"Droll" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... maid—plump radiant Bea Sorenson from Scandia Crossing. Bea was droll in her attempt to be at once a respectful servant and a bosom friend. They laughed together over the fact that the stove did not draw, over the slipperiness of ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... to be supposed, however, that Miss Eustis was simply droll. She was unconventional at all times, and sometimes wilful—inheriting that native strength of mind and mother wit which are generally admitted to be a part of the equipment of the typical American woman. If she was not the ideal young woman, at least ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... cat," said Lady Glencora, as soon as the door was closed; and she said these words with so droll a voice, with such a childlike shaking of her head, with so much comedy in her grimace, that Alice could not but laugh. "She is," said Lady Glencora. "I know her, and you'll have to know her, too, before you've done with her. It won't at all do for you ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... Association of Chemical Manufacturers upon the 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 ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... 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
... was sitting on one of the benches not far removed from the scene of activity. She began to feel sorry for the little foster-father. He was having a time of it! The first thing he knew, one of the little insurgents would tumble into the lake and— well, she couldn't imagine anything more droll than Mr. Bingle venturing into the water as a rescuer. At last, moved by an impulse that afterwards took its place as the psychic capstone in her career, she arose and resolutely went to his relief. He was panting and perspiring, for ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... of my trouble I could not help feeling amused, there seemed to be something so droll in the idea of Shock burrowing his way right into the hill and expecting to get out; but the next moment I was listening to him and watching the tiny spark at the end of ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... the elder continued, "why they should want to do it in the way they do it. Are they merely going somewhere and must get there in the shortest time possible, or are they arriving on a wager? If they are taking a pleasure drive, what a droll idea of pleasure they must have! Maybe they are trying to escape Black Care, but they must know he sits beside the chauffeur as he used to sit behind the horseman, and they know that he has a mortgage ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... Kennedys, and a well-behaved maid showed the children into a room which was so dark that Biddy and Katy could hardly see anything at first. Biddy felt Katy twitch at her hand as if she would dart off and rush out into the merry sunlight again. All the way up stairs Katy had been making droll faces at the maid, who went on before them, and mimicking her walk in the funniest manner. Biddy had not seemed to notice, though she had found it hard not to laugh right out at Katy's mischief. Now Biddy held fast to the little hand ...
— Harper's Young People, March 16, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... are uttered 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 the rest of ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... peacocks on the place, and you are the finest!" laughed Miss Celia, as her brother spoke in his most condescending way with a lift of the eyebrows very droll to see. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... added as to the nature of the tales. I have included only "hero tales, serious and droll," beast stories and fables, and pourquoi or "just-so" stories. Myths, legends, and fairy-tales (including all kinds of spirit and demon stories) I have purposely excluded, in order to keep the size of ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... triumph, like a satisfied kitten. Clover was sunny and sweet-tempered, a little indolent, and very modest about herself, though, in fact, she was particularly clever in all sorts of games, and extremely droll and funny in a quiet way. Everybody loved her, and she loved everybody, especially Katy, whom she looked up to as one of the wisest ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... suppress her fear, she walked, not sideways as always, but erect, her chest thrown out, which gave her figure a droll, stilted air of importance. Her shoes made a knocking sound on the floor, and ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... added, with a droll blinking of his eyes, "that I have in all innocence interrupted the performance of a most interesting production. There is a crowd of people gathered out in front of the house, and I could not forego the pleasure of listening. I hope you will not stop playing the sacrificial festival ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... and posters are in demand by collectors at home and in foreign countries. Miss Ostertag has designed elaborate chimney pieces to be executed in mosaic and glass. Her droll conceits in "Mary and Her Lamb," the "Ten Little Injuns," and other juvenile tales were complimented by Boutet de Monvel, who was so much interested in her work that he gave her valuable criticism and ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... speeches now in Paris, I can fancy the count with his hat by his side and his hand on the door-knob. Heaven knows how many times that comedy-proverb of Musset called 'A door must either be open or shut,' has been gravely played by the Sardinian Parliament and the prime minister!" It is with a very droll effect that a French paper has revived this curious description, a propos of the perpetual repetition of the drama played by the French Assembly and the French president, in which the constant threats of resignation ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... possible that you will consider this information a lie. That will be quite droll. However, I am, most ...
— The Leader • William Fitzgerald Jenkins (AKA Murray Leinster)
... shall not have her! O! no, no; "He sends his younger son, the Count Paolo, To fetch Francesca back to Rimini." That's well, if he had left his reasons out. And, in a postscript—by the saints, 'tis droll!— "'Twould not be worth your lordship's while to shut Paolo in a prison; for, my lord, I'll only pay his ransom in plain steel: Besides, he's not worth having." Is there one, Save this ignoble offshoot of the Goths, Who'd ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... 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 ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... Glyn's biggest successes. Elizabeth is a charming young woman who is always saying and doing droll and, daring things, both ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... into the hall, and sure enough, there stood her cousin; sunburned, a little thin from sea-sickness, but the same droll ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... she's in sight anywhere, and they assure me that she is not on these shores. Torrence, the third vice-president—you know Torry; he was in the class ahead of us at college, the man who never smiles—Torry seemed anxious to learn about her from me, which is certainly droll. He said she acknowledged her last remittance three months ago from Bangkok—wherever that is. Torry couldn't see that Bangkok is so absurdly remote that the idea of a widow's strolling off there is funny. I suppose the old girl's resumed her tour of the world looking for another retired merchant ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... The family assembled at prayer; and. Blaize, whose shoulders still ached with the chastisement he had received, eyed the apprentice with sullen and revengeful looks. Patience, too, was equally angry, and her indignation was evinced in a manner so droll, that at another season it would have drawn ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... named by the beuglant's funny singer the "Funambules," to which he took his friend Thomas under pretence that it was the opera, is one of the queerest of the blousard's places of resort. It is a droll little underground theatre—literally underground, with no windows, no opening of any kind to the light of day, and no ventilation. We reach it by a long winding way of pleasantly-lighted stairs and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... all his masterfulness he was very considerably in awe of Miss Allis. There was a not-to-be-daunted expression in her extraordinary eyes which made him feel that a love tilt with her would be a somewhat serious business. He pictured himself as an ardent lover; he would cut a droll figure in that role, he knew; emotions were hardly in his line. He might feel such an assertive emotion as love quite as strongly as anyone, in fact, did, but could he express himself with faultless consistency? He rather doubted it. ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... be but two sisters left at home, the daring mind of Bella on the next of these occasions scaled the height of wondering with droll vexation, "what on earth Pa ever could have seen in Ma, to induce him to make such a little fool of himself as to ask ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... always 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 longest ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... of wisdom and adventure and humor and romance. I like to unravel it and look at the colors. Lincoln is the strongest, longest thread in the fabric. Often I think of your description of the great, tender hands that lifted you to his shoulder when you were a boy, of the droll and kindly things that he said to you. I have laughed and cried recalling those hours of yours with Jack Kelso and Dr. John Allen and the rude young giant Abe, of which I have heard you tell so often as we sat ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... was Celine carried off at fourteen, Madame de Blanchet a bride at fifteen; all marrying hither and thither; and I—' she pulled a face irresistibly droll—'I growing old enough to dress St. Catherine's hair, and wondering where was M. ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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 ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... of the House, is declaiming to a cheering crowd behind the White House, "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." In front of the White House thirteen silent sentinels with banners bearing the same words, are arrested. It would have been exceedingly droll if it had not been so tragic. Champ Clark and his throng were not molested. The women with practically a deserted street were arrested and served jail terms for ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... she heard Madame Ratignolle relating to old Monsieur Farival the harrowing story of one of her accouchements, withholding no intimate detail. She was growing accustomed to like shocks, but she could not keep the mounting color back from her cheeks. Oftener than once her coming had interrupted the droll story with which Robert was entertaining some ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... barrack square, to wander in Himalayan passes and ride across the deserts of Africa. Baden-Powell is a nomad. The smart cavalry officer who can play any musical instrument, draw amusing pictures, tell delightfully droll stories, sing a good song, stage-manage theatricals—do everything, in short, that qualifies a man to take his ease in country houses, loves more than any other form of existence the loneliness and the wildness of the scout's. Often, he tells us, when he is about the serious business ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... than the experiences of the banks of the Avon. Perhaps there was this immediate disadvantage, that hearing of a more intellectual tone of society tended to make Rachel less tolerant of that which surrounded her, and especially of Mr. Touchett. It was droll that, having so long shunned the two sisters under the impression that they were his protegees and worshippers, she found that Ermine's point of view was quite the rectorial one, and that to venerate the man for his office sake ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the country. Fellow-passenger, a Boston dry-goods dealer, travelling to collect bills. At many of the country shops he would get out, and show his unwelcome visage. In the tavern, prints from Scripture, varnished and on rollers,—such as the Judgment of Christ; also, a droll set of colored engravings of the story of the Prodigal Son, the figures being clad in modern costume,—or, at least, that of not more than half a century ago. The father, a grave, clerical person, with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... was annoyed. He had not refined susceptibilities which sought immediate relief from the dreadful pictures he had suggested, nor did he at all comprehend that her rippling smile was hysterical. "I don't see anything droll about it, sister," ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... to be more thoroughly good-natured or more determined to be happy than Mrs. Palmer. The studied indifference, insolence, and discontent of her husband gave her no pain, and when he scolded or abused her, she was highly diverted. "Mr. Palmer is so droll," she used to say in a whisper to Elinor; "he is always out of humour." One day, at dinner, his wife said to him, with her usual laugh, "My love, you contradict everybody. Do you know that you are quite rude?" To which he replied, "I did not know I contradicted ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... at the droll inapplicability of this comparison,— and Heliobas cheerfully continued—"I am on the wing just now,— bound for Mexico. I had business in London, and arrived here two days since,—two days more will see me again en voyage. I am glad to have met you thus by chance, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Montespart, made still more stir in the world, but of another kind. Madame de Nemours was daughter, by a first marriage, of the last Duc de Longueville. She was extremely rich, and lived in great splendour. She had a strange look, and a droll way of dressing, big eyes, with which she could scarcely see, a shoulder that constantly twitched, grey hairs that she wore flowing, and a very imposing air. She had a very bad temper, and could not forgive. When somebody asked her if ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... a remarkable fact that all the queer freaks, like clubs and corals, the cranks and tomfools, in droll shapes and satanic colors, the funny poisonous looking Morels, Inkcaps, and Boleti are good wholesome food, but the deadly Amanitas are like ordinary Mushrooms, except that they have grown a little thin, ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... little man is that little Fokare, my lor," Mademoiselle Coralie said, in her own language, and with the rich twang of that sunny Gascony in which her swarthy cheeks and bright black eyes had got their fire. "What a droll of a man! He does not ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Ambrosianae" or the London "Punch." His chair is wide, so that he can easily roll off on the floor when he wants a good time at laughing. His inkstand is a monkey, with the variations. His study-cap would upset a judge's risibilities. Scrap books with droll caricatures and facetiae. An odd stove, exciting your wonder as to where the coal is put in or the poker thrust for a shaking. All the works of Douglass Jerrold, and Sydney Smith, and Sterne, the scalawag ecclesiastic. India-rubber faces capable of being squashed into ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... a jocular cast in her eye. She knew the Bingham Construction Company as the builders of a score of handsome residences, and of as many of the vast structures which towered all over the business district. It seemed droll to her to find him here, giving personal heed to mere alterations and repairs. "What will be the next thing—building-blocks? Let me send you a box of them, I beg ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... many human bodies. About the walls are paintings and banners in sharp colors; above our heads hang innumerable gaudy lanterns of wood and paper. We sit in furs, shivering with the cold. The food passes endlessly, droll combinations in brown gravies—roses, sugar, and lard—duck and bamboo—lotus, chestnuts, and fish-eggs—an "eight-precious pudding." They tempt curiosity; my chop-sticks are busy. ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens
... 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 considered a ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... about Gafferson, in that forlorn environment on the Belize road, and his success in making them laugh drew him on to other pictures of the droll side of life among the misfits of adventure. The ladies visibly dallied over their tea-cups to listen to him; the charm of having them all to himself, and of holding them in interested entertainment by his discourse—these ladies of supremely refined associations and position—seemed ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... at each other and burst into laughter. It was impossible to help it, Aunt Sally's manner had been so droll and yet so dramatic; and, oddly enough, over Ninian there stole again the feeling that he had come home, and that the griefs and perplexities of this household had become his own. With that his merriment was over, for the fear Mrs. Benton's face ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... a Russian, young, handsome, suave, of what the newspapers insist on calling distinguished bearing. He spoke English pleasantly but imperfectly. He possessed a capital fund of anecdote, and Warburton, being an Army man, loved a good droll story. It was a revelation to see the way he dipped the end of his cigar into his coffee, a stimulant which he drank with Balzacian frequency and relish. Besides these accomplishments, he played a very smooth hand at the great American game. While Mr. Robert's admiration was ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... one time you and I—well, that we were there at Tallwoods. But these wild people here, who shoot, and fight with knives, they are of all peoples in the world the most strict and the most moral, the most abhorrent of what is not their own custom of life. Behold, that droll Mr. Bill Jones, in jest perhaps, expressed to others his belief that at one time there was a woman conceal' about this place of Tallwoods! Yes! Madame knows with what ground of justice this was said. Very well! The people took it up. There was comment. There was criticism. ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... against the wind. Their countenances were entirely devoid of expression, and they spoke like automatons. If I had understood the words, the contrast between their meaning and the machine-like movements of the actors would probably have been droll enough; but, as it was, the noise, the heat, and the smoke were so great that we ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... the end of the nose." This inaccurate interpretation of a BHAGAVAD GITA stanza, {FN16-7} widely accepted by Eastern pundits and Western translators, used to arouse Master's droll criticism. ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... shouldn't complain," said she, glancing indicatively round. "One can still be out of doors, and yet not get the wetting one deserves. And the view is so fine, and these faded old frescoes are so droll." ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... 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 ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... an utterly false one—though I suppose it will help her just the same! It's knowing the truth that hurts, sometimes." And Sara's lips twisted a little. "What a droll world it is—of shame and truth all mixed up—the ugly and the beautiful all ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... you know 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 ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... careful than ever about keeping her fast to her perch by that long chain. There is no telling what a wise old bird of her nature might not attempt, given freedom. I sometimes think she has a little devil in her, when she says something wonderful, and looks so droll. But you have given me a very happy half hour, for which I thank ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... thanks, little one!" exclaimed Louise. "How droll you are! I will give you many kisses with all the good will. Yes, and I do grieve to see you ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... if she thought I must be joking. "It would be droll, wouldn't it, to have Tammany appointees teaching Altrurianism?" Then she said, after a moment of reflection: "Why not? It needn't be in the hands of Tammany. It could be in the hands of the United States; I will ask my lawyer if it couldn't; ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... arts, 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 of "Poeta nascitur non fit" was "a nasty poet for nothing ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... 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
... have a most interesting record of the author's recollections and experiences during more than forty years as a Practical Phrenologist. The volume is filled with history, anecdotes, and incidents, pathetic, witty, droll, and startling. Every page sparkles with reality, and is packed with facts too good to be lost. This book will be warmly welcomed by every reader, from the boy of twelve to ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... as was his habit when any droll idea crossed his mind; but again suppressing the inclination to smile, he ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... what had caused the little imp to leave his gift of nuts at her door, or yet more wonderful, what had prompted him to write his friendly little note. Its outrageous spelling was droll, but its kindly spirit was evident. He had attended school because he was compelled to, but he had paid but little ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks
... every point, including that most important point of all, that she preferred him to Geoff Templestowe and loved him as heartily as he loved her. Happiness and satisfied affection had a wonderfully softening influence on Clarence, but it was equally droll and delightful to Clover to see how absolutely Elsie ruled, how the least indication of her least finger availed to mould Clarence to her will,—Clarence, who had never yielded easily to any one else in the whole ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... of her weariness, concealed the treatment she had received from the girls, and the dejection it was beginning to occasion in spite of her courage; she even made the little home group laugh by her droll accounts of the day. Then they all petted and praised and made so much of her that her spirits rose to their usual height, and she said confidently, as she went to a long night's rest, "Don't you worry, little mother; I didn't expect to get broken in ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... their attention. It is to the mature Marquesan what a watch is to the European schoolboy. For ten years Queen Vaekehu had dunned the fathers; at last, but the other day, they let her have her will, gave her her coffin, and the woman's soul is at rest. I was told a droll instance of the force of this preoccupation. The Polynesians are subject to a disease seemingly rather of the will than of the body. I was told the Tahitians have a word for it, erimatua, but cannot ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... story of Susy Parlin on a New Year's day, only it is so hard to skip over Christmas. There is such a charm about Christmas! It makes you think at once of a fir tree shining with little candles and sparkling with toys, or of a droll Santa Claus with a pack full of presents, or of a waxen ...
— Little Prudy's Sister Susy • Sophie May
... the pies, 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 ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... confusedly over it, in a manner which has been happily compared to a "bewitched haystack," had it not been for a certain humorous twitch or convulsive movement, which affected one side of his countenance, whenever any droll idea passed through his mind. It was with a twitch of this kind, and a certain indescribable twinkle of his somewhat melancholy eye, as he seemed intuitively to form a hasty conception of the oddity of his appearance to a stranger unused to the bush, that he welcomed me to his clearing. He instantly ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... sets of people; but though Charles II. was a 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 ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with herself, and made such frightful grimaces that one was afraid to look at her. Nor could she be called stupid, for she had the inborn natural wit of the Andalusians, and when she spoke Spanish, could give very droll turns to her remarks. Her French was calculated to induce toothache in her hearers, and in the unfamiliar language the wit evaporated and left only the vulgar behind. She was the terror of her female friends, for she considered absolute freedom of speech to be the privilege and ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... Browning Club is as deliciously droll as any form of entertainment ever devised, provided one's sense of the ludicrous be strong enough to overcome the natural indignation aroused by seeing genuine poetry, the high gift of the gods, thus abused. The clubs meet in richly furnished ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... continued, "you make a so droll sermon ad the bull-ring. Ha! ha! I swear I thing you can make money to preach thad sermon many time ad the theatre St. Philippe. Hah! you is the moz brave dat I never see, mais ad the same time the moz rilligious man. Where I'm goin' to fin' one priest to make like dat? Mais, why ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... each of 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 ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... what pen can draw— Pathetic, kindly, droll or stern; And with a glance so quick to learn The inmost truth of ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... what a droll boy you are!" and by the way she spoke the youngsters knew that they had won their way. "Off with you both, then, quick! Take my white basket out of the breakfast-room, and see that you carry the eggs carefully, or I'm afraid we ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... hill, this Archibald said, Glencoe, if you take my advice, then make off with your self with all possible haste, ere an hour come and go you'll be put to it as hard as ever you was: some of the company began to droll and say, what shall become of me ? whether Glencoe believed him, or no, I cannot tell; but this I am sure of, that whereas before he was of intention to return to my father's house and stay all night, ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... Neither Angelique nor his men had turned a glance through the eastern gap, or thought of the stream sweeping to the dam. The spot where he sank, the broken floor, the inclosing walls, were their absorbing boundaries as to his fate. As the slaves saw him, a droll and sheepish look came on their faces at having wailed his death in his living ears. They shot through the door vigorously, and brought the boat with care alongside the trunk ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... honest-hearted fellows; at noon they invite me to participate in their frugal meal of rice and turnips. Passing sampans are greeted by the crew of our boat with the intelligence that a Fankwae is aboard; the news being invariably conveyed with a droll "ha-ha!" and received with the same. Indeed, the average Chinese river-man or agriculturist, the simple-hearted children of the water and the soil, seem to regard the Fankwae as a creature so remarkably comical, that the mere mention of ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... last, almost without exception, this story is delightfully droll, humorous and illustrated in harmony ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... dreaded starvation. They grew angry with Columbus, and threatened to take his life if he did not command the ships to be turned back toward Spain, but his patience did not give out, nor was his faith one whit the less. He cheered the hearts of the men as best he could, often telling them droll, funny stories to distract their thoughts from the terrible dread which now ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... continued. "It's a sort of a sanctuary, you know; you'll be safe there to-day. If you value your life, don't set foot outside the place, and I'd even be chary about picking flowers in the garden," he added in his droll way. "To-night, Jose and I will have your horses ready and waiting for you in the canon at the foot of the trail which leads to the top of the mesa overlooking the valley. You must get away under cover of the dusk before the moon rises. Old Manuela will ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... humourous story about an Englishman, an American, and an Irishman, at which the English passengers laugh, having a tradition that "you Yankees are such droll chaps!" The chairman now switches quickly from the quasi-ridiculous to the pseudo-sublime, and works up to his big moment, which has for its climax the table-pounding statement that "the Anglo-Saxon race must ...
— Ship-Bored • Julian Street
... felt by his tutor and his companions. His most remarkable characteristic, however, was the exuberant spirits {p.xvi} which found vent in constant flashes of merriment brightened and pointed with wit and satire at once droll and tormenting. Even a lecture-room was not exempt from these irrepressible sallies; and our tutor, who was formal and wished to be grave, but had not the gift of gravity, never felt safe in the presence of his mercurial ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... had forgotten my duty. I'll attend to my business better in future.' And turning to a small, shy damsel, who seldom met with a partner, he asked her to dance. Eveleen came back to Laura with a droll disappointed gesture. 'Insult to injury,' said ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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 not lead us upwards. Then the phrase of a ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... 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 rashly tempted its wisdom—especially ...
— The Square of Sevens - An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note • E. Irenaeus Stevenson
... "'Thou art a droll knave,' replies Guttorm, for he was ever fond of a joke; 'but thou art wise also, therefore I advise thee to make a pattern pair of wings for the men; and ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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
... the moth-eaten earlaps turned up at the sides and looking exactly like small furry ears. These, with the round steel spectacles which he wore—the only distinctive feature of his countenance—gave him an indescribably droll appearance. ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... it has been made with a fine taste, so that it harmonizes with the subject under consideration, we are justly pleased; but neither you nor I believe in the people who value books for the sake of their covers only. Beauty and richness of thought, treasures of varied truth, sparkling wit, droll humor, or downright earnestness are the qualities in books that hold our esteem. A book must have a soul and life of its own as truly as you or I; and the costliest materials, the wealth of a kingdom, cannot make a true book any more than a perfect costume ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... 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 resembled a Dresden ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... "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 is now cooking ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... droll—the way I managed to scurry like a jack-rabbit through school and college on nothing a year. I was obliged to hurry post-graduate courses and Europe and such agreeable things. Otherwise I would probably ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... of the plains, was called the "bull-wagon boss"; the teamsters were known as "bull-whackers"; and the whole train was denominated a "bull-outfit." Everything at that time was called an "outfit." The men of the plains were always full of droll humour and exciting stories of their own experiences, and many an hour I spent in listening to the recitals of thrilling ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... the lucifer matches. She suddenly felt shy, when the little feeble light made them visible. All she could see was, that her brother's face was unusually dark in complexion, and she caught the stealthy look of a pair of remarkably long-cut blue eyes, that suddenly twinkled up with a droll consciousness of their mutual purpose of inspecting each other. But though the brother and sister had an instant of sympathy in their reciprocal glances, they did not exchange a word; only, Margaret felt sure that she should like her brother as a companion as much as she ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... counted on to abominate, with a keener if less disinterested abhorrence 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, to which ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... you are nervous, you are certain of one thing only: that you are the king of asses, and had better imitate the immortal colonel who hurled his book of salmon flies into the pool shouting "Here, take the bally lot." The droll thing was that Halford never dreamed that his chum was put out by his good intentions, or that the victim's feeble smiles were but ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... compensations for a new writer. The 'equal popularity' of 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, in ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... good stories which have for their point the passions of the natural man breaking forth, in members of this persuasion, in a shape more droll than distressing. One of the best of these is a north-country anecdote preserved by Francis Douglas in his Description of the East Coast of Scotland. The hero was the first Quaker of that Barclay family which produced the apologist and the pugilist. He was a colonel in the great ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... with for the rest of my journey was very droll. This consisted of Borup, later Mayor of Finance, and a journalist named Falkman (really Petersen), even at that time on the staff of The Dally Paper. I little guessed then that my somewhat vulgar travelling companion would ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... am. I am in love with them both. Old fool! Too much emotion—too much emotion. It is what I was afraid of. No; it is that I wished for. Gwynplaine, be careful of her. Yes, let them kiss; it is no affair of mine. I am but a spectator. What I feel is droll. I am the parasite of their happiness, and I am nourished ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... society flung aside, and see them without the mask, their cynicism forgotten, mingling cries and tears over the sorrows of the world. But neither she nor any third person would ever see their social discretion thus betrayed, and she concludes, in her droll way, "C'est une vision!" In another letter to Mme de Grignan (June 6, 1672) she says of the Duke, "Il connait quasi aussi bien ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... cheer coming to them as echoes from the well-nigh forgotten past. His father often sat by his sick-bed, and beguiled his small son from fears and pains by tales "of ship-wreck on outlying iron skerries' pitiless breakers, and great sea-lights, clothed in language apt, droll and emphatic." His mother and Cummie read to him day and night. Thus early the instinct of authorship was fired ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... snaw-white seventeen hunder linen!— Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair, That ance were plush o' guid blue hair, I wad hae gien them off my hurdies, For ae blink o' the bonie burdies! But wither'd beldams, auld and droll, Rigwoodie hags wad spean a foal, Louping an' flinging on a crummock. I wonder did ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... at all. This skin contracts whenever I form a wish—'tis a paradox. There is a Brahmin underneath it! The Brahmin must be a droll fellow, for our desires, look you, are ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... of Uncle Terry was his unfailing good humor, tinged with a mild sarcasm. He loved his fellow-men, and yet enjoyed puncturing their small conceits, but so droll was his way of doing it that no one felt the sting. To Bascom, who kept the only store, and also post-office, at the Cape, and dearly loved to hear himself talk, Uncle Terry once said: "You've got ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... 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 ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... fleurs-de-lis interspersed with woolsacks. The Fuggers of Augsburg, when desiring a coat, asked Maximilian for lilies—for, said these wealthy spinners—as for the lilies, "They toil not, neither do they spin." With droll invention Jacques had one of his fireplaces made like a fortress, with little windows above, out of which folk are peeping. He had a gift for pungent mottoes. Here are some he had wrought into the decorations of ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... sprung astraddle the corner of the billiard table, where, absurdly solemn, he declaimed tragically, combing the classics for sepulchral passages, plunging the intent listeners into deepest melancholy but concluding with a droll extemporization that swept them from verge of ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... into a roar of laughter. They fairly howled with delight at Teddy's droll manner, but the Circus Boy did not even smile. He looked at them with a hurt expression in his eyes until the men were on the point ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... 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 Stranger in France • John Carr
... inadequacy of language to express the feelings I experienced, or to describe the wonders which I surveyed, an American gentleman, to my great amusement, tapped me on the shoulder, and "guessed" that it was "pretty droll!" It was difficult to avoid laughing in his face; yet I could not help envying him his vocabulary, which had so eloquently ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... day he asked me if I would like to talk to a native who had a story. When I expressed assent he took me out to a shed nearby and there I saw a husky Baluba who was labouring under some excitement. The reason was droll. Four days before, his wife had given birth to twins and there was great excitement in the village. The natives, however, refused to have anything to do with him because, to use their phrase, "he was too strong." His wife ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... a droll looking urchin. His trousers evidently belonged to an older brother, as the legs had been rolled over and over in an effort to make them short enough so that he might walk without treading upon them. His blouse must have been the property of the same person, for the sleeves had received the ...
— Princess Polly At Play • Amy Brooks
... 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 the countries ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... Lunison with four pieces of gold and five of silver to give him access to the chest. This Lunison did, and Hunus helped himself to as much as would fill a gallon-measure (vas sextarii mensuram) of the sacred remains. Eginhard's indignation at the "rapine" of this "nequissimus nebulo" is exquisitely droll. It would appear that the adage about the receiver being as bad as the thief was not current ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... I like McHale; he's droll, humorous, so cheerful, so easy-going. I can't think of him ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... "imphm, Hamish, as Aul' Nick said when his mouth was fu'. Yon's Finlay's beast, and I'm thinkin' o' a' Finlay's lassies, there's just wan wid bother her noddle tae come here away, and that's Mirren; but wae's me," said he, with his droll smile, "she's set her cap at the excise-man, ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... The clown was a being almost too good for this world, seeing that his whole time was spent in making people laugh uproariously, and that he was so wonderfully unselfish in the way he allowed himself to be kicked and knocked about—always landing in positions so excruciatingly droll that you quite forgot to ask if he were hurt. All the ladies who galloped round the ring, and did such marvellous things, treating a mettled steed as though he were as motionless as a kitchen table, seemed to Norah ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... 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 ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... held my customary levee. The Governor of the place asked my permission to enter my luxuriously furnished apartments, to show me an amusing set of irons that had been discovered in one of the cells used during the last two hundred years for the storage of fire-wood. The droll things were called the "Little Ease," and seemingly, were intended to create merriment. One of the officers was complacent enough to assume them, and caused great diversion by his eccentric gestures. My levee was not quite so ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... all in my lord's travelling carriage, and cried, "Down with the persecutor! down with Hanging Hermiston!" and mamma covered her eyes and wept, and papa let down the glass and looked out upon the rabble with his droll formidable face, bitter and smiling, as they said he sometimes looked when he gave sentence, Archie was for the moment too much amazed to be alarmed, but he had scarce got his mother by herself before his shrill voice was raised ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to tread. You mustn't mind being called a fool in any sentence so preposterous as to call me an angel. You see one who had never been in the crowd would say—'Why don't you get out?' It would be droll, wouldn't it, to have some one on a far hill call—'But why don't you come over here?' Don't you see how that must appeal to the sense of humor of the one about to ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... began a poem in the style and stanza of Spenser, in which I propose to give full scope to my inclination, and be either droll or pathetic, descriptive or sentimental, tender or satirical, as the humour strikes me; for, if I mistake not, the measure which I have adopted admits equally of all these kinds of composition."[5] Strengthened in my opinion by such authority, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... regiment embark for Niblitt's Bluff to meet Banks. This corps is now dismounted cavalry, and the procession was a droll one. First came eight or ten instruments braying discordantly, then an enormous Confederate flag, followed by about four hundred men moving by fours—dressed in every variety of costume, and armed with every variety of weapon; about sixty ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... luncheon the Chief had scrupulously avoided making, the slightest allusion to the thoughts with which Desmond's mind was seething. Instead he had told, with the gusto of the born raconteur, a string of extremely droll yarns about "double crosses," that is, obliging gentlemen who will spy for both sides simultaneously, he had come into contact with during his long and varied career. Desmond had played up to him and repressed the questions which kept rising to his lips. ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... no kind of fiction more amiable and engaging than the droll legends of infancy and pious recollections of boyhood. Do you suppose that Wordsworth has given us a complete portrait of the boy that he was, in 'The Prelude'? He says not a word about the picture of his grandmother that he broke with his whip because the other children gave him a 'dare,' ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... being 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 ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... him, and he considered the whole matter in a light so business-like and professional as to be quite amusing. He talked of the Duke, said he was a good man to do business with, quick and intelligent, and 'how well he managed that little correspondence with Huskisson,' which was droll enough, for Huskisson dined there ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... 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 the ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... assertion without foundation, since he had been nursed at home under her own eye. Never in his life had he been called anything but Jan; address him as Janus, or as Mr. Verner, and it may be questioned if Jan would have answered to it. People called him "droll," and, if to be of plain, unvarnished manners and speech is to be droll, Jan decidedly was so. Some said Jan was a fool, some said he was a bear. Lady Verner did not accord him any great amount of favour ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... a kind of dirt-pie under the direction of the mason, they brought a little vase containing coins, the which the member for the Gentlemanly Interest jingled, as if he were going to conjure. Whereat they said how droll, how cheerful, what a flow of spirits! This put into its place, an ancient scholar read the inscription, which was in Latin; not in English; that would never do. It gave great satisfaction; especially every time there was a good long substantive in the third declension, ablative ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... who may chance to read it at some remote future day. The physician of whom I now write was one who already dreaded bleeding, thought less of medicines than his fellows, and was, in fact, exceptionally acute. He did some droll things for the sick prelate, and had reasons yet more droll for what he did, but his practice was, as may happen on the whole, wiser than his reasons for its use. His patient was a man once bulky, but now thin, overworked, worried, subject to asthma, troubled with a bad stomach, prone ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... sister, 'just think how droll it is to run away with one's lover, and one's brother standing by aiding and abetting! Oh, fie! I'm ashamed of you! There, now, I've fastened this ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... waste of force. Halifax Bolton, who claimed to be the discoverer of the Younger Generation (in fiction) and was just twenty-eight himself, was a critic of formidable severity and the author of at least five claques. The intense concentration of writing routed his sense of humor, but he had as many droll stories in his repertoire as Todd. His wife, the famous "Alberta Jones," fierce Lucy Stoner, was the editor, at a phenomenal salary, of one of the "Woman's Magazines," and wrote short stories of impeccable style and indifferent content ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... good discussion of Cosmas's ideas, see Santarem, Hist. de la Cosmographie, vol. ii, pp. 8 et seq., and for a very thorough discussion of its details, Kretschmer, as above. For still another theory, very droll, and thought out on similar principles, see Mungo Park, cited in De Morgan, Paradoxes, p. 309. For Cosmas's joyful summing up, see Montfaucon, Collectio Nova Patrum, vol. ii, p. 255. For the curious survival in the thirteenth century ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... after our arrival at the hotel of the equestrians, I found that our Vermont acquaintance was one of the quaintest specimens of the Yankee race I had ever seen, and not a few examples had I met previous to my encounter with him. He had a droll impediment in his speech which gave to his actions and gestures a turn irresistibly comic, and then he told an excellent story, played the trombone, triangle, and bass viol, spoke Spanish well, drove one of the circus wagons, translated the bills, turned ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... 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
... accompanied by her maid, Susan. Through a 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 in ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... fish-strike, was vacant, but I heard in imagination the strains of his pagan accordion, and the himene which will never be forgotten by the Tahitians, "Hallelujah! I'm a bum!" Kelly had gone over the water to the jails of the United States, where life is hard for minstrels who sing such droll songs. ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... hobby, this spot of blossoms, and in it his short, bulky form, so whitened by his Jovian beard meerschaumed by the stains from his huge, curving German pipe, was often almost lost to view. He was like some droll gnome waddling about in a flower patch. Frequently someone had to be sent to find him among all those pets which he knew so well by their Latin and popular names and by their characteristics. While he grumbled and so often stormed about in the house, ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... was a travelling merchant, turned of threescore, a hale man, tall, strong, and stout, full of stories, gesticulations, and buffoonery, with the soul as well as the look of a mountebank, who, while he is making you laugh, picks your pocket. Amid all his droll looks and droll gestures, there remained one look untouched by laughter; and that one look was the true face, the others were but its mask. The Hanoverian was a pale, fat, bloated young man, whose father had made a large fortune in London, as an army- contractor. ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Deyncourt's age it was quite to be expected. And Ruth must remember she still had a sister, and that there was a happy home above. And now, if she would get that green wool out of the red plush iron (which really was a work-box—such a droll idea, wasn't it?), Ruth should hold the wool, and they would have a cosey little chat ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... were tossing their hay about in the middle of the menagerie, and Billy's legs shook under him as he looked up at the big beasts whose long noses and small, sagacious eyes filled him with awe. Sam was so tickled by the droll monkeys that they left him before the cage and went on to see the zebra, "striped just like Ma's muslin gown," Bab declared. But the next minute she forgot all about him in her raptures over the ponies and their ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... 