"Comical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... laughed Barney, with a comical twist of his mug, "tin thousand will do for a nist egg. Wid thot for a nist egg, we ought to hatch out enough to kape us from becomin' objects of charity in our ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... man, so plump that he seemed all face and waistcoat. When he had rolled in upon two little turned legs, and sat down at his desk, all you could see of him was two little eyes, one broad pink face, and about half of a comical, big wig. Scarcely had the jurors taken their seats, when Mrs. Bardell's lawyers brought in the lady herself, half hysterical, and supported by two tearful lady friends. The ushers called for silence ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... Dorothy. "The manager came up and said the things should not be put out in people's way. He made the clerks remove all the truck from the aisles and I guess everybody was glad the army fell down. I never can forget those pink-and-white soldiers," and Dorothy straightened herself up in comical "soldier's arms" fashion, imitating the ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope
... way you happened here, You are my pet and my treasure dear— Such a Christmas present! O such a joy! Better than any kind of a toy! Something that eats and drinks and walks, And looks so lovely and almost talks; With a face so comical and wise, And such a pair of bright brown eyes! I'll tell you something: The other day I heard papa to my mamma say Very softly, "I really fear Our baby may be quite spoiled, my dear, We've made of our darling such a pet, I think the little ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... is an inspired man. Every inch of him is inspired—you might almost say inspired separately. He stamps with his feet, he tosses his head, he sways and swings to and fro; he has a wizened-up little face, irresistibly comical; and, when he executes a turn or a flourish, his brows knit and his lips work and his eyelids wink—the very ends of his necktie bristle out. And every now and then he turns upon his companions, nodding, signaling, beckoning ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... which you laugh too, and all laugh. He sings absurd medleys for which you improvise absurd choruses which make things go along as pleasantly as possible. Meanwhile the bottle is returned empty. He takes it, insists upon re-filling your "glass" from it, and tips it up over your cup. Then with a comical leer at you at the idea of attempting to pour wine from an empty bottle, he turns, dives into his cellar and fishes up another. You bid him go on with that capital song, offering to save him the trouble of unsealing and dispensing the jolly ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... upset me, so I stayed away. My quarters are excellent, and the head-waiter is such a waiter! Knowles (not Sheridan Knowles, but Knowles of the Cheetham Hill Road[28]) is an ass to him. This sounds bold, but truth is stranger than fiction. By-the-by, not the least comical thing that has occurred was the visit of the upholsterer (with some further calculations) since I began this letter. I think they took me here at the New London for the Wonderful Being I am; they were amazingly sedulous; and no doubt they looked for my being visited ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... for some of the choice morsels, and parodied them in an amusing manner. He never could retain an enmity very long, however, and so at the end of the banquet he parodied one of his own arias, the famous "Non piu andrai," by giving it a comical turn to suit Leporello's situation. The criticism of one of the best biographers of Mozart upon this opera is worth repeating in this connection: "Whether we regard the mixture of passions in its concerted music, the ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... nothing, but with a half-comical, half-displeased expression he watched the interview between that weird old woman and the fair young girl, little suspecting how nearly ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... lazily. Then Horatio laid down his violin and slipped one arm into the waistcoat, trying vainly to reach with the other. Bo good-naturedly helped him. The little boy felt in the humor for fun, and Horatio looked too comical. ...
— The Arkansaw Bear - A Tale of Fanciful Adventure • Albert Bigelow Paine
... wildly and darted into the little bedroom. The man listened. He whistled in surprise almost comical. He had forgotten the baby. He could hear ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... of the tribe did a little foot-runnin', and Mike begged 'em to let him in. It was comical to see how pleased they was. They felt so sure of him that they began pro-ratin' our belongin's among one another. They laid out a half-mile course, and everybody in camp went out to the finish-line to see ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... (unconformity) 83; laughingstock &c. 857. V. be ridiculous &c. adj.; pass from the sublime to the ridiculous; make one laugh; play the fool, make a fool of oneself, commit an absurdity. Adj. ridiculous, ludicrous; comical; droll, funny, laughable, pour rire, grotesque, farcical, odd; whimsical, whimsical as a dancing bear; fanciful, fantastic, queer, rum, quizzical, quaint, bizarre; screaming; eccentric &c. (unconformable) 83; strange, outlandish, out of the way, baroque, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... are you?" cried a silver-toned voice from a passage outside the drawing-room in which I had just seated myself. The next instant a lovely face appeared at the door, its owner tripped into the room, made a comical curtsy, and ran up to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... the next minute she's asking me to lunch on Bowling Green, as pleasant as you please! Can you beat it? And I can't for the life of me make out whether she's young or old—her voice's dandy and young. Honest, I like to hear her talk, she talks so comical—but don't she look like the last rose of summer, ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... a genius who erected a 10-Lead mill in a new district, and who adopted the novel idea of placing a "bed log" laterally beneath his stampers. The log was laid in a little cement bed which, when the battery started, was not quite dry. The effect was comical to every one but the unfortunate owners. It was certainly the liveliest, but at the same time one of the most ineffective ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... lament loudly, their wailings being interspersed with comical remarks and questions to the dead as to why he preferred to leave this world, having everything to make life comfortable. They place the corpse on a little seat in a ditch or grave four or five feet deep, and for ten days they bring food, requesting the ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... personal appearance, of which he always took the greatest care, he had a naive admiration that he did not disguise. His candor in this respect was comical; yet, strange to say, he was ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... Yorke, who leaned carelessly on his rifle. Jerry struggled into the dress by slow degrees, for the sun was burning hot, then got the cuffs clipped tightly about his wrists while Dailey and Birch fastened on the heavy corselet. The sixteen-pound boots came next, and very comical indeed the old quartermaster looked, with his white hair blowing in the wind and his blue eyes as eager and lively as ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... be! But amusing bloodshed, and comical murder. Life is a burlesque catastrophe, a terrible comedy, the mask of carnival over blood-stained cheeks. That is what life means to the artist; the artist on the stage, and ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... Under the Gellert-form it started in the Panchatantra, a collection of Sanskrit fables; and it has even been discovered in a Chinese work which dates from A. D. 668. Usually the hero is a dog, but sometimes a falcon, an ichneumon, an insect, or even a man. In Egypt it takes the following comical shape: "A Wali once smashed a pot full of herbs which a cook had prepared. The exasperated cook thrashed the well-intentioned but unfortunate Wali within an inch of his life, and when he returned, ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... home; and Master Arthur gave such a comical account of their adventure, that the Rector laughed too much to scold them, even if ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... to be whipped or pilloried. In consideration, however, of the fact that many of them had been brave soldiers, the punishment was omitted when they confessed and asked forgiveness. This episode is very comical; it exhibits the Puritan youth in such an ungallant and absurd light. When, ten years later, liberty was given to ten young men, who had sat in the "foure backer seats in the gallery," to build a pew in "the hindermost seat in the gallery behind ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... face that he thought was comical. Zara, realizing that she was helpless against his greater strength, had stopped struggling, and he turned on her suddenly with ...
— A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire - The Camp Fire Girls In the Woods • Jane L. Stewart
... behind, and grafted the rest on to the relict of the late Mr F.; thus making a moral mermaid of herself, which her once boy-lover contemplated with feelings wherein his sense of the sorrowful and his sense of the comical were curiously blended. ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... though with more seriousness than the report deserved—yet talking to one's dearest friend is neither wrong nor out of season. Nay, you are my best apology. I have always contented myself with your being perfect, or, if your modesty demands a mitigated term, I will say, unexceptionable. It is comical, to be sure, to have always been more solicitous about the virtue of one's friend than about one's own-yet, I repeat it, you are my apology -though I never was so unreasonable as to make you answerable for my faults in return; ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... week, and she answered him perhaps once a fortnight. Not more. She had to put the screw on herself to outdo him in frugality. She respected him enormously for his mastery of himself, and could not have told how much it enhanced her love. It was really comical that precisely what she had condemned James for she found admirable in Jimmy. James had neglected her for his occupations, and Jimmy was much away about his. In the first case she resented, in the second she was not far from adoration of such a sign ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... of the patient—the ceremonious difficulty with which they are at first brought to deliver their opinions—the vivacity and fury with which each finally defends his own, menacing the instant death of the patient if any other treatment be observed, seemed all to the public highly comical, and led many reflecting men to think Lisette was not far wrong in contending that a patient should not be said to die of a fever or a consumption, but of four doctors and two apothecaries. The farce enlarged the sphere of Moliere's enemies, but as the poet suffered ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... and broke off. His look was one of comical confusion and trouble. So much so that it was too much for the ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... knocker at the door of city, county and state Whig conventions, and when the Know-Nothings appeared he turned to them to back his ambition. Possibly they knew that his parents were foreign-born, but the mystery surrounding his own birthplace became a comical feature of the canvass. It was claimed, upon what seemed proper evidence at the time, that Ullman was born in India and had not become a naturalised citizen of the United States. This made him ineligible as the candidate ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... him with an air of surprise that would have been comical under less grievous conditions. She knew, with a vague definiteness, that death was near, perhaps unavoidable, and it had never occurred to her that she or any other person on board need feel any concern about the view entertained ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... Enderby, though perfectly civil, was evidently hostile to us, and tried to keep her sister out of our way as much as she could, thickening engagements upon her, at which Viola made all the comical murmurs her Irish blood could prompt, but of course in vain. Eustace's great ambition was to follow her to her parties, and Lady Diana favoured him when she could; but Harold would have nothing to do with such penances. He never missed a chance of seeing Viola come down attired for them, ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... laughter. It is good to be merry; but I must confess it is not within the bounds of my capacity to discover a source of merriment in such pranks of wit as these people enjoy. A young fellow makes a face like an owl—every body roars laughing, the idea is so exquisitely comical. Another pulls his comrades by the hair, and every body shouts with uproarious merriment. One sly chap shoves another off his seat and takes possession of it—a feat so humorous that the whole crowd is convulsed. A bad orange, pitched across the deck, strikes an elderly gentleman ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... he answered to the shorter appellation of "K. K." Then came a fourth boy of shorter build, and more sturdy physique, Julius Hobson by name; and last, but far from least, Horatio Juggins, a rather comical fellow who often assumed a dramatic attitude, and quoted excerpts from some school declamation, his favorite, of course, being "Horatio at ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... in procession and singing funeral dirges. Yes! that had been a capital prank. Dubuche, who played the priest, had tumbled into the basin while trying to scoop some water into his cap, which was to serve as a holy water pot. But the most comical and amusing of all the pranks had perhaps been that devised by Pouillaud, who one night had fastened all the unmentionable crockery of the dormitory to one long string passed under the beds. At dawn—it was the very morning when the long vacation began—he ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... the first aeroplanes, and now their voice drowns all others. Their development has only normally proceeded, yet they alone suffice to make the territorial safeguards demanded by the deranged of former generations appear at last to all people as comical jests. Swept along by the engine's formidable weight, a thousand times more powerful than it is heavy, tossing in space and filling my fibers with its roar, I see the dwindling mounds where the huge tubes ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... a curious knack of putting the whole of his scalp into motion whenever he moved his eyebrows up or down; a comical peculiarity of which he availed himself whenever he wished to make anyone laugh, and saw that his words did not have ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... room before Campbell, and shaking hands with his guests: 'Ah, Mr. Bemis; Mrs. Bemis; Aunt Mary! You've heard of our comical little coincidence—our—Mr. Bemis and my—' He halts, confused, and looks around for the moral support of ...
— The Garotters • William D. Howells
... cot, making a little murmuring sound; and boasted how she would have shown off if awake, and laughed over her droll little jealousies of his even touching the twins. As she was asleep, he might venture; and it was comical to hear him declaring that no one need mistake them for each other, and to see him trying to lay them side by side on his knees to be compared, when they would roll over, and interlace their little scratching fingers; and Louis stood ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... comical, half pathetic, in which the "sweet harper" is assured as some requital for a hard life and a cruel death, that the Pantisocrats will raise a "solemn cenotaph" to his memory "Where Susquehana pours his untamed stream." ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... to a certainty be so hated by the men that they would answer the purpose of maintaining discipline fully as much as flogging. The ship's cook was a one-legged negro, a jolly, fat fellow with a comical expression of countenance, Sambo Lillywhite by name, generally known as Sam Lilly. Sam had a white mate called Tim Dippings, an incorrigibly idle rascal. One day Tim—not for the first time—had neglected to clean the galley, and on being reported, both he and ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... implacable fate, with calm, cold eyes, gazing above and beyond me. Between two slow heart beats I felt it was almost a duty to call him and bid him farewell, but some strange sense of shyness held me back. I tried so hard to think of what I might do, and the most grotesque and comical things suggested themselves. At one lucid moment I had the brilliant idea ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... Butsey White, a roly-poly, comical fellow of sixteen or seventeen, with a shaving-brush in one hand, held out the other with ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... for some castanets are used. It was customary after each change of step for the gentleman to recite a pretty little stanza complimentary to the lady, who in turn responded her refined appreciation also in verse, sometimes merely witty or comical rhymes were used. The music is ...
— Chimes of Mission Bells • Maria Antonia Field
... what she had done, but Stella's face, as she viewed the catastrophe, was so comical that Marjorie went off into peals of laughter. Molly joined in this, and the two girls laughed until the ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... fat boy with a comical face. At one of the rehearsals he sat in a boat and reached out for something. In doing this he fell overboard. He fell so comically that Belasco made his fall a part of the regular business. His ability got him a few lines, which were taken ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... long robe acquire, little by little, a restrained step and carriage, somewhat like a woman's, so that in ordinary masculine dress they may be discovered by their walk: one would say that they walk like women dressed in men's garments. The free stride in a narrow petticoat is almost comical. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... leaving the Bay, we had some rough weather. "Stables" used to be a comical function. My diary for the first rough day says:—"About six of us were there out of about thirty in my sub-division; our sergeant, usually an awesome personage to me, helpless as a babe, and white as a corpse, ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... as much bitterness in his bosom against DeFoe's ingenious hero as if Robinson had been a living person instead of a living fiction, and out of this animosity grew a dream so fantastic and comical that Richard awoke himself with a bewildered laugh just as the sunrise reddened the panes of the chamber window. In this dream somebody came to Richard and asked him if he had heard of that dreadful thing ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... all he was worth. How I enjoyed the sight of him! He was so charged with youthful energy, so overflowing with the joy of life, that he could scarcely contain himself. What a fine place the world was to him! And what comical and interesting people it contained! I was ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... the mold of rhythm. Not to save his life could he have suppressed the hastily conceived distich, or have let slip such a justifiable claim to applause. So, without heeding Melissa's remonstrance, he flung his sky-blue mantle about him in fresh folds, and declaimed with comical emphasis: ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... one finds some of the queerest people in the world. The men of the modern school are very much like other people; but the old stagers can still find some of their number who are as richly comical as Mr. Vincent Crummies himself. They are like the dyer's hand, subdued to what they work in. I was thrown a great deal into the society of one elderly young gentleman whose speciality had for years been that sort of high-flying rattling comedy of which Charles Mathews was the ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... stentorian by its volume and native vigour; but, when the owner of this incarnate bassoon had a mind to say something sagacious, he sank at once from his habitual roar to a sound scarce above a whisper; a contrast mighty comical to hear, though on ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... over a year, I cannot help regarding this feature of theatrical life as so much theatrical chaos. It lacks culture, and is sometimes both bizarre and neurotic. I do not object to patter, smart give and take, in which the comical angles of life are exposed, if it is brilliant; neither have I anything to say against light comedy in which the ridiculous side of things is portrayed. This sort of entertainment may help men who have spent a busy day, crowded with anxious moments, and weighted with ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... you are up to some trick,' said De Stancy, not, however, suspecting the actual truth in these unsuggestive circumstances, and with a comfortable resignation, produced by the potent liquor, which would have been comical to an outsider, but which, to one who had known the history and relationship of the two speakers, would have worn a sadder significance. 'I am too big a fool about you to keep you down as I ought; that's the fault of me, ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... my involuntary offence," said the young man, "and to believe that my smiling betokened no disrespect. My mirth was awakened by the comical pictures which thine ingenious ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... his deprecatory and comical lips as he imagined that that medal would purchase him the right to sigh dolorously in front of whatever stomacher it finally adorned. He could pour out odes in the learned tongue, for the space of a week, a day, or an ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... tattered ends of raiment. Had he not been so angry he must have roared at sight of his comical self ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... such a comical one that Dave and his chums laughed outright, and Tom Dillon and Abe Blower grinned broadly. Link Merwell reached down and assisted the former teacher to his feet. Job Haskers's face ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... the child was for the first time taken out into the open air. Now the g-sounds again become prominent—aga, ga, gugag. The child begins to creep, but often falls, and while making his toilsome efforts keeps crying out in a very comical manner, aech, ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... seventeenth century, Angelus Silesius (Scheffler of Breslau), who gave to the world his devotional thoughts in German Alexandrines; Father Abraham a Sancta Clara (Megerle of Swabia), a celebrated Viennese preacher, who, with comical severity, wrote satires abounding with wit and humorous observations; and Balde, who wrote some fine Latin poems on God and nature. Praetorius, A.D. 1680, the first collector of the popular legendary ballads concerning Ruebezahl and other spirits, ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... crown, and tied in a convenient crease of his double chin, secured his three-cornered hat and bob-wig from blowing off his head—there was no disguising his plump and comfortable figure; neither did certain dirty finger-marks upon his face give it any other than an odd and comical expression, through which its natural good humour ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... mirror, where she beheld her own brown eyes looking out of a face dashed over with black specks, thicker about the mouth, giving her altogether much the colouring of a very dark man closely shaved. It was so exceedingly comical, that she went off into fits of laughing, in which she was heartily joined by all ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... disgust of Polichinelle, to whom it fell. But the other parts had all been built up into importance, with the exception of Leandre, who remained as before. The two great roles were now Scaramouche, in the character of the intriguing Sbrigandini, and Pantaloon the father. There was, too, a comical part for Rhodomont, as the roaring bully hired by Polichinelle to cut Leandre into ribbons. And in view of the importance now of Scaramouche, the ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... into the camps of the Philistines, should find she had nothing to put on to grace the occasion. And as to Dolly,—well, that young person stood in the midst of them in her shabby, Frenchy little hat, slapping one pink palm with a shabby, shapely kid glove, her eyes alight, her comical dismay and amusement displaying itself even in ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of the greased pole. This is always comical enough, and aroused much enthusiasm. Nobody seems to be a favorite, and each successful attempt to mount is greeted with shrieks of laughter. So long as a valiant fellow is seen to be steadily making his way upwards, inch by inch, he may be applauded; but let him display the slightest hint ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... an opera. Dryden rewrote "Troilus and Cressida"; Davenant, "Macbeth." Davenant patched together a thing which he called "The Law against Lovers," from "Measure for Measure" and "Much Ado about Nothing." Dennis remodeled the "Merry Wives of Windsor" as "The Comical Gallant"; Tate, "Richard II." as "The Sicilian Usurper"; and Otway, "Romeo and Juliet," as "Caius Marius." Lord Lansdowne converted "The Merchant of Venice" into "The Jew of Venice," wherein Shylock was played as a comic character down to the time of Macklin and Kean. Durfey tinkered "Cymbeline." ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... a rather severe and unexpected trial to Otto, who had come up to the cave brimming over with camp news for Pauline's benefit. He felt that it was next to impossible to relate in a whisper all the doings and sayings, comical and otherwise, that he had seen and heard that day. To eat his dinner and say nothing seemed equally impossible. To awaken the wearied sleeper was out of the question. However, there was nothing for it but to address himself ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... worthy of a penny, he added to Billy Buch's woe by taking off his comical cap and passing ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... Madam in the nightcap; and by this time the film of slumber was gone; and the suspicion struck her somehow in altogether so comical a way that she could not help laughing in her ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... gone down two feet already," said Walter, in a discouraged voice, as he started wielding the paddle again. "I guess there is something wrong with our calculation, Charley." He stopped suddenly and looked up with a comical look ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... talking quite is much at Wilding as to Vendale. And yet, in spite of his care for his client, he was so amused by his client's Quixotic conduct, as to eye him from time to time with twinkling eyes, in the light of a highly comical curiosity. ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... it with comical coolness; but Eloise screamed, as a little spaniel was perceived to ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... complication and intricacy have diverted us during the course of the action; if he really smooths them all off by making his fools become rational, or by reforming or punishing his villains, then there is an end at once of everything like a pleasant and comical impression. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... south gate of the Asylum grounds, I was about to ring, but my friend held my arm and begged me to rap with my stick, which I did. An old man with a very comical face presently opened the gate and put out ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... to his "body-servant," and to regale the chair-tilted loungers along the City Hotel front with a tale of picking the fellow up on a Southern battle-field, and of winning his dog-like devotion by subsequent valor upon other fields. "It was pathetic, and comical, too, gentlemen, to hear that nigger beg me on his bended knees to take better care of myself and not insist upon getting to the front of every charge. 'Stay back and let some of the others do a little fighting,' he would say, with tears rolling down his black cheeks. And I admit ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... the phonograph was comical in the extreme. To hear those grave and reverend signors, rich ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... standing in the water as usual, but the boys could not make out what some of the others were doing. On the flat shore were several heaps of earth, and across them some of the birds were apparently sitting with one leg straddling out each side. So comical was their aspect, that the boys burst into a laugh, which so scared the flamingoes that they all took flight instantly. The boys now waded up to the spot, and then got ashore to see what these strange heaps were for. To their great delight they found that they were ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... cousin of hers; her beauty, and gracious ways, her foreign accent, and now her experiences of nuns and convents had come like a revelation to the little English girl in her downright, everyday life. With a comical incongruity, she could compare her in her own mind to nothing but an enchanted princess in some fairy tale; and she stood gazing first at her and then at the glass, where soft wavy brown hair and red and ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... thinking what rare fun it would be to travel with some one who saw the comical side of everything, and who could extract pleasure straight along, as a bee could gather up honey. He enjoyed the fun mightily, but he could not always bring it to pass. Joe and Jim had a humourous side; but John had always been grave and steady-going. Ben wanted some one to stir up the ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... resolute and yet comical, in his manner, that everyone felt there would be fun if he took part. Seeing how matters stood as to the score, he gave a knowing wink to Barry Outcalt, and said he "didn't mind pitchin' in." He had never distinguished himself ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... startled by a voice so near at hand, for she had heard no footfall on the thick turf. There, in the centre of the grass-grown space, stood two comical little midgets, their smutty yet cherubic faces blooming brightly above garments highly coloured and earthy, too, ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... evidently appreciated the comical element in the question, but he looked at Newman a moment with extreme soberness. "I am a very good Catholic. I respect the Church. I adore the blessed ...
— The American • Henry James
... rather, And, with a comical smile, Mutters, "I won't," to her father,— Eyeing him ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... So infectious was it, that after the briefest conflict, consternation fled the field, a little smile appeared, and then a merrier, and in a moment she was laughing with him. And certainly for a man commonly most careful of his appearance, he cut a comical enough figure, with his shoeless feet and tangled hair, and the great ill-fitting sheep-skin coat huddled round him to hide the ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... fine to have the house open all the time? We can run over and see the pictures and books whenever we like. I know we can, Miss Celia is so kind," began Betty, who cared for these things more than for screaming peacocks and comical donkeys. ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... so, nothing more. And illness, you know, bewilders the brain, and breeds strange and maddening dreams. What signify dreams? Dreams come from the stomach and cannot signify anything. Is it not so, Daniel? I had a very comical dream just ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... no doubt more interesting than others, especially perhaps those which live together in true communities, and which offer so many traits—some sad, some comical, and all interesting,—which reproduce more or less closely the circumstances of ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... at the little shop where we went for our new clothes was comical, even to me, though I am used to brother's ways; so I could not wonder that some sailors at ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill
... rest of us were dressing. It was a short flight of steps, but as she held a candle, and was carrying her costume, she fell awkwardly, spraining her wrist and ankle. Finding that she was not maimed for life, Lady Ardmore turned with comical and unsympathetic haste to Francesca, so completely do amateur theatricals dry the milk of kindness in the ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... time tryin' to count the buttons up Policeman Rat-it-all's uniform, an' that if the wind should shift of a sudden and catch you with your eyes bulgin' out of your head like they'm doin' at this moment, happen 'twill fix you up comical for life: an' then instead of your growin' up apprenticed to a butcher, as has been your constant dream, we'll have to put you into a travellin' show for a gogglin' May-game, an' that's where your heart will be turnin' ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... musician, at the congress of Welsh fairies, was the most comical of any in the company. The saying that he was popular with all the mountain spirits was shown to be true, the moment he began to scrape his fiddle, for then they all ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... him. Say, and when I saw him with Inspector Fyles, I remembered what Charlie said about him having no sense, and I had to laugh, and I think he thought I was grinning at him, and that's why he raised his hat to me. It seemed so comical—looked just as if he was being brought in charge of a policeman for fear he'd lose himself, and would never find himself again. He's surely a real live man, and I've fallen in love with him right away, and, if you don't find something to send me ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... soon clinging to Jerry's shell. He was dripping from head to foot, and not being at all a handsomely-formed or good-looking youth, he presented a most comical appearance. ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... was a buggy and a horse, and in the buggy sat a smiling young woman. Why she smiled Sam could not imagine; but then, he could not see the comical expression on his own face on being thus suddenly aroused to a sense of ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... of sufficient length to reach every boy around him, and now and then, without rising from his seat, he touches one or other up in the same manner as the driver of a mail-coach takes a fly off his leader's ear. The imperturbable gravity of the master, and the comical looks and quaint attire of the boys, form a picture which could ...
— Harper's Young People, February 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Howells of the interview, detailing at some length Twichell's comical mixture of delight and chagrin at not being given time to air the fund of prepared statistics with which he had come loaded. It was as if he had come to borrow a dollar and had been offered a thousand before ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... shrugged his shoulders, and looked at Madame Midas in such a comical manner that she ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... the level at the bottom of the steep scarp, when, looking up, he could not help smiling at the great care Billy displayed in descending, for he lowered his short legs over the edge as he held on and began feeling about in a most absurdly comical manner for the nearest projection which he ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... not on the bills; he was to surprise the public as a clown, and therefore his name was never mentioned. He generally amused the spectators in a comical way, and always made them laugh; even now, when he had finished his work, he mingled with the peasants and ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... with jam or preserves without failing to get most of it on her mouth. Dot Clarendon was no exception to the rule; and before she was through a goodly part of it, the sticky sweet stuff was on her cheeks and nose. When she looked up at the two who were watching her, the sight was so comical that Red Feather did that which I do not believe he had done a dozen times in all his life—he threw back his head and laughed loud. Melville caught the contagion and gave way to his mirth, which was increased by the naive remark of Dot ...
— The Story of Red Feather - A Tale of the American Frontier • Edward S. (Edward Sylvester) Ellis
... his wife insisted so strongly, and with such determination to have her own way, that he compromised by adding to his scanty wardrobe a black frock-coat and a tall silk hat, which gave him a rather more comical than ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... iron blinds of the shops are pulled down; all the carriages have disappeared; the only sign of life in the Escolta is the comical little tram-car, loaded down with little brown men dressed in white, the driver tooting a toy horn, and all the passengers dismounting ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... her great amused blare. "You've already seen her and she has told you her wondrous tale? What's 'in it' is what has been in everything she has ever done—the most comical, tragical belief in herself. She thinks she's doing ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... forty years from slavery, the declarations of the early extinction of the Negro, under the conditions of freedom, are comical and absurd. It was affirmed with all the authority of divine prophecy that the Negro race could not exist under any other condition than slavery, and this concern became a basis for contending for his ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... general-in-chief, and he was accompanied by his cousin, Henry of Conde; but Navarre was a boy of little more than fifteen, and his cousin was not much older. Nothing could for the present be expected from such striplings; and the public, ever ready to look upon the comical side of even the most serious matters, was not slow in nicknaming them the "admiral's two pages."[684] Coligny, however, was not crushed by the new responsibility which devolved upon him. No longer hampered by the authority of one whose counsels often verged ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... a little German whom I might capture all by myself. I used to tell them not to bring out a big one, as it might look boastful for a chaplain. Here were three ready to hand for which I had to pay nothing. We moved on through the smoke, a most comical procession. The sergeant went ahead and I brought up the rear. Between us went the three terror-stricken prisoners, crouching every now and then when shells fell near us. At last we stumbled on a company of the 2nd Battalion coming forward, ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... old-fashioned gold watch-chain: his head thrown a little on one side, and his hat a little more on one side than his head, (but that was evidently accident; not his ordinary way of wearing it,) with such a pleasant smile playing about his mouth, and such a comical expression of mingled slyness, simplicity, kind-heartedness, and good-humour, lighting up his jolly old face, that Nicholas would have been content to have stood there and looked at him until evening, and to have forgotten, meanwhile, that there was such ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... been overboard during the late afternoon. It was not a voluntary swim the comical chum had been enjoying, either; these plunges never were, but it seemed as though Jimmy must lose his balance once in so often just while the canoes were negotiating through some wild rapids, and in consequence he had to make the ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... hair, and fanning our brown faces, and going out far on the point, we came upon a little shining lake, surrounded by rocks, upon which we could sit, and dabble our feet in the water. It was no place more than a foot deep, and we decided to wade round in it. It was a comical sight to see us navigating ourselves in procession through that water, but it was a very questionable joke, when Milly Sayre jumped and screamed, and ran like a frantic creature from the pool, and up ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... Suzanne, whose present comical performance was to exercise a great influence in the principal personages of our history, was a work-girl at Madame Lardot's. One word here on the topography of the house. The wash-rooms occupied the whole of the ground floor. The little courtyard was used ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... that was in the southern part of the village? On being informed that it was the meeting-house, he remarked, with a dogged air, that 'he had often seen the LORD'S house, but had never seen the LORD'S barn before!' The comical remark of the traveller produced an immediate action. The good old house soon disappeared. A more ambitious edifice was built in another part of the village. The land-marks are now entirely effaced, and the spot where it stood has been added ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... be silenced, however, by this intelligence; and while the remainder of the punch lasted the conversation was wholly engrossed by the gentleman with the fine waistcoat, who told a great many "immense comical stories" and "confounded smart things," as he termed them, acted and spoken by lords, ladies, and young bucks of quality, of his acquaintance. At last, the grazier, pulling out a watch, of a very unusual size, and telling the hour, said that he ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... Dorothy, "that is too comical. Of course not, dear one. I was speaking of—of a man who had been smoking tobacco, as Malcolm does." Then she explained ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... chosen to serve the State In the halls of legislative debate, One day with all his credentials came To the capitol's door and announced his name. The doorkeeper looked, with a comical twist Of the face, at the eminent egotist, And said: "Go away, for we settle here All manner of questions, knotty and queer, And we cannot have, when the speaker demands To be told how every member stands, A man who to all things under the sky ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... with your nonsense."— "May be it an't nonsense your honor means?" "And why not, sirrah?"—"Bekase it's not in your nature to spake light o' the dead." Up to this point, my attention had been divided between the Morning Chronicle which lay upon my breakfast table, and Barney's comical relation; a glance at the narrator, however, as he finished the last sentence, convinced me that I ought to have treated him with more feeling. He was holding my hat towards me, when the pearly drop of affliction burst uncontrollably forth, and hung on the side of the beaver, like ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... large stealings from my domain there, which lost none of their value from being transferred to his pages. Next to his private readings which he gave us there, the most notable recollection is that of his intense amusement at some comical songs which our young people used to sing, developing a sense of humor which a superficial observer would hardly have discovered, but which you and I know he possessed in a ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... a nightcap drawn over his wig, and a short greatcoat, which half covered his cassock—a dress which, added to something comical enough in his countenance, composed a figure likely to attract the eyes of those who were ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... place than the spot where their horses floundered and writhed; and did not notice the approach of the fugitives. Nay, the two had reached the very edge of the quagmire before the Indians noticed the Cree boys. The yell that then went up from their throats was most comical. ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... lurked in the couriers eye as he made his report, and heard Amy exclaim, in a tone of disgust and comical despair,— ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... many things with great distinctness, and although at first refusing rather spitefully to make my acquaintance, when I invited him to come into the kitchen and get his supper he at once hopped upon my hand and behaved in the most amicable manner. It was very comical to see him dance to a tune of Mr. Whittier's whistling. His master told us that he would climb toilsomely up the spout, pausing at every step or two to say, in a tone of the deepest self-pity, 'Poor Charlie!' and ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... theirs was deadly enough," he said. "And its nature reflects the nature of the people who made it. Any race vicious enough to use atomic charges is too dangerous to trifle with." Worry made comical creases in his fat, good-humored face. "We'll have to find out who they are and why ...
— Control Group • Roger Dee
... one who could help grinning at Ferdinand Frog's news—he looked so comical. And old Mr. Crow, who was noted for his rudeness, even burst out with a ...
— The Tale of Ferdinand Frog • Arthur Scott Bailey
... comical deprecation crossed the face of the passenger, and he said, rather abruptly: "I hope Nanni is good to the rest ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... her, you see," he explained with an assumption of comical chagrin, "but with limitations. She's got to say she's sorry, or she can't ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... below the custom-house in Quebec; and it was a source of amusement to me to watch the horse ferry-boats that ply between the two shores. The captain told me there were not less than twelve of these comical-looking machines. They each have their regular hours, so that you see a constant succession going or returning. They carry a strange assortment of passengers; well and ill-dressed; old and young; rich and poor; cows, sheep, horses, pigs, dogs, fowls, market-baskets, vegetables, fruit, ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... Six-Cross-Roads, sweet girls adore him, fortune saves him from dire adventures, and in the end his fellow-voters choose him to represent their innumerable virtues in the Congress of their country without his even dreaming what affectionate game they are at. This from the creator of Penrod, who at the comical age of twelve so often lays large plans for proving to the heedless world that he, too, has been a hero all along! In somewhat happier hours Mr. Tarkington wrote Monsieur Beaucaire, that dainty romantic episode in the life of Prince Louis-Philippe ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... time in the afternoon, and she was let out occasionally when the mother was at home, but which rarely was the case; and then I saw the pretty lass almost daily, but always in the afternoon; and her impatience to have the pleasure of fucking became almost comical. ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... comical figure. His socks and moccasins had been tied and slung round his neck. With trousers rolled to his knees, a hatful of water-lilies in one hand and a sheaf of ferns in the other, he was ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... hardly be Porson's, for Mr. Langton amused Johnson, Boswell, and a dinner party at General Oglethorpe's, on the 14th of April, 1778, with some macaronic Greek "by Joshua Barnes, in which are to be found such comical Anglo-hellenisms as [Greek: klubboisin ebagchthae] they were banged with clubs." Boswell's Johnson, last ed. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 37. Saturday, July 13, 1850 • Various
... in high glee at what to them was a most comical transformation in their elder sister, danced around her with shrieks of laughter, crying out at the funny white cap which she wore, and the prim little three-cornered cape falling over her bosom, designed modestly to cover the vanity ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... Jane ventured still farther; her grimaces were almost irresistible, and she had a most comical manner of imitating the master's attitudes when his eye was not upon her, and putting on a demure countenance when he turned towards her, which ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sailing vessels for lengthy outings. Occasionally they were sent upon whaling voyages, where the hardships were greater and the voyage more prolonged. On the Indiaman there were several of these youths and it was quite pathetic as well as comical to see them ascend the rigging amid the jeers of a well-disciplined crew. One of them, whose father had occupied an official position in the City of New York, had been quite a society "swell" and claimed acquaintance with me. At ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... the people who lived there. He showed her the club house and the casino and the picnic grounds and lots of interesting places, which had passed unnoticed on their trip up the lake the night before. Sometimes Long Sam put in a few words in his dry, comical way, and Dolly found herself enjoying the morning ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... with their connections, the De Sellons and the De la Rives. On this occasion, when the travellers reached M. de la Rive's villa at Presinge, Camille, looking terribly in earnest, and with an air of importance, made the more comical by the little red costume he was wearing, went straight to his host with the announcement that the postmaster had treated them abominably by giving them the worst horses, and that he ought to be dismissed. "But," said M. de la Rive, "I cannot dismiss him; that depends on the syndic." ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... It was comical to see the expression on Oddity's blunt face on hearing this unexpected compliment, perhaps the first that he had ever received in his life. It was enough to have turned the head of a less sober rat; but he, ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... things that go to make up nature, a higher and more ideal key of words in which to speak of them. Ramsay and Fergusson excelled at making a popular - or shall we say vulgar? - sort of society verses, comical and prosaic, written, you would say, in taverns while a supper party waited for its laureate's word; but on the appearance of Burns, this coarse and laughing literature was touched to finer issues, and learned gravity of thought and ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... she might properly have held on to her name of baby, she couldn't with propriety, because there was Gilbert then, and he was baby. Moreover, she gradually became so indescribably quaint and bewitching and comical and saucy that every one sought diminutives for her; nicknames, fond names, little names, and all sorts of words that tried to describe her charm (and couldn't), so there was Poppet and Smiles and Minx and Rogue and Midget and Ladybird and finally ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... consequently it is highly varied in pause and movement; showing that in his hand the noble instrument of dramatic blank-verse was fast growing into tune for a far mightier hand to discourse its harmonies upon. I must add that considerable portions both of this play and the preceding are meant to be comical. But the result only proves that Marlowe was incapable of comedy. No sooner does he attempt the comic vein than his whole style collapses into mere balderdash. In fact, though plentifully gifted with wit, there was not a particle of real humour in ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... he, stopping ever and anon, as if to laugh the more heartily, "stab my vitals, but you are a comical quiz. I wonder what the women would say, if they saw the dashing Edward Pepper, Esquire, walking arm in arm with thee at Ranelagh or Vauxhall! Nay, man, never be downcast; if I laugh at thee, it is only to make thee look a little merrier thyself. Why, thou lookest like a book ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... up to take his seat of honor, and the others had returned to their back-gammon and ale, Sigurd looked at Alwin with a comical grimace. ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... man he was seeking; Northwick was not of their order, morally or socially, and from the polite circles where the more elect of the exiles moved, Pinney was himself excluded by the habits of his life and by the choice of the people who formed those circles. This seemed to Pinney rather comical, and it might have led him to say some satirical things of the local society, if it had been in him to say bitter things at all. As it was, it amused his inexhaustible amiability that an honest man like himself should not be admitted to the company of even ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... the comical side of the strange life appeared. I awoke, sometimes, to find the sun already shining into my cabin. I heard water rushing by, with only a thin plank between me and the depths, and I said, "How is this?" But it was ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... all she knew of the walks, the lunches, the meetings, and the notes. It was n't much, and evidently less serious than Mr. Shaw expected; for, as he listened, his eyebrows smoothed themselves out, and more than once his lips twitched as if he wanted to laugh, for after all, it was rather comical to see how the young people aped their elders, playing the new-fashioned game, quite unconscious of its ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... Modification of the statement will later be mentioned. The patient is indifferent so far as his basic condition is concerned, and it is only by certain stimuli that at times emotional reactions can be elicitated, some tears at a visit of a relative, an appropriate smile at a joke or a comical situation when the stupor is not too deep or an angry ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... and myself continue to live in the same style as heretofore. We appear mutually to be very well pleased with each other. Mons. S—— displays many comical qualities, and manages to insure us several hearty laughs every morning and evening,—those being the seasons when we meet. I am going to take lessons from him in the pronunciation of French. Of female society I see nothing. The only petticoat that comes within our premises appertains to Nancy, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... of the world reveal himself with more strangely comical effect under the gown of the divine than in the sermon on "The Prodigal Son." The repentant spendthrift has returned to his father's house, and is about to ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... exceedingly exhilarated in spirits, yet kept his eyes down, and appeared at times very absent minded. Whatever his thoughts were, it was evident they were pleasing ones; for he would smile to himself, and occasionally display a comical nervousness, as though he had some very important secret to make known, yet was not ready to communicate it. This had been observed in him through the day; and was so different from his usual manner, and so much beyond any conjecture his mother ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett |
