"Humorous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the morning. They went into a church-yard, in the time of divine service, and Johnson laid himself down at his ease upon one of the tomb-stones. 'Now, Sir, (said Beauclerk) you are like Hogarth's Idle Apprentice.' When Johnson got his pension, Beauclerk said to him, in the humorous phrase of Falstaff, 'I hope you'll now purge and live ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... she trod; and as for her feet getting wet, the dew must have soaked them long ago. She was in the brightest of spirits. Lavender could hear her laughing in a low pleased fashion, and then presently her head would be turned up toward her companion, and all the light of some humorous anecdote would appear in her face and in her eloquent eyes, and it would be Ingram's turn to break out into one of those short abrupt laughs that had something sardonic ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... the boat," he said, in a grave, hard voice, which made my tone sound light, almost humorous. "I shall not rob you of your chance with her. If it depends upon me, ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... comment, and for the rest he paid compliments to Resilda. Still the eyes did not sparkle, indeed a pucker appeared and deepened on her forehead. Sir Charles accordingly redoubled his gallantries, he was slyly humorous about the horse-liniment, and thereupon came the remark which so surprised him and was the beginning of his strange discoveries. For Resilda suddenly leaned towards ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... been often called a caricaturer; when, in reality, caricatura was no part of his profession, he being a true copier of Nature; to set this matter right, and give the world a just definition of the words, character, caricatura, and outre, in which humorous painting principally consists, and to show their difference of meaning, he, in the year 1758, published this print; but, as it did not quite answer his purpose, giving an illustration of the word character only, he added, in the year 1764, the group of heads ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... may be still further inferred from the tenor of a humorous, satirical old romance, in which the writer implores the justice of Apollo on the heads of the swarm of traitor poets, who have deserted the ancient themes of song, the Cids, the Laras, the Gonzalez, to celebrate ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... actually in her presence, of what he had done. That was the thing which gave an edge to every action, to each fresh development of existence. Life was lived through again for her, and acquired a fresh aspect from her interest and sympathy, from her keen, humorous insight and far-seeing wisdom. But now, what would his life be without that light that had always shone on his path? He did not, he could not, begin to think about the future. He knew only that the present had ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... laughter was just like the rippling of silvery music and of the most catching, contagious nature. She generally only smiled, at even the most humorous incidents; and her smile was the sweetest I ever saw in anyone. It lit up her whole face with merriment, giving the grey eyes the most bewitching expression, and bringing into prominent notice a tiny, dear little dimple in her chin, which you might ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... evils which were really due to extraneous causes or to the mere fallibility of human nature. Still his analysis of democracy is one of the most brilliant things in the history of political theory. It is so acute, so humorous, so affectionate; and at many different ages of the world has seemed like a portrait of the actual contemporary society. Like a modern popular newspaper, Plato's democracy makes it its business to satisfy existing desires and give people a 'good time'. It does not distinguish between higher and ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... ordinary social and commercial conditions of theatrical enterprise, was a failure. His own account of it contrasts the reality with his intentions in a vein which would be bitter if it were not so humorous. The precautions taken to keep the seats out of the hands of the frivolous public and in the hands of earnest disciples, banded together in little Wagner Societies throughout Europe, had ended ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... was not altogether successful in narrative. There was a lack of colour in his descriptions. He did not know how to be humorous. However, from relating his own adventures abroad, Rudin soon passed to general themes, the special value of education and science, universities, and university life generally. He sketched in a large and comprehensive picture in broad and ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... proportion, or decency was never once outraged. They always stop short of a certain point,—the point where wit degenerates into mockery, and liberty into license: nature is never put to shame, and will commonly bear much more. Especially to the American sense did their humorous and comic strokes, their negro-minstrelsy and attempts at Yankee comedy, seem in a minor key. There was not enough irreverence and slang and coarse ribaldry, in the whole evening's entertainment, to have seasoned one line of some ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... but rather famous class of letters which perhaps should receive separate though brief notice. It is that of laconic and either intentionally or unintentionally humorous utilisations of the letter-form. Of one sort Captain Walton's "Spanish fleet taken and destroyed as per margin" is probably the most noted type: of another the equally famous rejoinder of the Highland magnate to his rival "Dear Glengarry, When you have proved yourself to be my chief, ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... are not hard to define. His wonderful keenness of observation and tenacity of remembrance of the pettinesses of daily existence, which in its amazing minuteness reminds us of Dickens and Mark Twain, and his sensitiveness to the humorous aspects of their little misfits and hypocrisies and lack of proportion, might if untempered have made him a literary cynic like some others, remembered chiefly for the salience he gave to the ugly meannesses of life and the ironies of fate. But his good angel added ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... to think, as a talker should think, more of good taste than of imaginative excellence, of propriety of expression than of grandeur of phrase. The deeper themes of the world or man were denied to him; if he touches them it is superficially, with a decorous dulness, or on their more humorous side with a gentle irony that shows how faint their hold is on him. In Addison's chat the war of churches shrinks into a puppet-show, and the strife of politics loses something of its fictitious earnestness ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... with them. She sends me new pictures of the boy every year. He keeps her busy. He was a rugged little chap at the start, did his best to grow, and bright!"—Tisdale paused, shaking his head, while the humorous lines deepened—"But he had to be vigorous to carry the name she gave him. Did I tell you it was Weatherbee Tisdale? Think of shouldering the names of two full-sized men on that atom. But she picked a nice diminutive ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... only avowed contribution to the fray. According to the author's own account, this play was written in fifteen weeks on a report that his enemies had entrusted to Dekker the preparation of "Satiromastix, the Untrussing of the Humorous Poet," a dramatic attack upon himself. In this attempt to 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 ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... 10 Myself from my wife; for although we are two, Yet she somehow contrives that all things shall be done In a style which proclaims us eternally one. But the thing of all things which distresses me more Than the bills of the week (though they trouble me sore) Is the numerous, humorous, backbiting crew Of scribblers, wits, lecturers, white, black, and blue, Who are brought to my house as an inn, to my cost— For the bill here, it seems, is defrayed by the host— No pleasure! no leisure! no thought for my pains, 20 ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... Barthrop, who was, partly by his seniority and partly by his temperament, a sort of second-in-command in the house, much consulted and trusted by Father Payne. He was a man of about thirty-five, grave, humorous, pleasant. If one was in a minor difficulty, too trivial to take to Father Payne, it was natural to consult Barthrop; and he sometimes, too, would say a word of warning to a man, if a storm seemed to be brewing. It must not be denied that men occasionally got on Father Payne's nerves, ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was occupied in surveying the extreme southern and eastern coasts of America, south of La Plata, during the succeeding two years. During ten weeks at Maldonado an entertaining excursion to the River Polanco was made, and many a humorous remark appears in the Journal relating to it. "The greater number of the inhabitants [of European descent] had an indistinct idea that England, London, and North America were different names for the same place; but the better-informed well knew that London and North America were separate countries ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... man broke in here. He had sat smiling softly as the talk went on. His face was gently humorous, and all the signs of a placid and pure life were there. This smiling philosopher said, "That's right, Fullerton. Ferrier's like my old mare used to be in the days when she was a little peacocky and fiery—she always wanted to rush her journeys. She steps soberly now. We'll teach him something ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... the margin of the lake, or lie down on the tedded grass, call the boy's attention to the insect populace which sports out its happy life in the summer months, and treat of the ways and habits of each varying species, with a quaint learning, half humorous, half grave. He was a minute observer and an accomplished naturalist. His range of knowledge was, indeed, amazingly large for a man who has had to pass his best years in a dry and absorbing study: necessarily not so profound in each section as that of a special professor; but ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... motors and splendid roads, seemed much nearer now than then. England had gone on much as usual a hundred years ago. Mrs. Otway even reminded herself that Jane Austen, during those years of stress and danger, had been writing her delightful, her humorous, her placid studies of life as though ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... although I tried my best not to do so. Once we passed each other on the street and I stubbornly kept my head turned in the other direction. I would risk no more looks such as she had given me when, in response to her father's would-be humorous suggestion, she had offered me her "congratulations." Once, too, I saw her on the bay, I was aboard the Comfort, having just anchored after a short cruise, and she went by in the canoe, her newest plaything, which had arrived by freight a few days before. A canoe in ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the officers of his fleet, when they came on board his ship for his final instructions, previous to the memorable engagement with Admiral De Winter, was couched in the following laconic and humorous words:—"Gentlemen of my Fleet, you see a very severe WINTER fast approaching; and I have only to advise you to keep up ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... to see two young miners named Macaulay a few miles away, and was regretfully compelled to decline," and the humorous smile on his face widened, for he knew that ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... irreverent behavior of young people who regarded the Shaker costumes, the solemn dances or marches, the rhythmic movements of the hands, the almost hypnotic crescendo of the singing, as a sort of humorous spectacle. I learned to know the brethren and sisters, and the Elder, as years went by, and often went to the main house to spend a day or two as the guest of Eldress Harriet, a saint, if ever there was one, or, ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... leading biologists are now disposed to grow somewhat humorous when speaking of this mutation theory of de Vries, as may ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price
... statesman and publicist is not denunciation of the barbarian. Denunciation plays a singularly small part in the French reaction to their suffering. References to Germans and Germany are usually of a psychological or humorous character, illustrating the grotesque and antipathetic aspects in which the Teuton presents himself to the Latin mind. That part which grieving and denunciation have played in English comment, the gross and apoplectic hate of the German press, is taken by lyrical enthusiasm for heroism. The newspapers, ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... seat was occupied by the principal player, who wore a humorous wig and a brilliant and expensive scarlet costume. He was a fairly able judge, but he had mistaken his vocation; his rare talent for making third-rate jokes would have brought him a fortune in the world of musical comedy. His salary was a hundred a week; better ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... brief and humorous glance. "I always give you the plums if I can, my boy," he said. "I said to him, 'Me and my son, we're partners. Going out with him is just the same as going out with me, and p'raps a bit better, for he's got the better ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... and struck off during the same fertile period, we find his Don Juan—in itself an epitome of all the marvellous contrarieties of his character—the Vision of Judgment, the Translation from Pulci, the Pamphlets on Pope, on the British Review, on Blackwood,—together with a swarm of other light, humorous trifles, all flashing forth carelessly from the same mind that was, almost at the same moment, personating, with a port worthy of such a presence, the mighty spirit of Dante, or following the dark footsteps of Scepticism over the ruins of past worlds, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... her humble home, he was asked to enter, and there he met her father, Isel Larue, a French monarchist who had been exiled from Paris for plotting against the Government. He was handsome with snapping black eyes, a cruel mouth and a droll and humorous tongue. He was grateful to Carnac for saving his daughter's life. Coffee and cigarettes were produced, and they chatted and smoked while Carnac took in the surroundings. Everything was plain, but spotlessly clean, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... 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, ghosts and witches, also deserves mention. ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... cause of everything offensive to the majority—if money is scarce, it is England that has occasioned it—if credit is bad, it is England—if eggs are not fresh or beef is tough, it is, it must be, England. They remind you of the parody upon Fitzgerald in Smith's humorous and witty 'Rejected Addresses,' when he is supposed ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... meetings. As Lincoln arose to speak, his tall form towered above the little assembly. Both hands were thrust down deep in the pockets of his pantaloons. A perceptible smile at once lit up the faces of the audience, for all anticipated the relation of some humorous story. But he opened up the discussion in splendid style, to the infinite astonishment of his friends. As he warmed with his subject, his hands would forsake his pockets and enforce his ideas by awkward gestures, but would very soon seek their easy resting-places. ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... of the Party, by Irvin S. Cobb (George H. Doran Company). I shall claim no special literary quality for this short story which Mr. Cobb has reprinted from The Saturday Evening Post, but America usually shows such poverty in producing humorous stories that the infectious quality of this wildly improbable adventure makes the story seem better than it really is. It cannot be regarded as more than a diversion from Mr. Cobb's rich ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... an urgent call from the skipper, who was waiting at the small-boat, Timmie ran out. As he stumbled down the path, emitting guffaws and delicious chuckles, he conceived—most unhappily for us all—an infinitely humorous plan, which would still give him the delight of a rough passage to our harbour: for Timmie loved a wet deck and a reeling beat to windward, under a low, driving sky, with the night coming down, as few lads do. Inform the skipper? Not Timmie! Nor would he tell even Jacky. ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... head single or short serial articles of one and a half or two columns in length, signed or not signed, but always either well written or describing something new and interesting. 'Talk on 'Change' heads a column and a half of satirical or humorous notes, which are very much appreciated, and form a more leading feature of the paper than their merit warrants. The anecdotes are often new and always admirably told, but the comments are weak. 'The Theatres' contains one general critique of the newest play in Melbourne—sometimes two—followed ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... portrait of his father, my grandfather, hanging there in the stillness above the coffin, looking out on the world he had left with steady, humorous blue eyes that followed one about the room,—that, too, was revivified, touched into reality and participation by this and that, became a living presence at a conference of lives. Things of his were there also ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... roads of that joyous Saturday might have asked was it whippets, horses, or the ring which best explained this lank, keen-eyed, humorous-lipped, uneven-gaited fellow; but none would have suspected a masquerade in the figure offered to their eyes with an assurance so entirely ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... laughed. "I cannot give my parole," he said, "since I mean to escape for all your brother's care." Then he fell to pacing up and down before her. "Now, by Monseigneur Saint Medard and the Eagle that sheltered him!" he cried, in half-humorous self-mockery; "however thickly troubles rain upon me, I think that I shall never give up hoping!" After a pause, "Listen, mademoiselle," he went on, more gravely, and gave a nervous gesture toward the east, "yonder is France, sacked, pillaged, ruinous, prostrate, naked to her enemy. But ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... theorbo was a bass lute. Having gut strings it was played with the fingers. There is a humorous comparison of the long waists of ladies, which came into fashion about 1621, with ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... think,' said their father in his half-humorous, half-serious voice, 'that you were really baptised by ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... for the thought of Hugh in hiding, that supper and the evening about the hearth would have been to Sylvie a pleasant one. The men, apparently laying aside all suspicion, were entertaining; their adventurous lives had bristled with exciting, moving, humorous experience. It was Sylvie herself, prompted by curiosity, believing as she did that the monster the sheriff had described bore no possible resemblance to the man she loved, ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... the Red Light he revives himse'f with a drink, an' then inquires whether it's humorous, or do we mean it? Seein' how speshul low Steve takes it, we-alls allows it's a joke; an' Steve, while he evident feels some fretted, concloods to let it go ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... a man who for fifty years had been accustomed to receive the meek skilled service of women in august silence. One could almost have detected in those eyes a glassy and profound secret amusement at the disturbance which he had caused—a humorous appreciation of all the fuss: the maids with their hair down their backs bending and whispering over a stove; Ethel and Milly trudging scared through the nocturnal streets; Rose talking with demure excitement to old Hawley in his aromatic surgery; John officiously ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... had been indignant, at first; but Patsy's judgment was clearer than her cousin's and her nature more responsive. She quickly saw the humorous side of their adventure and could enjoy the ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... hadn't been humorous. Any of his fellow townsmen would have made the same remark. In fact, I had the good fortune a few weeks afterward to see several hundred wild geese playing and feeding on Jack Miner's farm—within a hundred feet of ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... with all the worry, numb'd, dead, Sank my body, upon the bed reposing, 15 This, O humorous heart, did I, a poem Write, my ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... God's sake! You're hurting me," very much as a person with a cracked lip begs for mercy when you are in the middle of your most humorous story. ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... of literary taste which he gave was in his sixth year, when he made several little sketches with explanatory remarks written beneath them, after the manner of Du Maurier's, or Charles Keene's humorous ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... older face, which leaves no doubt that the heads are those of a little child and its mother. A feeling for maternity is indeed always characteristic of Leonardo; and this feeling is further indicated here by the half-humorous pathos of the diminutive, rounded shoulders of the child. You may note a like pathetic power in drawings of a young man seated in a stooping posture, his face in his hands, as in sorrow; of a slave sitting in an uneasy inclined posture, in some ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... and a peer. He spent his time running after girls in the Tuileries, always had several on his hands, and lived and spent his money with their families and friends of the same kidney. He was just fit for a strait-waistcoat, but comical, full of wit and unexpected repartees. A good, humorous fellow, and honest-polite, and not too impertinent on account of his sister's fortune. Yet it was a pleasure to hear him talk of the time of Scarron and the Hotel d'Albret, and of the gallantries and adventures of his sister, which he contrasted with her present ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... or those to whom the edifice was dedicated being most frequently chosen. New symbolic designs were made showing the flight of time by seasons and months; others represented the virtues, and even the customs and habits of the people were sometimes introduced. There were also humorous representations, even on sacred edifices. Water-pipes and gutter-spouts were ended with the heads of monsters and curious animals, and even with grotesque faces; in short, the smaller details of the architecture ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... let Mr. Carlyle depict himself. Making allowance for some humorous play in describing a fellow-man so eccentric as his friend, Professor Teufelsdroeckh, this we think he does consciously and designedly in the fourth chapter of "Sartor Resartus," wherein, under the head of "Characteristics," he comments on the professor's Work ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... but with an eye to the future I have persuaded him to give up Tolstoi and read Mark Twain, who is not only equally humorous, but much more sensible than the Russian writer. Jack must not be allowed to give away his estates to the peasants as his silly sister has done. I may ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... the Norse were humanized and civilized by their contact with the Celts, both in Scotland and in Ireland. Both peoples had valor, intellect, imagination: but the Celt had that which the burly, angular Norse character, however deep and stately, and however humorous, wanted; namely, music of nature, tenderness, grace, rapidity, playfulness; just the qualities, combining with the Scandinavian (and in Scotland with the Angle) elements of character which have produced, in Ireland and in Scotland, two schools of lyric poetry second to none in the world."[26] ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... splendid talents had long made me ardently wish for his acquaintance; Dr. Nugent, Mr. Garrick, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. (afterwards Sir William) Jones[710], and the company with whom I had dined. Upon my entrance, Johnson placed himself behind a chair, on which he leaned as on a desk or pulpit, and with humorous formality gave me a Charge, pointing out the conduct expected from me as a good ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... a little—as others had done. For indeed the thought of a dignified Judge drawing in his breath and whooping on the bench like a frightened child was not without its humorous side. ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... Mr Vladimir, so well known in the best society by their humorous urbanity, beamed with cynical self-satisfaction, which would have astonished the intelligent women his wit entertained so exquisitely. "Yes," he continued, with a contemptuous smile, "the blowing up of the first meridian is bound to raise a ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... glance at the table of contents in the third volume will show the general nature of the selections. Fairy stories or tales with a highly imaginative basis predominate. There are some that are humorous, as for instance the selections from the writings of Lewis Carroll, and one or two ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... used with an unsparing hand. Neither the government nor the clergy escaped. Much caution was practised, however, in regard to individuals, and names were seldom introduced. There are some severe and humorous criticisms on the poets of the day, which may be classed with the best specimens of this kind of composition in the modern reviews. The humor sometimes degenerates into coarseness, and the phraseology is often harsh; but, bating these faults, the paper contains ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... pardon—I press it very hard!" And Lord John, as taking from his face and manner a cue for further humorous license, went so far as to emulate, though sympathetically enough, their companion's native form. "You don't mean to say you don't feel the ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... sharp observer of intimate family life, and a most penetrating analyst. The very gallant sketches, later reunited in 'Monsieur, Madame, et Bebe' (1866), and crowned by the Academy, have gone through many editions. 'Entre nous' (1867) and 'Une Femme genante', are written in the same humorous strain, and procured him many admirers by the vivacious and sparkling representations of bachelor and connubial life. However, Droz knows very well where to draw the line, and has formally disavowed a lascivious novel published in Belgium—'Un Ete a la campagne', ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... courage of a knight-errant Cochrane added the shrewd and humorous sagacity of a Scotchman. If he had commanded fleets he would have rivalled the victories of Nelson, and perhaps even have outshone the Nile and Trafalgar. And to warlike genius of the first order Cochrane added a certain weird and impish ingenuity which his enemies found ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... patient reader, you will find my piece humorous, interesting, instructive, and edifying. In delineating and drawing to life the representation of my assailant, aggressor, and barefaced calumniator. I have preferred the natural order, free, and familiar ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... keeper of the place greeted Colin and proceeded to deliver himself of a humorous rigmarole, designed for the benefit of tourists. It was pure 'nature-faking,' since it ascribed human characteristics to some of the fish in the pool, the various specimens being called the "bride" and "groom" and so forth. The screed was rather ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... Howell gave a humorous series of Suffrage Pictures in New York, which was greatly relished by the audience. Mrs. Laura M. Johns described Municipal Suffrage in Kansas in an enthusiastic and interesting manner. The Rev. Anna Howard Shaw then delivered her lecture, which has since become so famous, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... discoveries are merely amazing misapprehensions, were even more interesting to De Morgan than the craftier sort who make a living, or try to make a living, out of their pretended theories. Indeed, these last he treated, as they deserved, with a scathing satire quite different from his humorous and not ungenial comments on the wonderful theories of ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... I find it covers pretty well the reading interests of boys. There are stories about boy scouts, school stories, stories of the sea and "wild west" stories, detective and mystery stories; most of all, though, a goodly number of humorous stories, and I am willing to hazard the guess there will be no regrets on the part of readers because the selections happen to abound in stories of ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... is the kind of book that one desires to read aloud to all the family. Its captivating stories, humorous often, pathetic at times, will brighten one's face into a broad smile or bring the tear unbidden. The stories are the windows that Dr. Goss opens upon the practical themes that brighten every page of this winsome book. It will drive ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... the dominant note in table-talk should be light and humorous is going too far; but conversation between dinner-companions should tend strongly to the humorous, to the light, to the small change of ideas. There should be an adroit intermixing of light and serious talk. I noted once with keen interest a shrewd mingling of serious ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... was offered some strawberries, floating in a delicious-looking syrup; and a glance at his hostess betrayed his half-humorous perplexity. ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... Agnes and I. We want time and space annihilated in order that we may be happy. We must be humorous studies to those looking on, but we are, nevertheless, utterly desperate. This is true. Scold me now—if you can. Tell me what is to become of ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... was looking at her own slipper again and the moving foot within it. There was a mystic little smile at the corner of her lips which tilted upwards there, as humorous and tender lips nearly always do. It suggested that she knew something which even Evasio Mon, the ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... pamphlets with all the zest of hunger and poverty, vigorously seeking to persuade myself that flesh was an altogether superfluous, and even a repulsive, food. If ever such things fall under my eyes nowadays, I am touched with a half humorous compassion for the people whose necessity, not their will, consents to this chemical view of diet. There comes before me a vision of certain vegetarian restaurants, where, at a minim outlay, I have often ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... about education, permitted her to do whatever she pleased, that she might gain her affections and keep her to herself. This young lady had been well brought up by her virtuous mother; she was genteel and humorous, and could joke very pleasantly: when she had a colour she did not look ugly. No one can imagine what mad-headed people were about this Princess, and among the number was the Marechale d'Estrees. Maintenon was ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... accent in music of Eastern origin. Brodzinski is quoted as saying that in its primitive form the Mazurek is only a kind of Krakowiak, "less lively, less sautillant." At its best it is a dancing anecdote, a story told in a charming variety of steps and gestures. It is intoxicating, rude, humorous, poetic, above all melancholy. When he is happiest he sings his saddest, does the Pole. Hence his predilection for minor modes. The Mazurka is in three-four or three-eight time. Sometimes the accent is dotted, but this is by no means absolute. Here ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... hospitality to make them have a good time, and if there was a defect anywhere, it was not his fault. He told them a good many humorous anecdotes, and always forgot the nub, but they were always able to furnish it, for these yarns were of a pretty early vintage, and they had had many a rejuvenating pull at them before. And he told them all about his several dignities, and how he ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... many shillings to obtain anything definite in the way of results, and Graeme had his own humorous suspicions as to the billets some of them found, and gently chaffed old Tom on ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... song is my own. It was first set to music by Heather, and most beautifully set too. It was afterwards set by Dewar, whether with the same accompaniments or not, I have forgot. It is my own favourite humorous song when forced by ladies to sing against my will, which too frequently happens; and notwithstanding my wood-notes wild, it will never be sung by any so well again.—For the air, see ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... naked torso (this is a sufficiently proper costume for private life here, I admit). Around him are grouped Chrysantheme, Oyouki, and Mademoiselle Dede the maid, all eagerly rubbing his back with little blue towels decorated with storks and humorous subjects. ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... a nuisance to the passing public because of such inconvenience as the asymmetrical main road. It hinders local development and the development of a local spirit. It may, of course, appeal perhaps to the humorous outlook of the followers of Mr. G.K. Chesterton and Mr. Belloc, who believe that this war is really a war in the interests of the Athanasian Creed, fatness, and unrestricted drink against science, discipline, ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... that the British weakness mostly lay in the age of the senior officers and the slowness of promotion. There were majors of over fifty years of age, and if a man were a general at seventy he was considered fortunate and young. The jealousy with which younger men were regarded would have been humorous had it not come already so near ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... woman would have passed her, even in a crowd, without a second glance. There was a cheerful light in her eye and a humorous curve to her not too-full lips that promised an uplifting spirit within her even ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... details by using a piece of baling wire to fasten it. The last ounce of disgust with life slid from his mind when he heard the greeting, and he turned and gripped hard the gloved hand thrust toward him. Ches Mason it was—the same old Ches, with the same humorous wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, the same kindliness, the same hearty faith in the world as he knew it and in his fellowmen as he found them—the unquestioning faith that takes it for granted that the other fellow is as square as himself. Ford held his ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... do otherwise," said the lawyer, with a humorous sense of the predicament twinkling in his eyes. "And that will leave my clients just nothing in the world until Mr. Northwick comes home with that fortune he proposes to make. In the meantime they have their chance of starving to death, or living on charity. And I don't believe," ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... afterwards that, when he heard this, he fairly groaned. He wasn't by any means humorous as a rule, and, so far as he was concerned, the joke had gone far enough; and he used to add as a warning that a man may go so far in a joke he can't help but go farther—'tis like hysterics with women. At any rate, he saw the soldiers coming for him at the double, spreading themselves to head ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Pratts are perfectly aware of what I have, of course, tried to conceal, namely, that the love-scenes in the Idyll were put together from scraps I had collected of James's engagement to Minna. And all the humorous bits are claimed by a colony of cousins in Devonshire who say that any one 'who had heard them talk' could have written the Idyll. And any one who had not heard them apparently. The so-called profane passages are all that are left to me ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... offence," said the Idiot. "I've read so much of yours that was purely humorous that I believe I'd laugh at a dirge if you should write one; but I really thought your lines in the Observer were a burlesque. You had the same thought that ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... Vocab. Quiche, p. 224. The attempt of the Abbe Brasseur to make of Xibalba an ancient kingdom of renown with Palenque as its capital, is so utterly unsupported and wildly hypothetical, as to justify the humorous flings which have so ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... changed very much, Mr. Chamberlain has a very keen sense and appreciation of humour. Probably he would like sometimes to indulge himself and amuse the House by firing off some humorous hits and quotations, but he knows the importance of suppressing such instincts and tendencies if he is to be taken seriously and regarded as a statesman. Blue books and Biglow, Bills and Sam Slick, do not make the ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... upon her congratulations, made by one who had no thought or feeling to bestow on others; at least, not in these weeks of 'cock-a-doodle-dooing,' as Mrs. Robson persisted in calling it. It was seldom that Bell was taken with a humorous idea; but this once having hatched a solitary joke, she was always clucking it into notice—to go on with her own ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... replied in his peculiarly humorous way, and concluded by saying: "I have no doubt that not a men in the United States, but who, when he 'stands pat' with three jacks, or draws to two aces, will glorify the name of the Senator from Ohio; ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... fancy and made a tremendous hit all over the world. Louis Wain's cats immediately became famous, and he has had more orders than he can fill ever since. He works eight hours a day, and then lays aside his brush to study physical science, or write a humorous story. He has written and illustrated a comic book, and spent a great deal of time over a more ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... died about 1638: wrote, besides numerous tracts, twenty-eight plays. The principal are Old Fortunatus, The Honest Whore, and Satiro-Mastix, or, The Humorous Poet Untrussed. In the last, he satirized Ben Jonson, with whom he had quarrelled, and who had ridiculed him in The Poetaster. In the Honest Whore are found those beautiful lines ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... air of a New England worthy. And Alexander, in contrast with his brother-in-law, had knotty hands and a tanned complexion that years of "inside business" had not sufficed to smooth. The little habit of kneading the palm which you felt when he shook hands, and the broad, humorous smile, had not changed as the years passed him on from success to success. Mrs. Hitchcock still slurred the present participle and indulged in other idiomatic freedoms that endeared her to Sommers. These two, plainly, were not of the generation that is tainted by ambition. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... presents us with her third volume of ladye mirth, as heretofore, over-flowing with fun and patter, and sprinkled with some sixty or seventy Cuts—many of them, to use a critical term, of "spirited design." Probably, the most humorous tale among the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various
... the first colloquy of Banquo with the witches, Macbeth took the opportunity of winking privately at us over the foot-lights, all the paraphernalia of the stage failed to make the murderous Thane of Cawdor aught else than our humorous and good-natured Mr. Charles. I never saw him after that night. He is still living—may his old age have been as peaceful as his youth ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... has continued to be published twice a week: it contains a few political addresses and discourses; all foreign intelligence; some tolerable papers on distilling, agriculture, manufactures, and similar topics; some humorous pieces in prose and verse; poems on several occasions; and, at the end of the month, a table of the receipts and expenditures of government. Among the advertisements I observe one informing the public where leeches ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... wickedness—deludes other and weak-minded puppets into trusting him, and then beats them with a club upon the back of the head until they die. The murders of this infamous creature, which are always executed in a spirit of jocose sang-froid, and accompanied by humorous remarks, are received with the keenest relish by the spectators and, indeed, the action is every way worthy of applause. The dramatic spirit of the Italian race seems to communicate itself to the puppets, and they perform their parts with a fidelity to theatrical unnaturalness which ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... no very clear idea of what sort of people he might come upon in this country. It was, he knew, America. Americans he had always understood were the citizens of a great and powerful nation, dry and humorous in their manner, addicted to the use of the bowie-knife and revolver, and in the habit of talking through the nose like Norfolkshire, and saying "allow" and "reckon" and "calculate," after the manner ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... sit below and work. As he ends each verse, they reply in a chorus that can be heard miles away through the clear, still, frosty air. Their songs are the ancient ditties of the plantation, and are humorous or pathetic in sound rather than in sense. And yet even to an educated ear they have a certain interest, like everything, however trivial, connected with this ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... the death of Coleridge. Some old friends of his saw him two or three weeks ago and remarked the constant turning and reference of his mind. He interrupted-himself and them almost every instant with some play of affected wonder, or astonishment, or humorous melancholy, on the words, 'Coleridge is dead.' Nothing could divert him from that, for the thought of it never left him. About the same time, we had written to him to request a few lines for the literary album of a gentleman who ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... yesterday?" asked Joseph Beaker. His face was lop-sided, like his figure, and his speech came in a hollow mumble which was difficult to follow. Joseph was content to pass as the harmless lunatic of the parish, but there was a shrewdly humorous twinkle in his eye which damaged his pretensions with the more ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... little details connected with the care of horses and harness, and all along the ever-present problem of the next meal, and how to make it meet the demands of your hunger. I don't mean that one is always worrying about such things. They generally have a most humorous side, and are a source of great amusement; on the other hand, they sometimes seem overwhelmingly important. Chiefly one realizes the enormous importance of food to a soldier. Shortage of sleep, over-marching, severe fighting, sink into insignificance beside an empty stomach. Any ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... recluse, he was by no means an ascetic. He was marked by deep gravity of countenance coupled with a kindly humorous disposition. No one knew where he came from, or why he had taken up his abode in such a lonely spot. Many of the rough fellows who hang on the outskirts of the wilderness had tried as they said, to ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... it looks as if it were made of blacking bottles turned inside out and cobbled together. The dearest friend in the world (inconceivably drunk too) advances at the Gong-donkey, with a hand on each thigh, in a series of humorous springs and stops, wagging his head as he comes. The Gong-donkey regarding him with attention and with the warmest affection, suddenly perceives that he is the greatest enemy he has in the world, and hits him hard in the countenance. The astonished Jackall closes with the Donkey, and they roll ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... perhaps humorous, Senor Bell," he said presently, in the same steady voice he had used upon the deck. "It is undoubtedly humorous that I should call upon you. I believe that you are allied with the Secret Service of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... this remarkable event in humorous style. The proceedings at Charleston were likened to a cricket match or a regatta in England. The ladies turned out to view the contest. A good shot from Fort Sumter was as much applauded as a good shot from Fort Moultrie. When the American flag ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... satisfied the anti-scientific party, but as a rule their attacks upon him took the form not so much of abuse as of humorous disparagement. An epigram by Shuttleworth, afterward Bishop of Chichester, in imitation of Pope's famous lines upon Newton, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... countenances; and the Ladies confessed that the company and conversation of my departed guests, especially of Lysander, were such as to leave a void which could not easily be supplied. For my part, from some little warmth each sister betrayed in balancing the solid instruction of Lysander and the humorous vivacity of Lisardo, against each other, I thought the former had made a powerful impression upon the mind of Belinda, and the latter upon that of Almansa: for when the probability of a speedy revisit from both of them was mentioned ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... was his playmate—he is still a young man—describes Mr. Furniss as very small of stature, full of animation and merriment, constantly amusing himself and his friends with clever[!] reproductions of each humorous character or scene that met his eye in the ever-fruitful gallery of living art—gay, grotesque, pathetic, even beautiful—that the streets and outlets of such a town as Wexford present to a quick ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... smiled quietly to himself as he combed his fair beard with his forefinger in a meditative fashion, whilst even Roxalanne—who had sat silently listening to a conversation that she was at times mercifully spared from following too minutely—flashed me a humorous glance. To the Vicomtesse alone who in common with women of her type was of a singular ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... at times attempted to be humorous by dressing dogs in coats and trousers with pipe in mouth is to be regretted. A dog so clothed ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... the leading roles in this crisis; the merchant Truett, towering above all the rest; Farwell, direct, uncompromising, inspired with tremendous single-minded earnestness; James Dows, of the rough and ready, humorous, blasphemous, horse-sense type; Hossefross, of the Committee of '51; Dr. Beverly Cole, high-spirited, distinguished-looking, and courtly; Isaac Bluxome, whose signature of "33 Secretary" was to become terrible, and who also had served well ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... other sport, and secondly, because a good amateur still feels himself the hopeless inferior of half the Alpine peasants whom he sees. You cannot be very conceited about a game in which the first clodhopper you meet can give you ten minutes' start in an hour. Still a man writing in a humorous vein naturally adopts a certain bumptious tone, just as our friend "Punch" ostentatiously declares himself to be omniscient and infallible. Nobody takes him at his word, or supposes that the editor of "Punch" ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... of his cloak was drawn so high now that it formed almost a hood around his head and face, but he turned a little, and Robert saw the blue eyes, as blue as his own, twinkling with a humorous light. It was borne upon him with renewed force that here was a champion of romance and high adventure. St. Luc was a survival. He was one of those knights of the Middle Ages who rode forth with lance and sword to do battle, perhaps for a lady's favor, and perhaps to crush the infidel. His own ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the Missioner whose voice when not moved by emotion was rich in a natural unction that encouraged everyone round to suppose he was being successfully humorous, such a savour did it add to the most innutritious chaff. Those who were privileged to share his ordinary life never ceased to wonder how in the pulpit or in the confessional or at prayer this unction was replaced by a remote beauty of tone, a plangent and thrilling compassion that played upon ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... what atoms we are; and we struggle so hard. Our life that seems to us so short—and so long! A thousand, perhaps ten thousand such, end to end, and we have the life of a world. And what is that? A cycle! A thing self-created, self-destructive: then of human life—nothingness. Oh, it's humorous! Our life, a ten thousandth part of that nothingness; and so full of tiny—great struggles and worries!" She was silent a moment, her throat trembling, a multitude of expressions shifting ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... dressing-gown, Mr. Hammond rested in his cushioned easy-chair, with his head thrown far back, and his fingers clasping a large bunch of his favorite violets, His snowy hair drifted away from a face thin and pale, but serene and happy, and in his bright blue eyes there was a humorous twinkle, and on his lips a half-smothered smile, as he listened to the witticisms of his Scotch countrymen in ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... impatience in the pleasant look with which Mr. Crisparkle contemplated the pretty old piece of china as it knitted; but there was, certainly, a humorous sense of its not being a piece of china ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... natures, a sort of Nero, Caligula and Alexander combined: the sensuality of the first, the cruelty of the second, and the instinctive fire and greatness of the immortal Macedonian. The man was smiling; not an amused smile, but one of interest, humorous tolerance. ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... in spite of the humorous aspects of the idea, it still appeared to me that such an experiment would not only fit in with the true object of my journeying, but that it might be full of amusing and interesting adventures. Straightway I got my notebook out of my ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... to meet, either for purposes of enjoyment, or to discuss art, or to reform the State, had a way of suggesting that Mary had better be asked to lend them her rooms. She always met the request with the same frown of well-simulated annoyance, which presently dissolved in a kind of half-humorous, half-surly shrug, as of a large dog tormented by children who shakes his ears. She would lend her room, but only on condition that all the arrangements were made by her. This fortnightly meeting ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf |
