"Comical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at six o'clock—for the omelet," and he walked away with short, mincing steps that seemed to them all very comical. ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... embroidery of fiction, and referring it to the facts of nature, Fabre demonstrated that the true story is even more marvellous than all the tales of ancient Egypt. He narrated its actual life, the object of its task, and its comical and exhilarating performances. But such is the subtlety of these delicate and difficult researches that nearly forty years were required to complete the study of its habits and to solve the mystery of ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... wink OF his eye, Peep with security Into futurity, Sum up your history, Clear up a mystery, Humour proclivity For a nativity. With mirrors so magical, Tetrapods tragical, Bogies spectacular, Answers oracular, Facts astronomical, Solemn or comical, And, if you want it, he Makes a reduction on taking a quantity! Oh! If any one anything lacks, He'll find it all ready in stacks, If he'll only look in On the resident Djinn, ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... this curt announcement and the rueful face behind it, until the comical side of the affair so completely overtopped every other consideration that we both burst out into a roar ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... America, that I was to be very happy, and that I was to be much upon the sea, predictions which, in consideration of an uneasy stomach, I can scarcely think agreeable with one another. Two incidents alone relieved the dead level of idiocy and incomprehensible gabble. The first was the comical announcement that "when I drew fish to the Marquis of Bute, I should take care of my sweetheart," from which I deduce the fact that at some period of my life I shall drive a fishmonger's cart. The second, in the middle of such nonsense, had a touch of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the room before Campbell, and shaking hands with his guests: 'Ah, Mr. Bemis; Mrs. Bemis; Aunt Mary! You've heard of our comical little coincidence—our—Mr. Bemis and my—' He halts, confused, and looks around for the moral support of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... and the queen was so overcome at the comical sight, that she nearly fell down and got the hysterics, laughing so heartily. She utterly forgot her dignity, and laughed till the tears ran down her face. She was so afraid she would scream out, that she nearly choked herself to death with her sleeve, ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... not feel the injustice and degradation of the condition, there is something inexpressibly comical in man's "citizen woman." It reminds me of those monsters I used to see in the old world, head and shoulders woman, and the rest of the body sometimes fish and sometimes beast. I used to think, What a strange conceit! but now ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... or even a ditch, the dogs were released for a bathe. They invariably leapt into the water, drank moderately, and then, if the water was too shallow for swimming, sat down in it and then lay down. Sometimes a dog temporarily at liberty would find on his own account a small water hole, and it was comical to see him taking a sitz bath in it. When the sun was hot a dog would sometimes be retained on his cord when not pulling in order that he might trot along in the shade below the kuruma. The dog of the kuruma following mine usually managed when pulling to take advantage ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... two-wheeled cart Bobby found, when finally he and Mr. Kincaid emerged from the house carrying his valise, to be well packed with the shell-box, gun, bag and a lunch basket. Mr. Kincaid's duck-dog, named Curly, lay crouched in the bottom like a soft warm mat. Bobby had met Curly before. He was a comical seal-brown dog, covered with compact tight curls all over his body. When Bobby petted him, they felt springy. His face, head and ears, however, were smooth and silky. He had yellow eyes, and an engaging disposition. To the touch his body, ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... paralysed fellow is lost to the Present. He is back in the Past—or in one of his novelettes; and in front of him, begging for mercy, as he slits their throats, or cracks open their skulls, are, indeed, hundreds of real and living men. His acting is superb. It is only made comical by the hanging legs, the fixture of the body to the seat of the chair, and the furious ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... conditions and obstacles society and family could raise would melt away in the glow of a real passion. And he wondered for a moment if American girls were not "calculating"—a word to which he had learned over here to attach a new and comical meaning. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... in the dark, you see. This thing acts just like a Chinese puzzle. They're simple enough when you know how to fit the pieces together, and you wonder why they ever stumped you. But until you do guess them—" He stopped, with a comical shrug of his shoulders to indicate his helplessness and ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the Farm - Or, Bessie King's New Chum • Jane L. Stewart
... may be! But amusing bloodshed, and comical murder. Life is a burlesque catastrophe, a terrible comedy, the mask of carnival over blood-stained cheeks. That is what life means to the artist; the artist on the stage, and the ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... table, amid the smothered mirth of the assemblage, the two jesters placed themselves opposite each other, and grinned such comical defiance that the king roared with laughter. After a variety of odd movements and feints on either side, Patch tried to bring down his adversary by a tremendous two-handed blow; but in dealing it, the weight of the hag dragged him forward, and well-nigh pitched ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... on the bank (the only one I ever experienced) presented all the features, serious and comical, usual to such occasions. At our counter happened that identical case, narrated of others, of the Frenchman, who was nearly squeezed to death in getting to the counter, and, when he received his money, did not know what to do with it. "If you got the money, I no want him; but if you no ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... her manor of Saint-Fargeau. The rupture with her father, who drove her out of doors, and denied her permission to take refuge under any other roof he owned, her consequent wanderings, at times not a little affecting, and at others comical, when directing her steps towards her place of banishment, her arrival at the ruinous chateau which has neither doors nor windows, and which is haunted by ghosts, and the attempts to embellish the tumble-down ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... funny, a. comic, comical, amusing, droll, laughable, farcical, witty, jocular, jocose, ludicrous, burlesque, facetious, risible, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... all mean? Had Ossaroo gone mad? Or had he become suddenly afflicted with the malady of Saint Vitus? His movements were altogether of a comical nature; no mountebank could have danced about with more agility; and, but for the earnestness of his cries, evidently forced from him by fear, both Karl and Caspar would have burst out into a fit of laughter. They saw, however, that ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... of the clumsy lad was so comical as to beguile Berenger into a laugh. Yet Berenger's own feeling would go back to his first meeting with Diane; and as he thought of the eyes then fixed on him, he felt that he was under a trial that might ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dear, I've autoptical, optical proof That he's prowling and growling at large in the land. Hear his pestiferous Clamour vociferous, Gurgles and groans of the beastliest brand. Some may regard his contortions as comical. But I've the ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... connection with fame, Any one else should put in a claim, In this comical competition; That excellent poem will prove A man-trap for such foolish ambition, Where the silly rogue shall be caught by the leg, And exposed ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... of a crowd of English ladies, each of whom is employed in eyeing the lady next her and asking who she is, and comical as the point of view appears to any one who reflects on the shortness of human life and the littleness of human character, the effect of these feminine weaknesses is one which no one can be sure of escaping. We are afraid that half of the Englishmen who are snobs are made ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... the stretch of tide-flats passengers from the California were wading ashore. The women were being carried pickaback—and screamed when their helpers stumbled. It was a comical sight, for several men already had tripped and fallen, and were a ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... and Helen now came to meet them, for they had become seriously alarmed for the boy: but when the disaster was related, Helen could not refrain from laughing at the comical figure John must have made when flying over Bob's head; and even Mr. Martin, though he tried to look grave, found it difficult to keep his countenance while he represented to him the impropriety and hazard of his late conduct. Little Marion, who had come ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford
... jubilation, and many the inquiries after Primrose, who had once been nearly well, but had fallen back again, and Fly, who, Mysie said, was quite well and as comical as ever when she was well, but quickly tired. She had set out in high spirits, but had been dreadfully weary all the latter part of the journey, and was to go to bed at once. She still coughed, but Mysie was bent on disproving Nurse Halfpenny's assurance that the recovery would not be complete ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... opened, and her eyes dilated with an almost comical expression of dismay. She had not a word ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... come to one of the most remarkable, and in some respects certainly the most comical, of all the episodes in which Colonel Best-Dunkley figured—the memorable march from Millain to Westbecourt. The following lengthy epistle which I wrote in my billet in the Vale of Acquin at Westbecourt the following day draws a perfectly accurate picture ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... One was young and boyish looking. The other, a few years older, was of medium height and stout beyond proportion; he wore a tweed suit of a rather big check pattern, and the coat was buttoned over a scarlet waistcoat; the straw hat, gaudily beribboned, shaded a fat, jolly, half-comical face, of the type that readily inspires confidence. He was talking to his companion animatedly when he saw Jack approaching. With a boisterous exclamation of delight he rushed up to him and clapped him ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... man uttered this question in a tone at once so comical and so touching, that Croisilles, in spite of his sadness, could not ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... something so odd in the whole affair, and something so comical and pleasant in the manner of the speaker, that the spell ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... He saw everything and he enjoyed everything. Plainly he was the miscreant. He was waddling round on his stout little legs, flourishing a huge jack-knife, and grinning as if he were going to have a big dish of whale-fat for dinner. He looked comical enough. He was dressed in seal-skin, and was bobbing up and down in his mother's seal-skin boots. The women's boots are of tanned seal-skin, bleached white and then colored. The boots of Billy's mother were very gay. They were bright red ones. When Billy ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... comical universe I don't laugh at, my little Blanquette," said he. "I am like good old Montaigne—I rather laugh than weep, because to ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... be there's no harm in trying it."—"Farewell, then, my poor, pretty, patient, black-bruised cousin," cried Pedrillo; "next time you see the doctor, let him know how his remedy has sped;" and with a comical expression of countenance, half melancholy, half mirthful, the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 350, January 3, 1829 • Various
... what a comical fellow! Don't be angry with me, mamma. When I found out that you wanted to marry NADYA to him, I felt sorry for her. And you're so good to everybody! [He kisses her hand] I didn't want you to do ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... the hands that dispense forty-cent pieces!" he cried with a comical grimace, shuffled his shoes, and ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... these transactions, the slave called to see Friend Hopper. He laughed till he could hardly stand, while he described the method he had taken to elude his old master, and the comical scene that followed with him and the constable. "I knew his weak side," said he. "I ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... Walter, as he made a comical move toward Belle. But Belle was disconsolate, and she only looked at the moon. It was almost funny, but the humor was entirely lost on the ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... feasting and drinking. Grant it be so; yet certainly in the most luxurious entertainments it is Folly must give the sauce and relish to the daintiest delicacies; so that if there be no one of the guests naturally fool enough to be played upon by the rest, they must procure some comical buffoon, that by his jokes and flouts and blunders shall make the whole company split themselves with laughing; for to what purpose were it to be stuffed and crammed with so many dainty bits, savory dishes, and toothsome rarities, if after all this epicurism, the eyes, the ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... mantle of blue-gray tufts. It is these sterile places which yield the best truffles of Perigord. Sometimes trained dogs are used to hunt for the cryptogams, but, as in the Quercy, the pig is much more frequently employed for the purpose. A comical and ungainly-looking beast this often is: bony and haggard, with a long limp tail and exaggerated ears. A collar round the neck ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... sources. Figures from history, ancient and modern, sacred and secular; characters from plays and novels from Plautus down to Walter Scott and Jane Austen; images and similes from poets of every age and every nation, 'pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical;' shrewd thrusts from satirists, wise saws from sages, pleasantries caustic or pathetic from humorists; all these throng Macaulay's pages with the bustle and variety and animation of some glittering masque and ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... the young men of the tribe did a little foot-runnin', and Mike begged 'em to let him in. It was comical to see how pleased they was. They felt so sure of him that they began pro-ratin' our belongin's among one another. They laid out a half-mile course, and everybody in camp went out to the finish-line to see the contest and to bet on it. The old chief acted as judge, bookmaker, ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... later be mentioned. The patient is indifferent so far as his basic condition is concerned, and it is only by certain stimuli that at times emotional reactions can be elicitated, some tears at a visit of a relative, an appropriate smile at a joke or a comical situation when the stupor is not too deep or an angry reaction called forth ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... least surprised of the trio, and even he had not more than begun to suspect the true state of affairs when the light was turned on. He doubled up with laughter, for it was really comical to see how eagerly Moses was delving into his oat supply, as though he feared he was now about to be divorced from his feast, and retired in disgrace, wherefore he wished to gobble all he could ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... sounds, the boy's wide mouth puckered up in a comical look of distress, and he rubbed the cuff of his jacket across his blinking eyes. Mrs. Ginniss gave him a slap, on the shoulder, intended to be playful, but actually heavy enough to have thrown a slighter person ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... school" of manners has fallen into disrepute. Sir Charles Grandison is a comical rather than a courtly figure to this generation; and the man whose manners may be described as Grandisonian is usually called a pompous and grandiloquent old prig. Certainly the elaborately dressed gentleman speaking to a lady only with polished courtesy of phrase, ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... smooth, ruddy face, and white hair, and large round spectacles behind which his eyes danced and sparkled, and a comical kindly mouth, and his clothes were of bright colours that merged into each other as easily as those of the rainbow and were as certain a sign that the sun was shining somewhere. Moreover there was in his appearance a vague but unmistakable likeness to the one person of all persons whom ...
— The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice • E. V. Lucas
... other more intangible equity or asset. One of Johnny's favourite feats was to march Yank and me up to a bar, face us, and interrogate us according to an invariable formula. We must have presented a comical sight—I with my great bulk and round, fresh face alongside the solemn, lank, and leathery Yank; both of us drawn up at attention, and solemn as ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... the old cylinder makeshift was burning merrily did he return to his patient; then, standing straight before her, he looked down with an air of childish dignity that would have been comical had it been ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... were loitering about the carriage; as he pushed through them, he heard them questioning why travellers should on so hot a morning of spring sit muffled up in a close, dark carriage when they could take their ease beneath trees in the inn-garden. One man laughed out at the Princess and the comical figure she made with her scarlet cloak drawn tight about her face. Wogan himself had bought that cloak in Strasbourg to guard his Princess from the cold of the Brenner, and guessed what discomfort its ermine ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... of the universe, whether a jack-in-a-box or a comet. She had only known Aunt Maria for the last four years, and she had not yet got used to her rough-and-ready mannish ways, nor learned to see any sense in her philosophizings. Looking upon her as a comical character, and supposing that she talked mainly for the fun of the thing, she was disposed to laugh at her doings and sayings, though mostly meant ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... long, long, A singing a comical song, song, song, The lane that I went was so long, long, long, And the song that I sung was so long, long, long, And so I ...
— Aunt Kitty's Stories • Various
... far back on his head, and the sun fell full on his face. Even at this distance, the resemblance to his sister was so marked as to be almost comical. The eyes were the same. The nose, with its unmistakable upward turn, a burlesque on the short, straight one which lent piquancy to Winifred's face. The soft, subtle curve of her cheek developed in Jimmy to a hardened rotundity inevitably suggesting the desire to pinch it, which one feels toward ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... into the tray, Alice began to throw in the other things one after another, and toss the whole about with a carelessness that looked as if all would go wrong, but with a confidence that seemed to say all was going right. Ellen gazed in comical wonderment. ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... object beneath a triple linen cloth, like some consecrated paten. It was a Faenza platter representing little Loves flitting away pursued by apothecary lads armed with enormous syringes. The chase abounds in grimaces and in comical postures. One of the charming little Loves is already fairly spitted. He is resisting, fluttering his tiny wings, and still making an effort to fly, but the dancer is laughing with a satanical air. Moral: Love conquered by the colic. This ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... has always been comical, even when I didn't feel well myself, to see the husbands come into the club after a big night; each wearing upon his face, as plainly as if they had been physical scratches, the marks of the wifely ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... Brazilian's attitude and expression, gave, alike to Crevel and to the baron, an identical shock of curiosity and anxiety. Both were struck by the same impression and the same surmise. And the manoeuvre suggested in each by their very genuine passion was so comical in its simultaneous results, that it made everybody smile who was sharp enough to read its meaning. Crevel, a tradesman and shopkeeper to the backbone, though a mayor of Paris, unluckily, was a little slower to ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... a capital joke, Piers disbursed the coin. Quaint, comical fellow, this brother of his I He liked him, and was beginning to ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... his will; yet not his the will, not his the power. 'Tis all Fortune's, whose puppet he is. She deals her dispensations through him. Yea, though our capers be never so comical, he laughs not. Intent upon his own business, the true hero asks little services of us here and there; thinks it quite natural that they should be acceded to, and sees nothing ridiculous in the lamentable contortions we must go ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of surprise and perplexity in her face, though half pathetic, seemed so comical that I with difficulty suppressed a laugh, because for her it was evidently no laughing matter. After giving her time, as I thought, to recover ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... of your dishevelled sentiment. And right! You must confess that nothing could have been more right. I had a mind to shout "Brava! Brava!" but I did not do that. I took a piece of cake and went out to bribe the Fyne dog into some sort of self-control. His sharp comical yapping was unbearable, like stabs through one's brain, and Fyne's deeply modulated remonstrances abashed the vivacious animal no more than the deep, patient murmur of the sea abashes a nigger minstrel on a popular beach. Fyne was beginning to swear at him in low, ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... The sausage (saucisson de Lyon) also appears to have borne the journey well, but has not yet been tasted, so the next letter from Todmorden must give the opinion upon it, but it certainly looks to me a most comical affair; and to tell last the only disagreeable thing, it is about the peaches, which were all in a dreadful mess, and quite mixed up with the bran and scarcely fit to touch, though Aunt Susan did take out one or two to see the extent of the decay. How very provoking for you ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... to them, he turned Kate round to a mirror, where she beheld her own brown eyes looking out of a face dashed over with black specks, thicker about the mouth, giving her altogether much the colouring of a very dark man closely shaved. It was so exceedingly comical, that she went off into fits of laughing, in which she was heartily joined by ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... spin the young equestrians took over the ears of the horse, enough to make all the artists of Astley's envious; and plump they went into the river, where each formed his own ring, and executed some comical "scenes in the circle," which were suddenly changed to evolutions on the "flying cord" that Dinny Dowling threw to the performers, which became suddenly converted into a "tight rope" as he dragged the voltigeurs out of the water; and for fear their blood might be chilled by the accident, ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... Luciana, the sister of his brother's wife; and the good old Aegeon, with his wife and sons, lived at Ephesus many years. Nor did the unravelling of these perplexities so entirely remove every ground of mistake for the future, but that sometimes, to remind them of adventures past, comical blunders would happen, and the one Antipholus, and the one Dromio, be mistaken for the other, making altogether a pleasant ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... us, and Henry had sprung from his horse and embraced his brother, leaving a generous coating of yeso upon the army blue. Tears of joy had ploughed two streaks through the whiting on his face, and lent a comical effect to the boyish countenance. A general handshake ensued, and Corporal Frank asked, "Where are your ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... perfect state of preservation, and more elliptical in form than any of those I have yet seen, and the School of Eloquence, where R** mounted the rostrum, and gave us an oration extempore, equally pithy, classical and comical. About sunset we got into the carriages, and ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... the thorny Sorcerer in his chair of state, and when the Wizard saw him he began to laugh, uttering comical little chuckles. ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... the humorous poems of Thomas Green Fessenden, published under the sobriquet of Dr. Caustic, or "Christopher Caustic, M. D.," may be seen an other comical example of Sapphics, which extends to eleven stanzas. It describes a contra-dance, and is entitled, "Horace Surpassed." The ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... disgust, very comical and very joyous, but as the good dame was actually coming in search of ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bells, and tufts of gay-coloured ribbons or fox-tails are put upon it. Great pride is taken in turning out a train of dogs in good style. Beads, bells, and embroidery are freely used to bedizen the poor brutes, and a most comical effect is produced by the appearance of so much finery upon the woefully frightened dog, who, when he is first put into his harness, usually looks the picture of fear. The fact is patent that in hauling the dog is put to a work from which his whole nature revolts, that is to say ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... soldiers, (heads up,) but I long to see them step out of those prim ranks, and shout and scamper. I long to stuff their little pockets full of anything—everything, that other little pets have. I want to get them round me, and tell them some comical stories to take the care-worn look out of their anxious little faces. I want to see them twist their little heads round when they hear a noise, instead of keeping them straight forward as if they were "on duty." I want to know if anybody tucks them up comfortably ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... to enter "La Martiniere," the farm of her father, Jean Martin, and she cast a glance behind her as she turned round. She saw Benoist, who looked to her very comical. She called out: "Good-morning, Benoist." He replied: "Good-morning, Martine; good-morning, mait Martin," and went ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... Sophie laughed at the comical air with which her sister repeated the sentence; yet, when her laugh was gone, there remained a slight shadow of disappointment. She, too, was unwillingly aware of ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... Tibetans. As I had pitched my Tibetan tent, they made for it, expecting to find some of their own countrymen. Their confusion was amusing when they found themselves face to face with Doctor Wilson and myself. Hurriedly removing their fur caps, they laid them upon the ground and made a comical bow. They put out their tongues full length, and kept them so until I made signs that they could draw them back, as I wanted them to answer several questions. This unexpected meeting with us frightened them ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... But let me tell you, there was a comical thing to start with. Lieutenant Hayter, one of Watson's men, was bid to the Council, but the nincompoop was huffed because he wasn't allowed precedence of the Company's captains. These naval men's airs are vastly amusing. ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... thing lay in a sort of humorous inappropriateness; and it is natural enough that pleasantry of this description should become less common, as men learn to suspect some serious analogy underneath. Thus a comical story of an ape touches us quite differently after the proposition of Mr. Darwin's theory. Moreover, there lay, perhaps, at the bottom of this primitive sort of fable, a humanity, a tenderness of rough truths; ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Pickwickians were there when he arrived. The Judge was a very short man, so plump that he seemed all face and waistcoat. When he had rolled in upon two little turned legs, and sat down at his desk, all you could see of him was two little eyes, one broad pink face, and about half of a comical, big wig. Scarcely had the jurors taken their seats, when Mrs. Bardell's lawyers brought in the lady herself, half hysterical, and supported by two tearful lady friends. The ushers called for silence and ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... that before "our art," as he persistently calls music, had got a root in Germany, three great schools had flourished, the English, the Flemish and the Italian—disregarding all this, he looked for the regeneration of the human species by means of the efforts of German artists alone. It is comical, and, I say, very like lunacy. Mr. Ernest Newman will have it that Wagner's was only a very mediocre intellect. The cold truth is that only a mighty intellect, gone wrong on one point, could have evolved the idea of such a new ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... why they did, They called in adventitious aid. A faithful, favourite dog ('twas thus With Tobit and Telemachus) Amused their steps; and for a while They viewed his gambols with a smile. The kitten too was comical, She played so oddly with her tail, Or in the glass was pleased to find Another cat, and ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... probably forgotten her, if he did not relate this audacious, comical and tender farce to his comrades over ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... her treatment of the lines in the scene where Celia conducts the mock marriage between Orlando and Ganymede. Another actress, whom I saw as Rosalind, said the words, "And I do take thee, Orlando, to be my husband," with a comical grimace to the audience. Helen Faucit flushed up and said the line with deep and true emotion, suggesting that she was, indeed, giving herself to Orlando. There was a world of poetry in the way she drooped over ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... and comical lips as he imagined that that medal would purchase him the right to sigh dolorously in front of whatever stomacher it finally adorned. He could pour out odes in the learned tongue, for the space of a week, a day, or an afternoon according to the rank, ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... boxes, red, green, and golden balls, tinkling glass bells, stars, paper angels, cotton-wool Santa Claus, blue birds, celluloid goldfish, mosquito netting, counterfeit stockings, nickel-plated horns, and all the comical accumulation of oddities that gathers from year to year in the box labelled CHRISTMAS TREE THINGS, FRAGILE. The box goes up to the attic, and the parent blows a faint diminuendo, achingly prolonged, on a toy horn. Titania is almost reduced to tears ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... affect us like the first movement, in which lies not only the majesty, but the mystery of genius. The sonata in D has a vigorous opening Allegro,—a long, lovely, slow movement,—a crisp Scherzo, but a peculiar Finale, one which Schumann qualifies as comical (possirlich). The sonata in G contains some of the composer's most charming, characteristic music. The opening moderato e cantabile is a tone-poem of touching pathos. The sad principal theme is supported by such soft, ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... his hands with a comical gesture. "Well, let it go at that. I suppose it explains me to call me 'professor.' Yes, I have a connection there—I draw a ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... robbed Mr. Hearl on Hounslow-Heath. I secured the dog after he had wounded me. This fracture was the handiwork of Jack Parrot (otherwise called Jack the Grinder), who broke into the palace of the Bishop of Norwich. Jack was a comical scoundrel, and made a little too free with his grace's best burgundy, as well as his grace's favourite housekeeper. The Bishop, however, to show him the danger of meddling with the church, gave him a dance at Tyburn for his pains. Not a scar but has its history. The only inconvenience I feel ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... two feet already," said Walter, in a discouraged voice, as he started wielding the paddle again. "I guess there is something wrong with our calculation, Charley." He stopped suddenly and looked up with a comical look of ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... of us have some comical peculiarity, and we would not want an animal in the house who would be sure, at some time, to expose us to laughter by his ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... greeted her astounded parent. 'You should make sure that you have got hold of the right person before you use all that terrible muscular force of yours. I do believe you have broken my shoulder bone.' She rubbed her shoulder with a comical expression of pain, and then stood up before the two men. The skirt of her dark grey dress was torn and dirty, and the usually trim Nella looked as though she had been shot down a canvas fire-escape. Mechanically she smoothed her frock, and gave a ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... nifty and feminine, but I'm darned if three or four of the other males don't catch the contagion of her woman's presence and hang round her, too, fetching her food of every kind there, feeding her spoonfuls of Aggie Tuttle's plum preserves, and all like that, one comical thing after another. Yes, sir; here was Mac Gordon and Riley Hardin and Charlie Dickman and Roth Hyde, men about town of the younger dancing set, that had knowed Hetty for years and hardly ever looked at her—here they was paying attentions to her now ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... trying for the reward?" asked Reyburn with a comical smile. "What is it, anyway?" And ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... consider them merely as realistic fiction, apart from their author, or as studies of that middle world of which he is naturally and voluntarily a citizen. We had known the nethermost world of the grotesque and comical negro and the terrible and tragic negro through the white observer on the outside, and black character in its lyrical moods we had known from such an inside witness as Mr. Paul Dunbar; but it had remained for Mr. Chesnutt to acquaint us with those regions where the paler shades dwell as ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... liked best. He was a curly black half-shepherd, small in size; and he had a sharp, intelligent face, with the brightest hazel eyes. His manner of wagging his tail seemed most comical yet convincing. Bobby wagged only the nether end and that most emphatically. He would stand up to me, holding out his forepaws, and beg. What an appealing beggar he was! Bobby's value to Haught was not inconsiderable. He was the only dog Haught ever had that would ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... appeared so amusing to the rogue that he did his best, by reproving words, to strengthen, for the present, the good folk in their belief. He gave a very comical report of all this to me; and as he found that it diverted me, he made a joke to me of his own wickedness. Shall I confess it? It flattered me, even by such means, to be ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... galley, but the sound expired at the sight of the distant flutter of a woman's scarf in the stern of the ship. He halted and ran his fingers through his crisp hair with an expressive gesture of almost comical perplexity; all would be plain sailing enough, with hope at the prow again, but for this—he stamped his foot to choke down the oath of qualification—this encumbrance. Adrian's wife and Madeleine's sister, as such entitled to all honour, all care, and devotion; and yet, as such again, hideously, ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... exclamation was so comical, that people nearly fell from their benches as they writhed and ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... does the man of the world reveal himself with more strangely comical effect under the gown of the divine than in the sermon on "The Prodigal Son." The repentant spendthrift has returned to his father's house, and is about ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... talent so far surpassed that of his rivals—for this was clear as daylight to me. Berlioz seemed to be pleasantly affected by the attitude of gay spontaneity I adopted with him. His usual short, almost reserved, manner thawed visibly during the friendly hours we passed together. He told me many comical things about Meyerbeer, and the impossibility of escaping from his flattery, which was dictated by his insatiable thirst for laudatory articles. The first performance of his Prophet had been preceded by the customary diner de la veille, and when Berlioz ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... sight of these thousands of little midgets each with his teacup, or his teapot, or his tin pail, throwing each his mite of water—for which he had to walk a street or so—into the ravening roaring furnace of flame was as pathetic or as comical as you please. They did not seem to have a show in ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... broke from him in this retirement. His novel, called the Expedition of Humphry Clinker, which he sent to England to be printed in 1770, though abounding in portraitures of exquisite drollery, and in situations highly comical, has not the full zest and flavour of his earlier works. The story does not move on with the same impetuosity. The characters have more the appearance of being broad caricatures from real life, than the creatures ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... and the head-waiter is such a waiter! Knowles (not Sheridan Knowles, but Knowles of the Cheetham Hill Road[28]) is an ass to him. This sounds bold, but truth is stranger than fiction. By-the-by, not the least comical thing that has occurred was the visit of the upholsterer (with some further calculations) since I began this letter. I think they took me here at the New London for the Wonderful Being I am; they were amazingly sedulous; and no doubt they looked for my being visited ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... luckily she did not meet any one, nor was she overtaken by any of those who had been at Baadshaug. She must look very comical, perspiring and tearful, with unfastened cloak, in thin shoes and with a shawl in her hand. Several times she slackened her pace, but the disturbance of her feelings was too great, and it was her ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... that were like galvanized Coppelias of Hoffmann, some, like Neel de Nehou, seemed to have been imagined in moments of exhaustion following convulsions, and were discordant notes in this harmony of sombre madness, where they were as comical and ridiculous as a tiny zinc figure playing on a ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... his tormentor by the shoulder, and pushed him into the canal. The water was not deep, and the boy, after floundering about for a few seconds, came out dripping with mud and filth, and sat down on the tow path, and looked at the horse with such a comical expression, that the Riverdale boy had to stuff his handkerchief in his mouth to ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... friends just met after a long absence. Mrs. HERSCHEL is sensible, good-humored, unpretending, and well bred; Miss HERSCHEL all shyness and virgin modesty; the Scots lady sensible and harmless; and the little boy entertaining, promising, and comical. HERSCHEL, you know, and everybody knows, is one of the most pleasing and well-bred natural characters of the present age, as well as the ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... that mother used up the last of the arnica when you did it last time tryin' to count the buttons up Policeman Rat-it-all's uniform, an' that if the wind should shift of a sudden and catch you with your eyes bulgin' out of your head like they'm doin' at this moment, happen 'twill fix you up comical for life: an' then instead of your growin' up apprenticed to a butcher, as has been your constant dream, we'll have to put you into a travellin' show for a gogglin' May-game, an' that's where your heart will be turnin' ever, far from the Old Folks at Home. ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... comical look in his eyes the trailer fell back. "'Pears like I ain't good enough to precede her Majesty. ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... the pantomime of dying. Folding her hands together and closing her eyes, her lips moved as if in prayer, for a moment, then stretching out her feet she lay perfectly motionless, with a set expression in the little face which looked so comical under the broad frilled cap. Then, as if it had occurred to her that action was necessary from some one, she exchanged places with the lay figure, and tying the cap upon its head, tucked it carefully in the bed, by which she knelt, and covering her face with her hands imitated perfectly ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... their lives in the torture of captivity. So deeply interested was Romulus in what he saw that he forgot his fear and cocked his head on one side and made a queer grimace; and his motions and attitude were so comical that Moses, the idiot, grinned at him through the pickets. But the grin was not the only manifestation of pleasure that Moses gave. A peculiar vermicular movement, beginning at his feet and ending at his head, was the precursor of a slow, vacant guffaw that expressed the most intense ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... HAVE you gone and done?" said Papa, laughing and putting his hand to his cheek (whenever he did this I used to look for something particularly comical from him). "Why did you call my attention to his feet? I looked at them, and now ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... you are," said the man in black, staring at me; "but, in connection with this Mumbo Jumbo, I could relate to you a comical story about a fellow, an English servant, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... senses in the sweet wild music of her country. I still sometimes hear in fancy her cradle-song humming in my own Old Indian ear as I am falling asleep—although many a long year has passed since I heard it in reality, and many a long league is now between me and the land of the dear, good, black, comical, kindly ayah. Let me try whether I cannot render it, even loosely, in our own strong Anglo-Saxon tongue, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... you have walked in the actual steps of the Marquise. C'est ici qu'elle jouoit au mail avec cette parfaite grace—et M. le Comte aussi—ah! c'etoit un plaisir de les voir." We hardly knew whether to laugh at, or be interested by the comical Quixotism of this man, who I verily believe had, by dint of residence on the spot, and thumbing constantly a dirty old edition of Madame's letters, worked himself up to the notion that he had witnessed the scenes which he described. We were induced, in the course of our walk, to inquire ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... is a band of foragers, no doubt. But what are we going to do about it?" Hugh was nonplussed. The brown backs and bobbing heads still stretched before them in almost comical humbleness. ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... I found a better, worse luck to the villain as killed him. He was that free and ginerous, sir, that many 's the time I have said to Hannah—" She stopped, with a sudden comical gasp of terror, looking at her fellow-servants like one who had incautiously made a slip. The coroner, observing ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... lady appeared at the opposite door, ready to descend the stairs. Neither of them saw the young man. But if they had, one of them at least would have doubted the young man's sanity. He stared at the couple for a moment with a look of grotesque horror on his face that was absolutely comical. Then he turned, and ran the length of the deck, with a speed unconscious ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... his half intentional blunders, and at the laughable situations into which his artlessness would often land him. Like all the older directors, he had to say the orison in his turn. He never gave it five minutes previous consideration, and he sometimes got into such a comical state of confusion with his improvised address, that we had to bite our tongues to keep from laughing. He saw how amused we were, and it struck him as being perfectly natural. It was he who, during the course of Holy Writ, had to read M. ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... gone proudly up to take his seat of honor, and the others had returned to their back-gammon and ale, Sigurd looked at Alwin with a comical grimace. ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... his hair, with a comical face. It was a very fine face, as I knew long ago; even a noble face. A steady, clear, blue eye like his, gives one a sure impression of power in the character, and of sweetness, too. I was glad he had asked me the question, but I waited for him ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... not look very humorous in print, but they sounded comical as they came from the mouth of that raw countryman, and the ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... the sultry air, and holding their wings half-spread for coolness. All birds during the pairing season become more or less sentimental, and murmur soft nothings in a tone very unlike the grinding-organ repetition and loudness of their habitual song. The crow is very comical as a lover, and to hear him trying to soften his croak to the proper Saint Preux(1) standard has something the effect of a Mississippi boatman quoting Tennyson. Yet there are few things to my ear more melodious than his caw of a clear winter morning as it drops to you filtered through five ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... squaw showed their big white teeth and glinted their black eyes, and said, "Plenty get well, skeena mowitch," "Wagee man come plenty soon," and she could have kissed their brown faces in her joy. And then she found that they had been gathering berries on the marsh in heir queer comical baskets, and saw the skirt of her gown fluttering on the tree from afar, and the old squaw couldn't resist the temptation of procuring a new garment, and came down and discovered the "wagee" woman and child. ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... briefly that some of the canaille of our escort had carried away a bale of Dr. Barth's goods, but that the chief had made them restore the greater part of the spoil. In the first moments I could not help laughing. It was certainly comical to be robbed by one's own escort. We had now thirty-one chaouches for two whom we obtained in Tripoli. On this I ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... company of French gunners it is a comical contrast to find him winning a scholarship at Balliol College, Oxford—admittedly the most rarefied and azure-pedalled precinct in England. He matriculated at Balliol in January, 1895, and was soon known as one of the "characters" of the college. There was little of the lean and pallid clerk of Oxenford ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... had a comical experience. When he took out his breviary and began to read his morning devotions in a low tone, the savages gathered around him with looks {300} of terror and frantically signed to him to put away the book. ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... river until she came to a narrow and not particularly well—kept road which led through the opening of the hills towards which she had motioned her whip. Once or twice a smile crossed her face, and once she laughed as she thought of the comical picture which the young man had made as he struggled to dry land with the wet lamb in his arms; and the smile and her laugh made her face seem strangely girlish, because it was usually so calm, so gravely self-reliant. ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... has in like manner acquired several of the attributes of Freyr and Thor. [63] His lightning-spear, which is borrowed from Thor, appears by a comical metamorphosis as a wish-rod which will administer a sound thrashing to the enemies of its possessor. Having cut a hazel stick, you have only to lay down an old coat, name your intended victim, wish he was there, and whack away: he will howl with pain ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... and steal apples. Jack Juggler, who enacts the Vice, watches him, gets on some clothes just like his, and undertakes to persuade him "that he is not himself, but another man." The task proves too much, till he brings fist-arguments to bear; when Jenkin gives up the point, and makes a comical address to the audience, alleging certain reasons for believing that he is not himself. The humour of the piece turns mainly on this ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... Wales, Junior," it should be explained that most of Betty's little circle began to be friends in their freshman year, when they lived off the campus at Mrs. Chapin's, and Mary Brooks, the only sophomore in the house, ruled them with an autocratic hand. Betty found Helen Adams a comical and sometimes a trying roommate. Rachel Morrison and Katherine Kittredge were also at Mrs. Chapin's, and Roberta Lewis, who adored Mary Brooks and was desperately afraid of every one else in the house, though Betty ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... from designing in precious metals to the use of colour, and to engraving. In making wood engravings, however, the drudgery of it was left almost entirely to workmen, not artists. Nuremberg was also the seat of musical learning. Wagner makes this fact pathetic, comical, and altogether charming in his "Mastersingers ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... an instance of Shakespeare's power in minimis, I generally quote James Gurney's character in King John. How individual and comical he is with the four words allowed to his ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... the name of the publisher, came a new prospectus, probably the first effort of the kind, of the then youthful philosopher. This prospectus was rather an odd one, as will be seen by the following extract: 'The main design of this weekly will be to entertain the town with the most comical and diverting incidents of human life; which in so large a place as Boston will not fail of a universal exemplification. Nor shall we be wanting to fill up these papers with a grateful interspersion of more serious morals, which may be drawn from ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... he groaned out, "'fore the boarders come! She use' t' come up t' Pa's an' act up real pert an' comical; maybe if she hadn't, I'd 'a' noticed her more! Ah! if I'd only been content t' see it then, I might have saved her. I was only up t' Maud Grace's limit, but I was allus a-thinkin' I was more, an' then when she took t' the boarders ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... never become real to her. She had seen in this young gallant a nose she liked, in that a pleasant moustache, in the other a nice way of wearing clothes, in one a ridiculous fringe of hair, in another a comical way of talking. They were objects of amusement and faint wonder to her, rather than real ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... friendly ways. They shoulder responsibility; they do not flirt; they sort out cranks; they flee from simpers; they put down presumption. If married, they laugh heartily with their wives over any letter or episode that is comical or sentimental. If not married, they get out of things the best way they know how, with a sort of plain, manly directness. If a minister would arrogate to himself his free-born privilege of being a thorough-going man, many of ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... the child, she took him in her lap and tried to entertain him with a book of "Mother Goose" jingles, turning the pages slowly and concealing her emotion under the silliness of the nursery rhymes. In the midst of her comical recital about Jack and Jill who went up the hill, she ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott
... day, he came back to the Club and found a package, addressed in her hand. Out fell a little bundle of rags, topped by a comical black face, and a note. The letter of the morning was in a firm, correct hand. This was a trembling scrawl, blotted ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... be drawn into the adventure. The whole party accordingly disembarked, and were presently giving an exhibition of their talents to the assembled idlers, the Pantaloon, Harlequin and Doctor enacting a comical intermezzo which Cantapresto had that morning composed for them, while Scaramouch and Columbine joined the dancers, and the rest of the company, seizing on a train of donkeys laden with vegetables ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... the devil was almost universal. Ascetics, saints, bishops, peasants, philosophers, kings, Gregory the Great, Martin Luther, all testified that they had often seen him. The mediaval conception of the devil was sometimes comical, sometimes awful. Grimm says, "He was Jewish, heathenish, Christian, idolatrous, elfish, titanic, spectral, all at once." He was "a soul snatching wolf," a "hell hound," a "whirlwind hammer;" now an infernal "parody of God" with ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger |
