"Ludicrous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... story. Reminiscences of victory and disaster of Camp Picket, Spy, Scout, Bivouac and Siege, with feats of Daring, Bold and Brilliant Marches, Remarkable Cases of Sharp-Shooting, Hand-to-Hand Encounters, Startling Surprises, Ingenious Strategy, Celebrated Tactics, Wonderful Escapes, Comical and Ludicrous Adventures on Land and Sea; Wit, Drollery and Repartee, Famous Words and Deeds of Women, Sanitary and Hospital Scenes, Prison Experiences, Partings and Re-unions, Last Words of the Dying, with affecting illustrations ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... always observed," the visitor went on to say, "that the ideas which ignorant people entertain concerning heroes are ludicrous in the extreme. Now, I have met with more adventures than generally fall to the lot of mortals; but, being a modest young man, I have never allowed any one to apply that name to me. I have been in battles—desperate battles. I have seen the cheek of the bravest blanched with terror; but I never flinched. ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... of the Divinity deliberately thrusting into George's mind knowledge that he otherwise had not, the idea of the Divinity deliberately prompting the examiners to questions that George could answer—these are ludicrous to us in our wisdom. We have the superiority of my simple Mary in point of intelligence; well, let us hug that treasure and make the most of it. Because we miss the sense of confidence with which Mary got from her knees; passed into her dreams. With ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... they went directly to Beneventum, where the bustling landlord almost burned himself and those he entertained in cooking their dainty dinner, the kitchen fire falling through the floor and spreading the flames towards the highest part of the roof. It was a ludicrous moment, for the hungry guests and frightened slaves hardly knew whether to snatch their supper from the flames or to try to ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... of Zola and his sudden "J'accuse," the suicide of Henry, the repeated demissions of the Ministers and Generals, la femme Voilee, the disappearance of Esterhazy (stamped as a first-class scamp), the attempt to get Labori's papers by shooting him—the ludicrous and tragic episodes have at last come to an end. Dreyfus is declared innocent, and people are beginning to realize ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... chronological impossibilities and all sorts of incredible stories, and, finally, that miracles are multiplied till the miraculous becomes the ordinary, and that marvels are magnified till the narrative borders on the ludicrous. The Saint as he is sketched is sometimes a positively repulsive being—arrogant, venomous, and cruel; he demands two eyes or more for one, and, pucklike, fairly revels in mischief! As painted he is in fact more a pagan deity ...
— The Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore • Saint Mochuda
... you mange to get the old fool so infatuated—so crazy with passion? for I stood over ten minutes looking at both of you through the key-hole, before I entered the room, and I never before saw a man act so extravagantly ludicrous; it was only with extreme difficulty that I could keep myself from laughing outright. And you, witch that you are, looked as if you were panting and dying with amorous desires. By ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... myself that I was" (her thoughts would go) "to question it a crime just to take up my life again! A crime! Horrible fool that I was to be able, with no sense of humour, to give to so natural a desire an epithet so ludicrous as crime! A crime! A right, ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... She only knew that the glamour of it all was gone—that there were many hours when the Movement lay like lead upon her life. Was it simply that her intelligence had revolted, that she had come to see the folly, the sheer, ludicrous folly of a "physical force" policy which opposed the pin-pricks of women to the strength of men? Or was it something else—something far ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... had to step like a dancer to keep clear of them. The bear, in sore trouble, leaped toward him and the swaying basket touched the side of the man. Back into the bushes and out again they struggled, Sambo keeping his hold. A more curious and ludicrous sight never gladdened the eye of a hunter. Samson had found it hard to get a chance to shoot at the noisy, swift torrent of fur. Suddenly the bear rose on his hind legs and let out an angry woof and gave the basket a ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... applause, she proudly handed the music-roll to my uncle, and permitted him to dip his thumb and finger into a little porcelain snuff-box, fashioned in the shape of a pug dog, out of which she took a pinch herself with evident relish. She had a horrible squeaky voice, indulged in all sorts of ludicrous flourishes and roulades, and so you may imagine what an effect all this, combined with her ridiculous manners and style of dress, could not fail to have upon me. My uncle overflowed with panegyrics; that I could not understand, and so turned ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... the separative spirit of the Greek arts than their comedy as opposed to their tragedy. But as the immediate struggle of contraries supposes an arena common to both, so both were alike ideal; that is, the comedy of Aristophanes rose to as great a distance above the ludicrous of real life, as the tragedy of Sophocles above its tragic events and passions;—and it is in this one point, of absolute ideality, that the comedy of Shakspeare and the old comedy of Athens coincide. In this also alone did the Greek tragedy and comedy ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... man. A plot to rob the bank? These mysterious absences, that luggage which he doubted not was empty and intended for spoil! But why encumber herself with the two children? Here his common sense and instinct of the ludicrous returned and he smiled. ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... sentences of the speech I had memorized, and therefore got up and said so and excused myself from speaking. I arrived here at 3 o'clock this morning. I think the next 3 days will finish me. The idea of sitting down to a job of literary criticism is simply ludicrous. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... do in New Jersey when it rains is to let it rain; and what I did when he pounded was to let him pound. I was perfectly willing he should pound; I even hoped that he enjoyed it. In spite of the anxiety I felt for poor Kate, I could not help laughing at the ludicrous earnestness with which he swore and pounded. Like most men, my uncle was cool when he was not excited; and as there had been nothing on the present occasion to excite him, I suppose he was cool. Doubtless he stopped ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... off the pavement. To a dead certainty he would have deposited his unsober self in the kennel had he not been kindly and vigorously intercepted in his fall by the ready assistance of Frank Atherton. At the ludicrous figure which his staggering friend now made the older gentleman burst into a roar of laughter which might have been heard from Charing Cross to St. Paul's; but suddenly checking himself he mournfully shook his head saying, "Oh Bozzy, Bozzy, this is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 493, June 11, 1831 • Various
... of the ludicrous came over Herbert as he thought of being Mr. Holden's pet, and he laughed heartily. Not understanding the reason of his sudden mirth, that gentleman demanded, in a tone of irritation, "What are you making a fool of ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... attired alike in shabby old United States uniforms, with gold epaulets much tarnished and worn, dilapidated gold lace on collars and sleeves, and wearing on their heads military hats with long draggled plumes. From thigh to the low moccasins their legs were entirely unclothed, and a more ludicrous combination than the civilized coats and the bare brown legs I had never seen. The two in military coats were evidently chiefs, and were followed by a long line of braves sweltering under heavy Mackinac blankets, each armed with a scarlet umbrella in one hand ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... sweeping, almost every officer again sat down or sat up to rid himself of the pediculidae vestimenti. We called it "skirmishing"; it was rather a pitched battle. The humblest soldier and the brevet major-general must daily strip and fight. Ludicrous, were it not so abominable, was this mortifying necessity. No account of prison life in Danville would be complete without it. Pass by it hereafter in sorrow and silence, as one of those duties which Cicero says are to be done but ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... above all a child of nature, a frolic incarnate, and just as he would have been in any time or country." He also tells how Field put their friendship to one of those tests which sooner or later he applied to all—the test of linking their names with something utterly ludicrous and impossible, but published with all the solemn earmarks of verity. It was on the occasion of Mr. Stedman's visit to Chicago on its invitation to lecture before the Twentieth Century Club. This gave Field the cue to announce ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... took his slate from his little green bag. The picture had not been effaced. His mother looked at it and laughed, notwithstanding her efforts to keep sober, for it was such a perfect likeness. She had an exquisite sense of the ludicrous, and Paul was like her. She was surprised to find that ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... her sternly in view during every possible moment, but she was not sufficiently well dressed to be his sister. And his overcoat was buttoned suspiciously high. Was he to stroll out of the waiting-room and leave her abandoned, like some undesirable kitten, in the corner? The idea was ludicrous: she must be taken care of. Had she thrust herself upon him, enticed him, challenged him? Assuredly not; moved by some completely inexplicable influence, utterly alien to himself, his birth, his training, he had deliberately and persistently questioned her, prolonged ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... Ela put these questions, and the plaintive appeal against the hard requirements of social laws in the mountains, which was expressed in his voice and accent, were so indescribably ludicrous that both my husband and myself laughed convulsively. "I never tell my wife that part of the story, for fear she might not believe in my regard for appearances, knowing how fond I am of ladies' society. And the struggle was great; I ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... conscious that he was not presenting a perfectly regular appearance to his new officers; and he dropped into his chair, making a ludicrous effort to stiffen his muscles and put on his dignity, ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... she sat forward in the cab drumming idly with her forefingers upon the apron. In a few minutes he came back. His appearance was quite sufficient. He was very pale. The change in him was so ludicrous that ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... trees of the same species growing around, and these were miniature models of the older ones. Sometimes these lesser ones are supported on three roots, like the tripod of a surveyor's compass, and this gives them a somewhat ludicrous appearance. There are many species of this sort of palms, which are classed under the genus Iriartea. In most of them the fruit, which is small oval and red or yellow, is bitter and uneatable; but their wood is prized for many purposes. ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... small bodies afterwards lifted seem to have lost their weight. Now, the truth at once recognized in these, its extreme manifestations, may be traced throughout. It may be shown that alike in the reflective faculties, in the imagination, in the perceptions of the beautiful, the ludicrous, the sublime, in the sentiments, the instincts, in all the mental powers, however we may classify them-action exhausts; and that in proportion as the action is violent, ...
— The Philosophy of Style • Herbert Spencer
... faithful to the lofty purpose of his calling,—he dealt with his art reverently, and not in rough haste and scrambling carelessness,— if he worked out any idea in rhyme, the idea was distinct and the rhyme was perfect,—he was not content, like Browning, to jumble together such hideous and ludicrous combinations as "high;— Humph!" and "triumph,"—moreover, he knew that what he had to tell his public must be told comprehensively, yet grandly, with all the authority and persuasiveness of incisive rhetoric, yet also with all the sweetness and fascination of a passioned love-song. ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... forestall his enemies Jonson succeeded, and "Poetaster" was an immediate and deserved success. While hardly more closely knit in structure than its earlier companion pieces, "Poetaster" is planned to lead up to the ludicrous final scene in which, after a device borrowed from the "Lexiphanes" of Lucian, the offending poetaster, Marston-Crispinus, is made to throw up the difficult words with which he had overburdened his stomach ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... Guidi repaired to San Clemente, and proceeded to deliver his message, and Father Burke received it with becoming submission. But no sooner had the cardinal finished than Father Burke imitated his manner, accent and language, with such ludicrous exactness that the cardinal burst into a fit of laughter, and could not ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... stage-business that must please the common actor of Hamlet; but there is nothing in the text any more than in the margin of Folio or Quarto to justify it, and it would but for the horror of it be ludicrous. The coffin is supposed to be in the grave: must Laertes jump down upon it, followed by Hamlet, and the two fight and trample ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... to a degree much above their common complexion. In times not credulous of inspiration, we should account for this from some natural cause; but we do not mean to account for it at all; it were sufficient to describe its effects; but they were sometimes so ludicrous, as might derogate from the dignity of the sensations which produced them to describe. They were treated indeed as such by most of Harley's sober friends, who often laughed very heartily at the awkward ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... her displeasure if she had known that Arthur was lingering up-stairs giving his wife a ludicrous version of her ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... entered his office and proceeded skillfully about his work. He was, as always, delighted with himself. He felt himself a man ideally fitted to enjoy the little spectacle of life his day offered. Emotion in others invariably roused in him a sense of the ludicrous. His eyes seemed to travel through the griefs and torments of his fellows and to fasten helplessly upon their causes. And here lay the ludicrous—the clownish little mainspring of tragedy and drama. He moved through his day with a vivid ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... not on my part find it so easy to laugh: partly because I am not of so gay a disposition as that great prince, and partly because I cannot see the ludicrous side of events in which I myself take part. But on the King assuring me that he would not betray the secret even to La Varenne, I took comfort, and gradually reconciled myself to an episode which, ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... contributors to the "Nation" newspaper. There are passages in Lover's novel of "Rory O'More" and his "He Would be a Gentleman" that show he was a sincere lover of his country. I agree in the main with what the "Nation" said of him in 1843—"Though he often fell into ludicrous exaggerations and burlesques in describing Irish life, there is a good national spirit running through the majority of his works, for which he has not ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... States' service under the command of Major Frank J. North, January 13th, 1865, this action being taken at the instance of General Custer. They proved most effective, notwithstanding their somewhat ludicrous appearance. They were furnished the regular soldiers' uniform which they were permitted to modify to suit their individual ideas and taste. As a rule their head dress was the customary Indian one of feathers. Their arms were the regulation carbine and revolver of the cavalry ...
— The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad - Its Projectors, Construction and History • W. F. Bailey
... reverse the glass for a moment. The ludicrous, the dissonant, the incongruous, are not excluded from the Exhibition: they cannot be excluded from any complete picture of its Opening. The Queen, we will say, was here by Right Divine, by right ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... not ludicrous as well as impious to see a few German fanatics, in the sixteenth century, raising their feeble voice against the thunder tones of all Christendom, by decrying a practice which was universally held as sacred and essential? In judging ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... letters and extracting matter from them: this had never been imparted to M. d'Argenson, in spite of the high favour he enjoyed. I have heard that M. de Choiseul abused the confidence reposed in him, and related to his friends the ludicrous stories, and the love affairs, contained in the letters which were broken open. The plan they pursued, as I have heard, was very simple. Six or seven clerks of the post-office picked out the letters ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the fever of this ardent and too early stimulated nature was constantly increased by the restraints and narrow routine of the boarding school. She was always devising means to break in upon it. She had a taste—which would have seemed ludicrous to her mates, if they had not felt some awe of her, from the touch of genius and power that never left her—for costume and fancy dresses. There was always some sash twisted about her, some drapery, something odd in ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... right, sir, do you speak to me in this manner?" cried Erasmus, proudly, for he lost all sense of the ludicrous in indignation at the insolent doubt of his integrity, which, after all the assurances he had given, these last words from Mr. Panton implied: "By what right, sir, do you speak to me in this manner?—And what reason can you have to expect that I should ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... first moment of embarrassment was over, a situation of awkwardness, like that in which she was suddenly left to make acquaintance with a handsome youth, not even known to her by name, struck her, in spite of herself, in a ludicrous point of view. She bent her beautiful eyes upon the work with which she was busied, and with infinite gravity sate out the two first turns of the matrons upon the balcony; but then, glancing her deep blue eye a little ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... Borrow—that the Bardd Cwsc is encumbered to a certain degree with useless matter, is no doubt well founded. There is a tendency to dwell inordinately upon the horrible, more particularly in the Vision of Hell; a tiring sameness in the descriptive passages, an occasional lapse from the tragic to the ludicrous, and an intrusion of the common-place in the midst of a speech or a scene, marring the dignity of the one and the beauty ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... get into them at night one must sacrifice dignity; to get out of them in the morning, clad for the day, gives the proprietors a hard rub. It is wonderful, however, considering the twisting and scrambling in the berth and the miscellaneous and ludicrous presentation of humanity in the washroom at the end of the car, how presentable people make themselves in a short space of time. One realizes the debt of the ordinary man to clothes, and how fortunate ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the mutiny, they decided to leave Parliament. But the effect of this "secession" was marred by the occasional reappearance of Sheridan, Tierney, and others who had loudly advocated it.[456] Unpatriotic in conception, it speedily became ludicrous from ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... for sitting there in the moonlight, with the winding Chicopee full in view, and Margaret Miller at his side, Arthur Carrollton forgot the lapse of time, especially when Maggie, thinking it no harm, gave a most ludicrous description of her call upon Mrs. Douglas, senior, and of her grandmother's distress at finding herself so nearly connected with what she termed ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... she shrank back instinctively. The disguise was so complete that she could not impose even on her imagination or her senses. The complexion was different, in fact, quite sallow; the beard long, and the costume such as we have described it. There was, in fact, something extremely ludicrous in the meeting. Here was an elegant and beautiful young woman of fashion, almost ready, as it were, to throw herself in the arms of a common pauper, with a beard upon him better than half an inch long. As it was, she ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... showing that they could reach it by sailing to the east of the line, provided they sailed long enough. The lines laid down by Popes Alexander and Julius may still be found upon the maps of the period, but their bulls have quietly passed into the catalogue of ludicrous errors. ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... marked his inward shrinking, for she checked herself, and, slowly turning her lifeless screen, hid behind it. It was impotent deprecation translated into flesh,—at once ludicrous and painful. The young man found so much difficulty in restraining the manifestation of his distaste, that he blushed in the twilight at his own rudeness. He would do his best ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... nature of poetry, however poor or small, is of value inestimable to the development of the individual, ludicrous even though it may show itself, should conceit clothe it in print. The desire of fame, so vaunted, is the ruin of the small, sometimes of the great poet. The next evil to doing anything for love of money, is doing ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... smoke filled the air, and there sat the General on a crimson velvet arm-chair, which was hardly redder than his own complexion. His protruding eyes looked as glassy as ever, and his grey locks were ruffled at the top until he bore a ludicrous likeness to a paroquet. He held the crumpled card in his hand, and greeted his visitors ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... tyrant, I was stationed, like other reporters and radiomen, in a captive balloon. For the utmost in discomfort and lack of dignity let me recommend this ludicrous invention. Cramped, seasickened, inconvenienced—I don't like to mention this, but provisions for answering the calls of nature were, to say the least, inadequate—I swayed and rocked in that inconsiderable basket, chilled, blinded by the dazzle of the ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... curious little creature; she had a big, white spot on her nose, like all her family, and a little fringe of white hair all around her face, which looked as though she had put her collar round her face instead of her neck, and gave her a somewhat ludicrous air. ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... was but a dreadful farce to Olga. She was waiting, she was listening, she was watching. It seemed ludicrous to her stretched nerves to be seated there with food before her, when every instant she expected the devastating power that lurked behind the stillness to burst forth and engulf them. It was like sitting at the very mouth of ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... up and down, takes a cigar, stops near her and says, after a pause: You think the topic of my talk to-night Extremely ludicrous, I should not wonder? [Pauses for an answer. SVANHILD is silent. I'm very conscious that it was a blunder; Sister's and daughter's love alone possess you; Henceforth I'll wear kid gloves when I address you, Sure, so, of being ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... against the Emperor's orders, five days too long at Odessa—that was all—yes, you see, a little French actress who was there, who sang operettas; oh, how she did sing operettas! Offenbach, you know;" and the General tried to hum a bar or two of the 'Dites lui', with ludicrous effect. "Charming! To leave her, ah! I found that very hard. I remained five days: that wasn't much, eh, Zilah? five days? But the devil! There was a Grand Duke—well—humph! younger than I, of course—and—and—the Grand Duke was jealous. ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... attack on the Demon and the Tar Baby is so preposterously ludicrous that it cannot have been independently invented, and we must therefore assume that they are causally connected, and the existence of the variant in South Africa clinches the matter, and gives us a landing-stage between India and America. ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... several of our best poems, if not the best ever written on the same subjects before. Mr Wilson, as well as Southey and Wordsworth, had all of them a way of singing out their poetry in a loud sonorous key, which was very impressive, but perfectly ludicrous. Wilson, at that period, composed all his poetry by going over it in that sounding strain; and in our daily competitions, although our rooms were not immediately adjoining, I always overheard what progress he was making. When he came upon any grand idea, he opened upon it full swell, with all ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... was augmented by the whistlings of a second pteranodon which darted after the remaining ovoids, following swiftly as these retreated with ludicrous, ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... abroad for the inferior clergy of collegiate churches, though not common in {551} England. It is just possible, though not very probable, that this somewhat foreign word was misread, and gave rise to a blundering corruption conveying ludicrous ideas, the "turpe nomen" alluded to by the Archbishop of York tempore Ric. II. The conjectural derivation of the word from Anglo-Saxon words was not my own, but that of a subsequent correspondent. It is just one ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 214, December 3, 1853 • Various
... his lips, when a ludicrous change came over the man's face. He uttered a wild yell, and fell headlong, almost at Peggy's feet. When Peggy saw this, she knew what to do; and when Grace and Gertrude came flying up a moment after, they found her sitting quietly on the ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... men have your feet too far back." This would particularly disgust him, for at previous practice, taking a gun from a sergeant, he stood in front of us and said, "Let me show you how Rip Van Winkle here in the second squad comes to parade rest," and gave us a ludicrous example of slowness and slovenliness. Then he illustrated, in briskness and correct position, just how ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... snout that confronted her had a feeble inoffensiveness; the small eyes were bright with an eager, almost childish curiosity rather than a savage ardor, and the whole attitude of the creature lifted upon its hind legs was circus-like and ludicrous rather than aggressive. She was enabled to say with some dignity, "Go away! Shoo!" and to wave her luncheon basket at it with exemplary firmness. But here the creature laid one paw on the back seat as if to steady itself, with the singular effect of collapsing the whole ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... caged—they enjoy life so intensely in the jungle, and are so amusing, swinging themselves from the branches of tall trees, leaping, flying almost, in pursuit of one another for mere fun, that it was sad to put them in prison, where they never lived long, and where they only exhibited a ludicrous and humiliating parody on the habits ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... penitence and humility, like John Hawkins, and one man at least of incomparable eloquence as well as Christian earnestness, John B. Gough. But the public were not long in finding that merely to have wallowed in vice and to be able to tell ludicrous or pathetic stories from one's experience was not of itself sufficient qualification for the work of a public instructor in morals. The temperance platform became infested with swaggering autobiographers, whose glory was in their shame, and whose general influence was distinctly ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... J. Silence" emerged from the door of the stage building. John frowned, pressed his forefinger to his lips in the signal for silence that he had received inside. "John J. Silence," grinning, tiptoed away with ludicrous gestures. ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... hand, did want to smile. It was not his dog, he could look on the affair with an unbiased eye, and to him there was something ludicrous in a white dog suddenly appearing as a ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... pile like extinguishers, and was skipping among the fragments with an agility which contrasted with his stout figure in full evening costume, and his besmirched face, made the sight irresistibly ludicrous. ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... effect (and that this was the purpose of the servus currens there can surely be no doubt) could best be obtained by the actor's making a violent and frenzied pretense of running while scarcely moving from the spot. Consider the ludicrous spectacle of the rapidly moving legs and the flailing arms, with the actor's face turned toward the audience, as he declaims sonorously of his haste to perform his vital errand, while making but a snail's progress. Truly then his plea of exhaustion would not be without excuse! This is an explanation ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... which. These were very little things which she had done, and it was shameful that, in all the years of her elder sisterhood, she had never sacrificed even so little of her own pleasure before; yet it was true, and it made her feel like crying—and yet there was rather a ludicrous side to the question, to think that all her beautiful plans for the day had culminated in plum pies and ironing. She stooped and kissed Julia on the rosy cheek, and answered gently, moved ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... offered to take any part in the rebellion. Told of the letter found, and of the date it bore, he laughed. That letter made everything very simple and clear. At the date it bore he had been away at Flushing marrying a wife, whom he had since brought thence to Middelburg. It was ludicrous, he urged, to suppose that in such a season—of all seasons in a man's life—he should have been concerned with rebellion or correspondence with rebels, and, ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... unceremonious manner of speaking to him—which he might have done, had he been sober—burst into a frantic fit of laughter. The remarkable gravity and composure of the stranger's tone and manner, contrasted with the oddity of the proposition by which he opened the conversation, would have been irresistibly ludicrous even to a man whose faculties were not in an ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... hurried by the main road, or picked their way along the banks of the Seine, others took to boats as a less dangerous means of conveyance. But, among those who joined in the disorderly flight, there were some who retained their composure sufficiently to note the ludicrous features of the scene. Long after they recalled with undisguised amusement the terror-stricken countenances of the new chancellor and of three French cardinals, as, mounted on fiery Italian or Spanish steeds, they clung with both hands to the saddle-bow, evidently fearing ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... M. Tascher de la Pagerie—she a future "Queen of France! More than a queen!" Oh, it was mere folly to think on such things, and to busy herself with the ludicrous prophecies of the ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... fleur de lys, ad other regal emblems, effaced. Obedience was no sooner promised to this command, than it was succeeded by another not quite so easily complied with—they insisted on having the Marsellois Hymn sung. In vain did the manager, with a ludicrous sort of terror, declare, that there were none of his company who had any voice, or who knew either the words of the music of the hymn in question. "C'est egal, il faut chanter," ["No matter for that, they must sing."] ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... which a poet excels himself, as there is nothing in all Shenstone which in any way approaches it in merit; and, though I dislike the imitations of our old English poets in general, yet, on this minute subject, the antiquity of the style produces a very ludicrous solemnity. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... have we under-taken the fearful risk of this war. We wanted it. Because we had to wish it and could wish it. May the Teuton devil throttle those whiners whose pleas for excuses make us ludicrous in these hours of lofty experience. We do not stand, and shall not place ourselves, before the Court of Europe. Our power shall create new law in Europe. Germany strikes. If it conquers new realms for its genius, the priesthood of all the gods will sing songs of praise ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... mother and facing Scarborough, was looking from her to him and back again—curiously, it almost seemed suspiciously. Both noticed it; both flushed slightly. Scarborough shook hands with her, bowed to the little boy with a formality and constraint that might have seemed ludicrous to an onlooker. He went toward his horse; Gardiner and his mother took the course at right angles across the field in the direction in which the towers of the Eyrie could be seen above the tree-tops. Suddenly the boy said, as if it were the conclusion ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... starboard bow, and the order to avoid the shoal was putting us headfirst into it. Our only chance was full speed and a starboard helm, and we actually grazed along the side of the berg. It seemed almost ludicrous later to pick up a large island and run into a harbour with grassy, sloping sides, out of which the fog was shut like a wall, and then to go ashore and bargain over buying a couple of cows, which were being sold, as the settler was moving ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... over to the cook—with no cannibal intent, but simply to be washed. "The energy and enthusiasm that cook put into his task," the I.G. would remark when telling the story, "made the whole operation most ludicrous. Into the river the child was plunged again and again, our chef holding him stoutly by the hair all the time as he bobbed up and down between the boats and the unsavoury corpses sticking there, till he was considered clean enough to ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... you, to the serious; and do not imagine that because by nature you are inclined to playfulness, you must therefore write ludicrous things better. Many of your stories would make the gravest men laugh, and yet there ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... Baptists residing at Cincinnati, who frequently entertain the inhabitants with public baptisms in the Ohio river. At one of those ceremonies, about this time, rather a ludicrous occurrence took place. The baptizing preacher stands up to his middle in the water, and the person to be baptized is led to him by another preacher. On this occasion the officiating clergyman was rather a slight man, and ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... great names now referred to. Their errors have been weighed and found to have been dust in the balance; if their sins 'were as scarlet, they are now white as snow'; they have been washed in the blood of the mediator and redeemer, Time. Observe in what a ludicrous chaos the imputation of real or fictitious crime have been confused in the contemporary calumnies against poetry and poets; consider how little is, as it appears—or appears, as it is; look to your own motives, and judge not, ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... satirical production calculated to throw ridicule on the bold assertions of some parliamentary declaimers. If rant may be best foiled at its own weapons, the author's design is not ill-founded; for the marvellous has never been carried to a more whimsical and ludicrous extent." The reviewer had probably read the work through from one paper cover to the other. It was in fact too short to bore the most blase of his kind, consisting of but forty-nine small octavo pages. The second edition, which is in the British Museum, bears the following title; ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... more, odd, or indeed absolutely ludicrous, was the circumstance that, by a species of legerdemain, a whisper had passed among the spectators so stealthily, and yet so soon, that the attorney and his companion were the only two on deck who remained ignorant of the person of the man they sought. Even the children caught the clue, though they ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... he was pretty badly rattled." Jeff stopped himself in the vague laugh of one who remembers something ludicrous, and turned his ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... laughter when she thought of the ludicrous scene that had just taken place, but she suddenly stopped in the midst of her merriment, for she felt as if a soft hand had just taken hers, and as if a pair of dark eyes were looking at her affectionately. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... equally entitled to the inexplicable fact that something is; and that any endeavour on the part of the votaries of one theory to shift from themselves to the votaries of another theory the onus of explaining the necessarily inexplicable, is an instance of irrationality which borders on the ludicrous. ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... the accent of the dance forms, that he introduced an agreeable innovation; he was one of the giants who helped to create a new epoch in art, by breaking these old forms altogether, and substituting new ones better suited to modern tastes. And here we come across one of the most ludicrous misconceptions which have been fostered concerning Chopin by shallow critics, and which brings us back again for a moment to the question of Jumboism. I do not know whether he was a German or a French critic who first wrote that Chopin, although great in short pieces, ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... intended to brazen it out, but Kate swept towards her with so much honest anger in her voice, and such natural dignity in her bearing, that she sank her bold gaze, and with a few muttered words slunk away into her own room. Kate closed the door behind her, and then, her sense of the ludicrous overpowering her anger, she laughed for the first time since she had been in the Priory. It was so intensely ridiculous that even the most foolish of mortals should imagine that she could, under any circumstances, be desirous of seeing Ezra Girdlestone. ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... he is dangerous in the extreme. You should always, therefore, hunt him in couples, and have a shot in reserve, or a goodly cudgel, ready to apply to the root of his nose, where he is as vulnerable as Achilles was in the heel. Some ludicrous stories are told of bear-hunting; for Bruin is rather a humorist in his way. A friend of mine, with his surveying party, ten men in all, once treed a very large one; they immediately cut clubs, and set to work to fell the tree. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various
... grossness. In James's reign, on the contrary, the coarsest pleasures were publicly and unlimitedly indulged, since, according to Sir John Harrington, the men wallowed in beastly delights; and even ladies abandoned their delicacy and rolled about in intoxication. After a ludicrous account of a mask, in which the actors had got drunk, and behaved themselves accordingly, he adds, "I have much marvelled at these strange pageantries, and they do bring to my recollection what passed of this sort in our Queen's days, in which I was sometimes an assistant ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... with scrolly arms, well worth noting; and, again, on a house out toward Shorncliffe, are a couple of "fox" vanes, one of which blustering Boreas has shorn of its tail; poor Reynard, in consequence, is ever swirling round and round—a ludicrous object—apparently ever seeking and ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Milly curtly. She had usually a keen sense of the ludicrous; but somehow Mr. Hawkins's eccentricity only ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... in preparing me for the great event. I had made a discovery concerning this fellow which afforded me much amusement: coming on him suddenly, I found him deeply engaged on a Puritan Psalm-book, sighing and casting up his eyes to heaven in a ludicrous excess of glum-faced piety. I pressed him hard and merrily, when it appeared that he was as thorough a Ranter as my friend Phineas himself, and held the Court and all in it to be utterly given over to Satan, an opinion not without some warrant, had he observed any moderation in advancing it. ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... MS., as we have once remarked and more than once hinted, we find much that is unduly inflated, truly Oriental; much that is platitudinous, ludicrous, which we have suppressed. But never could we question the Author's veracity and sincerity of purpose. Whether he crawled like a zoophyte, soared like an eagle, or fought, like Ali, the giants of the lower world, he is genuine, and oft-times amusingly truthful. But the many questionable pages on ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... it will seem ludicrous to historians that a people professing government by the will of the people should have made no serious effort to guarantee the news without which a governing opinion cannot exist. "Is it possible," they ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... cool of the evening, showing his hind quarters to Moses, ordering abominable massacres, and punishing chiefs who had not killed enough people. On further perusal, there is revealed, "A great deal of Oriental bombast, incoherence and absurdity, that the marvels recounted are often ludicrous or grotesque." ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... are indescribable; but to come from the sublime to the ludicrous, I would advise future travellers not to follow our example in respect of a woman-boatman. The good woman, who acted as guide to the Falls could not hold her tongue for a single moment, and her loud inharmonious tittle-tattle put us in ill-humour ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... restraint, both moral and artistic, that had bound his predecessor. The incidents, which follow one another in kaleidoscopic variety, are like the disjointed phases of a delirium or nightmare, from which there is no escape. We are conscious that his story is unreal or even ludicrous, yet Lewis has a certain dogged power of driving us unrelentingly through it, regardless of our own will. Literary historians have tended to over-emphasise the connection between Mrs. Radcliffe and Lewis. Their ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... faithful embodiment of those theories which, with Promethean rashness, he had flung at the head of a startled world in 1888. For the usual thing has happened: what a quarter-century ago seemed almost ludicrous in its radicalism belongs to-day to the established traditions ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... Dorrimore by surprise. He stared blankly at Vane, and then apparently seized by some ludicrous idea, he burst into ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... and unquestionable." They have displayed, in the conduct of their foreign relations during the past year, a vulgar indifference to the opinion of mankind, and an overweening estimate of their own power, which it is at once ludicrous and painful to behold. Nor is there reason to believe that these blots on the escutcheon of a nation, so young and so unembarrassed, are either deeply regretted or will be speedily effaced. We see no reaction of national virtue against ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... On the top of the box beside him sat a very ascetic-faced, yellow, hollow-eyed man of fifty, with prim lips and a shrunken skin, which hung loosely over the long jerking tendons under his prominent chin. He was dressed in snuff-coloured clothes, and his legs under his knee-breeches were of a ludicrous thinness. He shook his head at me with an air of sad wisdom, and I could read little comfort in his inhuman grey eyes. But it was the man called Toussac who alarmed me most. He was a colossus; bulky rather than tall, ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... enjoyed greater popularity than fell to Mr. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat? In this book the humour sprang in no sense out of character; nor did it even spring out of situations contrived with especial skill. It consisted of a series of ludicrous impressions such as that of a man sitting on a pat of butter. Well, a man sitting on a pat of butter is a funny thing—when it happens naturally in life. But a collection of incidents, each of which ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... at you, but, under the circumstances I really could not help it. Your ignorance of the true state of affairs strikes me as so positively ludicrous. You forget, my good sir, that I am behind the scenes—in your secret, you know," he added, seeing a look of bewilderment at the other expression. "Why, man, you and all your people are absolutely at our mercy. You look surprised, but ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... special outrage, the enactment of personal-liberty bills in the free States, and yet, from the foundation of the Federal Government, she had probably never lost a slave in consequence of these enactments. In Georgia the attempt at justification reached the ludicrous when solemn charge was made that a bounty had been paid from the Federal Treasury to New-England fishermen. The tariff was complained of, the navigation laws were sneered at. But these were all public policies which had been in operation with Southern consent and largely with Southern support, ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... in their haste, they had not tarried to ascertain the nature of the petition, and that it prayed for the perpetuation, instead of the abolition of slavery, their position became so ludicrous, that their exasperation was greatly increased. At the time the petition was announced by Mr. Adams, the House was very thin; but the excitement it produced soon filled it; and, besides, the sergeant-at-arms had ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... that here. The divine vindication and acquittal is not a mere hidden thought and judgment in the mind of God. It is a declaring and showing to be innocent, and that not by word but by deed. That expectation seemed to be annihilated and made ludicrous by His death. But the 'justifying' of which our text speaks takes place ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... music. The earliest operas of Handel (1685-1759) were written for Hamburg, and in the one of them which Fate has preserved for us, 'Almira' (1704), we see the Hamburg school at its finest. In spite of the ludicrous mixture of German and Italian there is a good deal of dramatic power in the music, and the airs show how early Handel's wonderful gift of melody had developed. The chorus has very little to do, but a ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... version was printed for the Villon Society, had the fear of Mrs. Grundy before his eyes. Moreover, no previous editor—not even Lane himself—had a tithe of Captain Burton's acquaintance with the manners and customs of the Moslem East. Hence not unfrequently, they made ludicrous blunders and in no instance did they supply anything like the explanatory notes which have added so greatly to the value of this issue of "Alf Laylah wa Laylah." Some of these are startling in their realism, and often the traveller who believed that he knew something of the East, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... one has aught important for the executive of the ship to know—straight to the main-mast he repairs; and stands there—generally with his hat off—waiting the pleasure of the officer of the deck, to advance and communicate with him. Often, the most ludicrous scenes occur, and the most comical ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... and ludicrous the awkward boy looked beside the elegant figures on the walls about her! She leaned nearer the fire to get the light on the face, then she smiled with ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... proceeded, it was quite apparent that it was a hopeless case, and the little man, with his mouth open and his eyes fixed upon his face, looked on with an expression of bewilderment and perplexity irresistibly ludicrous. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... most popular of all the saints which the power of the Vatican has placed on its altars is Saint Anthony of Padua. The miracles which he wrought in his life are quite out of the ordinary course, and some of them appear rather preposterous and ludicrous to the incredulous. On one occasion, when he was preaching by the sea-shore, and his audience had gone away, the fishes came out to hear him. Whenever he was present at a banquet, and a plate or a soup tureen was accidentally broken, he joined the fragments so completely together that ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... scene, a Bombay trumpeter who was going to join the embassy was directed to blow a blast as we moved off the ground; but whether it was that the trumpeter was not an adept in the science or that his instrument was out of order, the crazy sounds that saluted our ears had a ludicrous effect. At last, after some jostling, mutual recriminations and recalcitrating of the steeds, we each found our places and moved out of the gate of the city in good order. The residents accompanied us a little way, and then left us to pursue our journey over the plain. It ...
— Life of Henry Martyn, Missionary to India and Persia, 1781 to 1812 • Sarah J. Rhea
... it could count our teeth. There was no more to be done but get back across the open ground, every superficial yard of which was throwing up its little jet of mud provoked by an impinging bullet. We got back, most of us, and I shall never forget the ludicrous incident of a young officer who had taken part in the affair walking up to his colonel, who had been a calm and apparently impartial spectator, and gravely reporting: "The enemy is in force just beyond this ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... Having said this, the major stopped suddenly, and turning in his saddle, caught a glimpse of the air balloon attached to old Battle's tail, which was making curious gyrations in the air; and seeing the ludicrous figure he was cutting, he called upon all present to aid him in punishing the miscreant who dared to offer such an insult to his dignity. But the crowd only answered with jeers and acclamations, which so increased ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... the Boyce girls, tearing Mrs Boyce's commiseration into the smallest shreds. "Minnie," she said, speaking quite loud, almost with girlish ecstasy, "what do you think Tartar did yesterday? I never laughed so much in my life." Then she told a ludicrous story about a very ugly terrier which belonged to the squire. After that even Mrs Boyce made no further attempt. Mrs Dale and Bell both understood that such was to be the rule,—the rule even to them. Lily would speak to them occasionally on the matter,—to one of them at a time, ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... flying backward, the propellers turning sidewise, and nothing standing still, it seemed impossible to find a starting point from which to trace the various simultaneous reactions. Contemplation of it was confusing. After long arguments we often found ourselves in the ludicrous position of each having been converted to the other's side, with no more agreement than when ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... or greatest difficulty to emancipation is, the amount of property it would take from the owners. All ideas of right and wrong are confounded in these words: emancipate property, emancipate a horse, or an ox, would not only be unmeaning, but a ludicrous expression. To emancipate is to set free from slavery. To emancipate, is to set free a man, not property. The Senator estimates the number of slaves—men now held in bondage—at three millions in the United States. Is this statement made here by the same voice which was heard in this ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... heavily and his legs were bent. He could not have run another hundred yards even if a dozen battle-maddened Kilties had been after him. Catching sight of the doctor he pulled himself to "attention" as well as he could. I had to turn away to laugh. He presented the most ludicrous specimen of a German soldier that I have ever witnessed. His face was as red as a beet-root from his exertion, his eyes were wide open, while his mouth was fully agape. He could not utter a word as he had lost his breath, while being ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... a professional man should make himself so ludicrous,' she said with such careless intonation that it was almost impossible, even for Charlotte, who knew her so well, ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... bushes, Edgar, who had become a little separated from his friends, came upon a half-naked Malay, who glared at him from behind a long shield. The pirate's style of fighting was that of the Malay race in general, and had something ludicrous, as well as dangerous, about it. He did not stand up and come on like a man, but, with his long legs wide apart and bent at the knees, he bounded hither and thither like a monkey, always keeping his body well under cover of the shield, and ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... heartily. The idea of anyone voluntarily entering upon a single combat with the terrible Frisian giant, who for months had been a name of fear among the thousands that beleaguered Haarlem, struck them as really ludicrous. ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... caught sight of us; and looking round, I saw him turn from Turkey and come after us. Presently, however, he hesitated, then stopped, and began looking this way and that from the one to the other of his treasures, both in evil hands. Doubtless his indecision would have been very ludicrous to anyone who had not such a stake in the turn of the scale. As it was, he made up his mind far too soon, for he chose to follow Davie. I ran my best in the very strength of despair for some distance, ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... quickened into popularity by interesting circumstances, or by a personal interest attached to any of the parties, or by wit, or by extraordinary malice, or by scenical circumstances, or by circumstances unusually ludicrous, are but too likely to occur; and, with every fresh repetition, the keenness of the original provocation is renewed, and in an accelerated ratio. Again, with reference to my own case, or to any case resembling that, let it be granted that I was immoderately and unreasonably transported ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... dialect which he opined to be the purest English, but which no one—except a bagman—could be reasonably expected to understand. His pockets were invariably crammed with sharelists; and he quoted, if he did not comprehend, the money article from the "Times." This sort of assumption, though very ludicrous in itself, goes down wonderfully. Bob gradually became a sort of authority, and his opinions got quoted on 'Change. He was no ass, notwithstanding his peculiarities, and made good ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... other three boys laughed. They were not at all unfeeling, and could appreciate the misery of their fat companion; but then Lub had such a comical way of expressing himself, and made so many ludicrous faces, that they could ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... his courage failed him. He raised his hat, his lips muttered a faint: "How d'ye do?" he smiled in a ludicrous manner and passed on. The young girl who thought he was about his business bowed and went on her way. "He might have said a few ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... instances and the amazing expeditions made by the censor into the realm of literature are hardly more than ludicrous; and they can and will correct themselves. But the frightful results of Comstockery, as applied to life and to real purity, cannot be so lightly passed over. And let it not be forgotten that an indictment of Comstockery is an indictment of ourselves, for ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... same terms which Francis Ardry had employed, the individual in black uttered several sentences in tones and with gestures which were intended to express a considerable degree of pathos, though it is possible that some people would have thought both the one and the other highly ludicrous. After a pause, Francis Ardry recommenced imitating the tones and the gestures of his monitor in the most admirable manner. Before he had proceeded far, however, he burst into a fit of laughter, in which I should, perhaps, have joined, provided it were ever my wont to laugh. 'Ha, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... as they are incapable of being made to harbor any symbolical meaning. He "never deviates into sense;" but those who appreciate him never feel the need of such deviation. He has a genius for coining absurd names and words, which, even when they are suggested by the exigencies of his metre, have a ludicrous appropriateness to the matter in hand. His verse is, with the exception of a certain number of cockney rhymes, wonderfully flowing and even melodious—or, as he would say, meloobious—while to all these qualifications for his task must ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... more humiliating because she knew that her impelling motive was not one of duty. There was nothing lofty in the matter—nothing self-sacrificing. She went back because she had to go back. Little material necessities, almost ludicrous in ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... will be forgotten, or considered trivial. [Pause] And the curious thing is that we can't possibly find out what will come to be regarded as great and important, and what will be feeble, or silly. Didn't the discoveries of Copernicus, or Columbus, say, seem unnecessary and ludicrous at first, while wasn't it thought that some rubbish written by a fool, held all the truth? And it may so happen that our present existence, with which we are so satisfied, will in time appear strange, inconvenient, stupid, unclean, perhaps ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... bit of pageant going towards the tomb; memorial stones are set up over the least memorable; and, in order to preserve some show of respect for what remains of our old loves and friendships, we must accompany it with much grimly ludicrous ceremonial, and the hired undertaker parades before the door. All this, and much more of the same sort, accompanied by the eloquence of poets, has gone a great way to put humanity in error; nay, in many philosophies the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... eyes of those who could not read. These people, as they listened to the friendly voice that read aloud - there was always some such ready to help them - stared at the characters which meant so much with a vague awe and respect that would have been half ludicrous, if any aspect of public ignorance could ever be otherwise than threatening and full of evil. Many ears and eyes were busy with a vision of the matter of these placards, among turning spindles, rattling looms, and whirling wheels, for hours afterwards; and when the ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... resembling my description in the city; but neither his face or garb made the same impression upon him that it made upon me. It was a hint to rally me upon my prepossessions, and to amuse us with a thousand ludicrous anecdotes which he had collected in his travels. He made no scruple to charge me with being in love; and threatened to inform the swain, when he met ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... Yet, with it all, he was aware of a consuming desire to laugh. There was a sense of utter farce in thus disposing of the affairs of nations in a flat in the Rue Boissiere. He recalled the exiled potentates of the music hall review, and the bitter wit of the dramatist was now justified. It was ludicrous, too, of Stampoff to address ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... saucily and heartily, tickled at the joke. Sentiment has an exquisitely ludicrous side when one is a black-eyed wine-seller perched astride on a wall, and dispensing bandy-dashed wine to half a ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... had not himself quite decided whether Elfrida, in London, was delightful or intolerable, and partly because he had no desire to be complicated in social relations which, he told himself, must be either ludicrous or insincere. The Halifaxes were not in any sense literary; their proper pretensions to that sort of society were buried with Sir William, who had been editor of the Brown Quarterly in his day, and many other things. ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... released his hold on Peter, who, adopting a ludicrous air of extreme cunning, rushed immediately around to the other table, where he burst into derisive laughter and thumbed his nose at the ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... was, yet a thing deadlier than Helen's beauty or Tamerlane's love of skulls. For just as character is outwardly shown so outward things react upon the character; and who, with that daring barber's ludicrous fancy visible always on his face, could quite go the sober way of beneficent monarchs? The fantasy must be mitigated here, set off there; had you such a figure to dress, say for amateur theatricals, you would realize the difficulty. The heavy ...
— Tales of War • Lord Dunsany
... a thorough exposure of the conclusion which she had arrived at, and subjected herself and the whole family to immediate privations, for which they were unprepared. They were injurious as well as useless and uncalled for, and had a ludicrous side. Acting for Mr. Carey, she dismissed the coachman and the gardener, paying them their month's wages which were unearned. She let the valuable horses take their chance of casual grooming and feeding, till they were sold off. She left the garden at the most critical time ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... about his clean-shaven lower jaw, and an intelligence in his widely-opened blue eyes, which marked him as a man of character. He erected a small hut for himself, and started a claim close to that occupied by the two strangers who had preceded him. This claim was chosen with a ludicrous disregard for all practical laws of mining, and at once stamped the newcomer as being a green hand at his work. It was piteous to observe him every morning as we passed to our work, digging and delving with the greatest industry, but, as we knew well, without ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... than you think. Also folks cannot neglect their cleanliness and then furbish themselves up in a day. I see by your complexion that she attends to you. I hope you are careful not to laugh at her when she makes those ludicrous speeches?" ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a picture of expectancy. So under the lower rail Bart slunk and stood under the head of Satan, growling terribly. Of this display of anger the stallion took not the slightest notice, but lowered his beautiful head until his velvet nose touched the cold muzzle of Bart. There was something ludicrous about the greeting—it was such an odd shade close to the human. It was as brief as it was strange, for Black Bart at once whirled and trotted away ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... fellow, with the supple lean figure of the college athlete, and a frank attractive face. He stood with his hands plunged into his pockets, gazing on the scene with an expression of ludicrous dismay. In a moment he caught the companion's eye. She smiled involuntarily, all that was still young in her leaping to meet that glad symbol of youth. He walked quickly ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... filial piety of the discarded daughter, and the wicked determination of Regan and Goneril. The fairy scenes in Midsummer Night's Dream amuse the fancy, and show the vast inventive powers of the painter; and 'Falstaff with Doll' is exquisitely ludicrous. ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... The former spoke nearly three hours, and far better than ever he had done before; the Duke was prosy. In the other House the Government had not a shadow of a case; their law officers, Home and Denman, displayed an ignorance and stupidity which were quite ludicrous, and nothing saved them from defeat but a good speech at the end from Palmerston, and their remonstrances to their friends that unless they carried it they must resign. Not a soul defends them, and they are particularly blamed for their ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... his good meaning became laughable, from the whimsical uncertainty of his conduct; so that the wisest things he ever said, and the best actions he ever did, were often touched with a strain of the ludicrous and fidgety character of the man. Accordingly, though at different periods of his reign he contrived to acquire with his people a certain degree of temporary popularity, it never long outlived the occasion which produced it; so true it is, that the mass of ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... the establishment of Jonas Carr her spirits had risen. The whole thing was ludicrous. Imagine the name of Lydia Day, "licensed to sell tobacco and snuff," painted over the door! Imagine her—her!—behind the counter of that squalid little shop! Imagine Bessie, and her exquisite young Deleah passing their lives in that upper room behind the net curtains! ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... nightmare took the form of a poor bewildered boy, guilty only of having been thrust, without a spark of genius, into a situation which only genius could have saved. In that surface aspect of the case there is an almost ludicrous disproportion between cause and effect. But it is not what the young King was that matters—it is what he stood for. Let us look a little below the surface—even, if we can, into ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... got there, the 27th of March, 1865, Negro troops guarded the outside walls and white men patrolled inside after night, and I saw nothing to criticise in the prison management; but those who had spent the winter there told some horrible and ludicrous stories of outrageous treatment by the Negro guard which, for awhile, guarded both outside and inside. A Negro guard would hear some one say, "Lay over or let me have some more cover." If the Negro guard heard it he would say, "Who dat talking in dar. Send him out here quick or I'll make ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott
... be of exceptional imagination and have thought much about the theatre—as Charlotte Bronte, for instance—hardly feel the illusion at all. At least, this is true of the opera, where the departure from reality is so striking that the impression can hardly fail to be a ludicrous one, till the habit of taking the performance for what it is intended to be ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... begin to perceive that New York society is a blending of the ludicrous and pathetic. The really charming women have two terrible faults, one which their fathers, husbands, and brothers have taught them, and one which they have apparently contracted without extraneous aid. The first ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... department of Satire; "the most entertaining and universally improving." To Smollett, "Roderick Random" seemed an "improving" work! Ou le didacticisme va t'il se nicher? Romance, he declares, "arose in ignorance, vanity, and superstition," and declined into "the ludicrous and unnatural." Then Cervantes "converted romance to purposes far more useful and entertaining, by making it assume the sock, and point out the follies of ordinary life." Romance was to revive again some twenty years after its funeral oration was thus delivered. ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang |
