"Comicality" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I have related, was in some estimation for his comicality; but he was a dure hand at an argument, and would not see the plainest truth when it was not on his side of the debate. No occasion or cause, however, had come to pass by which this inherent cross-grainedness was stirred into action, till the affair of reseating the kirk—a measure, as I ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... was thinking of something else; and Puddock thought how strangely handsome he looked, with that pale dash of horror, like King Saul when the evil spirit was upon him; and there was a terrible misgiving in his mind. The lines of the old ballad that Devereux used to sing with a sort of pathetic comicality were ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... others, looks of keen intelligence passed between them, and they watched with burning interest for the denouement. That interest was stronger than their sense of the comicality of all this (for the humorous view of what passes before our eyes comes upon cool reflection, not often at ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... given me such an uncanny reputation as all that?" he asked; and then, as though tickled with the comicality of the situation, he began to laugh. "What ogres some of us old soldiers do become in the course of years! Do you know, young lady, I might never have suspected what a brute I was if it had not been for you? What a blessed thing it was the colonel did not tell you I was ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... reminiscences of my childhood have stuck to me; some of them on account of their comicality. I was taken to a children's ball at St. James's Palace. In my mind's eye I have but one distinct vision of it. I cannot see the crowd - there was nothing to distinguish that from what I have so often seen since; nor the ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... water; though what harm was possible I could not see, as there were no clothes to steal. I have seen human bathers acting just like the birds, though from a different cause, bobbing down towards the water, but afraid to dip their heads, and the idea of comicality arose, as it does in most of the ludicrous actions of animals, from their resemblance to those of mankind. The dispute would generally end by the green-throat giving way, and leaving the pugnacious little white-cap in ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... comicality and waggery in ill-chosen clothes, I have endeavored to hint to you in these talks some of the ways gew-gaws and ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley
... roused by the spectacle of the different factions of Christians praying to the same God to bless their arms. The element of comicality in this aspect of war is greatly outweighed by that of pathos. Those who earnestly pray to God to lead them to victory must at any rate be firmly convinced that their cause is one of which God can approve. No believer would dare to invoke the blessing of God upon a cause ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... host broke out again, "you're not going away?"—an ejaculation that, after all that had happened, had the grandest comicality. "Bless my soul," he then remarked as artlessly, "of ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... this, the hack-man let down the steps, and aided her out. The gate-keeper retired into a sort of sentry-box, and amused himself by peeping over the window-curtain, laughing very immoderately when anything serious was said, and sustaining a very grave appearance when anything having a shade of comicality occurred. ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... delighted to study, a thousand opportunities to make those infinitesimal improvements which are so much in art and for the artist. Our first Greek play had been costumed by the professional costumier, with unforgettable results of comicality and indecorum; the second, the Trachiniae of Sophocles, he took in hand himself, and a delightful task he made of it. His study was then in antiquarian books, where he found confusion, and on statues and bas-reliefs, where he at last found clearness; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... unless some Manhattanese scholiast should write a commentary on the poem in time, its allusions, and with them most of its wit, will be in danger of perishing entirely. What we can judge of in Fanny are one or two graceful lyrics interspersed in it, though even these are marred by untimely comicality and local allusions. The nominal hero, while wandering about at night after the wreck of his fortunes, hears a band playing outside a public place of entertainment. It must have been a better band than that which now, from the Museum opposite the Astor House, drives to frenzy the hapless stranger.... ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... four years' cruise Edward Gancy and Henry Chester have seen many a strange sight, they think the one now before their eyes as strange as any, and unique in its quaint comicality. They would have continued their observations much longer but for Seagriff, to whom the sight is neither strange nor new. It has no interest for him, save economically, and in this sense he proceeds ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... watched and found out how they were done," said the elder woman, eyeing Lois with a mingled expression of incredulity and curiosity and desire, which it was comical to see. Only nobody there perceived the comicality. They sympathized ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... avestruz can do it, but in quite a different way from swans. They swim with their bodies under water, and only their shoulders, with the head and neck, above. It's a funny sight to see a flock of them crossing one of the big rivers; and scores of times I've been eye-witness to that bit of comicality. Carramba! a curious bird, the avestruz is altogether, and a useful one, as we've now good reason to know. So, senoritos, let us be thankful to Providence that there's such a plenty of them on these pampas, and above all, for guiding the steps of this fine specimen, as to ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... exposing some of Westermarck's arguments, which, as he shows, "border on the comic." I myself have in this chapter, as well as in those on Africans, American Indians, South Sea Islanders, etc., revealed the comicality of the assertion that there is in a savage condition of life "comparatively little reason for illegitimate relations," which forms one of the main props of Westermarck's anti-promiscuity theory; and I have also reduced ad absurdum his systematic overrating of savages in the ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... mused, regarding the girl first through his spectacles, and then over the tops of them, while his bushy eyebrows moved up and down with such comicality that Carmen could scarcely refrain from laughing. "H'm! quite so. Ah—suppose you relate to me some of the tests to which your views have ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... in a tone of serio-comicality, "you have heard of a copper-coloured gentleman called 'Horned Lizard.' If I mistake not, you have the honour of his acquaintance. And, unless I'm astray in my reckoning, you'll have the pleasure of seeing ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... comicality of the request, and the thoroughly colonial coolness of making it, William set off, and presently returned with nearly half a sheep hanging over his shoulders, and a large joint in ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... summoner with increasing doubt, which was not dispelled by a solemn comicality in the scene of the study. There sat Colonel Adams, still unaffectedly dressed as a pantaloon, with the knobbed whalebone nodding above his brow, but with his poor old eyes sad enough to have sobered a Saturnalia. Sir Leopold Fischer was leaning ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... something on her mind and stood in immediate need of the Reverend Frank to come and take it off. Many a time had that kind creature got up, and gone out to Mrs Sprodgkin (such was the disciple's name), suppressing a strong sense of her comicality by his strong sense of duty, and perfectly knowing that nothing but a cold would come of it. However, beyond themselves, the Reverend Frank Milvey and Mrs Milvey seldom hinted that Mrs Sprodgkin was hardly worth the trouble she gave; but both made ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens |
