, and a reading by Tom; Mabelle being as usual the backbone and leader of the whole affair. I managed to sit through ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... a queer, humorous fashion. "The King of France thinks he has a right to what his explorers discover; the King of England—well, it was Queen Elizabeth, I believe, who laid claim to a portion called Virginia. She died, but the English ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... really a shock to me. When I had asked Andrew to mention Jaguars to his broker it was solely in the hope of hearing some humorous City comment on their futility—one of those crisp jests for which the Stock Exchange is famous. I had no idea that his broker might like to ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... read the humorous account in the Patriot and Clarion, he saw still more clearly what chance he would have had before the public in a fight with ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... death—nothing could save him. The cold perspiration on his forehead, and the glassy appearance of his eye, too plainly indicated that he had but a few minutes to live. Courtenay, shocked at the condition of the poor fellow, who was not only the most humorous, but one of the ablest seamen in the ship, knelt down on one knee beside him, and took ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... ship. He never sang of 'the rolling main,' 'the foaming billows,' 'the storm clouds,' etc. These are the stock-in-trade of the landsman; they were too real for the sailor to sing about. He had the instinct of the primitive man which forbids mention of natural forces of evil omen. But intimate or humorous matters such as the failings of his officers, the quality of the food, the rate of pay, or other grievances were treated with vigour and emphasis. Like the Britisher of to-day, he would put up with any hardship so long as he were permitted to grouse about it. The shantyman ...
— The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties • Richard Runciman Terry
... in which she worked was on the top of Campden Hill, and opened into one of the pleasant gardens of that neighbourhood. Her uncle, Charles Bentley, an elderly Academician, with an ugly, humorous face, red hair, red eyebrows, a black skull-cap, and a general weakness for the female sex, was very fond of his niece Doris, and inclined to think her a neglected and underrated wife. He was too fond of his own comfort, however, ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... good nature, innocence of heart, and love of frolic beamed from every feature of his countenance; he wished no ill to any son of Adam. He was musical and poetical, a maker and a singer of sweet songs; humorous also, speculative, discursive; his speech, though aimless and redundant, glittered with the hues of fancy, and here and there with the keenest rays of intellect. He was vain, but had no touch of pride; and the excellencies which he loved in himself, he acknowledged ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... proprietor, who is reported to have dug Walden Pond, and stoned it, and fringed it with pine woods; who tells me stories of old time and of new eternity; and between us we manage to pass a cheerful evening with social mirth and pleasant views of things, even without apples or cider,—a most wise and humorous friend, whom I love much, who keeps himself more secret than ever did Goffe or Whalley; and though he is thought to be dead, none can show where he is buried. An elderly dame, too, dwells in my neighborhood, invisible to most persons, in whose odorous ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... they were safely out of the canon, and the horses were allowed to rest a few minutes. Cummins replaced his pistol and buttoned up his duster; and the passengers fell to talking. The store-keeper from North Bloomfield began to tell a humorous story of a lone highwayman who, with a double-barrelled shot gun waylaid the Wells Fargo Express near Downieville. As he waited, with gun pointed down the road, he heard a wagon approach behind him. Coolly facing about, he levelled his gun at the ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... glance on the speaker. He noted, for the first time, the keen alertness and intellectuality of the other's face. It was a fine strong face, with a pair of luminous grey eyes, a likeable long nose, and clean-shaven, humorous mouth—a man ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... pipe as he recounts a series of impossible adventures,—those of himself and two Englishwomen, captured for ransom by Hadgi Stavros, brigand king in the Grecian mountains,—is especially characteristic of About in the humorous atmosphere of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... himself reckoned this as an advantage, though in a very different sense from that in which we are speaking. It was as a patriot, and not as an artist, that he congratulated himself on his American origin. There is a humorous struggle between his sense of the rawness and ugliness of his native land and the dogged patriotism befitting a descendant of the genuine New England Puritans. Hawthorne the novelist writhes at the ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... Hercules," was given to the public through the medium of an illustrated, journal with which he was for a long time connected as designer. In 1856 were published the illustrations for Balzac's "Contes Drolatiques" and those for "The Wandering Jew "—the first humorous and grotesque in the highest degree—indeed, showing a perfect abandonment to fancy; the other weird and supernatural, with fierce battles, shipwrecks, turbulent mobs, and nature in her most forbidding and terrible aspects. Every incident or suggestion that could possibly ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous
... the bodies of those whose minds had been united together in the world by friendship and love of art, Messer Luigi had intended that Giovan Maria should be laid to rest beside himself in the tomb that was to be erected for his own burial, together with that most humorous poet, Ruzzante, his very familiar friend, who lived and died in his house; but I do not know whether this design of the illustrious Cornaro was ever carried into effect. Giovan Maria was a fine talker, pleasant and agreeable in conversation, and very acute in repartee, insomuch that Cornaro ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... that the company and conversation of my departed guests, especially of Lysander, were such as to leave a void which could not easily be supplied. For my part, from some little warmth each sister betrayed in balancing the solid instruction of Lysander and the humorous vivacity of Lisardo, against each other, I thought the former had made a powerful impression upon the mind of Belinda, and the latter upon that of Almansa: for when the probability of a speedy revisit from both of them was mentioned the sisters betrayed unusual marks of sensibility; ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... short beard, is apparently left to Nature; but he has taken care that Nature shall do him the fullest justice. His amative enthusiasm, at which he is himself laughing, and his clever, imaginative, humorous ways, contrast strongly with the sincere tenderness and dignified ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw
... idea of what sort of people he might come upon in this country. It was, he knew, America. Americans he had always understood were the citizens of a great and powerful nation, dry and humorous in their manner, addicted to the use of the bowie-knife and revolver, and in the habit of talking through the nose like Norfolkshire, and saying "allow" and "reckon" and "calculate," after the manner of the people who live on the New Forest side of Hampshire. ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... the little pompous man gives another knock, and says 'Gen'l'men, we will attempt a glee, if you please.' This announcement calls forth tumultuous applause, and the more energetic spirits express the unqualified approbation it affords them, by knocking one or two stout glasses off their legs—a humorous device; but one which frequently occasions some slight altercation when the form of paying the damage is proposed to be gone through ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... feel so strongly on everything that the war has brought into question for the Anglo-Saxon peoples that humorous detachment or any other thinness or tepidity of mind on the subject affects me as vulgar impiety, not to say as rank blasphemy; our whole race tension became for me a sublimely conscious thing from the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... appeared Weelkes' last work, "Airs or Fantastic Spirits for three voices," a collection of lively and humorous ditties. Oliphant writes:—"For originality of ideas, and ingenuity of construction in part writing, (I allude more especially to his ballets,) Weelkes in my opinion leaves all other composers of his time far behind." The ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... not daring to meet the humorous eye of Cuthbert Broome—still contemplated the dishevelled dignity of his own ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... With a humorous look he replied, "No matter, I have the best of the bargain, for I should have to do the 'something' anyway. But what do you think of this theory, sir?" And he explained, not knowing that Walter ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... prints of native scenery, and portraits of deceased Canadians of merit, the News is a valuable and interesting addition to journalism in this country, and will be found most useful to the future generations who will people the Dominion. Nor does Canada now lack an imitator of Punch, in the humorous line. It is noteworthy that whilst America has produced humorists like 'Sam Slick,' Artemus Ward, Mark Twain, and others, no American rival to Punch has yet appeared in Boston or New York. The attempts that have heretofore been made have been generally coarse caricatures—for example, ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot
... privacy to the rites—an acolyte dabbed a large yellow patch of iodine on the victim's arm. Moving into the superheated shrine, he assisted Sergt. Lyon to tick off his name on the nominal roll, and then approached the M.O. Some doctors were bland and cheerful, others humorous, others strictly businesslike, but they all knew that this was their chance to pay off old scores. By using the sharp needle or the blunt one, and varying the angle of the stick in, they could adapt ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... interested in spite of himself in this gay, humorous young outlaw, who was so evidently superior to his brutal companions, and he would have liked to let him come to the point in his own amusing way, but the sun was getting low, and he feared to waste more time. "Cut ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... a duchess magnificent and heartless; a villain revengeful and courageous; a hero youthful, humorous, fearless and truly American;—such are the principal characters ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... Humorous writers tell us that it was a breach of good manners to ask a man his name, or what State he was from, or to examine the brand on his horse very particularly. It can be safely said that there was a great amount of truth mingled with the humor. Some of ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... predecessor's grave. He lies well, hein?— comfortable, too—looking his old church in the face and the sun on his old bones all the blessed day. Soon, in a few years, he will have company. I, too, am to lie there, I and a friend." The humorous smile was again curving his lips, and the laughter-loving nostrils were beginning to quiver. "When my friend and I lie there, we shall be a little crowded, perhaps. I said to him, when he proposed it, proposed to lie there with us, 'but we shall ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... a lively, bustling man, with a roguish twinkle in his eye, and a humorous style of talking. Some Friends, of more quiet temperaments than himself, thought he had more activity than was consistent with dignity. They reminded him that Mary sat still at the feet of Jesus, while Martha was "troubled about ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... (the word "thief" was often used in Ireland in the humorous way we sometimes use the word "rascal") said the postmaster, taking up the letter, and going to serve ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... Lamont for the President's approval, and among the numbers was a quartet called "The Student of Love," from one of my operas. Even in the anticipation of his happiness Mr. Cleveland was keenly alive to the opportunities for humorous remarks which this title might afford to irreverent newspaper men; and he said to his secretary: "Tell Sousa he can play that quartet, but he had better omit the name of it." Accordingly, "The Student of Love" was conspicuous ...
— The Experiences of a Bandmaster • John Philip Sousa
... me with a sincere desire to be of service to you, Miss Lawson," said Phil, with a half humorous touch of ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... saints of the Jewish Church human, has lit up dry technical Talmudic, discussions with flashes of freakish fun, with pun and jest and merry quibble, and has helped the race to survive (pace Dr. Wallace) by dint of a humorous acquiescence ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... more striking persons about them, can deprive of their naive and genuine individuality. Burly, homely, characteristic, he carries our attentions always with him, alike on the silent road, or in the king's palace, or his own simple shop. Wherever he is, he is always the same, shrewd, humorous, plain-spoken, seeing through all pretenses, yet never ill-natured in doing so—a character not very lofty or elevated, and to which the racy ugliness of a strong, uncultivated race seems natural—but who under that homely nature carried appreciations ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... retreat: it was there that he had several adventures which he so often related in so humorous and diverting a manner, that it would be tedious to repeat them; there it was that he administered the sacrament in so solemn a manner, that, as there did not remain a sufficient number of Swiss at Versailles to guard the chapel, Vardes was obliged to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... bar, and in the legislature that we can look for evidences of intellectual development. The only original literary works of importance were those of Judge Haliburton, who had already given us the clever, humorous creation of "Sam Slick," and also written an excellent history of Nova Scotia. In the happy and more prosperous times that followed the union of 1840, and the establishment of political liberty, intellectual development kept pace with the progress ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... philosophy and ethics. We flirted with graceful dignity. We were even humorous—in a ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... a friend named James K. Paulding proposed to start a paper, to be called "Salmagundi." It was an imitation of Addison's Spectator, and consisted of light, humorous essays, most of them making fun of the fads and fancies of New York life in those days. The numbers were published from a week to a month apart, and were continued for about ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... found traces of the man Evans, who undoubtedly did exist, and need not be considered to be a near relative of our friend Mrs. Harris. And the little joke provoked some amusement in the court; learned counsel settled their robes becomingly and leant forward to listen. They were in for a humorous speech, and the prisoner would get off with a light sentence. But the grim smile waxed duller, and it was clear that lordship was determined to make the law a terror to evil-doers. Lordship drew attention to ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... the middle of my rooms, with naked torso (this is a sufficiently proper costume for private life here, I admit). Around him are grouped Chrysantheme, Oyouki, and Mademoiselle Dede the maid, all eagerly rubbing his back with little blue towels decorated with storks and humorous subjects. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... their contact with the Celts, both in Scotland and in Ireland. Both peoples had valour, intellect, imagination: but the Celt had that which the burly angular Norse character, however deep and stately, and however humorous, wanted; namely, music of nature, tenderness, grace, rapidity, playfulness; just the qualities, combining with the Scandinavian (and in Scotland with the Angle) elements of character which have produced, in Ireland and in Scotland, two schools ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... should never allow a pupil of mine to so much as attempt it. Do not think that I wish to discourage every effort which has not an ultra-serious aim. On the contrary, I am but taking a rather roundabout way to an admission that the humorous element has, and must have at all times, a powerful attraction for the wood-carver; and to the statement of an opinion that it should not be allowed to take a prominent place in the work of a student; moreover, that it is quite possible to find in nature ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... and the humorous light crossed his face. "We couldn't take the orchard nor the meadows nor the woods nor the creek." (I think he said "medders" and "crick," and his "nor" sounded as if he put an e in it.) "There are a good many things we should have to ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... judge in the old-fashioned brougham, and the stone mason opposite to them, his great brown hands bedded on his knees, his face critically examining the city landscape. The judge talked chiefly to the young man, in his humorous and rather garrulous manner, describing for his benefit the glories of the old city. They plunged almost at once off the hill into a slum, where in the tall brick tenements women were hanging out of the windows enjoying the spring day. The sunshine and the blue sky made ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... old Maxim, Get a Reputation, and lye a Bed, not to mention how many lye a Bed before they can attain it, according to the humorous Turn of the late ingenious Mr. Farqubar; but there's at this Time a greater necessity for a Man to be wakeful, when he has acquir'd a Reputation, than at any Time before; he'll find abundantly more difficulty attend the Securing than the Attaining of the ...
— A Vindication of the Press • Daniel Defoe
... boys sat at dinner that evening Mr. Carlton inquired about their trip to the refinery, and with a humorous twinkle in ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... his own poems, as a teller of humorous stories, as a mimic, indeed as a finished actor, Riley's genius was rare and beyond question. In a lecture on the Humorous Story, Mark Twain, referring to the story of the One Legged Soldier and the different ways ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... Humorous in the high pure sense, every laugh which it gives may have its echo in a sigh, or may glide into it as excitement subsides into thought; and yet, for those who do not care to find matter there either for thought or sadness, may ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... doorway and handed Demorest the two rifles. Demorest hesitated. "Hadn't YOU better keep one?" he said, looking in his partner's eyes with his first challenge of curiosity. The sun seemed to put a humorous twinkle into Stacy's glance as he returned, "Not much! And you'd better take my revolver with you, too. I'm feeling a little better now," he said, looking at the saddlebags, "but I'm not fit to be trusted yet with carnal weapons. When the other mule ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... The old lady was very affable. In her early life she had been connected with an inn at Mauchline, and had seen the poet often. "Rabbie was a funny fellow," she said; "I ken'd him weel; and he stoppit at our hoose on his way up to Edinburgh to see the lairds." I asked her if he was not always humorous. "Nae, nae," she replied, "he used to come in and sit doun wi' his hands in his lap like a bashful country lad; very glum, till he got a drap o' whuskey, or heard a gude story, and then he was aff! He was very poorly in his latter days." ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... they were all safely back in camp, and sufficiently recovered to discover the humorous points in the episode. But they were all familiar enough with the treacherous possibilities of rough and rapid water to know that for Hobbs and his deliverer at least, there had been some serious moments during their ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... repeating the sayings of others. Often his rendering of a commonplace becomes humorous by reason of a slight verbal twist. As the boys toiled to supplant a glorious strip of primeval jungle by a few formal rows of bananas, the boss, glancing over the ruined vegetation, remarked in ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... you will illustrate this tale considerably. Not humorous pictures. No. When they are good (or bad) one's humor gets no chance to play surprises on the reader. A humorous subject illustrated seriously is all right, but a humorous artist is no fit person for such work. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... with the above title, on which Sir Alexander Boswell, Bart., founded his humorous song, with the same name, may be found in The Book of Scottish Songs, recently published in The Illustrated London Library, ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 179. Saturday, April 2, 1853. • Various
... you were sober, Gunning?" Oliver heard the General ask, with a scrutinizing look at Tom. Not with any humorous intent—more with the manner of a presiding officer at a court-martial, determined ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... along the edge of the precipice, where the plateau broke sheer off, was ticklish work; and half humorous, half melancholy thoughts went through my mind touching the absurdity of an ex-professor of Topical Linguistics in the University of Michigan being thus employed in path-hunting upon a lonely mountain-top in Mexico. Truly, adversity brings us strange bedfellows; but far stranger ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... of life is wide and varied. With unfailing faith and cheerful courage and a habit of seeing the humorous side of tragic catastrophes, she has done her work among the sick and forsaken, with no appeal to others save a certain few; and only those who have been steadied by her strong hands, and heartened by her buoyant spirit, and fed from her scant store, have knowledge or understanding ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... pressed the ashes down into the bowl of his pipe with his long emaciated fingers, and watched the little threads of smoke as they came curling out from under his thick moustache, Paul could only admit that the gravity of his bearing was inconsistent with a humorous interpretation of his words. ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... to hear him; but Willis Murch and I went. We were late and had difficulty in squeezing inside the room. Uncle Solon, as everybody called him, stood at the teacher's desk, and was talking in his quaint, homely way: a lean man in farmer's garb, with a kind of Abraham Lincoln face, honest but humorous, droll yet practical; a face afterwards well known from Maine ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... have been striking as another touch in the picture of the odd want, on the part of each, of any sense of levity in the other. Whatever escape, face to face, mother or daughter might ever seek would never be the humorous one—a circumstance, notwithstanding, that would not in every case have failed to make their interviews droll for a third person. It would always indeed for such a person have produced an impression of tension beneath the surface. "I could have done much better at the start and have ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James |