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,' said he, 'allow ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... poem 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; one of which latter, entitled "The Prodigal Son," thus gravely ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... for illuminations are regularly preserved, but by what accident or design they were not filled up remains to be conjectured. The third part, or book, is fully illuminated like the first. There is a very droll illumination on folio vij.^{xx}. xij. At the end of the volume, on folio ccxxxiij., recto, is the following date: "Aujourduy iiij. Jour du Jullet lan mil ccc. soixante dix a este escript ce livre darmes par Micheaugatelet prestre demeurant en la ville de Tournay." Just before ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... very faithful, hard-working and willing beast, with rather droll ways of his own, and we were sorry that his end should come so soon. He could never be accused of being a handsome dog, in fact he was generally ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... assuredly unnecessary to see or hear more. I had already descried what a peaceful family life—upright, pure, and devoted—my friend Meurtrier hid under his chimerical gasconades. But the spectacle with which chance had favored me was at once so droll and so touching that I could not resist the temptation to watch for some moments longer. That indiscretion sufficed to show me the ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... round, 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 had read of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... probably did more for the science of meteorology than did any other man of his time: therefore he probably did more to hold back the science of meteorology than did any other man of his time. In Nature, 41-135, Mr. Symons says that Prof. Schwedoff's ideas are "very droll." ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... son) is really an exquisite droll, and I don't remember to have seen him in better form. He has some of the authentic ingredients of the old circus ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 3, 1917 • Various
... 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 ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... underwood, and seeing you through the leaves advancing with eager and rapid steps to the spot, conceals himself behind the entrance, and as you are just on the point of entering the hut, your foot just on the step, the droll sportsman puts his ugly head out of the window, as a yellow tortoise would his out of his shell, asking you, in most polite terms, what o'clock it is; or if it should chance to be raining a deluge at the time, remark in compassionate ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... his quaint speeches. He fancied that he had some mysterious internal malady, and would eat nothing but frumenty, a preparation of wheat; and his plaintive way of talking of his disease, as if he were someone else, was droll in the extreme. "What do you suppose President Davis made me a major-general for?" beginning with a sharp accent, ending with a gentle lisp, was a usual question to his friends. Superbly mounted, he was the boldest of horsemen, invariably leaving ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... stranger in spectacles, "prithee, tell us thy thoughts on the subject: dost thou know the author of this droll periodical?" ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... window a bright solitary star looked me calmly in the eyes. It was a strange intrusion of the vast eternities beckoning from the infinite spaces. I called the attention of one of my neighbors to it, but "Bones" was irresistibly droll, and Arcturus, or Aldebaran, or whatever the blazing luminary may have been, with all his revolving worlds, sailed uncared-for ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... a butterfly, a dogmatic, inspired, perfect, and incorrigible creature.... Being a finished child of nature, not a joint product, like most of us, of nature, history, and society, he abounded miraculously in his own clear sense, but was obtuse to the droll miscellaneous lessons of fortune. The cannonade of hard inexplicable facts that knocks into most of us what little wisdom we have, left Shelley dazed and ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... 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 ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... right, brother; that was a droll affair:' and then, addressing himself to me, he continued, 'You remember your Uncle Terence? A funny dog he was, and in his young days the very devil for lovemaking and fighting. Look here,' said the speaker, pointing to a small circular perforation in his side, which had been neatly patched. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... says I, 'why it's French. I guess you didn't expect to hear such good French, did you, away down east here? But we speak it real well, and it's generally allowed we speak English, too, better than the British.' 'Oh,' says he, 'you one very droll Yankee, dat very good joke, Sare; you talk Indian and call it French.' 'But,' says I, 'Mister Mount shear; it is French, I vow; real merchantable, without wainy edge or shakes—all clear stuff; it will ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... conversation reminded me of the hunting stories I had heard in the log cabins in Indiana, and I amused myself with thinking how some of the narrators would appear among my high-bred friends. There is such a quaint vivacity and droll-cry about that half-savage western life, as always gives it a charm in my recollection. I thought of the jolly old hunter who always concluded the operations of the day by discharging his rifle at ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... intimates, he would give full vent to his conversational 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 ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... fair. He would frequently, against his own interest, persuade a litigant of the injustice of his case, and induce him to throw it up. If not the undisputed leader of his circuit, he was the most beloved. Sometimes he disturbed the court by his droll and humorous illustrations, which called out irrepressible laughter but generally he was grave and earnest in matters of importance; and he was always at home in the courtroom, quiet, collected, and dignified, awkward as was his figure and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... majority, and the droll way in which Sam gave it put everybody in a good humour, and a very happy, delightful time was ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... 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 fellow. But the "Southern gentleman" was a man of different kidney ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee |
