"Droll" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cannot force any recollection. I remember that at Malines—what we call Mechlin—our train stopped nearly an hour. At the station a crowd of guides were shouting that there was time to go and see Rubens's picture of——, at the church of——. This seemed to us a droll contrast to the cry at our stations, "Fifteen minutes for refreshments!" It offered such aesthetic refreshment in place of carnal oysters, that purely for the frolic we went to see. We were hurried across some sort of square into the church, saw the ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... Clerke, Physicians, Mr. Daray, and Mr. Fox (both very fine gentlemen), the King's servants, where we have brave discourse. Walking upon the decks, were persons of honor all the afternoon, among others, Thomas Killigrew (a merry droll, but a gentleman of great esteem with the King), who told ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... describe how anxiously kind these people were to me. One gets such a wonderful amount of sympathy and real hearty kindness here. A curious instance of the affinity of the British mind for prejudice is the way in which every Englishman I have seen scorns the Eastern Christians, and droll enough that sinners like Kinglake and I should be the only people to feel the tie of the 'common faith' (vide 'Eothen'). A very pious Scotch gentleman wondered that I could think of entering a Copt's house, adding that they were the publicans (tax-gatherers) of ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... significance of chemistry in the future. The address is interesting in more respects than one. Prof. Berthelot sketched the probable state of chemistry at about the year 2000. While his sketch contains many a droll exaggeration, it does contain so much that is serious and sound that we shall present it in extract. After describing the achievements of chemistry during the last few decades, Prof. Berthelot went on ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... Jeaene, wi' wrinkled skin, A-tellen, wi' her peaked chin, Zome teaele ov her young days, poor soul. Do meaeke the young-woones smile. 'Tis droll. What is it? Stop, an' let's goo near. I do like theaese wold teaeles. ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... with the 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 ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... improvement, and in order to make this as effective as may be, enormous compensations attract the best German stars to St. Petersburg. And yet all this is useless, and the Russian theater is not raised above the dignity of a workshop. Only the comic side of the national character, a burlesque and droll simplicity, is admirably represented by actors whose skill and the scope of whose talents may he reckoned equal to the Germans in the same line. But in the higher walks of the drama they are worthless. The people have neither cultivation nor sentiment for serious works, while the poets ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... yesterday just after the fellow Fox was hanged for cutting purses, and up comes our Fox to quiz George. Says he, knowing Selwyn's penchant for horrors, 'George, were you at the execution of my namesake?' Selwyn looks him over in his droll way from head to foot and says, 'Lard, no! I ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... hair which seemed to have an almost purple light through it; large dark eyes, full of love. What he said was never perfunctory, never dull. He was called "John, the Beloved Disciple." Still he was thoroughly human and brimming over with fun, puns, and exquisitely droll humour, and quick in seeing a ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... Spinach Mr. Stewart Orr has produced a picture-book unique of its kind. Nothing could be more droll than the situations in which he represents the frog, the pig, the mouse, the elephant, and the other well-known characters who appear in his pages. Little folk will find in these pictures a source of endless delight, and the artistic skill which they display ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... Many of the droll sayings of the American Bench of past years are attributable to the fact that the judges were appointed by popular vote, and the successful candidate was not always a man of high attainments in ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... one sacred thing no man can ever be, a privilege by which nature would seem to have put beyond doubt the divinity of woman: a mother. It is true that it is within his reach to be a father; but what is 'paternity' compared with motherhood? The very word wears a droll face, as though accustomed to banter. Let us venture on the bull: that, though it be possible for most men to be fathers, no man can ever be a mother. Maybe a recondite intention of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... such a droll ring in them. But there, we ought not to be talking now, but getting up into our ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... one of the chief useful reasons for expletives. However, even then they are a vicious habit, for stronger and stronger expressions are required to win the same subjective effects. Old expressions lose force. Slang is the new coinage. The mintage is often graphic and droll; it is also often stupid and vulgar. A selection goes on. Some of it is rejected and some enters into the language. Expletives also go out of fashion. The strain for effect can be satisfied only by constantly greater and greater excess. It becomes a bad personal habit to use ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... Queen considered this. "You are a good man, my Osmund," she said, at last, "though you are very droll. Ohime! it is a pity that I was born a princess! Had it been possible for me to be your wife, I would have been a better woman. I shall sleep now and dream of that good and stupid and contented woman I might have been." So presently these two ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... periodical, the Hallische Neue Gelehrte Zeitungen, in the issue for August 10, 1767[24] reviews the same volumes with a much more decided acknowledgment of merit. It is claimed that the difference is not noticeable, and that the ninth part is almost more droll than all the others, an opinion which is noteworthy testimony to its originator's utter lack of comprehension of the whole work and of the inanity of this spurious last volume. The statement by both ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... sprung up, shook her petticoats, and running up to me, gave me a kiss, and drew me to the side-board, to which she was herself handed by her gallant, where they made me pledge them in a glass of wine, and toast a droll health of Louisa's proposal ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... 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; one of which latter, entitled "The ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... at the same time they called forth all the highest qualities in the reciter. Even in Pulci, accordingly, we find no parody, strictly speaking, of chivalry, nearly humour of his paladins at times approaches it. By their side stands the ideal of pugnacity—the droll and jovial Morgante—who masters whole armies with his bellclapper, and who is himself thrown into relief by contrast with the grotesque and most interesting monster Margutte. Yet Pulci lays no special stress ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... is a very good game; and when the Leader is a droll boy, causes much fun and laughter. The leader starts off at a moderate pace, and all the other boys, in a line, one after the other, follow him. They are not only bound to follow him, but do exactly what he does. If he hops on one leg, or crawls ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin
... who ever belonged to the printing fraternity. These honest fellows lived and printed until after the war of the Revolution, having become freemen by the Constitution of Massachusetts of 1780. Fleet was droll and witty in the conduct of his paper, especially in his advertisements. Witness the following advertisement of one of his negro women for sale: 'To be sold, by the printer of this paper, the very best negro woman in this town, who has had the small pox and the measles; is as hearty ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... naval activity, during the Maori wars, dwelt in Sir George's memory by reason of its droll comedy. An officer, thoroughly tired out, went to his bunk, leaving directions that he should be called at a particular hour. It happened that the awakening of him, fell to a blithesome midshipman having the sombre surname D'Eth. The sleeper turned himself lazily, half asleep, wishful only to be ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... 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 spread ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... earnestly, with one finger to his temples. "It is a funny picture, I know. I cannot recall. But the word caucus I remember. That is a droll word." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... professor himself, very droll, very small, clean-shaven, merry-eyed, and with as much hair on his great head as would have stuffed a cushion. He bowed and smiled to all, patted the children, and at ...
— Crusoes of the Frozen North • Gordon Stables
... my work?" she exclaimed, slightly smiling. "How extremely droll! Yet without doubt you do, precisely as those others, out yonder, without the slightest conception of what it all means. Probably you are equally interested in the delicate art of Mr. T. ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... long keep a bird-lover studying a chipmunk. In a few minutes we started again on our way up the mountain. Each side of our primitive wood road was bordered with ferns in their first tender green, many of them still wearing their droll little hoods. Forward marched the Enthusiast; breathlessly I followed. Up one little hill, down another, over a ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... buffoon, jester, merry-andrew, zany, harlequin, droll, punch, mime, farceur, scaramouch, grimacier jackpudding; boor, lout, gawk, gawky, lubber, put, bumpkin, churl, carl, tike; rustic, hind, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... that his sudden and unexpected refusal was occasioned by a bold stroke of the Army-men. Having invited himself to dine at Desborough's, says Ludlow, he had taken Fleetwood with him, and had begun "to droll with them about monarchy," and ask them why sensible men like them should make so much of the affair, and refuse to please the children by permitting them to have "their rattle." Fleetwood and Desborough ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... a nice carpet and a good pillow; did I want anything of the sort? He would be proud that I should use anything of his. You would delight in Avery, my cuddy man, who is as quick as 'greased lightning', and full of fun. His misery is my want of appetite, and his efforts to cram me are very droll. The days seem to slip away, one can't tell how. I sit on deck from breakfast at nine, till dinner at four, and then again till it gets cold, and then to bed. We are now about 100 miles from Madeira, and shall have to run inside it, as we were thrown ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... a peculiar twist in the direction of his father, who was giving him a droll look, and ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... 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 a guitar; ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... the tears rolled down her face at the droll effect of these tenderly sentimental verses in Catherine's mouth, but Hazard took it quite seriously and was so much delighted with Catherine's recitation that he insisted on her repeating it to Wharton, who took it even more seriously ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... the ground. One of the Indians killed a dog, and, taking out the heart and liver, held them for a few moments in a bucket of cold water, and then hung them to the pole. After awhile, one of the warriors advanced towards it, barking. His attitude was irresistibly droll; he tried to make himself look as much as possible like a dog, and I thought he succeeded to admiration. He retreated, and another warrior advanced with a different sort of bark; more joined in, until there was a chorus of barking. ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... then, as he says, or at least comrades. We met through being inmates of the same lodging-house. I rather took to him at first. I thought he was a breezy, cordial fellow; mistook his loudness for frankness, and found something droll and pleasing in his nasal drawl. That brass-horn voice!—ye gods, how I grew to shudder at it afterward! But I liked his company over a glass of beer; he was convivial, and told amusing stories of the ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... recipe that was ever given for a married couple to live in peace. Though John and his wife frequently attempted to quarrel afterwards, they never could get their passions to a considerable height; for there was something so droll in thus carrying on the dispute, that, before they got to the end of the argument, they saw the absurdity of it, ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... The droll expressions of Flint's face, and the satisfied twang of his last words, were irresistable. Dick and Phil went off into a shout of laughter; and even Thorn's grave lips relapsed into a smile at the vision of six little Flints ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... illustration of the county, a Norfolk family. In Westminster Abbey there is monument to Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, who was buried in the ruined chancel of the little church at Overstrand, near Northrepps, 'a droll, irregular, unconventional-looking place,' as Caroline Fox calls it, where he loved at all times to live, and where he retired to die. The family from which Sir Thomas descended resided, about the middle of the sixteenth century, at Sudbury, in Suffolk. ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... in him, and he has droll similitudes, very curious in one who never saw his father, nor any ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... my lord so much, that he made the lad court-jester from that day, and many a droll trick he had played from that to this, particularly when his Highness was gloomy, so as to make him laugh again. Once, for instance, when the Duke was sore pressed for money, by reason of the opposition of the states, he became very sad, ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... 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 first, and ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... how droll!" and Miss Blaney went off in contortions of silent laughter. "Just for that, you must call me Alla. I always want droll people to call me by my first name. And ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... populacity (we must coin a new word for a new thing) for which he was exquisitely unfitted. What more stiffly awkward than his essays at easy familiarity? What more painfully remote from drollery than his efforts to be droll? In the case of a man who descends so far as Mr. Seward, such feats can be characterized by no other word so aptly as by tumbling. The thing would be sad enough in any prominent man, but in him it becomes a public shame, for in the eyes of the world ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... nothing. It will buy an apple apiece. Come on! Let's go down to old Granger's. I saw some apples there big as your head; and bigger, too," said Noah, with a droll wink. ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... recollection, and thought, "Oh, yes, you're quite a wag, my love; and as soon as you get over being so young you'll probably make a name for yourself. No dinner or suffrage party will ever again be quite complete without your droll dry humour. . . . I suppose I ought to ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... for Mrs. Smith had not much to give, and her spirit was generous, though her pastry was not of the best. It looked very droll to see pies sitting about on the thresholds of closed doors, but the cakes were quite elegant, and filled up the corners of the towel handsomely, for the apron lay in the middle, with the oranges right and left, like two sentinels in ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... had whipt you severely, find my wrath and resentment very much mollified; not so much indeed I confess, as if I had really had the pleasure of actually correcting you, but however I am pretty well satisfied. You was quite mistaken as to the manner I bore your silence; I only thought it was a little droll. ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... places. At one tap her eye, all to itself, danced; but on the instant Anna, uninformed of their presence, and entering with a vase of fresh roses, stood elated. Praise of the flowers hid all confusion, and Flora, with laughing caresses and a droll hardihood which Anna always enjoyed, declared she would gladly steal roses, garden, house and all. Anna ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... now in getting home. A little later he had entered a spacious brick house on Florence Street, deposited the milk can on the kitchen table, set the cook a laughing by some droll speech, and, passing on, sought his mother ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... bring me some water." The count turned up his sleeves, and passed into the little vestibule where the gentlemen were accustomed to wash their hands after shooting. "Come in, my lord," said Philip in a low tone, "and I will show you something droll." Morcerf entered, and in place of the usual target, he saw some playing-cards fixed against the wall. At a distance Albert thought it was a complete suit, for he counted from the ace to the ten. "Ah, ha," said Albert, "I see you were preparing ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and carried us among 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 ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... It was droll to see how this "meek and gentle" fellow met blackbird impudence. If one of the sable gentry came down too near a dove, the latter gave a little hop and rustled his feathers, but did not move one step away. For ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... stench. A servant soon afterwards entered, almost breathless, to inform his mistress, Madame R——, who was of the party, that the fire-ball had penetrated her house, which was close adjoining, without having effected any injury. Madame R—— laughed heartily, and observed, "Well, it is very droll that the lightning should make so free with my house when I am not at home." This little sprightly remark dispersed the gloom which had overshadowed most of the ladies present. All the large houses in Paris are well protected against the perilous effect of electric fluid, by ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... than any sins against decency. It contained, or was supposed to contain, a broadly ludicrous caricature of one well-known local physician; and an allusion, brief, indeed, and covert, but highly scandalous, to a certain "droll foible" attributed to another personage of much wider celebrity in the scientific world. The victim in the latter case was no longer living; and this circumstance brought upon Sterne a remonstrance from a correspondent, ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... be moved to mirth By that droll tale of Genesis, Which says creation had its birth For such a puny ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... without exception, this story is delightfully droll, humorous and illustrated in harmony ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... her husband's nurse and protector, not only in household matters, but in other affairs of life. Whenever she had visitors,—and she and James were hospitable in the extreme,—she was pretty sure to end up, sooner or later, if James were present, with some droll criticism of him, as much to his delight as ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... other, Chaverny was of good family; before his marriage he was not too fat; he was gay and cheerful, and what is called a good fellow. Julie was glad to see him at her mother's house, because he made her laugh with anecdotes of his regiment, droll enough, if not always in the best taste. She found him amiable, because he danced with her at every ball, and was always ready with excellent reasons to persuade her mother to remain late at theatre or party, or at the Bois de Boulogne. Finally, she thought him a hero, because he had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... a T. Cassy could jump and run to her heart's content. Jump and run she did, for at recess Bessie drew her into the midst of the other girls, and such a game of "I spy" Cassy had never imagined. Nobody said a word about her droll gown. "She is my friend," Bessie had ...
— Harper's Young People, September 7, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... but, alas! I have no conversation.' JOHNSON. 'Man commonly cannot be successful in different ways. This gentleman has spent, in getting four thousand pounds a year, the time in which he might have learnt to talk; and now he cannot talk.' Mr. Perkins made a shrewd and droll remark: 'If he had got his four thousand a year as a mountebank, he might have learnt to talk at the same time that he was getting ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... their want of cleanliness we have had sufficient proofs, but I am of opinion, all the washing in the world would not render them two degrees less black than an African negro. At some of our first interviews, we had several droll instances of their mistaking the Africans we brought with ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay • Watkin Tench
... pass on earth, when, at the corner of an antique street, in a ruined building peopled by a colony of rats, on the Thursday of Carnival week, at the hour when pancakes are being tossed, of a hump-backed father and a lame mother was born a child, a droll little object; and this child was the poet, Jasmin. When a prince is born into the world, the event is celebrated by the report of cannon; but he, the son of a poor tailor, had not even a pop-gun ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... that very few young ladies would have the courage to change pretty evening dresses for calico, after appearing to such advantage. Many would prefer wearing such dresses, however inappropriate, to the sugar-mill. With his droll gravity, Gibbes answered, "Oh, our girls don't want to be ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... 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 prominent ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... battle, but wanted my view of it. I told the story of the Lawrence and Perry; of what D'ri and I had hoped to do, and of what had been done to us. My account of D'ri—his droll comment, his valor, his misfortune—touched and tickled the count. He laughed, he clapped his hands, he shed tears of enthusiasm; ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... the honours of this gallant craft was of a piece with the rest. When a man rides an amiable hobby that shies at nothing and kicks nobody, it is only agreeable to find him riding it with a humorous sense of the droll side of the creature. When the man is a cordial and an earnest man by nature, and withal is perfectly fresh and genuine, it may be doubted whether he is ever seen to greater advantage than at such a time. So Rosa would have ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... is a hard task to invent A Hundred Droll Tales, since not only have ruffians and envious men opened fire upon him, but his friends have imitated their example, and come to him saying "Are you mad? Do you think it is possible? No man ever had in the depths of his imagination a hundred such tales. Change the ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... Gray saw such a droll morsel lying on her napkin she laughed, sent for Kitty Gray, stroked her, and called her "Good pussy, pretty pussy; and the brightest pussy too ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... of Kruessen, was solemnly dancing a minuet with a plump Faenza jar; a tall Dutch clock was going through a gavotte with a spindle-legged ancient chair; a very droll porcelain figure of Littenhausen was bowing to a very stiff soldier in terre cuite of Ulm; an old violin of Cremona was playing itself, and a queer little shrill plaintive music that thought itself merry came from a painted spinet covered with faded roses; some gilt ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)
... such things were not. All gentle and tender affections, Nature in her sweetest or grandest moods, pervaded his whole imagination, and left no place for low or evil thoughts; and when in good spirits, his humor, his droll descriptions, and his fun would make the gravest or the ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... to be sure, is a great deal better dressed than she used to be; but for all that, I really think it is but an odd thing for you!—Dear! I think it's something so out of the way for you!—I can't think how you set about it. It must have been very droll to you at first. A great deal of honour, to be sure, to serve a queen, and all that: but I dare say a lady's-maid could do it better,—though to be called about a queen, as I say, is a great deal of honour: but, for my part, I should ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... and greater care is observed as to the scenic arrangements, so that it is no longer the case, as with Plautus, that everything needs to take place on the street, whether belonging to it or not. Plautus ties and unties the dramatic knot carelessly and loosely, but his plot is droll and often striking; Terence, far less effective, keeps everywhere account of probability, not unfrequently at the cost of suspense, and wages emphatic war against the certainly somewhat flat and insipid standing expedients of his predecessors, e. g. against allegoric dreams.(3) Plautus paints ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... very slightly removed from the class of Blind Tom. A trained alienist, one acquainted with the difference between the eccentricities which frequently accompany greatness and the unconscious physical and psychical evidences of idiocy which so clearly agree with the antics of the chimpanzee or the droll Capuchin monkeys, might find in the performer to whom I refer a subject for some very interesting, not to say startling reflections. Few have ever been successful in inducing this pianist to talk upon any other subject than music for more than a few minutes at a time. Another ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... to think how 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 ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... delight in telling what I think, but if you ask me how I dare say so, or why it is so, I am the most helpless of mortal men. I do not even see that either of these questions admits of an answer. So that in the present droll posture of my affairs, when I see myself suddenly raised into the importance of a heretic, I am very uneasy when I advert to the supposed duties of such a personage who is to make good his thesis against all comers. I certainly shall do no ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... meals with me, and one cat on each side of me, on stools, and we had Poll to talk to us. Now for a word or two as to the dress in which I made a tour round the isle. I could but think how droll it would look in the streets of the town in which I was born. I wore a high cap of goat's skin, with a flap that hung, down, to keep the sun and rain from my neck, a coat made from the skin of a goat ...
— Robinson Crusoe - In Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... Clown, Mr. Grimaldi is perfectly unrivalled. Other performers of the part may be droll in their generation; but, which of them can for a moment compete with the Covent Garden hero in acute observation upon the foibles and absurdities of society, and his happy talent of holding them up to ridicule. He is the finest ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... not seem to understand; but he smiled, thanked the reporter, and strolled away from the parapet, telling all the people he met: "It is a fete! Prince Andras, a Hungarian, is about to be married. Prince Andras Zilah! A fete on board a steamer! What a droll idea!" ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... "And he's so droll about it. But I've seen him that way before; haven't you? And Helene, bless her heart, lets him make eyes at her and just laughs in that happy, ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... sipping a little water from time to time, when just as the fire was at its height, with great waves of flame floating gently away from the great pine-wood building and illumining the wide clearing all round, I heard a familiar voice behind me say in his droll, dry fashion— ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... had suddenly disclosed a side of his nature hitherto hidden—the savage piety of the copper Boer impregnated with stereotyped missionary phrasing, Ian Stafford almost laughed outright. In the presence of Jews like Sobieski it seemed so droll that this half-caste should talk about the God of Israel, and link Oom Paul's name with that of Christ the great liberator as partners ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... 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 ...
— Poems • Elizabeth Stoddard
... nimbly from log to log and disappeared under the wood-pile. The children went down to see what he would do. They were so astonished at his droll appearance that they forgot ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... drawling voice. And then I noticed that everybody who mentioned her smiled dreamily and wondered where on earth she'd come from. I kept hearing, just as you probably did, odd scraps of things she had said, droll adventures in which she had figured, extraordinary and fantastic tales about the house in which she lived. And presently, when it was too late, I found myself listening to regretful murmurings of scores of baffled persons who couldn't find out what had ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... admiration? What, outside of Balzac himself, could be more terrible than Gobseck, a frightful study of avarice, containing a deathbed scene which surpasses in dreadfulness almost anything in literature? Add to these A Passion in the Desert, The Girl with the Golden Eyes, The Droll Stories, The Red Inn, and The Magic Skin, and you have a cluster of ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... sulphitic. They are excruciatingly funny, just because she represents types so common that we recognize them instantly. Each expresses the crystallized thought of her particular bromidic group. Done, then, by a person who is herself a Sulphite par excellence, the result is droll. "One has," says Emerson, "but to remove an object from its environment and instantly ...
— Are You A Bromide? • Gelett Burgess
... turn, he eats another, That's a sign that he's a brother— Each may fully trust the other. It is quaint and it is droll, But ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... ancient boat called a coracle, which being placed over the head reaches to the thighs behind. It is made of platted bamboo, enclosing broad leaves of Phrynium. A group of Lepchas with these on, running along in the pelting rain, are very droll figures; they look like snails with their shells on their backs. All the Lepchas are fond of ornaments, wearing silver hoops in their ears, necklaces made of cornelian, amber, and turquoise, brought from Tibet, and pearls and corals from the south, with curious silver ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... I laughed. At the moment it seemed to be a very droll saying. And at the sound of my laughter he grinned in sympathy. He was a wonderful man. When he was established in the train, he held out his ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... a droll thing to say, but it sounded real. He answered as though someone had actually spoken of a car outside and ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... gaily filled each of the glasses, although Pierre declared that he was quite unable to drink wine between his meals. "Pooh, pooh," said the Count, "you can always clink glasses with us. And now, Abbe, isn't this little wine droll? Come, here's to the Pope's better health, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... but set about plunging, in order to rid themselves of the 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 I think, ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... and presents, but he longed to be revenged—heavily and bloodily—on Zminis, who denounced him and brought him to the galleys. . . . How the old fellow must have raged and stormed when he was a prisoner! I treated the droll old gray-beard like my father. The giant pleases me, and what skillful fingers he has on his powerful hands! He gave me that ring with the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... with the slightly foreign accent which lent an added charm to her words, "I cannot help thinking it rather droll that a man of your mind and rare penetration should have thought you had ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... them celebrated for his fabulous exploits. The guides told Herodotus, and Herodotus retails to us, as sober historical facts, the remedy employed by this unhistorical Pheron in order to recover his sight; the adventures of Paris and Helen at the court of Proteus,* and the droll tricks played by a thief at the expense of the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Thuvia, and Phaidor, daughter of Matai Shang. They each love John Carter. Ha-ah! but it is droll. Together for a year they will meditate within the Temple of the Sun, but ere the year is quite gone there will be no more food for them. Ho-oh! what divine entertainment," and she licked the froth from ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... think not,' says the serjeant. '"Ion" is very different.' The Talfourd household, as it is described by Mr. Lestrange, is a droll mixture of poetry and prose, of hospitality, of untidiness, of petulance, of most genuine kindness and most genuine ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... live through another winter "with that cough on her." She sat very still in the meetings, it was said, and seemed "tetched and wonderful," whereas she had been wont formerly, on occasions of this solemn nature, to evince many signs of restlessness, and even to engage in droll and sly diversions for the ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... time, however, Vesta had reached the kitchen, secured a little broom, and returned, a droll determination lighting ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... 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. La Trape was ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... to rise high Commend this olio of this lord 'tis fit: Nay, ten to one, but you have part of it; There is that justice left, since you maintain His table, he should counter-feed your brain. Then write how well he in his sack hath droll'd, Straight there's a bottle to your chamber roll'd, Or with embroider'd words praise his French suit, Month hence 'tis yours with his mans, to boot; Or but applaud his boss'd legs: two to none, But he most nobly doth give you one. Or spin ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... fortune-telling book, by Bob Antrobus." In the Diary of the sprightly Louisa Josepha Adelaide, Countess of Bute (afterward so unfortunate a wife and an even more unfortunate mother), she describes a droll scene at a Scotch castle one evening, in which the unexpected statements of "The Square of Sevens" as to the lives and characters of the company "put to the blush several persons of distinction" who ...
— The Square of Sevens - An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note • E. Irenaeus Stevenson
... resentment 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. He had left uncut the leaves ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... The droll remarks of the Quarterly, and Hunt's kind defence, arrived as safe as such poison, and safer than ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... that we live in a bad age, O tempora, O mores! as 'tis in the adage. My foot was but just set out from my cathedral, When into my hands comes a letter from the droll. I can't pray in quiet for you and your verses; But now let us hear what the Muse from your car says. Hum—excellent good—your anger was stirr'd; Well, punners and rhymers must have the last word. But let me advise you, when next I hear from you, To leave ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... I am a little droll; I am angry with Emily for concluding an advantageous match with a man she does not absolutely dislike, which all good mammas say is sufficient; and this only because it breaks in on a little circle of friends, in whose society I have been happy. O! self! self! I would have her ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... respect. Except when old Mrs. Wiggins was here, I had few decent meals that I didn't get myself," and then, to cheer her up, he laughingly told her of Mrs. Mumpson's essay at making coffee. He had a certain dry humor, and his unwonted effort at mimicry was so droll in itself that Alida was startled to hear her own voice in laughter, and she looked almost frightened, so deeply had she been impressed that it would never be possible or even right ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... Greek chorus, was by common consent pronounced the star of the company, her interpolated reflections being so droll and to the point that even the lingering victims found themselves ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... 