"Comic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have seen some of his black and white posters which seemed to me robust and considerably lively. At any rate, Mr. Holliday exhibited drawings on Fifth avenue and had illustrative work published by Scribner's Magazine. He did commercial designs and comic pictures for juvenile readers. At this time he lived in a rural community of artists in Connecticut, and did his own cooking. Also, he is proud of having lived in a garret on Broome street. This phase of his ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... curiosity is anywhere from seventy to one hundred and fifty years old, gray, knock-kneed, bent in the back, and goes to sleep standing up—and stays asleep. He is the exact duplicate of the tramp in the comic opera of "Miss Hook of Holland"—except that the actor-sleeper occasionally topples over and has to be braced up. Bob is past-master of the art and goes it alone, without propping of any kind. He is the only man ...
— The Parthenon By Way Of Papendrecht - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... other dramatists had submitted, because the time, the circumstances, the materials, the purpose aimed at, were different. The time demanded a drama which should represent human life in all its diversity, and in which the tragic and comic, the high and the low, should be in juxtaposition, if not in combination. The dramatists of whom we are about to speak represented them in juxtaposition, and rarely succeeded in vitally combining them so as to produce symmetrical works. Their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... remains to tell? I cannot write connectedly, because I am in love with all those girls aforesaid, and some others who do not appear in the invoice. The typewriter is an institution of which the comic papers make much capital, but she is vastly convenient. She and a companion rent a room in a business quarter, and, aided by a typewriting machine, copy MSS. at the rate of six annas a page. Only a woman can operate a typewriting machine, because she ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... sounds very comic whatever it's like. Look here's Skeny coming up to see what's the matter; look how he's ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... driven out of everyone. His concerts, in which he took a leading part, became celebrated in the district, deputations called to beg for another, and once in these words, 'Wull 'ee gie we a concert over our way when the comic young gentleman ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... at the latter, though never to the excess common at London. An ill-judged and unsuccessful attempt was made to establish the Italian Opera, which existed but with scarcely any life for this one winter; of course they could rise no higher than a comic one. La Buona Figliuola, La Frascatana, and Il Geloso in Cimento, were repeatedly performed, or rather murdered, except the parts of Sestini. The house was generally empty, and miserably cold. So much knowledge of the ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... 'Edinburgh' articles are of a very slight texture, though the reader is rewarded by an occasional turn of characteristic quaintness. The criticism is of the most simple-minded kind; but here and there crops up a comment which is irresistibly comic. Here, for example, is a quaint passage from a ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... perfectly satisfied with his work. Like his own 'Village Blacksmith,' he retires every night with the feeling that something has been attempted, and something done.' There is a subtle analysis of the style of that first of comic poets, HOLMES, for which we shall endeavor to find space hereafter. Of the writings of the late lamented WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK, the reviewer remarks, that they 'are all distinguished for a graceful ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... carefully with the original will have little doubt that it is a concoction from Shelton and the French of Filleau de Saint Martin, eked out by borrowings from Phillips, whose mode of treatment it adopts. It is, to be sure, more decent and decorous, but it treats "Don Quixote" in the same fashion as a comic book that ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the spring. He sat there, smoking and declaiming, his eyes blazing, one hand playing with Watson's favourite dog, an Aberdeen terrier who was softly smelling and pushing against him. All that litany of mockery and bitterness, which the Comic Spirit kindles afresh on the lips of each rising generation, only to quench it again on the lips of those who 'arrive,' flowed from him copiously. He was the age indeed for 'arrival,' when, as so often happens, the man of middle life, appeased by success, ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of the dramatic art in America. Origin of the serious and comic dramas. The Qquichua drama of Ollanta. The Kiche drama of Rabinal Achi. The Comic Ballet of the Gueegueence. The Logas of Central America. Dramas ...
— Aboriginal American Authors • Daniel G. Brinton
... sinking; and I should certainly have sunk with my cargo, had it not been most opportunely taken out by one of the spare boats. All was high glee on shore and on the lake, and the scene was now and then still diversified by comic accidents, causing the more mirth, as there ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... considerable amount of indelicacy in the episodes in "Tom Jones," and also of hostility, which is exhibited in the rough form of pugilistic encounters, so as almost to remind us of the old comic stage. He seems especially fond of settling quarrels in this way, and wishes that no other was ever used, and that "iron should dig no bowels but those of the earth." The character of Deborah Wilkins, the old maid who is shocked at the frivolity of Jenny Jones; of Thwackum, the schoolmaster, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... through th' whole play, so they have considerably lessened th' time between th' creation an' th' flood an' have made Adam an English nobleman with a shady past an' th' Divvle a Fr-rinch count in love with Eve. They're rescued be Noah, th' faithful boatman who has a comic naygur son." ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... saying, my boy. As for my part—why, I don't bother much about a blue tin heaven or a comic-supplement hell, but I'm right smart interested in right here and now. It's a right nice little old world, take it by and large, and I like to help out at whatever comes my way, if it takes fourteen innings. But, so long as you feel that way about it, maybe you'll believe ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... well as the new historic folk literature will, with its corresponding comic element, as I think, be a great gain to the stage, and will preserve its connection with the people where this has not already been lost—so that it be no longer a mere institution for amusement, and that only to a single class. Unless we take this view of our stage, it will lose its right ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... mere sake of resenting an imputation which no rational man in his senses could possibly have regarded as of any consequence to the Duke's public or private character. The whole incident seems to us now one more properly belonging to comic opera than to serious political life. We can hardly conceive the possibility of the Marquis of Salisbury insisting on fighting a duel with some hot-headed member of the House of Lords who had chosen to describe him as a conspirator against the Constitution and the Church of England. The Duke ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... contradiction to his other self. The objects of veneration and the objects of sensuous delight are externally so unlike and so incongruous, that he who follows both in their turns is as one playing the part of an ironical chorus in the tragi-comic drama of his own life. You may perceive these two to be mere imperfect or illusory opposites, when you confront a man like Rousseau with the true opposite of his own type; with those who are from their birth analysts and critics, keen, restless, urgent, inexorably ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... ran away, downstairs, really crying. It was excessively comic, but he had better not follow her, lest he might ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... certainly no Doctrinaire, nor yet, I think, a Fauve, but who has been influenced by Cezanne, I shall here do myself the honour of pronouncing the name. Aristide Maillol is so obviously the best sculptor alive that to people familiar with his work there is something comic about those discussions in which are canvassed the claims of Mestrovic and Epstein, Archipenko and Bourdelle. These have their merits; but Maillol is a great artist. He works in the classical tradition, modified ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... things cheerful here," Al'mah said almost gaily. "Sometimes I have four or five convalescents in here, and they like a little gaiety. I sing them things from comic operas—Offenbach, Sullivan, and the rest; and if they are very sentimentally inclined I sing them good old-fashioned love-songs full of the musician's tricks. How people adore illusions! I've had here an old Natal sergeant, over sixty, and he was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... how stupid I was. Let's see—you go after dark and hang the baskets on the door knob, then ring the bell and run—isn't that the way? That's the way we used to do with our comic valentines." ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... reason to feel called upon to talk about anything more serious to a stranger at a house party. But it was the manner of the man, his whole personality. For Freddie was a man of fashion, with all the exaggerated and farcical mannerisms of the dandy of the comic papers. He wore a conspicuous and foppish costume, and posed with a little cane; he cultivated a waving pompadour, and his silky moustache and beard were carefully trimmed to points, and kept sharp by his active fingers. His conversation was full of French phrases ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... boy watched him for a moment, then grinned uncertainly; presently he lolled back in the stern-sheets, personating dignity. A white man was doing his work—it was splendid, as it should be, and comic in the extreme. He threw back his head and ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... another with astonishing celerity; or have got into my Old-hock humour and fallen a-raving about princes and lords, knights and geniuses, ladies of quality and harpsichords; you, with a peculiar comic smile, have gently reminded me of the importance of a man to himself, and slily left the room with the witty Dean lying open at—P.P. clerk of this parish. [Swift's Works, ed. 1803, xxiii. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... why mine should attract attention, or why these men, whose thoughts were all with the chase, should give any heed to me. The idea that a French officer might be riding with them was too absurd to enter their minds. I laughed as I rode, for, indeed, amid all the danger, there was something of comic ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... moment; for the inclination to act was awakened, and in no one more strongly than in him who was now master of the house; and who, having so much leisure as to make almost any novelty a certain good, had likewise such a degree of lively talents and comic taste, as were exactly adapted to the novelty of acting. The thought returned again and again. "Oh for the Ecclesford theatre and scenery to try something with." Each sister could echo the wish; and Henry Crawford, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... passionate Piedmontese. A gentle, grave, and quiet man, he had loved the magnanimity and independence so curiously mingled with mere vanity and egotism in Alfieri's nature; he had never tired of hearing his friend's plans for the future, had never smiled at his almost comic certainty of supreme greatness, he had never lost patience with the self-meritorious egotism which made all Alfieri's actions seem the one interest of the world in Alfieri's own eyes. To Francesco Gori, therefore, Alfieri went for advice: ought ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... that peculiar manner of an illuminated comic perception: for the moment he was all falcon; and he surprised himself more than Clara, who was not in the mood to take surprises. It was the sight of her which had animated him to strike his game; ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... despatched. The agent was an honest creature, but of tame habits, sent for the sake of his imperfect lungs to this otherwise inappropriate air. He had lived chiefly in mid-West towns, a serious reader of our comic weeklies; hence the apparition of Wiggin and the Virginian had reminded him sickeningly of bandits. He had express money in the safe, he explained to them, and this was a hard old country, wasn't it? and did they like ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... RIGHT TO USE AN OLD PUN IN MAKING A NEW JOKE? This was a question which arose in the Quidnuncs coterie the other evening, after Muggins had sent in the following, for the comic column of a weekly paper, the editor of which had returned it gratefully but firmly, on the score of superannuation: 'If Truth lie at the bottom of a well, why should we be surprised that so many kick the bucket before they are able ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... lay in imitation, and in variants of a certain well-known saw. "Have you ever been abroad?" one would say to the other, for instance. "No," the one interrogated would reply, "but my brother plays the fiddle." Such perfection had the pair attained in this species of comic absurdity that they could answer any question by its means, while they would also endeavour to unite two absolutely unconnected matters without a previous question having been asked at all, yet say everything with a perfectly ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... and a great deal more, with tipsy profundity and a serio-comic air, and keeping his eye all the time on Mrs Sliderskew, who was unable to hear one word, Mr Squeers concluded by helping himself and passing the bottle: to which Peg ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... took his friend to the theatre, where a comic piece was being performed. In his young days Warren had been very partial to plays of that kind, and his joyous peals of laughter on such occasions still rang in the ears of his friend. But the attempt was a complete failure. Warren ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... sir, I hear," said the man, touching his cap with a comic expression, which didn't at all tend to enliven the future pupil. "That's the door," he continued, "and you'll have to give him the Doctor's note," and, pointing to a door at the end of the ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... This is that which throws him into natural history, as a main production of the globe, and as announcing new eras and ameliorations. Things were mirrored in his poetry without loss or blur: he could paint the fine with precision, the great with compass, the tragic and the comic indifferently and without any distortion or favor. He carried his powerful execution into minute details, to a hair point, finishes an eyelash or a dimple as firmly as he draws a mountain; and yet these, like nature's, will bear the scrutiny of the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... of her anger, there was something so comic in the groans of the porter that Zobeida could not refrain from laughing. But putting him aside she addressed the others a second time, saying, "Answer me; who are you? Unless you tell me truly you have ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... convulsively twitching. Around him, but a long way off, the dancers rocked and circled with long raucous cries dominated by the sobbing booming music, and in the sunlit space between dancers and holy man, two or three impish children bobbed about with fixed eyes and a grimace of comic ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... he knew enough to do so; thence to Montreal, and Joliette; and a Fur Post near Saipasou (or, "Nobody-knows-Where," for Zotique asserts the region has that name); then was a veracious steamboat guide for tourists to the Gulf; edited a comic weekly at Quebec, "illustrated" it, itself cheerfully and truly confessed, "with execrable wood-engravings;" as Papal Zouave, he embarked for Rome to gallant in voluminous trousers on four sous a day; fought wildly, for the fun of ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... tax a good horse to keep up with. The first bullock-cart was driven by Hans, who sat upon the top of a heap of baggage, his head covered with a very old and battered Panama hat, through several broad holes in which his red hair bristled out in a most comic fashion, and over his blue flannel shirt a large red beard flowed almost to his waist. Terence was walking by the side of the second cart in corduroy breeches and gaiters and blue coat, with a high black hat, battered and bruised out of all shape, ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... fifty pleasantly written and delightfully printed pages to readers who like to muse quietly on the elementary principles of love and life without risking the surprise of startling or revolutionary lines of thought. There is nothing peculiarly good or bad in the many comic illustrations ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... enacting such a delightfully comic scene. But do not look so angry; your bright eyes are on fire, and they make a man's heart boil over. Answer my question, and I restore you to freedom. Why do you shun me, and why do you never ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... point of the gamp. Try to remember this when you feel inclined to administer a castigation to man or beast, and bear in mind that a comic scene may ensue, when, hot and angry, you stand with your best umbrella broken and half open, with the silk torn and the ribs sticking out in ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... do not expect the readers of some previous notes of my sketching escapades[1] to believe this. It is almost too wonderful that a chronicler of travels in desperate need of some comic relief to save his book from dulness would be so lucky as to pick up such excellent copy as Brown, without previous intrigue. Nevertheless I do solemnly state that I had not the slightest idea where Brown was doing his bit in the war. I had last heard of him ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... colors are splashed on with a barbaric, almost a theatrical, touch. It's a regular backdrop of a country; its scenery looks as though it belonged on a stage—as though it should be painted on a curtain. You almost expect to see a chorus of comic-opera brigands or a bevy of stage milkmaids come trooping out of the wings any minute. Who was the libelous wretch who said that the flowers of California had no perfume and the birds there had no song? Where we passed through tangled woods the odors distilled from the wild flowers ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... not to squander and discredit the solemnity of that emblem which was all he had to be a defence to his own consulate. And Knappe himself, in his despatch of March 21st, 1889, castigates the practice with much sense. But this was after the tragi-comic culmination had been reached, and the burnt rags of one of these too-frequently mendacious signals gone on a progress to Washington, like Caesar's body, arousing indignation where it came. To such results are nations conducted ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the servants' boots and the discomfort to her own knees. These two facts had always hindered her religious devotions, and they hindered them now. There had always been to her something irresistibly comic in those upturned heels, the dull flat surfaces of these cheap shoes. In the kitchen-maid's there were the signs of wear; Martha's were new and shining; the house-maid's were smart and probably creaked abominably. The bodies above ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... was a remarkably good actor, both in tragic and comic pieces, and was hardly twelve years old when he began to write verses of singular spirit for one so young. At fourteen, he produced a long Irish poem, which he never permitted anyone but his mother and brother ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... his arm till one of the strings snapped. That gave the pitch, and we had a laughing chorus. All joined in, except Israel and Sarah. She pouted, and I do believe he grit his teeth." Here Aunt Clara gave herself up to the comic reminiscence, till her eyes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... far out into the darkness as though sucking in the air when the sash was raised and the thing which had been only a dim babel of wordless sounds a moment before, became now the riotous laughter and the ribald comments of men upon the verses of a comic song which one of their number ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... think he read Browning's "Ride from Ghent to Aix" better than anything of his own, except, perhaps, "The Northern Farmer." He used to preserve the monotonous rhythm of the galloping horses in Browning's poem, and made the words come out sharply like hoofs upon a road. It was a little comic until one got used to it, but that fault lay in the ear of the hearer. It was the right way and the fine way to read this particular poem, and I have never ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... us was any better than most fifty-cent table-d'hote dinners, but the place was quaint and redolent of strange smells of cooking as well as of a true bohemian atmosphere. Those were the days when the Broadway Theatre was given over to the comic operas in which Francis Wilson and De Wolfe Hopper were the stars, and as both of the comedians were firm friends of Richard, we invariably ended our evening at the Broadway. Sometimes we occupied a box as the guests of the management, and at other times we went behind the scenes and ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... really rather comic. Romer's mother, who was going to a dinner-party in the same street, could not forgo the pleasure of calling unexpectedly on them at half-past seven, vaguely hoping that it might be inconvenient ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... "She came and told me all about it. The boy is dead, as you know. Yes, terrible, isn't it?" And she looked at him. His face was almost comic, so wrinkled up ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... had abandoned to his revenge him who had put out his eyes, took him home, and the punishment he inflicted upon him was sedulous instructions to virtue." Yet this truly comic paper does not probably know that it is comic, any more than the kleptomaniac knows that he steals, or than John Milton knew he was a humorist when he wrote a hymn upon the circumcision, and spent his honeymoon in composing a treatise on divorce. No more again ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... to realize her situation? Or was it that tragedy had put on its comic mask, and laughed at death? The truth is simple. Her faith had triumphed over what seemed to be insuperable obstacles; and she was with Philip, for better or for worse. A miracle had been wrought; and miracles are not meaningless, or idle, or without purpose. ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... by his charming manner. Dorfling put Schrotter on his right hand, and Wilhelm and Paul on his left; near Schrotter was Barinskoi and a friend of Dorfling's, named Mayboorn. This man was, like Dorfling, a Rhinelander, he combined a successful career as a writer of comic verses with a confirmed pessimism. When he had written one of his merriest couplets, he would stop his work and sigh with Dorfling over the tragedy of life. The papers treated his farces as rubbish, but the public ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... and untiring artist who knew his end and the means to attain it; but there is still a trace of infantile criticism to be found in Aristotle—i.e., in the naive concession he made to the public opinion that considered Homer as the author of the original of all comic epics, the Margites. If we go still further backwards from Aristotle, the inability to create a personality is seen to increase; more and more poems are attributed to Homer; and every period lets us see its degree of criticism by how much and what it considers as Homeric. In this backward examination, ...
— Homer and Classical Philology • Friedrich Nietzsche
... they picked flowers, hunted for wintergreen, and decked the horse and wagon with ferns and wreaths of laurel,—only simple country pleasures, it is true, but they at least had the charm of newness for two of the party. That evening they sang all sorts of songs, from gospel hymns to comic operas, and Blanch showed in so many ways that she admired her new-found friend that ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... Pickwick like Falstaff was to him a source of perennial delight. He loved and honoured Dickens for his rich and tender humanity, the passion of pity that suffused his soul, the lively play of his comic fancy. Endowed with a keen sense of humour, he read Mark Twain and W. W. Jacobs with gusto. As a relaxation from historical studies he would sometimes devour a bluggy story, and as he read would shout with laughter at its grotesque out-topping of probabilities. He tried his ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... together, let no man set asunder," said he, bombastically, and even the surly milkman, and Rosenstein under his manipulating razor, when a laugh was dangerous, laughed. John Flynn, when he waxed didactic, and made use of large words and phrases, was the comic column of Banbridge. ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... think you are ever weak," she said, caressing him. "If there were a thing to be done you would do it at once. But I'll open it if you like." Then he tore off the envelope with an air of comic importance and stood for a few ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... novel, once much in vogue, called 'The Fool of Quality,' than for his elaborate poem entitled 'Universal Beauty,' which formed a prototype of Darwin's 'Botanic Garden,' but did not enjoy that poem's fame;—George Alexander Stevens, a comic actor, lecturer on 'heads,' and writer of some poems, novels, and Bacchanalian songs:—and, in fine, Mrs Greville, whose 'Prayer for Indifference' displays considerable ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... the Princesse de Lamballe, "now play the comic part you acted between your servant and Gamin:" which I did, as well as I could recollect it, and the royal audience were so much amused, that I had the honour to remain in the room and see them play at cards. At length, however, there came three gentle taps at ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 6 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... followed. We fairly reveled in seed catalogues, and our garden flourished. Our neighbors, instead of borrowing our loose property, as we had been led to expect by the comic papers, literally overwhelmed us with garden tools and good advice. We needed both, certainly, and were ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... turned out in a body after mass to see their own military section drilled in the Place of the Hotel de Ville, one bored valetudinarian welcomed them heartily. The military section had got down uniforms from one of the Brussels theatres,—busbies and helmets, and the gloriously comic hats of the garde civile,—dragoon tunics, hussar jackets, infantry shell-jackets, cavalry stable-jackets, foresters' boots, dragoon jack-boots, stage piratical boots with wide tops to fit the thigh that drooped about the ankles,—trousers ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... and a little less impertinence, bambino," said Laura, holding out her plate with a comic gesture. ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... editorship of the "New Monthly Magazine." The change arose thus. When Mr. Colburn and Mr. Bentley had dissolved partnership, and each had his own establishment, much jealousy, approaching hostility, existed between them. Mr. Bentley had announced a comic miscellany,—or rather, a magazine of which humor was to be the leading feature. Mr. Colburn immediately conceived the idea of a rival in that line, and applied to Hook to be its editor. Hook readily complied. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... the mystery of birth and death, and the unknown forces, and God, and all things. In half a dozen questions she would drive him into a corner, obliging him each time to acknowledge his fatal ignorance; and when he no longer knew what to answer her, when he would get rid of her with a gesture of comic fury, she would give a gay laugh of triumph, and go to lose herself again in her dreams, in the limitless vision of all that we do not know, and all that we may believe. Often she astounded him by her explanations. Her mind, nourished on science, started from proved truths, but with such ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... party to a contract, it is always the Stipulator, the person who asks the question, who is primarily alluded to. But the serviceableness of the stipulation is most vividly illustrated by referring to the actual examples in the pages of the Latin comic dramatists. If the entire scenes are read down in which these passages occur (ex. gra. Plautus, Pseudolus, Act I. sc. i; Act IV. sc. 6; Trinummus, Act V. sc. 2), it will be perceived how effectually the attention of the person meditating the promise must have been ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... procedure was followed at the next halt and at the next; so that when the Prussians reached the Frenchward end of Vaudere there were twenty-three Prussians and ten Frenchmen in the file. To Fevrier's thinking it was sufficiently comic. There was something ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... performance, which was shared by his neighbours in the most intense and hearty fashion. The women sobbed at the pathetic parts, while the men set their teeth and turned white when the villain temporarily got the best of it, and both sexes roared with delight over the comic scenes. Likewise, all sucked oranges; therefore Kavanagh purchased and sucked an orange, and ingratiated himself with his female neighbours by politely ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... the trip alone, but they insisted upon his company. "I am really touched," he wrote afterward to the parents of two of the visiting boys, "at the way in which your children as well as my own treat me as a friend and playmate. It has its comic side. They were all bent upon having me take them; they obviously felt that my presence was needed to give zest to the entertainment. I do not think that one of them saw anything incongruous in the President's getting as bedaubed with mud as they got, or in my wiggling and clambering ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... Tartary admired the wit of Moliere, and discovered the Tartuffe in the Crimea; and had this ingenious sovereign survived the translation which he ordered, the immortal labour of the comic satirist of France might have laid the foundation of good taste even among the Turks and the Tartars. We see the Italian Pignotti referring to the opinion of an English critic, Lord Bolingbroke, for decisive authority on the peculiar characteristics ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... ear. It was then, also, that her father took the part of "Mercutio," for the first time. It is recorded that he earned by it thirteen rounds of applause. Nor was its merit overrated. It was then, and continued to be, a wonderful impersonation of the poetic-comic ideal. On the 21st of the same month of October, the performers of Covent Garden presented to Miss Kemble a gold bracelet as a testimony of the services which she had rendered to the company by her performance of "Juliet." It was ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... with a desire to laugh at the stilted way in which he was talking, and, from the suppression of the desire, to laugh wildly at everything in the scene, and not least at the comic death of Will Starling, even at the corpse itself lying with a broken neck at his feet. By an effort of will he regained control of his muscles, and the tension of the last half hour finding no relief ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... learns her part, and appears in the character and costume of a peasant girl. Her genius excites much admiration, and, intoxicated with this new pleasure, she repeats the entertainment, and alike excels in all characters, whether comic or tragic. The number of spectators is gradually increased. Louis is not exactly pleased to see his queen transformed into an actress, even in the presence only of the most intimate friends of the court. Half jocosely, half seriously, amid the rounds of applause with which the royal actress ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... horses to rest, Julianillo started up, and beginning to sing a well-known comic air, sauntered out of the inn towards the stables. Don Francisco waited till he supposed his companion was on the road, and then, paying his reckoning to the landlord, begged that his horse might be brought round. Just as he ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston
... the existence of a sort of comic spirit in these works which relieves the tragedy of the situations. In spite of their dark pessimism, the actors in these little dramas have an appearance of gaiety which deceives. It is by this popular humor that Gorky is the continuator ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... and no English writer, save Shakespeare, has drawn so many and so varied characters. It would be as absurd to interpret all of these as caricatures as to deny Dickens his great and varied powers of creation. Dickens exaggerated many of his comic and satirical characters, as was his right, for caricature and satire are very closely related, while exaggeration is the very essence of comedy. But there remains a host of characters marked by humour and pathos. Yet the ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... loose end of rope, left over from a knot, and with this he proceeded to lead the enraged German to the automobile. It looked for all the world as if he were leading a dog, and for a moment Dick doubled up in helpless laughter. The whole episode had its comic side, but ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... Westminster election, when General Stanhope was opposed by a brewer named Thomas Cross. "The Whig Examiner" was written by Addison. Five numbers only were issued (September 14th to October 12th, 1710). "The light and comic style of Addison's parody," notes Scott, may be compared "with the fierce, stern, and vindictive tone of Swift's philippic against the Earl of Wharton, under ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... into the long, quavering, and shrill yell that denotes rejoicing. I watched them as they retreated over the plain to their deserted homes, and I took a coldly polite farewell of the Koordi. The looks of astonishment of the Koordi's troops as I passed through their camp were almost comic. I shall report this affair to the Khedive direct; but I feel sure that the exposure of the governor of Fashoda will not add to the popularity of the expedition among ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... the Usui pass is got over by a horse railroad! Somehow, the mere idea seemed comic. A horse railroad in the heart of Japan over a pass a mile high! To have suddenly come upon the entire Comedie Francaise giving performances in a teahouse at the top could hardly have been more surprising. ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... comic postcards at Llanfairfeehan, North Wales, are to be asked by the Town Council to cover them up on Sundays. We understand that comic postcards may be differentiated from others by the word "Comic" plainly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... observed that Mr Seagrove had a great deal of comic talent; he was an excellent mimic, and could alter his voice almost as he pleased. It was a custom of his to act a scene as between other people, and he performed it remarkably well. Whenever he said that anything he was going to narrate was "as good as a comedy," it was generally understood ...
— The Three Cutters • Captain Frederick Marryat
... was a young fellow I tell you I enjoyed myself. I mixed with fine decent fellows. Everyone of us could do something. One fellow had a good voice, another fellow was a good actor, another could sing a good comic song, another was a good oarsman or a good racket player, another could tell a good story and so on. We kept the ball rolling anyhow and enjoyed ourselves and saw a bit of life and we were none the worse of it either. ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... her heart in vain; But, when the slave was threaten'd to be laid Dead by her side, her love of fame obey'd. In meaner minds ambition works alone; But with such art puts virtue's aspect on, That not more like in feature and in mien, (19)The god and mortal in the comic scene. False Julius, ambush'd in this fair disguise, Soon made the Roman liberties his prize. No mask in basest minds ambition wears, But in full light pricks up her ass's ears: All I have sung are instances of this, And prove my theme unfolded not amiss. Ye vain! desist from your erroneous ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... will be as good a pattern for orders as I can think on. A little thin flowery border, round, neat, not gaudy, and the Drury Lane Apollo, with the harp at the top. Or shall I have no Apollo,—simply nothing? Or perhaps the Comic Muse? ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... always be a laughable side, even to the grimmest events, the comic element was supplied in this case by our professors of languages, drawing, and so forth, who had not dared to go back into Paris after leaving it on the 28th, on account of the fighting. When they had made up their minds to return on the 29th, we ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... moreover, although you are but the half of Menander, Lover of diction pure, with the first have a place—and with reason. Would that vigor as well to your gentle writing were added. So your comic force would in equal glory have rivaled Even the Greeks themselves, though now you ignobly are vanquished. Truly I sorrow and grieve that you lack ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... for Mr. Robert to do but promise, and while he don't do it with any great enthusiasm, Mr. Hamilton don't seem a bit discouraged. In fact, just before he goes he has a chucklin' fit like he'd been struck by some amazin' comic thought. ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... of the Chinese lantern, she looked, nearly heart-broken, at the little fat man lying on his back, whose round stomach raised up the bed-clothes like a balloon filled with gas. He snored with the noise of a wheezy organ pipe, with prolonged snorts and comic chokings. His few hairs profited by his sleep, to stand up in a very strange way, as if they were tired of having been fastened for so long to that pate, whose bareness they were trying to cover, and a small stream of saliva was running out ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... Town Clark:—"If I was invisible, no one would see me." (a comic song) Two or three times a week people would gather in one house or another and sing, and the remarkable thing is that the songs were always the same. No matter for how long they had been singing them, the people of Tarascon had no desire to change them. ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... said, in a neutral tone which concealed perfectly her relief—or her disappointment. Then after a pause she added: "It's going to be a comic story." ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... light-haired, ungainly youth, of about twenty, with a reputation for singing a comic song. It was understood that the Admiral designed him for College and Holy Orders, but meanwhile time was passing, and Sam sat "with idle hands at home," or more frequently, in the bar of ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... married a year or so ago to Annette Oakleigh, a Broadway comic opera singer, who was his second wife. By his first marriage he had had two children, a son, Warner, and ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... other exclamations like them made such a babel of sound that the boys clapped their hands over their ears and looked at one another in comic dismay. This lasted so long that the boys had to pick up their caps and start for the door, before the girls consented to ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... and, after having given a paper to a creditor authorizing him to keep the son as a security for his claim, ran away, leaving poor Phil a bond slave. The story involves a great many unexpected incidents, some of which are painful, and some comic. Phil manfully works for a year, cancelling his father's debt, and then escapes. The characters are strongly drawn, and the story is ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... little romance which draws the reader along with it by every line in every page, yet its power is derived from the resources of caricature: it is rather the hollow side of a comic mask than a true expression of pathos. Scientific and stupid, Professor Babolain enters the world of Paris armed with his innocence, his uncle's legacy, his deep learning and his utter ignorance. A couple of adventuresses, mother and daughter, swoop down upon him as a lawful prey, and he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... of our resting-place arrested her for an instant, and perhaps a touch of comic pity for things of such diminutive size as to see nothing but knees where a man stood. Our heads ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... "He's a comic-opera sailor, all right; but Lordy! what a man he'll make with his feet on dry earth! Let go my anchor, hey? By Godfrey, he can let go the forestay when we're going about, and I'll forgive him ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... I?" said the young man, leaning his elbow on the window-seat and looking at her with an air of comic determined frankness, which yet had in it such wholesome honesty that it was scarcely possible to be angry. "The fact is, Mary," he added, with a sudden earnest darkening of the face, "I won't stand this nonsense ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... worth confiscating except a couple of Spanish newspapers hanging against the right-hand wall on a nail. One was "El Imparcial," a sheet as large as the New York "Sun"; and the other, "La Saeta," an illustrated comic paper about the size of "Punch." They had no intrinsic value, of course, and as "relics" they were not particularly characteristic; but "newspapers from a bastion in Morro Castle" would be interesting, I thought, to some of my journalistic friends at home, so I decided to take them. ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... "breathed and burned" long enough, and ought to "come." What part of her did come was first-class. How the woods did ring with song! There were patriotic songs, romantic and love songs, sarcastic, comic, and war songs, pirates' glees, plantation melodies, lullabies, good old hymn tunes, anthems, Sunday-school songs, and everything but vulgar and obscene songs; these were scarcely ever heard, and were nowhere in the army well ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... character on the stage. He played chivalrous parts that BOUCICAULT would not have attempted. There are historical Irish types still to be represented; and when Irish melodrama, with its secret plots, murders, wicked land-agents, jovial muscular-christian priests, comic male peasants, and pretty and virtuous female ditto, shall have taken a rest for a while, Irish Comedy may yet have ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 16, 1890 • Various
... Acts. "The occasional publication of a play by Henry Arthur Jones is a matter for congratulation.... In 'The Manoeuvres of Jane' we see Mr. Jones in his most sprightly mood and at the height of his ingenuity; ... its plot is plausible and comic, and ...
— Her Own Way - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... undoubted works of Titian,—and, most precious of all, a picture, formerly in the Ludovisi collection, painted jointly by Giovanni Bellini and Titian. It is the Descent of the Gods to taste the Fruits of the Earth, half-comic in conception, but remarkable for the grace of some of its figures; the landscape is by Titian, and Dr. Waagen says, justly, that "it is, without comparison, the finest that up to that period had ever been painted,"—and we would add, few ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... at the foundation of the Greek drama. It turned upon parodies, in which the adventures of the gods are introduced by way of sport, like the appetite of Hercules, or the cowardice of Bacchus. Then the comic authors entertained spectators by fantastic and gross displays; by the exhibition of buffoons and pantomimes. But the taste of the Athenians was too severe to relish such entertainments, and comedy passed into ridicule of public men and measures, and of the fashions of ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... disciples. But twice, in this volume, a richer and fuller music sounds. In the great poem of Ixion, human illusions are still the preoccupying thought; but they appear as fetters, not as specious masks, and instead of the serio-comic exposure of humanity we see its tragic and heroic deliverance. Ixion is Browning's Prometheus. The song that breaks from his lips as he whirls upon the penal wheel of Zeus is a great liberating cry of defiance to the phantom-god—man's ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... from Sandhurst started to shout a comic song, Owen shut the door hastily and wished ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... I remember well. This was a round piece of cardboard fastened by a screw to a wooden stand, with a sort of comic picture of a lady and a hairdresser glued to the cardboard. Karl was very clever at fixing pieces of cardboard together, and had devised this contrivance for shielding his weak eyes from ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... longer than she anticipated, for she found that "El Diablo Cojuelo" had left his stronghold. Failing to make herself understood, Dolores fetched an old man who looked like a comic opera pirate and who ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... Accordingly he quitted his apartment, threw a ghastly smile into his countenance, and then came quickly upon his clerks, humming a few cheerful notes, with about as much spirit and energy as a man might have if forced to sing a comic song just before his execution. Thoroughly persuaded that the officials had not obtained an inkling of what had transpired in his sanctum, and that he left them without a suspicion of evil upon their minds, he started upon his errand, and waited not for breath until ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... trouble, thered be no drama) and plays for sympathy all the time as hard as she can. Her good old pious mother turns on her cruel father when hes going to put her out of the house, and says she'll go too. Then theres the comic relief: the comic shopkeeper, the comic shopkeeper's wife, the comic footman who turns out to be a duke in disguise, and the young scapegrace who gives the author his excuse for dragging in a fast young ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw |
