"Droll" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... person can admire more than I do the great masterpieces of wit and humour which Italy has produced. Still I cannot but discern and lament a great deficiency, which is common to them all. I find in them abundance of ingenuity, of droll naivete, of profound and just reflection, of happy expression. Manners, characters, opinions, are treated with "a most learned spirit of human dealing." But something is still wanting. We read, and we admire, and we yawn. We look in vain ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... a doubt of it,' said his uncle, upon a series of nods diminishing in their depth until his head assumed a droll interrogative fixity, with an air ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to last, almost without exception, this story is delightfully droll, humorous and illustrated in harmony with ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... it rather droll—and ludicrous, when you come to think of it? First, Sunnysides' punch in my stomach. And now, with my head cut open by a stone, and a broken leg, and two bullet-wounds—I've still got a splendid appetite. I ought to be on ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... of Muck himself, his lady, sister to Talisker, two other ladies their relations, and a daughter of the late M'Leod of Hamer, who wrote a treatise on the second sight, under the designation of Theophilus Insulanus. It was somewhat droll to hear this laird called by his title. Muck would have founded ill; so he was called Isle of Muck, which went off with great readiness. The name, as now written, is unseemly, but is not so bad in the original Erse, which is MOUACH, signifying ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... her heels. The first of them was Lieutenant Pommer, who was somewhat of a general favorite because of his unaffected, frank demeanor. Occasionally it became a trifle rough or rude; but you always knew where you had him. With special ardor he saluted Frau Kahle, and it looked almost droll to watch the contrast between him, a burly, corpulent fellow, and this tiny, fragile figure that ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... indeed, was it formerly to announce new ideas opposed to those already received, that we had a proverb to the effect, that he was not mad who had "droll" thoughts, but he was so who told them to the world. The proverb is now somewhat reversed, and he is thought wicked who, being favoured with gleams of light, allows ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... Der Schachzabel. This is an extraordinary, and highly illuminated MS. upon paper; written in a sort of secretary gothic hand, in short rhyming verse, as I conceive about the year 1400, or 1450. The embellishments are large and droll, and in several of them we distinguish that thick, and shining, but cracked coat of paint which is upon the old print of St. Bridget, in Lord Spencer's collection.[14] Among the more striking illuminations is the Knight on horseback, in silver armour, about nine ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... resembled each other, the precieux seeking wit and believing that all literary art consisted in saying it did not matter what in a dainty and unexpected fashion; the burlesques also sought wit but on a lower plane, desiring to be "droll," buffoons, prone to cock-and-bull stories or crude pranks in thought, style, and parody. Voiture is the most brilliant representative of the preieux and Scarron the most ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... vanished when she discovered that, in spite of her dignified bearing, this tall, fair young woman was as full of fun as the droll Emma Dean. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... and Maignan that he had not got any; but before I could answer that he must get some, La Trape thrust his may to the front, and producing a small piece from his pocket, proceeded with a droll air of extreme carefulness to treat the hand. The other knaves fell into the joke, and the Spaniard had no option but to submit; though his scowling face showed that he bore Maignan no good-will, and that but for my presence he might not have been so complaisant. ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... Bousefield; the year as to which through the same sharpened shrewdness it had been conveyed in the agreement between them that Mr. Bousefield was not to intermeddle. It had been Limbert's general prayer that we would during this period let him quite alone. His terror of my direct rays was a droll, dreadful force that always operated: he explained it by the fact that I understood him too well, expressed too much of his intention, saved him too little from himself. The less he was saved the more he didn't sell: I literally interpreted, ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... restating obvious points till the reader feels as if his own intelligence were somewhat underrated. He is over-conscientious in giving us full measure, and once profoundly absorbed in the sound of his own voice, he knows not when to stop. If he feel himself flagging, he has a droll way of keeping the floor, as it were, by asking himself a series of questions sometimes not needing, and often incapable of answer. There are three stanzas of such near the close of the First Part of "Peter Bell," where Peter first catches a glimpse of the dead body ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... by "the affable Archangel," has perhaps been made a difficult subject in order to produce the droll fallacies ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... got to the end of our voyage?' laughed Mollie. 'Oh dear, Miss Ross, how droll you are this afternoon! But it is pretty—sweetly pretty; and how lovely those swans are! How happy you must be to live in such a ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... aside his cares and problems when he was not actively engaged with them. A very sociable man, he liked not only to be with people, but to be making them enjoy themselves. Thus he was both generous and jovial. No one loved more to give presents; no one knew more droll stories and more poetry. Nor was his joviality by any means a descent; for not only before royalty was he dignified, but in the most democratic assembly. His was not, however, a forbidding dignity. Simple-hearted as a child, ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... droll and thoroughly genuine, and Colonel Johnston is one of its prophets. The Widow Guthrie is admirably drawn. She would have delighted Thackeray. The story which bears her name is one of the best studies of Southern life which we ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... won't bury its dead. It sits over their corpses like a persistent resurrectionist, in a fashion which is irresistibly disheartening. Did it never strike you, by the way, what a droll caricature might be made on that line? Time as a ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... shoulders again, where she continued to arrange and settle it, with a good deal of jauntiness and elegance, while she listened to the talk of the gentleman. Biddy guessed that this little transaction took place very frequently, and was not unaware of its giving the old lady a droll, factitious, faded appearance, as if she were singularly out of step with the age. The other person was very much younger—she might have been a daughter—and had a pale face, a low forehead, and thick dark hair. What she chiefly had, however, Biddy rapidly discovered, was ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... like a current of air. Along the quays, along the Cannebiere, was a riot of color and nationality unbelievable from on board ship. Here were Turks dignified and shy. Here were Greeks, wary, furtive. Here were Italians, Genoese, Neapolitans, Livonians, droll, vivacious, vindictive. Here were Moors, here were Algerians, black African folk, sneering, inimical. Here were Spaniards, with their walk like a horse's lope. Here were French business men, very important. Here were Provencals, cheery, short, tubby, excitable, olive-colored, black-bearded, ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... former justices of peace, "for half a dozen chickens would dispense with a dozen of penal statutes," A juezes Gallicianos, con los pies en las manos: "To the judges of Gallicia go with feet in hand;" a droll allusion to a present of poultry, usually held by the legs. To describe persons who live high without visible means, Los que cabritos venden, y cabras no tienen, de donde los vienen? "They that sell kids, and have no ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... in a miserably resigned way, and it all seemed so droll that these blacks should come up just as we were preparing for such a feast, that I leaned back against the cocoa-nut tree by the fire and ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... a droll humour, quite unforced, Mr. Leacock reviews his little community for the sport of the thing, and the result is a natural and delightful piece ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... laughed, and even the old man smiled. He seemed to like to see them both happy, and when supper was over he told several humorous stories in his quaint, droll fashion. For a time Glen forgot her exciting experiences of the afternoon, and Samson did not once allude to them. At length he arose and laid his hand ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... Jane Eyre and Vanity Fair is referred to. 'A very remarkable book,' the reviewer continues; 'we have no remembrance of another containing such undoubted power with such horrid taste.' There is droll irony, when Charlotte Bronte's strong conservative sentiments and church environment are considered, ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... all seem so dissatisfied," said Mr. Payton, with so droll an attempt to look gloomy that Lucile then and there threw her arms about his neck and gave him an ecstatic kiss, crying joyfully, "Oh, you are the most wonderful father in all ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... steadily at Barnaby True for above half a minute and then burst out a-laughing. And, indeed, Barnaby, standing there with the bandage about his head, must have looked a very droll picture of that astonishment he felt so profoundly at finding who was this pirate into whose hands he had fallen. "Well," says the other, "and so you be up at last, and no great harm done, I'll be bound. And how does your head feel by now, ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... young partridges, caught by the little boys in trap-cages. The children called them "Bob and Chloe," because the first notes of the male and female sound like those names. One day I brought home an opossum, with her blind bare little young clinging to the droll little pouch where their mothers keep them. Sometimes we had pretty little green lizards, their color darkening or deepening, like that of chameleons, in light or shade. But the only pets that took Baby's fancy were the kittens. They perfectly delighted her, from the first moment she ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... less in Americans. This, with his derivation from one of the unliterary Boston suburbs, and his unambitious residence in a place like Hatboro', gave her a sense of provinciality in him. On his part, he apparently found it droll that a woman of her acquaintance with a larger life should be willing to live in Hatboro' at all, and he seemed incredulous about her staying after summer was over. She felt that she mystified him, and sometimes she felt the pursuit of a curiosity which was a little ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... too, Till his nose seemed bent To catch the scent, Around some corner, of new-baked pies, And his wrinkled cheeks and his squinting eyes Grew puckered into a queer grimace, That made him look very droll in the face, And also very wise. And wise he must have been, to do more Than ever a genius did before, Excepting Daedalus, of yore, And his son Icarus, who wore Upon their backs Those wings of wax He ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... probe of inquiry a little deeper. How did M. Pouillard happen to remember? Mais, it was because the young man was very droll; he was of the cold blood. When Victor, le garcon, would have brought news of the emeute, he had said, breakfast ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... are very stupid, and there are many stories as to how they have been outwitted. One of them is very droll. A farmer ploughed a hill-side field. Out came a Troll and said, "What do you mean by ploughing up the roof of my house?" Then the farmer, being frightened, begged his pardon, but said it was a pity such a fine piece of land should lie idle. The Troll agreed to this, and then they struck a bargain ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... the expression of his face was droll enough to convulse a Quaker, as he stood and stared wildly from the unconscious innocents to the hilarious spectators with such dismay that Jo sat down on ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... of Charles had a droll origin. It was originally intended for a statue of John Sobieski, the Polish king who saved Vienna from the Turks. In the first year of the Restoration, the enthusiastic Viner purchased the unfinished statue abroad. Sobieski's stern head was removed by Latham, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... graceful as May. Villebecque himself was a celebrity in characters of airy insolence and careless frolic. Their old man, indeed, was rather hard, but handy; could take anything either in the high serious, or the low droll. Their sentimental lover was rather too much bewigged, and spoke too much to the audience, a fault rare with the French; but this hero had a vague idea that he was ultimately destined to run off with ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... is interlarded with "Ja," but he never says a worse word than that, and he drinks nothing but tea. As for a pipe, or a cigar even, when it is offered to him he screws up his queer face into a droll grimace and says, "No—thanks. I want all my nerves, I do, on this bit of road.—Walk along, Lady Barker: I'm ashamed of you, I am, hanging your head like that at a bit of a hill!" It was rather startling to hear this apostrophe all of a sudden, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... well-pleased preceptor; and talk they did, one swinging in the hammock, the other rolling about on the pine-needles, as they related their experiences boy fashion. Ben's were the most exciting; but Thorny's were not without interest, for he had lived abroad for several years, and could tell all sorts of droll stories of ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... amazement of the Meanest Trustee he discovered them shifting into human shapes: here was the form of a child, here a youth, here a lover and his lass, here a little old dame, and scores more; while into the corners of the room drifted others that turned into the drollest of droll pipers—with kilt and brata and cap. It made him feel as if he had been dropped into the center of a giant kaleidoscope, with thousands of pieces of gray smoke turning, at the twist of a hand, into form and color, motion ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... on the ground looked up at the horseman, and in a droll tone that made the rider his friend, said, while he stretched his long legs painfully: "I like to walk. You see I—ah—fancied it would be good for me, don't ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... very merry fellow, full of jokes, and if any one told a story which was at all verging on the marvellous, he was sure to tell another which would be still more incredible. He played the fiddle and sang to his own accompaniments, which were very droll, as he extracted very strange noises from his instrument; sometimes his bow would be on the wrong side of the bridge, sometimes down at the keys; besides which, he produced sounds by thumping the fiddle as well as by touching its strings as ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... friend; you're married snugly, Your wife (for a Chinese) is not so ugly, And kind as kind can be, though somewhat droll, Adieu,—I'll through the city take a stroll. And then proceed to visit the great Khan, And beg him to engage ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... unapproachable as a princess-royal, and Grace was looking disconcerted and embarrassed, and papa was trying to be preternaturally cheerful and easy, and Eeny was fidgety and scared, and I was enjoying the fun. Did you ever hear of anything so droll as ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... extraordinary. If one, by cheating and roguery, gains a cruzado in the presence of another, the latter instantly says I cry halves, and if the first refuse he is instantly threatened with an information. The manner in which they cheat each other has, with all its infamy, occasionally something extremely droll and ludicrous. I was one day in the shop of a Swiri, or Jew of Mogadore, when a Jew from Gibraltar entered, with a Portuguese female, who held in her hand a ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... the house, not a whit discomfited, and with not so much as a contrasting sigh in her bosom or a rankle in her heart. On the contrary, a droll twinkle played among the crow's-feet at the corners of her eyes. They could not hurt her, these merry girls, meaning nothing but the moment's fun, nor cheat her of her quiet share ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... always liked to sit out on the quaint wooden steps of the mill and under the red shadow of the sails, watching the swallows flutter to and fro in the sunset, and hearing the droll frogs croak in the rushes, while the old people told her tales of the time of how in their babyhood they had run out, fearful yet fascinated, to see the beautiful Scots Grays flash by in the murky night, and the endless line of guns ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... the new atmosphere like a flower whose growth has been retarded by poor soil and contracted space. Her lips had taken on a smiling upward curve that gave a new expression to her face, and now her frequent laugh was spontaneous and contagious. Her humor was of the western flavor—droll exaggeration—a little grim, while in her unexpected turns of speech, Prentiss found a constant ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... became quite himself again. He had settled the point which had been worrying his mind, and doubtless considered himself established as a man of sentiment in my opinion. Before we had finished our morning's stroll, he was singing as blithe as a grasshopper, whistling to his dogs, and telling droll stories: and I recollect that he was particularly facetious that day at dinner on the subject of matrimony, and uttered several excellent jokes, not to be found in Joe Miller, that made the bride elect blush and look down; but set all the old gentlemen ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... infantile theory of procreation, that babies are brought forth as the residue of assimilation; we are to observe, however, still other interrelations that will be encountered later. A series of mythological parallels may be cited. I shall rest satisfied with referring to the droll story, "Der Dumme Hans." Stupid Jack loads manure (faeces, sewage) into a cart and goes with it to a manor; there he tells them he comes from the Moorish land (from the country of the blacks) and carries in his barrel the Water of Life. When any one ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... late, or she would have slipped away. Not that Asgill—he was a stout, dark, civil-spoken man of thirty-three or four—wore a threatening face. On the contrary, he listened to the Frenchman's complaint with a droll air; and if he had not known of the matter before, his smile betrayed him. He greeted Flavia with an excess of politeness which she could have spared; and while Uncle Ulick and Colonel John looked perturbed and ill at ease, he ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... Murray is a kindly satirist who evidently delights in the analysis of character, and who deals shrewdly but gently with the frailties of our nature.... The pages are perpetually brightened by quaintly humorous touches. Often in describing some character or something that is commonplace enough, a droll fancy seems to strike the author, and forthwith he gives us the benefit of it. Consequently there is a spontaneity in his pen which is extremely fascinating.... We can only say generally that Mr. Murray's plot is sufficiently original and worked up with enough of skill to satisfy any but the ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... found the girl to be natural and unaffected, without a trace of conceit, gifted with a keen sense of humour and evidently as full of the joy of living as a school-boy. He thought her laugh delightfully musical, and it was frequently and readily evoked by Burke's droll remarks or the quaint oracular sayings from the self-possessed elf on Wargrave's knee. Her admiration of and genuine affection for Mrs. Dermot was very evident when Noreen ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... a smile stirred about Ryder's mouth. 'I would not pain her for the world,' he said. 'She is a kindly little woman, and her hospitality is charming; but you must admit she is droll. What are my faults?' ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... innumerable people and places that we both knew. The julep held out far into the night, and my memory never saw him afterwards otherwise than as bending over it, with his straw, with an attempted air of gravity (after some anecdote involving some wonderfully droll and delicate observation of character), and then, as his eye caught mine, melting into that captivating laugh of his, which was the brightest and best I ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... habits; but unfortunately M. Dumas appears to understand little, if any, of the language, and this has doubtless been a great hindrance to him, and has prevented him from making his book as characteristic as his Italian sketches. Nevertheless he is piquant enough in some places. We will give his droll account of his entrance into Rhenish Prussia. After being robbed by the innkeeper at Liege, he gets into the Aix-la-Chapelle diligence; and, on reading the printed ticket that has been given to him at the coach-office, finds that he has the fourth seat, and that he is forbidden to change places ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... spoken ill of the religious orders, so as not to be out of harmony with his surroundings, considering them anachronisms, and had hurled curses against the Inquisition, while relating this or that lurid or droll story wherein the habits danced, or rather friars without habits, yet in speaking of the Philippines, which should be ruled by special laws, he would cough, look wise, and again extend his hand downwards ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... "might be produced against some of our sex, who join too readily to droll upon, and sneer at, the misfortune of any poor young creature, who has shewn too little regard for her honour: and who (instead of speaking of it with concern, and inveighing against the seducer) too lightly sport with the unhappy person's fall; industriously ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... You are becoming reasonable, I see. It is really droll that we should meet again after all these ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... Rivers, with a droll inflection. They all laughed, and Burke clucked at the team. "Well, good-bye, boys; see ...
— The Moccasin Ranch - A Story of Dakota • Hamlin Garland
... to be found in the borderland which separates the thirteenth arrondissement from the twelve others. Her rivals—Suzanne Gaillard, who, in 1838, had won the advantage over her of becoming a wife married in legitimate marriage, Fanny Beaupre, Mariette, Antonia—spread calumnies that were more than droll about the beauty of those young men and the complacent good-nature with which Monsieur de Rochefide welcomed them. Madame Schontz, who could distance, as she said, by three blagues the wit of those ladies, said to them one ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... once there comes a noisy chattering in a Teutonic tongue—and shouts and laughs! . . . How is it possible, so near to the great dead? . . . And there enters a group of tourists, dressed more or less in the approved "smart" style. A guide, with a droll countenance, recites to them the beauties of the place, bellowing at the top of his voice like a showman at a fair. And one of the travellers, stumbling in the sandals which are too large for her small feet, laughs a prolonged, silly ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... him home; and they were the best of friends from that day forth. I don't say it's a discreditable story, you observe,' continued Mr. Gottesheim; 'but it's droll, and that's the fact. A man should think before he strikes; for, as my nephew says, man to man ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ages," Edith said—and instantly the desire to fly to the library ceased, especially as Mrs. Newbolt came trundling in. With Maurice astride one of the wooden chairs, his blue eyes droll and teasing, and Mrs. Newbolt enthroned in adipose good nature close to the stove, Edith was perfectly willing ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... Dr. Wolcot, subsequently known as Peter Pindar, who inspired him with a taste for literature, to which he devoted himself with a real passion after his retirement from the army. Though not a writer himself, he brought out several books, among them a very droll one, made up of quotations of the most curious kind, and entitled, 'The Canister of the Blue Devils, by Democritus, junior.' Dr. Bell possessed a very large library, and spent a good part of his time in extracting, ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... said Maxwell, "except as it's stupid, and loves anything that makes it laugh. It loves a comic lover, and in the same way it loves a droll drunkard or ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... men did— And having valiantly ascended Upon the Mighty Man's protuberance, They did so strut!—upon my soul, It must have been extremely droll To see their ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... agreeably. The African cannot avoid being comic. He is the grotesque element in our civilization. He will be droll even under the severest punishment. His contortions of body, his grimaces, his ejaculations of "O Lor'! O Massa!" as the paddle or the lash strikes his flesh, are laughable ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... had no sleep, dear man! in consequence of the poor little baby. He walks up and down with it FOR HOURS, singing a kind of song (dear fellow, he has no more voice than a tea-kettle), and bobbing his head backwards and forwards, and looking, in his nightcap and dressing-gown, SO DROLL. Oh, Eliza! how you ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... other hardships, he is seldom permitted to open his mouth unless spoken to; and then, he might better keep silent. Alas for him! if he should happen to be anything of a droll; for in an evil hour should he perpetrate a joke, he would never know the last ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... disrespect, talk the hind leg off a jackass; but I found him lacking in 'umour. Now you, Mr. George, 'ave 'umour. You 'ave not your uncle's flow, sir—the Lord forbid! But in give-and-take, as one might say, you are igstreamly droll. On many occasions, sir, when you were extra sparkling I do assure you it ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... matter, I was laughing at the droll effect the line of frieze coats presented as they rode side by side over the stone-walls, when an observation near me aroused ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... lamp shall gleam As in old nights; the chaplets woven then— Withered, perhaps, by time—may grace us yet; The laurel faded is the laurel still, And some of us are heroes to ourselves. And amber wine shall flow; the blue smoke wreathe In droll disputes, with metaphysics mixed; Or float as lightly as the quick-spun verse, Threading the circle round from thought to thought, Sparkling and fresh as is the airy web Spread on the hedge at morn in silver dew. The scent of roses you ...
— Poems • Elizabeth Stoddard
... very clever man, he was neither wise nor good. He could not bear to vex himself, nor anybody else; and, rather than be teased, would grant almost anything that was asked of him. He was so bright and lively, and made such droll, good-natured answers, that everyone liked him who came near him; but he had no steady principle, only to stand easy with everybody, and keep as much power for himself as he could without giving offence. He loved pleasure much better than duty, ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... constituted the share for a regiment close by us, while our battery did not get so much as a doughnut. Nash, in taking the thing off, appeared on the stage with a companion to propound leading questions, and, after answering one query after another, to explain the meaning of his droll conduct, drew his hand from the side pocket of his blouse and, with his head thrown back and mouth wide open, poured a few dry cracker crumbs down his throat. When asked by the ringman what that act signified, he drawled out, in lugubrious ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... with the Jew every day: whether for their own improvement or Oliver's, Mr. Fagin best knew. At other times the old man would tell them stories of robberies he had committed in his younger days: mixed up with so much that was droll and curious, that Oliver could not help laughing heartily, and showing that he was amused in spite of all ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... had bought the St. Ulric doll at a booth under the stone archway of one of the streets of Botzen. He could not carry away with him the beautiful Austrian Tyrol, except as pictures in his own mind, and therefore he picked up the droll and ugly little St. ...
— Harper's Young People, June 8, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Pierre, awakened by Miraut's loud barking, had risen and joined his master at the door. As soon as he was informed of what had occurred, he lighted a lantern, and with the baron set forth, under the guidance of the droll old actor, to find and rescue the chariot in distress. When they reached it Leander and Matamore were tugging vainly at the wheels, while his majesty, the king, pricked up the weary oxen with the point of his dagger. The actresses, wrapped in their cloaks and ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... Monk might have been any age between thirty-five and fifty-five, so non-committal was that lantern-jawed countenance of a droll, with its heavy, black, eloquent eyebrows, its high and narrow forehead merging into an extensive bald spot fringed with greyish hair, its rather small, blue, illegible eyes, its high-bridged nose and prominent nostrils, its wide and thin-lipped mouth, its rather startling pallor. Taller by a head ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... bombast &c (unmeaning) 517; anticlimax, bathos; eccentricity, monstrosity &c (unconformity) 83; laughingstock &c 857. V. be ridiculous &c adj.; pass from the sublime to the ridiculous; make one laugh; play the fool, make a fool of oneself, commit an absurdity. Adj. ridiculous, ludicrous; comical; droll, funny, laughable, pour rire, grotesque, farcical, odd; whimsical, whimsical as a dancing bear; fanciful, fantastic, queer, rum, quizzical, quaint, bizarre; screaming; eccentric &c (unconformable) 83; strange, outlandish, out ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... she might have been thought silly—that it was a case in which something momentous was to be determined or done. I had never known them not be in a "state" about somebody, and I dare say I tried to be droll on this point in accepting their invitation. On finding myself in the presence of their latest discovery I had not at first felt irreverence droop—and, thank heaven, I have never been absolutely deprived of that alternative ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... captain and his wife. The peak hatch had been off, and Nannie, accustomed to go wherever she pleased, strayed into the darkness and tumbled down. The incident stopped all work for a time, and created a lot of good-humoured chaff. The Irishman was especially droll, and endeavoured to carry it off by swearing he knew it was the goat, but he wanted some other fellow to have a go at it. "But no fear," said he; "every one of them ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... clothes," Marie went on, "and I'm so excited I can hardly wait until Sunday. Amedee will be a handsome bridegroom. Is anybody but you going to stand up with him? Well, then it will be a handsome wedding party." She made a droll face at Emil, who flushed. "Frank," Marie continued, flicking her horse, "is cranky at me because I loaned his saddle to Jan Smirka, and I'm terribly afraid he won't take me to the dance in the evening. Maybe the supper will tempt him. All Angelique's ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... headlong from the first; but when at last reason caught up, and had time to get her breath and look the case over, she said it was 'all right'—far better than she had expected. To one of my temperament, however, it seems very droll that reason should lead the way to love, and the heart ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... to be the king. His idea of the place was so distinct that a friend had to draw him a map of the cities in it, to which he gave names, and his friends were completely fascinated to hear him talk of his droll conceits, when he was not holding them spell-bound by the magic ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... in Philosophers can always do more Philosophy. Assisted by a sense of humour: Witness the droll experiment Of this same scientific gent. For he, his frugal breakfast finishing, (The eggs and bacon fast diminishing) Noted how o'er his marmalade A Wasp was buzzing undismayed. General Reflection: We all are apt to be inhosp- Attitude of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 1, 1890 • Various
... their seats to-night and looked around the room they saw a droll sight. The old lady, who had been knitting on the veranda, was seated at a small table in one corner; and on each side of her in a chair sat a cat! One cat was a gray "coon," the other an Angora; and both of them sat up as grave as judges, nibbling bits ...
— Jimmy, Lucy, and All • Sophie May
... got to speak of Literature. The stranger expressed himself with enthusiastic admiration of Racine. A droll incident happened during our dialogue. My gentleman wanted to let down a little sash-window, and could n't manage it. 'You don't understand that,' said I; 'let me do that.' I tried to get it down; but succeeded no better than he. 'Monsieur,' ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... is written in a droll, satirical strain, and shows a great familiarity with the topics of ancient and modern literature. The rest of the volume consists of translations from Anacreon, Horace, and other Greek and Latin poets, and many original pieces; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... her with a droll sort of awakening. It was, indeed, a startling anomaly that this woman of the tribe without should be standing there beside him as his wife, if his sentiments were as he had said. In their travels together she had ranged so unerringly at his level in ideas, tastes, and ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... heart. She acted in obedience to the dictates of the law of kindness, and she felt lighter and happier than she had done for a long time. Fred was by degrees quite cheered, and amused his companions by his droll talk for some way. Spying, however, one of his school-fellows on the rocks at a distance, he and John, joined him abruptly, and thus Emilie ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... instinct laid down. And it must be said, that during this month and a half he had managed to become attached with all his huge, broad, mighty soul to this chance, weak, transitory being. This was the circumspect, droll, magnanimous, somewhat wondering love, and the careful concern, of a kind elephant for a frail, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... the paper and smoothed out the folds. "Madame Angot. There is a letter for you in the mail-department of this office." It was so droll. It was unlike anything she had ever heard of. A personal inquiry column, where Cupids and Psyches billed and cooed, and anxious Junos searched for recreant Jupiters! The merest chance had thrown the original inquiry under her notice. ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... in the country. I counted on that day just eleven sickly-looking children; no more! Such brilliant cheeks, such merry eyes, such evident strength; it was a scene to kindle the dullest soul. There were scores of little ones there, whose droll, fat legs would have drawn a crowd in Central Park; and they all had that same, quiet, composed, well-balanced expression of countenance of which I spoke before, and of which it would be hard to find an instance ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... to withstand me. Yet were this woman purchasable, I would purchase. And—if she refused—I would not hinder her departure; but very certainly I would put Perion to the Torment of the Waterdrops. It is so droll to see a man go mad before your eyes, I think that I would laugh and quite ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... in Titmouse; on whom the door was the next instant closed. He felt amazingly flustered—and he would have been still more so, if he could have been made aware of the titter which pervaded the fourteen or twenty people assembled in the room, occasioned by the droll misnomer of the servant, and the exquisitely ridiculous appearance of poor Titmouse. Mr. Quirk, dressed in black, with knee breeches and silk stockings, immediately bustled up to him, shook him cordially by the hand, and led him up to ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... a few poked away behind the counters somewhere," he laughed, as he always did over her droll and original speech, "but the handles ain't in them, and that is a job for a blacksmith, if they are ever made to hold. Let me see that thing." He took the axe from her, and ran his thumb along the blunt and ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... towards it in sign of abhorrence, yet, perhaps, the very same persons would give some rough token of respect to Lieutenant Atkinson if they met him in High Street. Touching their hats was an unknown gesture in those parts, but they would move their heads in a droll, familiar kind of way, neither a wag nor a nod, but meant all the same to imply friendly regard. The ship-owners, too, invited him to an occasional dinner or supper, all the time looking forward to the chances ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... got it by some mistake among some French books. He read some of the droll unobjectionable parts to my sister and me, but the rest was so bad, that he threw it into ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he has been 'plucked,' as the gentlemen call it, or 'ploughed,' does your brother say? University slang is very droll. He has not taken his degree, I suppose, and they want him to work before going up again. I am sorry for your father, too, for I don't think it will be very easy to get anything into Clarence Copperhead's mind. But there is no harm at all in him, and he used to be very nice to his ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... number. One of them—I remember he was the adjutant—held in his hand a wax candle (three to the pound). Whether he had himself seized it in the enthusiasm of my narrative of flood and field, or it had been put there by another, I know not, but he certainly cut a droll figure. The room we were in was a small one off the great saloon, and through the half open folding-door I could clearly perceive that the festivities were still continued. The crash of fiddles and French horns, ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... stretched out flat and fore paws planted between them, one of the cubs would approach and attempt some monkey play. A sound cuff on the ear invariably sent him whimpering back to his companion, who looked droll enough the while, sitting with his tongue out and his head wagging humorously as he watched the experiment. It was getting toward the time of year when she would mate again, and send them off into the world to shift for themselves. And this ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... a couple of years I pretended to follow the classes, so as to draw the allowance of 1,200 francs which my father made me. I lived with one of my college chums, who is a painter, and I set about painting also. It amused me. The calling is droll, and not at all fatiguing. We smoked and joked all the ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... the audience upon these occasions, and listen with great interest to Marguerite's entertaining stories of adventures at home and abroad, or Gabrielle's droll mimicry of the strongly marked characteristics of some one she has met or dreamed of. Sometimes the candles are extinguished, and a ghost story is told, for Gabrielle is fond of the supernatural, and her dramatic style of narration adds much to our enjoyment; indeed, chancing the other day to read ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... A droll fancy, you say? But every child with a soul in him has quite as quaint fancies as this one was ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... little notice she had taken of young Marvell, who turned out to be so much less negligible than his brilliant friend. She remembered thinking him rather shy, less accustomed to society; and though in his quiet deprecating way he had said one or two droll things he lacked Mr. Popple's masterly manner, his domineering yet caressing address. When Mr. Popple had fixed his black eyes on Undine, and murmured something "artistic" about the colour of her hair, she had thrilled to the depths of ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... very little of—Grey Jerrold?" Mrs. Browne chimed in. "Well, I call that droll. Have you forgot how often he used to come home from school with you, and how he fished you out of the pond that time you fell in? Why, he was that free at our house, that he used always to ask for something to eat, and would often add on, 'something baked to day.' You ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... way, and a few moments later were going for all we were worth over the dry, well-kept, level road eastward, towards the Belgian frontier. She laughed and chatted as the hours went by. She had been in London last spring, she told me, and had stayed at the Savoy. The English were so droll, and lacked cachet, though the hotel was smart—especially ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... man with large grey eyes," goes on to say, "He" (viz. Coleridge) "did that other man entice" to view his imagery. Now we are sadly afraid that "the noticeable man with large grey eyes" did entice "that other man," viz. Gillman, to commence opium-eating. This is droll; and it makes us laugh horribly. Gillman should have reformed him; and lo! he corrupts Gillman. S. T. Coleridge visited Highgate by way of being converted from the heresy of opium; and the issue is—that, in two months' time, various grave men, amongst whom our friend ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... dearth, paucity, scarcity, deficit. Lame, crippled, halt, deformed, maimed, disabled. Large, great, big, huge, immense, colossal, gigantic, extensive, vast, massive, unwieldy, bulky. Laughable, comical, comic, farcical, ludicrous, ridiculous, funny, droll. Lead, guide, conduct, escort, convoy. Lengthen, prolong, protract, extend. Lessen, decrease, diminish, reduce, abate, curtail, moderate, mitigate, palliate. Lie (noun), untruth, falsehood, falsity, fiction, fabrication, mendacity, canard, fib, story. Lie (verb), prevaricate, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... foregoing passage, Andy stumbles on uttering a quaint pleasantry, for it is partly true as well as droll—the notion of a man gaining Paradise through a mistake. Our intentions too seldom lead us there, but rather tend the other way, for a certain place is said to be paved with "good" ones, and surely "bad" ones would ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... felt much softened.—Memorable!—Alas! I profit little by all I hear; surely it is because my faith is small. Ah. me! how long? how long?—A precious discourse to me. He preached my experience.—The solution of the text was a gratification, while I heard profitably. He made a very droll remark when describing those 'who make their belly their God;' he said 'they make their kitchen their temple, their cook and butcher their priests, and their belly their God.'—I felt my soul blessed and encouraged while hearing of sin being destroyed, with an earnest longing for its accomplishment. ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... clod-hopper." Ten years later I became well acquainted with him, and from that time a most cordial friendship existed until his dying day. He visited me as a speaker at our State convention in Trenton, N.Y. I had him at my house at supper when my mother asked him if he would take coffee. His droll reply was: "I hope to drink coffee, madame, in heaven, but I cannot stand it in this world." After supper I informed my guest that it was customary for my good mother and myself (for I was not yet ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... said he was lookin' forward to the day when he could afford to get as drunk as he sometimes thought he'd like to be. He was a droll sort of a cuss, Jake was. He claimed he'd been savin' up his appetite and his money for nearly three years so's he could see which would last the ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... during the conversation at the breakfast table which resulted in his remaining at the lights, but then he was not entirely serious. He was, of course, grateful for the kindness shown him by the odd longshoreman and enjoyed the latter's society and droll remarks as he would have enjoyed anything out of the ordinary and quaintly amusing. But now he really liked the man. Seth Atkins was a countryman, and a marked contrast to any individual Brown had ever met, but he was far from being a fool. He possessed ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... crust of bread, and while he drank two or three horns of Canary, would smile and chat in his own dry manner with his friends and domestics, asking minute questions about their neighbours and acquaintance; or when scholars or clergymen shared his simple repast, affecting a droll anxiety—rich and pleasant in the conqueror of Tromp—to prove, by the aptness and abundance of his quotations, that, in becoming an admiral, he had not forfeited his claim to be ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... of his droll playfulness; she laughed with him, and taking his arm, walked up and down the porch. They talked of many things—of Louise's persistent stubbornness, and of a growing change in the conduct of Tom—his abstraction and his gentleness. ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... pigeons have a tendency to do this at times, but in the Pouter it is carried to an enormous extent. The birds appear to be quite proud of their power of swelling and puffing themselves out in this way; and I think it is about as droll a sight as you can well see to look at a cage full of these pigeons puffing and blowing themselves out ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... comes of "all work and no play" may be said to affect the carver at times. He tires of carving leaves and ornaments: what more natural than to seek change and amusement in the invention of droll figures of men or animals? The enjoyment which we all feel in contemplating the outcome of this spirit in ancient work, leads us to the imitation of both subject and manner, hoping thereby that the same results may be obtained; but somehow the repetition is seldom attended with much success, ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... "Wherefore droll?" asked Joliet, with a huge surprise, which lasted him all through his next sentence. "I come here to marry my daughter. Everything is ready; we count on your presence at the wedding; the lawyer has drawn up the contract; and the breakfast ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... in spite of its droll, self-complacent vein in the address to the Reader, is a judicious and useful selection, and was, in fact, far more serviceable to the middle-class gentry than some of those which had gone before. It adapted itself to sundry conditions of men; but it kept in view those whose purses were ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... then!" said the courtesan, in such a droll tone that Lora, du Tillet, and Bixiou burst ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... without providing it beforehand with an objection to the form. Can it be that this humor proceeds from a despair of finding a contemporary audience, and so the Prophet feels at liberty to utter his message in droll sounds. Did you not tell me, Mr. Thomas Carlyle, sitting upon one of your broad hills, that it was Jesus Christ built Dunscore Kirk yonder? If you love such sequences, then admit, as you will, that no poet is sent into the world before his time; that all the departed thinkers and ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... other shrugged, with a contempt a trifle droll in one who had dispensed with every ceremony. "She was his second. The first was a little girl, he said. The match was made for him. She is dead. This Seniha was her cousin, a cousin who was divorced and she lived with the wife. And our pretty Hamdi made love to ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... Clever Elsa and the Norse Three Sillies, although these tales are suited to slightly older children. The drolls often appear among the realistic tales, as if genuine humor were more fresh when related to the things of actual life. The English Lazy Jack is a delightful realistic droll which contains motifs that appear frequently among the tales. The Touchstone motif of a humble individual causing nobility to laugh appears in Grimm's Dummling and His Golden Goose. It appears also in Zerbino the Savage, a most elaborated Neapolitan ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... essays of Elia are, Lamb did not spend all the "riches of his wit" in their production. His letters—so full are they of "the salt and fineness of wit,"—so richly humorous and so deliciously droll,—so rammed and crammed with the oddest conceits and the wildest fancies, and the quaintest, queerest thoughts, ideas, and speculations—are scarcely inferior to his essays. Indeed, some of the best and most admired of the essays are but extended ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... she was silent, and then she said very slowly: 'He is staying with a friend at No. ... The Crescent, Bath. I can see him (it was then three o'clock in the afternoon) sitting by the bedside of his friend, who has his head tied up in bandages. Mr O'Donnell is telling him a very droll story about Lady B——, to whom he has been lately introduced.' She then stopped, made a futile effort to go on, and after a protracted pause exclaimed: 'I can see no more—something has happened.' That was all I ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... recklessness, from a sense of fun. Jimmy's steadfastness to his untruthful attitude in the face of the inevitable truth had the proportions of a colossal enigma—of a manifestation grand and incomprehensible that at times inspired a wondering awe; and there was also, to many, something exquisitely droll in fooling him thus to the top of his bent. The latent egoism of tenderness to suffering appeared in the developing anxiety not to see him die. His obstinate non-recognition of the only certitude whose approach we could watch ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... most pathetically, and with a simplicity of tenderness that certainly moved one of his audience to tears. This was presently after his standing for Oxford, from which place he had dispatched his agent to me, with a droll note (to which he afterwards added a verbal postscript), urging me to "come down and make a speech, and tell them who he was, for he doubted whether more than two of the electors had ever heard of him, and he thought there might be as ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... their wages to the utmost, it was the Doctor's wont, out of the exuberance of a warm-hearted, joyous nature, unchilled even by his sixty winters, to give to his serving men and maidens not only kind words and encouraging looks, but also what made him perhaps still more popular, humorous jokes and droll stories. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... the brief comment, "it were better had Mary Twining shown more Regret for what she herself confesses was ill done, rather than that she should take upon herself to correct the Faults of those towards whom she was somewhat lacking in Reverence." But it is droll enough to fancy the scene—the pretty schoolgirl gravely rebuking her delinquent master for the too great partiality her own bright eyes had won for her. Poor man! His was no sinecure. To hold rule over a parcel of unruly ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... matter with that," admitted Jim admiringly, with a droll look at Jo. "But this plain red one will suit me. My brother would probably like the horseshoe ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt
... How droll and dry he was! His lean, olive-brown face, with its guileless clear eyes and his lanky figure in blue jeans vividly recalled Oak ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... MacGahan used gravely to entreat him to take greater care of his invaluable life, and hint that if any calamity occurred to him, the campaign would ipso facto come to an end. Andreas knew that MacGahan was quizzing him, but it was exceedingly droll how he purred and bridled under the light touch of that genial humourist, whose merits his own countrymen, to my thinking, have never adequately recognised. The old story of a prophet having scant honour in ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... the play was launched on November 6, 1905, at the Empire Theater in New York, that little Peter really came into his own. The human birds, the droll humor, the daring allegory, above all the appealing, almost tragic, spectacle of Peter playing his pipe up in the tree-tops of the Never-Never Land, all contributed to an event that was memorable in more ways ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... fire. Every eye among the women was planted on the ground. I never beheld such an air of universal modesty. It seemed a part of the old men's privilege to make comments aloud, in order to surprise the women into a laugh. These must often have been very droll, and always personal, I understand, and not always the most delicate. I saw a few instances among the young girls where they were obliged to smother a smile by putting up their handkerchiefs. But it was conquered on the instant. The young men said nothing; but the Indian ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... inconvenience, instead of driving forward to divert the mob; who leap and shout and caper with delight, and lash the laggers along with great indignation indeed, and with the most comical gestures. I never saw horses in so droll a state of degradation before, for they are all striped or spotted, or painted of some colour to distinguish them each from other; and nine or ten often start at a time, to the great danger of lookers-on ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... read on, thinking it was a nice letter of yours,—feeling something startled, to be sure, at the compellation, as if you were mesmerise, and had got an insight (calls me bambino half of the time)—looking at your mood reverential as a droll jest,—vexed at first, but then reconciled, about the book and the lecturing,—charmed and grateful beyond measure at what you say about your health,—when! at last!! I fell upon your request: "Now give me one brief epistle between this and our seeing you."!!! BETWEEN! what ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... misapprehension of personalities his lordship addresses a love missive to the maid. Susan accepts in perfect good faith, and an epistolary love-making goes on till they are disillusioned. It naturally makes a droll and delightful little comedy; and is a story that is particularly clever ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... me see what I wish! oh, I wish that I might go down to the bottom of the ocean and see all the beautiful shells and the fishes, and every thing that's going on down there!" When she said it, the little waves laughed as they came scampering up to her, as if they said—"What a droll idea!" ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder |