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 see, he didn't ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... in getting in. Jonnie replied that Jim kept us hunting for Cub bears all the spring, and as we couldn't find any, it took all our time. Of course they all wanted to know the joke, and when Jonnie told it in his droll way, it made a laugh on Jim. "If you will only quit talking about the cubs," Jim said, "I'll treat all around," which ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... all I can say is, good luck to you both. And please, mayn't I be the best man?" he added, with a droll accent that brought an involuntary smile to Ashby's face. "But go on. Who is the charmer? and where is ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... at Barnaby True for a moment or two, and then burst out 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 ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... Dashall, very drunk, but very gentlemanly, was one of the most irresistibly comic things ever known. I have a mind to give you a translation of a German ballad on a tipsy man, which has been set to music, and is often sung in Germany; it is rather droll in the original, and perhaps it has not lost all of its humor in being overset, as they call it, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... Esterbrooks. Let us say, in every school and in every house, the child must not only learn to read and write, he must learn to draw. We cannot afford to let our young folks grow up without this power. A new French book is just now much talked about, with this droll title, "The Life of a Wise Man, by an Ignoramus." It is the story of the great Pasteur, whose discoveries in respect to life have made him world renowned. I turned to the book, eager to find out the key to such success, and I found the old story—"the child was father of the man." This ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... it would be droll," Pope said, aloud, "if our exteriors were ever altogether parodies. But time keeps a diary in our faces, and writes a monstrously plain hand. Now, if you take the first letter of Mr. Alexander Pope's Christian name, and the first and ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... remained on the Statute-book for twenty years, its repeal was a foregone conclusion. When it was revoked in 1871 the temper of the nation had changed, and no one was inclined to make even a passing protest. John Leech, in a cartoon in Punch, caught the droll aspect of the situation with even more than his customary skill. Lord John relished the joke, even though he recognised that it was not likely to prove of service to him at the next General Election. In conversation with a friend he said: 'Do you remember ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... my own pipe now. "But what's the use. She is a Princess. Why, I thought her at first a barmaid—a barmaid! Then I thought her to be in some way a lawbreaker, a socialist conspirator. It would be droll if it were not sad. The Princess Hildegarde!" I laughed dismally. "Dan, old man, let's dig out at once, and close the page. We'll talk it over when we ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... strain, Surmounts, with stifled sigh, his chair, a better view to gain; Cafes, salons, mansards alike their windows open throw, And pretty girls wear radiant smiles to greet the passing show. Ah, here they are! Yes, here they come! preceded by the boys, Who imitate in fashion droll, yet with no actual noise, But merely by the gesturing of finger or of hand, The cymbals, flute, and (best of all) the trombones of the band. The babies even laugh and crow, upheld in nurses' arms, And have no fear of trumpets loud, or the bass-drum's alarms. The pavement ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... to the ordinary Satyrs, artists delighted in depicting little Satyrs, young imps, frolicking about the woods in a marvellous variety of droll attitudes. These little fellows greatly resemble their friends ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... ball-room, where about a hundred and fifty of the tenants, servants, &c., with their wives and daughters, were assembled. Reels then began, which were danced with great energy, and also jigs—very droll. Prince Arthur danced like mad; and Princess Alice was 'weel ta'en out' by the gamekeeper. I stood in a corner talking with the Duke of Argyll, &c. At last the Prince came round, and conversed very courteously for ten minutes. He had heard I had been in Germany ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... agreeable family party at the Prince Paul Gallitzin's were masks; and a party of male and female dwarfs; these droll little urchins were all very well made and good-looking; they frisked and frolicked about with the children of the house as if they themselves were not (as in reality they were) men and women, but children likewise. One of these poor little mortals, equipped as an officer of hussars, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 533, Saturday, February 11, 1832. • Various
... of a chance for delay by climbing on Amy's lap, and going into a voluble inventory of the contents of a drawer into which he had obtained several surreptitious peeps. His effort to tell an interminable story that he might sit up longer, the droll havoc he made with his English, and the naming of the toys that were destined for the supposed child, evoked an unforced merriment which banished ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... the Miss Bertrams of Kersewell—came suddenly upon him; off went the hat, down bent the head, and over him streamed the cherished collection, the ladies busy among the wild grass and heather picking it up, and he full of droll ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... days with us, a welcome guest. Her conversation was so strong, simple, shrewd, and with such a droll flavoring of humor, that the Professor was wont to say of an evening, "Come, I am dull, can't you get Sojourner up here to talk a little?" She would come up into the parlor, and sit among pictures and ornaments, in her simple ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... soon struck up the good old tunes, and then the strangers saw dancing that filled them with mingled mirth and envy; it was so droll, yet so hearty. The young men, unusually awkward in their grandfathers' knee-breeches, flapping vests, and swallow-tail coats, footed it bravely with the buxom girls who were the prettier for their quaintness, and danced with such vigor that their ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... had found a phrase by which to describe her, a term of contempt that rose to her lips, called forth by I know not what confused and mysterious mental ratiocination. She said: 'That woman is a demoniac.' This epithet, applied to that austere and sentimental creature, seemed to me irresistibly droll. I myself never called her anything now but 'the demoniac,' experiencing a singular pleasure in pronouncing aloud this word on ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... strong-limbed, and his features gave the idea of a man in the act of straining himself. In consequence, one of the city wits, upon the emperor's desiring him "to say something droll respecting himself," facetiously answered, "I will, when you have done relieving your bowels." [767] He enjoyed a good state of health, though he used no other means to preserve it, than repeated friction, as much (459) as he could bear, on his neck and other parts of his body, in the tennis-court ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... dying—or does the life of a nation wake again, as after sleep? Is he this droll, harmless thing he here depicts himself? And if not? Suppose fresh sap be stirring through his three hundred millions? We thought he was so very dead; we thought the time had come to cut him up and divide him, the only danger being ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... indeed all through his works, it is in the delineation of individual character—in the analysis of motives—that Hawthorne's peculiar and amazing power is especially manifest, intermingled withal with a certain droll self-distrust and deprecation of adverse criticism, to which he has here given expression in a series of foot-notes, ostensibly from the editor's pen, but written in fact by ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... and especially for the belles-lettres, he entertained a profound contempt. With this he had been inspired by Casimir Perier, whose pert little query "A quoi un poete est il bon?" he was in the habit of quoting, with a very droll pronunciation, as the ne plus ultra of logical wit. Thus my own inkling for the Muses had excited his entire displeasure. He assured me one day, when I asked him for a new copy of Horace, that the translation ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... long been noted as a droll. A grin was as much a part of his stock apparel as tow breeches or a palm-leaf hat. The negro, too, had from time immemorial been portrayed upon the stage and in fiction as an irrepressible and inimitably farcical ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... innumerable. Here are a merry knot round the refreshments, and well they may be; for the negus is strong punch, and the biscuit is tipsy cake,—and all this with a running fire of good stories, jokes, and witticisms on all sides, in the laughter for which even the droll-looking servants join as heartily as ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... people had various other sources of public amusement; amongst these puppet-shows, exhibitions of strength and agility, bear-baiting, cock-fighting, and dancing obtained. Until the restoration, puppet-shows had not been seen for years; for these droll dolls, being regarded as direct agents of Satan, were discountenanced by the puritans. With the coming of his majesty they returned in vast numbers, and were hailed with great delight by the people. One of these exhibitions which found special favour with the town, and speedily drew great audiences ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... should expose him to persecution. Nor can I suppose that he held it any disgrace for a dignitary of the church to be wealthy, at a time when churchmen in general spare no pains to become so. But the wisdom of some men has a droll sort of knavishness in it, much like that of a magpie, who hides what he finds with a deal of contrivance, merely for the ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... unintentionally than by premeditation. There is no such thing as being "droll to order." One evening a lady said to a small wit, "Come, Mr. ——, tell us a lively anecdote;" and the poor fellow was mute ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... have seen among the thousands I have examined. The York Cries, Tom Hickethrift, Jack the Giant Killer, and many kindred cuts, are evidently from the collection of John White, the early printer, and are as quaint, as funny and droll in crudity of execution, as any of Thomas Gent's, the ...
— Banbury Chap Books - And Nursery Toy Book Literature • Edwin Pearson
... the magazines an appreciation of his curious skill in the art of writing. Watts-Dunton told me he had heard of this from Swinburne. 'I myself,' he said, 'very seldom read the magazines. But Algernon always has a look at them.' There was something to me very droll, and cheery too, in this picture of the illustrious recluse snatching at the current issues of our twaddle. And I was immensely pleased at hearing that my article had 'interested him very much.' I inwardly promised myself that as soon as I ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... memoirs Gibbon reveals himself as a man with little dignity or heroism. There is a droll story that is apt to suggest itself when one thinks of Gibbon. At one time, when asking a dignified lady for her hand in marriage, he fell upon his knees in proper lover-like manner. Unfortunately Gibbon was so stout that upon her refusal he ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... boots waved in the air. A tall youth was practising on the flute in one corner, quite undisturbed by the racket all about him. Two or three others were jumping over the desks, pausing, now and then, to get their breath and laugh at the droll sketches of a little wag who was caricaturing the ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... me with a droll glimmer in his eye: "Ah, to be sure, your honour's a great lawyer; but he'll come pounding along with his big horse in his own car, Mr. Lynch; and sure it'll be quicker for your honour just driving ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... head, confident of his own superiority with the bow, he turned back into the greenroom and, with his mouth half full of orange, uttered the droll dictum: "It will take more than catgut and horse-hair to make you a fiddler, ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... powers. On these occasions he would carry his hearers away with him, often against their better judgment, by his eloquence and verve; would send them into fits of hearty laughter by his sallies; his store of droll anecdotes, his jollity and gaiety; and would display his consummate gifts as a dramatic raconteur. Later in life, after he had raised the enmity of a large section of the writing world, and knew that there were many watching eagerly to immortalise in print—with gay malice and wit on the surface, ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... 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 ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... 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 ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... this in its progress up the broad aisle and the pulpit stairs, under the arm of the boy from the parsonage, and the irreverent way in which he made his descent, in view of the assembly, after depositing his burden, was thus rebuked by an old lady who was always droll and quaint. "Why, Matthew, when you come down the pulpit stairs of a Sunday, you throw up your heels like a horse coming out ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... I shall have to postpone my millennium of fagging. But I don't know what else will make men of you. And mark you, my merry men, there's more than one kind of fagging;" and he looked in a droll way—a droll way that was not in the least funny, but made the boys all wonder what Abel ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... to encourage me. I greeted him warmly, so glad was I to see him again. Samson was there, too; I believe that he was playing that night in one of Moliere's comedies. The two men were very different. Provost was tall, his silvery hair was blown about, and he had a droll face. Samson was small, precise, dainty; his shiny white hair curled firmly and closely round his head. Both men had been moved by the same sentiment of protection for the poor, fragile, nervous girl, who was nevertheless so full of hope. Both of them knew my zeal for work, ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... leaning perceptibly to the right or left, but without disquieting the eye, like the tower of Asinelli at Bologna, or the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Seen two or three miles away, these towers, drunk and staggering, with their pointed caps that seem to nod at the horizon, present a droll and hilarious silhouette. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... companionable self. Once or twice she tried to turn the talk to his altered future, and the obligations and interests that lay before him; but he shrugged away from the subject, questioning her instead about the motley company at Violet Melrose's, and fitting a droll or malicious anecdote to each of the ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... buffalo-robes are drawn, by what power this deponent sayeth not, not knowing. No watch is kept, for there is little danger of intrusion. Once a whole party was startled by a white bear smelling at them, who waked one of their dogs, and a droll time they had of it, springing to their arms while enveloped in their sacks. But we remember no other instance where a sentinel was needed. And occasionally in the journals the officer notes that he ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... door of St. Germain l'Auxerrois in Paris, there is a portrait statue of St. Genevieve, holding a lighted candle, while "the devil in little" sits on her shoulder, exerting himself to blow it out! It is quite a droll conceit of the ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... that dreadful Mask first look at me? Who put it on, and why was I so frightened that the sight of it is an era in my life? It is not a hideous visage in itself; it is even meant to be droll, why then were its stolid features so intolerable? Surely not because it hid the wearer's face. An apron would have done as much; and though I should have preferred even the apron away, it would not have been absolutely insupportable, like the mask. Was it the immovability of the mask? ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... The woman was Judith. From the head, from the trunk, the water gushed. It was the taste of the doctor:—was it not a droll of taste? ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... Moan had gone to rig up in his best attire, while the good old lady, to make him laugh, of course, made a most inimitably droll face and a mock curtsey at the adjutant behind ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... sigh and a laugh. "You know I have been doing wrong things all my life, and anything else would not be natural. Do you remember, Bell," and her dark eyes had an expression of demure fun in them that was irresistibly droll—"do you remember how I left all my trunks unlocked and my room door open, at the Philadelphia hotel when we were stopping there one winter on our way from Washington,—and how I left my purse on the bureau in my room and grabbed a gentleman by the arm in the street, accusing ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... activity; and for the same reason he always ran in and out of the room. It was but seldom that he was seen to move at a slower pace. When in the company of strangers he even quickened the speed of his motions, and exhibited the most droll antics to impress upon their minds that he was still equal to take the field. It was the custom to rise early—never later at any time of the year than four o'clock, and often even at midnight—to the end of his life. As soon as he rose he was well drenched with ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... and Sir Francis is a thorough gentleman. They're not his boys, but her ladyship's, and she has spoiled 'em, I suppose. Let 'em grow wild, Grant. I say, my lad," he continued, looking at me with a droll twinkle in his eye, "they want us to train them, and prune them, and take off some of their straggling growths, eh? I think we could make a difference in ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... at those droll little beggars. They bowed and courtesied in an unconcerned, wooden way, as if they were moved by some ingenious piece of Swiss clock-work. The stiff old curee, too, had an air of having been wound up and set a-going. I could almost hear the creak of his mainspring. I was smiling at that, perhaps, ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... horror stories, crazy stories and stories written far into the future, as "Brigands of the Moon." These stories make light of the vast distances of space and are too weird, droll and fail to give a single shiver down my old backbone. They are strange and inhabited by strange people. No story can give the faintest idea of the space between those mighty suns of the universe. Most of them have more imagination ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... no doubt it was) had now descended to within a hundred feet of the earth, allowing the crowd below a sufficiently distinct view of the person of its occupant. This was in truth a very droll little somebody. He could not have been more than two feet in height; but this altitude, little as it was, would have been sufficient to destroy his equilibrium, and tilt him over the edge of his tiny car, but for the intervention of a circular rim reaching as high as the breast, and rigged ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... is believed to have, some answering reality. (Compare REASON.) An intellectual fancy or conceit may be pleasing or amusing, but is never worth serious discussion; we speak of a mere fancy, a droll or odd conceit. An emotional or personal fancy is a capricious liking formed with slight reason and no exercise of judgment, and liable to fade as lightly as it was formed. In a broader sense, the fancy signifies the faculty by which fancies ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... melancholy conviction of the vanity of all things human. Vanitas vanitatum, as he wrote on the pages of the French lady's album, and again in one of the earlier numbers of The Cornhill Magazine. With much that is picturesque, much that is droll, much that is valuable as being a correct picture of the period selected, the gist of the book is melancholy throughout. It ends with the promise of happiness to come, but that is contained merely in ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... Franchi gave the news of the ban to Giuseppe de' Franchi. She had learned it from one of her damsels, who had had it from Shloumi the Droll, a graceless, humorous rogue, steering betwixt Jews and Christians his shifty ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... from Peebles to Glasgow by my father,[69] who, when learning his business, as a manufacturer, in the western city, about the end of the century, had formed an acquaintance with the poet. The other, entitled 'Cheese and Whisky,' which contains some very droll verses, was written in compliment to my maternal uncle, William Gibson, then also a young manufacturer, but who died about two months ago, a retired captain of the 90th regiment. The jocund hospitable disposition of Gibson—'Bachelor Willie'—and my father's social good-nature, are pleasingly recalled ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... costume of the time of George the Third; the women with hooped petticoats and high head dresses; clergymen with five or six tier wigs; men with cocked hats and queues; and female servants with mob caps. That to Emblem Fifteen, upon the sacraments, is peculiarly droll; the artist, forgetting that the author was a Baptist, represents a baby brought to the font to be christened! and two persons kneeling before the body ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... ended, the young ladies conducted me to their own sleeping-room. Here we found a slave at work. She was a negress, for whom I was told Sidi Mahmoud had paid 600 francs. I suppose this negress saw something irresistibly droll in my appearance, for as soon as I appeared she burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, and it was some time ere she recovered ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... elder brother of the Bishop of Clogher. He had an estate of more than 1000 pounds a year in County Meath, and Nichols describes him as of droll appearance, thick and short in person: "a facetious, pleasant companion, but the most eternal unwearied punster that ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... It has good points— And bad points— Like the world itself— Like life! Perhaps the author of the world Is something like me, A little grotesque, A little whimsical, Serious often, Sometimes all the more serious Seen through a Fool's words With cap and jingle of bells. In this droll world There are lots of children Who are the children of fools— Like me. Good people! I bespeak your patience With Everychild Daughter of ...
— The Flutter of the Goldleaf; and Other Plays • Olive Tilford Dargan and Frederick Peterson
... 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 gapped edge. "Look here, Dixie," he said, ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben |
