"Laughable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the colony to which she was about to emigrate, and of the manners and customs of the people among whom she was to find a new home, and of whom she had formed the most laughable and erroneous notions, many of her purchases were not only useless, but ridiculous. Things were overlooked, which would have been of the greatest service; while others could have been procured in the colony for less ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... natural object or fact is now expressive, according to the disposition of the soul, now insignificant, now expressive of one definite thing, now of another, sad or glad, sublime or ridiculous, sweet or laughable; finally, that natural beauty, which an artist would not to some extent ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... pushin' an acquaintance most too far, wa'n't it?" agreed Miss Pickett. "There, 't will be somethin' laughable to tell Mis' Timms. I never see anything more divertin'. I shall kind of pity that woman if we have to stop an' git her as we ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... appeared at the window, a Mentonnais-Italian who prided himself passionately upon his English. He too had been found for the house by the friendly offices of the cure—an eager, intelligent man with glittering eyes and a laughable tendency to blushing. He had learned his English in three months at a Bloomsbury boarding-house where, apparently, conversations had been carried on entirely in slang. If he were addressed by an English-speaking person ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... as they call education. Their preaching is a sort of canting reiteration of the text and what few Scripture verses they chance to know and some hackneyed expressions. They are great on arguing, and it would be laughable if it was not so pitiful to hear the profound questions they discuss. Last season one of these preachers nearly broke up one of our mission Sunday-Schools, which we could attend only each alternate Sabbath. In the passage that reads "And anon they ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 38, No. 01, January, 1884 • Various
... very difficult to remember a number of good and laughable ones, so we will give a list of some, which will be quite sufficient to puzzle a roomful of ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... off, step to the head of the nigh ox and rap the off ox gently on the nose, then reversing your stick, touch up the nigh ox." He illustrated his teachings and I attempted to imitate him. Halstead stood at a little distance and laughed; no doubt it was laughable. ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... to behold us all lying prostrate, digging wells in miniature; and displaying a laughable selfishness in our endeavours to obtain the most abundant source. This was a very important discovery to us. We found these sand-wells at the extremity of the desert, and it contributed, in no small degree, to revive the courage of our soldiers; besides, when men are, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... claims no scientist would dare to risk his reputation. Now chemistry is the ne plus ultra of human wisdom, and every man is a fool who does not hold the key to the secret chambers of its hidden treasures! But how long till we shall have a new chemistry that will render the old a bundle of laughable folly? The fact is, by the advancement of human knowledge we demonstrate that our ancestors were a set of fools, and our posterity will doubtless pay us the same compliment! The philosophy of history should teach us to be modest, ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... common sailor. He had put off his shoes, so as to walk more softly; and he came and went on tiptoe, his face full of care and anxiety, preparing draughts, and handling with his huge bony hands, with laughable, but almost touching precautions, the small phials out of which he had to give a spoonful to ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... every phase of fun and comedy in the character is repeated, under fresh conditions of increased appreciation and enjoyment. By the exuberance of comic invention which gives his distinction to Mr. Pecksniff, Mrs. Gamp profits quite as much; the same wealth of laughable incident which surrounds that worthy man is upon her heaped to overflowing; but over and above this, by the additional invention of Mrs. Harris, it is all reproduced, acted over with renewed spirit, and doubled and quadrupled in her favour. This on the whole is the happiest stroke of humorous ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... professor was so excited that he could scarcely hold the binocular firmly enough to look through it, and it was really laughable—to his companions—to hear his "Ach's" and "Pish's" of impatience as he vainly strove to steady his trembling hands and get another good look at the herd of hitherto believed extinct monsters, which were ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... our stories we must begin with "Don Quixote." Its author wrote it under great difficulties and distress; but one would never think so, as it is full of laughable doings. When you read our selections you must not think that Don Quixote was merely a silly old man, for indeed he was a very noble gentleman and tried with all his might to do what he believed to be his duty, and in no act of his life was ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... inconceivable how moving this process proved, not only to Freeman, but to the crowd comprising his body-guard. The poor blusterer, entirely cut off from big companions, was in a laughable panic. His tawny skin became ashen, as he bounded from his seat and rushed to the extremity of the piazza; and, to make a long story short, in a few minutes he was as penitent ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... fashion, to the Egyptian Queen. 'Well,' said she, without a moment's hesitation, 'if there is one thing more than another that I do want, it's a silk handkercher for my head—a real Bandana.' The request was characteristic. Of the tales we heard one or two were curious, one positively laughable, and one related to a deed of blood. Mr. Smith, going into a tent, found an aged Gipsy woman, to whom he told the object of his visiting the Gipsies, and what he hoped to accomplish for the children, and she forwith handed him a money gift. On more ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... gonging of an excited crowd of natives, who are endeavouring with hideous noises to prevent some imaginary dog of colossal proportions from banqueting, as the case may be, upon the sun or moon. At such laughable exhibitions of native ignorance it will be observed there is always a fair sprinkling of well-to-do, educated persons, who not only ought to know better themselves, but should be making some effort to enlighten their less fortunate countrymen instead of joining ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... agreeably. The African cannot avoid being comic. He is the grotesque element in our civilization. He will be droll even under the severest punishment. His contortions of body, his grimaces, his ejaculations of "O Lor'! O Massa!" as the paddle or the lash strikes his flesh, are laughable ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... Another laughable story is related of Buffalmacco's ingenuity to rid himself of annoyance. Soon after he left Tafi, he took apartments adjoining those occupied by a man who was a penurious old simpleton, and compelled his wife to rise long before daylight to commence work at her spinning ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... of art is commonly dismissed as the grotesque. We have never been able to understand why it should be humiliating to be laughable, since it is giving an elevated artistic pleasure to others. If a gentleman who saw us in the street were suddenly to burst into tears at the mere thought of our existence, it might be considered disquieting and uncomplimentary; but laughter is not uncomplimentary. In truth, however, ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... the squirming of the Republicans at this crisis under the double fire of the Democrats and the women, would have been laughable, had not their proposed action been so outrageously unjust and ungrateful. The tone of the Republican press[53] was stale, flat, and unprofitable. But while their journals were thus unsparing in their ridicule and criticism of the loyal women who had proved themselves so patriotic and self-sacrificing, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... that such a ghastly relic as a dead hand should have been preserved in many a country house, and used as a talisman, to which we find an amusing and laughable reference in the ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... It is laughable to read of those days when men were drugged with pills, boluses and powders. Now our physic is in our food; and the doctor prescribes a series of articles to be eaten or avoided, as the case may be. One can see at once by consulting his "vital-watch," which ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... ordeal were ended. Possibly this helped to spoil a locomotive engineer, but went to make a great master of the new motive power. "Steam is half an Englishman," said Emerson. The temptation is strong to say that workaday electricity is half an American. Edison's own account of the incident is very laughable: "The engine was one of a number leased to the Grand Trunk by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy. It had bright brass bands all over, the woodwork beautifully painted, and everything highly polished, which was the custom up to the time ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... the red-coats flocked up to the door, and it was laughable to see the knowledge of character displayed by the gossoons in the selection of their customers. One or two, who were known to be "bad pays," were allowed to dismount without molestation of any kind, and could not even part with ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... was fair—they loved one another; and love is the biggest thing in the universe. But was it only love in his case—was it not overmastering passion as well? Well—what if it was; there are cases where the two cannot be separated—and those cases are more precious than rubies. Against such it were laughable to put the fate of Blandford. . . . Quite—but whose point of view ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... other side are often quite as amusing. Dr. Canas related to us a laughable anecdote of a countryman of his, with whom he happened to camp on his first arrival in San Francisco. None of the party could speak a word of English, and the person referred to, as ignorant as the rest, went out to purchase bread, which ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... Bill, nor the experience and coolness of Bracy Tibbetts, the courteous express messenger, both of whom have since confessed to have been more than astonished at the Christian and lamb-like submission of the insiders. Amusing stories of some laughable yet sickening incidents of the occasion—such as grown men kneeling in the road, and offering to strip themselves completely, if their lives were only spared; of one of the passengers hiding under the seat, ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... a most laughable thing indeed, if you would like to listen to it. Horace Greeley went over this road once. When he was leaving Carson City he told the driver, Hank Monk, that he had an engagement to lecture at Placerville and was very anxious ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... common to many of these Comedies, but it is especially marked in this particular instance. The final part might almost be a separate play, under the title perhaps of 'The dicast turned gentleman,' and relates various ridiculous mistakes and laughable blunders committed by Philocleon, who, having given up his attendance on the law-courts, has set up for playing a part in ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... was worse, if anything: you had to make believe that things two inches high were life-size, and that there were relief and distance where there was nothing but a flat canvas, and that colors which were really like nothing in nature were natural. As for sculpture, it was too laughable for anything, whether you took it in bas-reliefs with persons stuck onto walls, half or three-quarters out, or in groups with people in eternal action; or in single figures, standing on one leg or holding out arms that would drop off if they were not supported by stone pegs; or sitting ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... thirty-three by the other! [Figure 6] I mean, in SOME ways, not in all. I suppose I might go so far as to say in most ways, and be within the facts, but never mind; let it go at SOME. One of the ways in which it exercises this birthright is—as I think—continuing to use our laughable alphabet these seventy-three years while there was a rational one at hand, to be had ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... quite an accumulation of mail when Uncle Jeb, looking strange and laughable in his civilized clothes, as Barnard called them, arrived on Saturday morning. The bus, which brought him up from Catskill, brought also the advance guard of the scout army that would ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Only he that is lord of the years is obdurate. If a man prayed for life to a furious, merciless Sultan well might the Sultan's slaves laugh. Yet it is not laughable to ...
— Plays of Gods and Men • Lord Dunsany
... permit me to say I see nothing laughable in it. However," he added, turning to Porthos, "I should not regret dying, sir, were I sure that by doing so I might still ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... she nodded, smiling, "after the English had finished hanging thee for that matter of the strangling of Rum Dass. Thy fat belly would look laughable indeed banging by a stretched neck from a noose. They would need a thick rope. They might even make the knot slippery with cow-grease ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... King of Sardinia, who happened to be passing by; but that of the walnut tree on the terrace is more amusing to me, since here I was an actor, whereas, in the abovementioned scene I was only a spectator; and I must confess I see nothing that should occasion risibility in an accident, which, however laughable in itself, alarmed me for a person I loved as a mother, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... this stylish pastime. Indeed, in many of our larger metropolises, the popular enthusiasm has reached such heights that free "public" courses have been provided for the citizens with, I may say, somewhat laughable results, as witness the fact that I myself have often seen persons playing on these "public" courses in ordinary shirts and trousers, ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... have many good farces; and an unending source of material for amusing plays is found in the relationship between the spirit world and earth, and the eccentric conditions growing out of that relationship. For instance, there is a laughable comedy being enacted at my theatre, depicting the adventures of a pious merchant, who, after the toils and cares of life, becomes a resident of ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... bewildered stranger is puzzled which to choose; and when he has made up his mind, he finds it no easy matter to jostle through the countless rival conveyances which completely surround him. He is also sure to make some laughable mistake in entering the palanquin. It requires a certain tact to steady the vehicle as you throw yourself into it, or it is apt to turn over, like a tailor's swinging cot. Another ridiculous error ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various
... theatre to-night. I turned back as I went away: the white Christ stood out in strong relief on his brown cross against the blue sky, and the four kneeling angels and lanterns grouped themselves about the foot with a symmetry that was almost laughable; the musician read on at his music, and counted time with his hand on the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... newspaper in his own palace, which is in the highest degree absurd and laughable. It does not treat of politics or the occurrences of the day, but exclusively of domestic incidents, conversation and relative affairs. It states, for example, "that the sultan's wife, A., owed the laundress, B., three rupees, and that the laundress came yesterday to ask for her money; ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... said Mr. Sandys. "I have a very strong sense of humour myself, or rather what might be called risibility. No one enjoys a witty story or a laughable incident more than I do. But I keep it in check. The indulgence of humour is a risky thing; not very consistent with the pastoral office. But that is a small point; and what I am leading up to is this, that dear Maud's ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... certainly pleasing to a very eminent degree, and in their conversation there is a mixture, not unfrequent too, of classical allusions, which strike one with a sort of literary pleasure I cannot easily describe. Yet is there no pedantry in their use of expressions, which with us would be laughable or liable to censure: but Roman notions here are not quite extinct; and even the house-maid, or donna di gros, as they call her, swears by Diana so comically, there is no telling. They christen their boys Fabius, ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... us gathered any eggs; one who was more successful, and had secured enough to make it extremely difficult for him to scale the rocks, slipped, fell on his face, and scrambled all his store. His plight was laughable, but he was scarcely in the mood to relish it, as he washed his sack and blouse in cold water, while we ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... certainly has no pretensions to vie with you in the sublime of poetry; but he tells a plain tale better than you. I will enumerate some woeful blemishes, some of 'em sad deviations from that simplicity which was your aim. "Hail'd who might be near" (the canvas-coverture moving, by the by, is laughable); "a woman & six children" (by the way,—why not nine children, it would have been just half as pathetic again): "statues of sleep they seem'd." "Frost-mangled wretch:" "green putridity:" "hail'd him immortal" (rather ludicrous again): "voiced a sad ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... dice— for all my old comrades, the better men, are dead, and I, the least of them all, remain, having even outlived the cause. What praise shall I take for this? None—from all decent fellows of the earth, none at all. It is merely laughable that I should be left, the monument of a sacred loyalty greater than the world ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Dorcas Society, as you and I well know, and one not unlike that in these pages; and you and I have lived through many discouraging, laughable, and beautiful experiences while we emulated the Bible Dorcas, that woman "full of good ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... former attempts, and Beauseant by Thomas Beck added laurels to his already established reputation as a first-class amateur. Glavis by Master Asa Rawson was rendered in his usual facetious style, creating a universal twitter all around the hall. Mons. Deschappells by Albert Brown was laughable in the extreme, partly from the age of so young a father, as seen through the scarcity of his be-floured locks, and partly from its surroundings. The landlord by B.F. Tucker was up to the mark. Captain Gervais was played by C.W.S. ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... a monster of wickedness, unless she had no heart and knew how to lie and to deceive as well as a girl whose only pleasure consists in making all those who are captivated by her beauty, play the laughable part of dupes, unless that mask of youth concealed a most polluted soul, if there had been any unhappy episode in her life, if she had endured the horrors of violation, and gone through all the horrors of desolation, fear and shame, would not something ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... continues our journal, 'that any villains who had committed such a murder as is here supposed, would have thrown the body in without weight to sink it, when such a precaution could have so easily been taken.' Observe, here, the laughable confusion of thought! No one—not even L'Etoile—disputes the murder committed on the body found. The marks of violence are too obvious. It is our reasoner's object merely to show that this body is not ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... a remarkable and novel circumstance that the natives, who have been now for fourteen or fifteen years in close intercourse and carrying on traffic with Europeans, should not, in the course of that period, understand the nature and value of money; a laughable instance of which occurred to us a few days since. A native came to our house with a serious countenance and business-like manner, and said he wished to purchase a musket: we asked to see what he had brought in exchange for one, when, with ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... secret over the child's soul, and she sighed for her father's presence, that she might tell him the secret and be free of it, though she knew very well in her heart that when her father was by her side she would still stifle her secret. A little secret, indeed, a laughable secret, for those down there in Syracuse, at the foot of the mountain, who took the world for what it was, but a great one to the soul of a girl who had lived all her life on the top of a mountain in a dwelling whose roof was the crest of a Moslem ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... mockers. But these peculiarities appeared far more grotesque in a faction which ruled a great empire than in obscure and persecuted congregations. The cant, which had moved laughter when it was heard on the stage from Tribulation Wholesome and Zeal-of-the-Land Busy, was still more laughable when it proceeded from the lips of Generals and Councillors of State. It is also to be noticed that during the civil troubles several sects had sprung into existence, whose eccentricities surpassed anything that had before been seen in England. A ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... "striking" soon enough. Of course the whole thing was so long ago that both of them could look back on it without any bitterness or ill nature. In fact it amused them. Kernin said it was the most laughable thing he ever saw in his life to see poor old Jack—that's Morse's name—shoving away with the landing net wrong side up. And Morse said he'd never forget seeing poor old Kernin yanking his line first this way and then that and not knowing where to try to haul it. It made him laugh to look ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... in all this. That was evident Jack's misery was real, and was manifest in his pale face and general change of manner. This accounted for it all. This was the blow that had struck him down. All his other troubles had been laughable compared with this. But from this he could not rally. Nor, for my part, did I know of any consolation that could be offered. Now, for the first time, I saw the true nature of his sentiments toward Louie, and learned from him the sentiments of that poor little thing toward him. It was ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... have all seen such laughable specimens, is not without some claims to excellence; otherwise we should not have the myriads of beautifully ornamented articles which are produced by them, exhibiting exquisite finish and perfection of detail. Of perspective they have ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... Catholic so prominent and influential as Sir Nicholas was becoming by reputation among the refugees abroad, was a proper person to be entrusted even with the highest secrets; but after a very little conversation with him the night before, he had seen how ingenuous the old man was, with his laughable attempts at secrecy and his lamentable lack of discretion; and so he had contented himself with general information and gossip, and had really told Sir Nicholas very little indeed ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... Angela did not smile. A thing would have had to be very funny to strike her as laughable ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... form a laughable chapter. Some of them were overwhelmed with the importance of their position; none were ever modest enough to perceive their own small individuality amidst their judicial environments; and this thought reminds me of an occurrence at Liverpool Assizes, when Huddlestone and Manisty, ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... accepted hints from them. Cummings' life is scarcely even a sketch; at most it is a thumbnail sketch. Only ninety-five pages deal with Purcell, and of these at least ninety-four are defaced by maudlin sentimentality, or unhappy attempts at criticism (see the remarks on the Cecilia Ode) or laughable sequences of disconnected incongruities—as, for instance, when Mr. Cummings remarks that "Queen Mary died of small-pox, and the memory of her goodness was felt so universally," etc. Born in 1658, Purcell lived ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... Ruler. The only Home Rulers in the last Cabinet were Lord Granville and Spencer, in addition to myself and Mr. Gladstone." When we remember the views of Spencer in May, 1885, his violent Home Rule, which dates from July, 1885, is laughable.' ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... mention of Schopenhauer produced smiles and laughter. To her all the philosophers of pessimism were laughable. The red blood of her would not permit her to take them seriously. I tried her out with a conversation I had had with De Casseres shortly before leaving New York. De Casseres, after tracing Jules de Gaultier's philosophic ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... received by the company, who were not disposed to be critical. The drum and fife were then brought into play, Brown and Hanson, without entreaty, striking up, "Come out, ye Continentallers." This rollicking tune called up such laughable associations, that one of the young men proposed that it should be sung. No one knew it entire, except Brown, the fifer, who had been the musician of his mess as well as of the company, and Brown complied with the repeated entreaties of ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... not skilled in fine words. Could you think of becoming my wife? (Halla laughs. Bjoern flushes.) Is that so laughable? ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson
... Genius assumes, of taking up subjects that had passed through other hands, and giving them a new value and currency by his stamp. The plan of a Rehearsal was first adopted for the purpose of ridiculing Dryden, by the Duke of Buckingham; but, though there is much laughable humor in some of the dialogue between Bayes and his friends, the salt of the satire altogether was not of a very conservative nature, and the piece continued to be served up to the public long after it had lost its relish. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... with the first words he read. By the end of the perusal his brain was whirling. It was incredible, astounding. He stared out into the sunshine. Surely he was dreaming. It must be a joke of sorts, a laughable hoax. Yet there was no hint of joking in the concise communication, in the small clerkly handwriting, in the business-like letter-paper, a letter-paper headed by the name of a ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... had been taught to laugh and make sport; they saw that which the heading of every newspaper column, the lie of every cub reporter, the exaggeration of every press dispatch, and the distortion of every speech and book had taught them was a mass of despicable men, inhuman; at best, laughable; at worst, the ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... however, Jimmie failed to comply with an extraordinary order of Rourke's, which, while it resulted in no real damage, produced a most laughable and yet characteristic scene. A strict rule of the company was that no opening of any kind into which a person might possibly step or fall should be left uncovered at any station during the approach, stay, or departure of any train ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... of this, it had been a tremendous surprise to the young physician, returning from post-graduate work in Germany a few years later, to find that what had once been considered a sort of laughable weakness in him was called strength of character now; that what had been a clumsy boy's inarticulateness was more charitably construed into the silence of a clever man who will not waste his words; and that mothers whose sons he had once envied for their worldly ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... paper, in analyzing the causes of the position taken by the leading New York papers on Beecher's side, ascribed it to the social relations of the editors with him, believing that they met him frequently at dinners and breakfasts, and found him a jovial companion. All this would be laughable enough if it did not show the amount of covert peril—peril against which no precautions can be taken—to which every prominent man's character is exposed. The moment he gets into a scrape of any kind he finds a host of persons whose enmity he never suspected ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... so faint that it seemed little more than the echo of one; but Phil heard, and instantly his head was poked out between his curtains. Stuart held me up and grinned. Immediately Phil held up Matches and grinned. After a funny pantomime by which, with many laughable gestures, each boy made the other understand that he intended to allow his pet freedom all night, they drew in ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... the Middle Ages composed Shakspeare's plays, or a ploughman had written Paradise Lost; only that, to parallel the present case, we ought to believe that four ploughmen wrote four Paradise Losts! Nay, I said, I would as soon believe that most laughable theory of learned folly, that the monks of the Middle Ages compiled all the classics! Nor could it help me to say that it was Christians, not Jews, who compiled the New Testament; for they must have been Jews before they were Christians: and the twofold moral and intellectual problem ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... captain and his officers, the doctor continuing as reserved as ever, and thinking of nothing but his expedition. Dick seemed a good deal moved, but was unwilling to betray it; while Joe was fairly dancing and breaking out in laughable remarks. The worthy fellow soon became the jester and merry-andrew of the boatswain's mess, where a berth ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... of the melancholy which oppressed me, I could not help smiling at the playful imagination of Agnes: She had perfectly preserved Dame Cunegonda's resemblance, but had so much exaggerated every fault, and rendered every feature so irresistibly laughable, that I could easily ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... saint, in erecting this handsome edifice dedicated to his name—let us hope not to his service. Yet the idea of erecting a temple for the worship of God, and calling it the church of a saint of very doubtful sanctity, is one of those laughable absurdities that we would gladly see banished in this enlightened age. Truly, there are many things in which our wisdom does not exceed the wisdom of our forefathers. The weather during the two first days ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... something very laughable in the scene, for it did not seem to occur to the Zulu boy that he required anything else to add to his costume. He had on one English boot, the same as the white men wore, and that seemed to him sufficient, as he stuck ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... words—seaside party then be it. Lady Scott and Anne join in kindest love. I must close my letter, for one of the consequences of our misfortunes is, that we dine every day at half-past four o'clock; which premature hour arises, I suppose, from sorrow being hungry as well as thirsty. One most laughable part of our tragic comedy was, that every friend in the world came formally, just as they do here when a relation dies, thinking that the eclipse of les beaux yeux de ma cassette was perhaps a loss as ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... and gentlemen, in elaborate costumes and adorned by wonderful hair-dressing, bathed together under the eyes of the public, which contributed its quota of amusement and interest by pelting the bathers with dead dogs, cats, and pigs—a state of things not considered disgusting, but laughable. ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... been moderately fortunate in the number of the lot, he might, as the messenger reported, be happy here, and also his journey to another life and return to this, instead of being rough and underground, would be smooth and heavenly. Most curious, he said, was the spectacle—sad and laughable and strange; for the choice of the souls was in most cases based on their experience of a previous life. There he saw the soul which had once been Orpheus choosing the life of a swan out of enmity to the race of ...
— The Republic • Plato
... struck her face, Archdale fancied that he saw a moist brightness in her eyes. But certainly no tear fell, and when the next moment Katie declared it Elizabeth's turn for a story, she told some trifling anecdote that had in it neither sentiment nor heroism. It was laughable though, and was about to receive its deserts of praise when at Archdale's first word Elizabeth ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various
... deceptive accounts of articles which were exposed for sale. Thus the carcases of foxes were offered, after having been flayed and the head and feet cut off, on several occasions as hares, and it was laughable to see their astonishment at our immediately discovering the fraud. The Chukches' complete want of acquaintance with money and our small supply of articles for barter for which they had a liking besides compelled even me to hold at least a portion of our wares at a high price. Skins and blubber, ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... 1262) satirical studies of real life mingle strangely with fairy fantasy; the poet himself, lamenting his griefs of wedlock, his father, his friends are humorously introduced; the fool and the physician play their laughable parts; and the three fay ladies, for whom the citizens have prepared a banquet under la feuillee, grant or refuse the wishes of the mortal folk in the traditional manner of enchantresses amiable or perverse. The Jeu de Robin et Marlon—first performed at Naples in 1283—is ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... the bondwoman's tale, he laughed till he fell backward and said to Bakun, "O my nurse, this is indeed a rare story and a delectable; I never heard the like of this anecdote. Say me! hast more?" "Yes," replied she, and she ceased not to tell him merry adventures and laughable absurdities, till sleep overcame him. Then she sat by his head till the most part of the night was past, when she said to herself, "It is time to profit by the occasion." So she sprang to her feet and unsheathed the hanger and rushing up to Kanmakan, was about to cut his throat when behold, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... my dear; it is all very lamentable and laughable, but we must submit till the world learns better. There are often excellent young persons among the 'grasshoppers,' and if you cared to look you might find a pleasant friend here and there," said Mr. Yule, leaning a little toward his ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... a article printed by this 'ere Punch, Sir," he said. "Somethink laughable it'd be, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... Mrs. Polk, "my chief difficulty is laughable in a sense, but from another point of view it is really a stupendous problem! One old mountaineer said to me last summer, 'Them schools is the courtin'est places in the world.' I begin to think he was right, ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... Maizie rose with alacrity. They had no desire to prolong the interview. It had not panned out to suit them. Jane's concise explanation of the gown incident had practically turned a serious offense into a laughable blunder. Mrs. Weatherbee undoubtedly believed Jane. After listening to her, she had not asked either Norma or Judith a single question. Instead, she had closed the discussion with a curtness that was not reassuring to ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... the overhanging rock he looked so like Grim it was laughable. He was a caricature of our man, with all the refinement and humor subtly changed into irritable anger. He looked as if he would scream if you touched him, and no wonder; for the back of the poor fellow's neck, half hidden by the folds of his head-cloth, was a perfect mess of boils that made ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... bronze hue of his skin; his curly hair, bound by a fillet, was unruly from the outdoor life he had been leading; the strong sinews of his arms and legs belied the ease of his pretended calling and the starry cloak he wore was laughable in its failure to disguise the man of action. He saluted the three women with a gesture of the raised right hand that no man unaccustomed to the use of arms could imitate, then turning slightly toward Livius, acknowledged his ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... said the young man, gently, in a voice free from resentment. "I warned you that my story was laughable; I, better than any one, know how absurd, how nonsensical it is. Yes, the whole thing is perfectly grotesque. But believe me when I tell you that it was no fun in reality. It seems a humorous situation and it remains humorous by the force of circumstances; ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... the most laughable things in the world is the attempt some simple critics make to turn Nietzsche into an ordinary "Honest Infidel," a kind of poetic Bradlaugh-Ingersoll, offering to humanity the profound discovery that ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... in literature, one may make a very fair guess at some part of his character. So, too, "Patchwork"—a kind of scrap-book, a collection of miscellaneous anecdotes, mostly humorous, but not as a rule broadly or farcically funny—illustrates his delicate and subtle perception of the laughable. ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... half right into the veld. Up came the artillery and opened fire on a cluster of ant-sized figures four thousand yards ahead beneath the shoulder of a kopje. Had the thing not contained the very germ of tragedy it would have been laughable to see the way those figures scattered over the red veld. It was De Wet's commandos caught napping. Just before the shell fire our burghers had gone out ahead hell-for-leather on either flank. The whole column then advanced. ...
— With Botha in the Field • Eric Moore Ritchie
... Nevertheless Henri was an immense favourite in the settlement, for his good-humour knew no bounds. No one ever saw him frown. Even when fighting with the savages, as he was sometimes compelled to do in self-defence, he went at them with a sort of jovial rage that was almost laughable. Inconsiderate recklessness was one of his chief characteristics, so that his comrades were rather afraid of him on the war-trail or in the hunt, where caution and frequently soundless motion were essential to success or safety. But when Henri had a ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... fancied she could run. She never knew how impotent human fleetness is till she saw that lumbering coach go plunging swiftly and more swiftly away from her, across B Street, and tearing down the next hill with a speed that made her puny efforts laughable. ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... urging him to accept it. He could not doubt that the wish was general. But it was very hard for him to leave home and America again. For some time after accepting the post he was plunged into a dejection which seemed laughable to himself. "The crowning honor of his life," he admitted, had come to him, and he could ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... ideas; so, in order to overcome it by the gentlest means in the world, Reuben had the option given him of being flogged, or of laying out on the smoke-sail yard, just to begin with, and to get into the way of it. It was a laughable thing to see this huge clown hanging with us boys on the thin yard, and hugging it as closely as if he loved it. He had a perfect horror of getting to the end of it. At a distance, when our smoke-sail yard was ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... passes, get behind, and drive their spears into his body until the animal is exhausted from loss of blood, and they are so quick that the elephant seldom is able to destroy one of them. They consider the elephant of as high rank as one of their kings, and it is very laughable to hear them, as they wound him, beg pardon of him, and cry out, 'Great man, don't be angry; great captain, don't ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... ye beautiful dancers, when I chasten the little God somewhat! He will cry, certainly, and weep—but he is laughable even ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... imperfectly describe the state of Frederic's mind, if we left out of view the laughable peculiarities which contrasted so singularly with the gravity, energy, and harshness of his character. It is difficult to say whether the tragic or the comic predominated in the strange scene which was then acting. In the midst of all the great King's calamities, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... laughable presentation of some Americans at home and abroad, on their vacations and during their hours ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... good neighbourly cantons." His joy was so profound that it struck Babette, she must press his hand. They walked along almost like old acquaintances; she was so amusing, the darling little creature, it became her so prettily Rudy thought, when she described what was laughable and overdone in the dress of the ladies, and ridiculed their manners and walk. She did not do this in order to mock them, for no doubt they were very good people, yes! kind and amiable. Babette knew what was right, for she had a god-mother that was a distinguished English lady. She was in Bex, ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... parasitic or secondary personalities (to use Maxwell's term), drawn from the psychic or from myself. Nearly every one of the mediums I have studied has had at least one guide, whose voice and habit of thought were perilously similar to her own. This, in some cases, has been laughable, as when 'Rolling Thunder,' a Sioux chief (Indians are all chiefs in the spirit world), appears and says: 'Goot efening, friends; id iss a nice night alretty.' And yet I have seen a whole roomful ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... order to extend them, she wandered off into abstractions and hyperboles. She seemed to see certain objects only through a fog, which augmented their importance in her eyes; and then her expression became so inflated that the pomposity of it would have been laughable if one had not known her to be ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... at an old store-house in New Salem, and the first speech young Lincoln ever made was made there. He used to call the exercising "practicing polemics." As these clubs were composed principally of men of no education whatever, some of their "polemics" are remembered as the most laughable of farces. Lincoln's favorite newspaper at this time was the "Louisville Journal." He received it regularly by mail, and paid for it during a number of years when he had not money enough to dress decently. He liked its politics, and was particularly delighted with its wit and humor, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... amusement of his audience, repeated it at least half a dozen times, he retired without uttering another sentence. We have heard since, that Sir Thomas is become an orator, he having made several brilliant speeches in Parliament. It may be so; but his debut at Wells was most laughable. Mr. Goodford, one of the Ilchester Bastile Visiting Magistrates, next came forward, to disclaim any participation in calling the meeting: he had, he said, certainly signed the requisition, but he did not ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... King of France having been commended of all the ladies,—began, by the queen's pleasure, boldly to speak as follows: "I also, I will not keep silence of a biting reproof given by an honest layman to a covetous monk with a speech no less laughable than commendable. ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... no farther than this had it not been that Mr. Green, of the Maryland Gazette, could not refrain from printing the story in his paper. That gentleman, being a stout Whig, took great delight in pointing out that a grandson of Mr. Carvel was a ringleader in the affair. The story was indeed laughable enough, and many a barrister's wig nodded over it at the Coffee House that day. When I came home from school I found Scipio beside my grandfather's empty seat in the dining-room, and I learned that Mr. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... ground is well filled on these pleasant afternoons. The games of foot-ball, base-ball and cricket are played at the same time. It is quite laughable for an outsider to witness the consternation of the players of the two more scientific games when the mob engaged in the other ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... Abraham alive. This would have made a striking scene, but the pious puerility of the sequel spoils it all. The king issued a decree, ordering every man in his kingdom to bring wood to heat the kiln. What a laughable picture! Behold every adult subject wending his way to the crematorium with a bundle of sticks on his back—"For Abraham." The The Mussulman tradition (Mohammedans and Jews are much alike, and both their ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... rum, Large cases with labels, occasional tables, Hair tonic and fiddles and 'phones; And the Glugs, while copncealing their joy in the dealing, Paid promptly in nothing but stones. Why, it was screamingly Laughable, seemingly—- ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... situation was becoming more and more complicated and unfavorable. The war dragged on aimlessly, senselessly and interminably. The Government took no steps whatever to extricate itself from the vicious circle. The laughable scheme was proposed of sending the Menshevik Skobeloff to Paris to influence the allied imperialists. But no sane man attached any importance to this scheme. Korniloff gave up Riga to the Germans in order to terrorize ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky
... these greater works, swarms the innumerable legion of satirical fabliaux and laughable tales. They, too, cross the sea, slight, imperceptible, wandering, thus continuing those migrations so difficult to trace, the laws of which learned men of all nations have vainly sought to discover. They follow ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... beautiful complexion, and a capacity to wink that would have vulgarized any one else but a general. He made himself very pleasant, accepted a cup of tea, praised Mary's French, said that he intended to dine with us at the Commandant's to-morrow, and told us some laughable stories about the Arabs. I noticed that the Lieutenant seemed quite overawed by the presence of the General, and sat flute in hand, like a statue. Mary tried to put him at his ease, but to no purpose. It did not mend matters when the General began first ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... the head. In 1815, when the supreme disasters filled the air, when France was seized with a shiver at their sinister approach, when Waterloo could be dimly discerned opening before Napoleon, the mournful acclamation of the army and the people to the condemned of destiny had nothing laughable in it, and, after making all allowance for the despot, a heart like that of the Bishop of D——, ought not perhaps to have failed to recognize the august and touching features presented by the embrace of a great nation and a great man on the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... quarrelling. Then a moment later, she heard the fragment of a song. After listening more attentively she decided that the voice of Mr. Boyd was the only one she heard. But was he intoxicated? All she caught was a senseless, almost incoherent flow of language, with laughable attempts at singing. At this, Elinor was on the point of turning back, prompted both by terror and disgust, when Solomon, with increasing vehemence, renewed his exhortations. She yielded, and a few steps farther the sight of Pats lying upon the ground at the foot of a gigantic pine, his valise ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell
... story of an encounter between a bear and a bull, which is also rather laughable, although there is a good deal of the tragic in it. A bull was attacked in the forest by a rather small bear, when, striking his horns into his assailant, he pinned him against a tree. In this situation they were both found dead; the bull from starvation, ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... that that is really the only kind worth knowing, when first he is brought into contact with the other. Two or three times I have known men try to follow hounds on stock-saddles, which are about as ill-suited for the purpose as they well can be; while it is even more laughable to see some young fellow from the East or from England who thinks he knows entirely too much about horses to be taught by barbarians, attempt in his turn to do cow-work with his ordinary riding or hunting rig. It must be said, however, that in all probability cowboys would learn to ride well ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... enough, and the children were ever glad to see her: all the more so for that they had their sport of her behind her back, inasmuch as that she was a laughable little body, who had a trick of repeating the last word of every sentence she spoke. Thus she would say not: "Ah! here comes Kunz," but, "Here comes Kunz Kunz." Moreover, she ever held her head between her two hands, tightly, as though with that great ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... quickly establishes the condition of comradeship as the sharing of a laughable incident. Certain reserves went down on both sides. Spurlock discussed the affairs of the island and Ruth gave him in exchange her adventures with the native girl who was to be ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... intuitive opinion of a large percentage of the population of the villages. Except for the pressing nature of one's needs, the look of unutterable perplexity that comes over the face of a Bengali villager, to-day, when I ask him to obtain me something to eat, would be laughable in the extreme. "N-a-y, Sahib, n-a-y." he replies, with a show of mental distraction as great as though ordered to fetch me the moon. An appeal for rice, milk, dhal, chuppatties, at several stalls ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... considered an act of disrespect. The master of ceremonies was in consternation, and exclaimed with a look of horror to General Damuriez, "My dear sir, he has not even buckles in his shoes!" "Mercy upon us!" exclaimed the old general, with the most laughable expression of affected gravity, "we shall then all go ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... accustomed to play a minor role herself in her sister's household, was yet too much a woman not to like an admirer of her own. She took more pains with her dress, looked at herself more often in the glass than she had done in years. It was laughable; it was absurd; and she joined as readily as anyone in the mirth that Raymond's devotion excited in the family, but, deep down within her, she was pleased. At the least it showed she had not grown too old ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... so laughable merely because it is the oldest? Because the human understanding, before the sophistries of the Schools had dissipated and debilitated it, ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... there is "a row" about the singing, or about a change in the hymn-books, or about repairing the church, or buying an organ, or something or other, and straightway sides are taken, and the wills of both parties get roused. It is sometimes laughable—it would always be, only that it is too sad—to see how quickly both parties grow pious, as they grow perverse. It would seem, as the strife waxes hot, that the glory of God was never so much in their hearts as now. They pray with fervor, they are constant in their public religious ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... think so," said Lucile, dryly, in response to Jessie's question. "If I look the way I feel I must be a very laughable object!" ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... such vulgar credulity, remonstrance would be thrown away; a Heraclitus would best meet the case, or a Democritus; for the ignorance of these men is as laughable ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... with my company; for I may as well declare at once I found their manners as gentle and becoming as those of any other class. I do not mean that my friends could have sat down without embarrassment and laughable disaster at the table of a duke. That does not imply an inferiority of breeding, but a difference of usage. Thus I flatter myself that I conducted myself well among my fellow-passengers; yet my most ambitious hope is not to have avoided faults, but to have committed as few as possible. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the noisiest, emptiest bedlam tumults, seasoned by a proportion of homicide, and a great deal of battery and arson. But now, with a Russian-Turk War springing from it, or already sprung, there are quite serious aspects rising amid the laughable. By Treaty, this War is to cost the King either a 12,000 of Auxiliaries to the Czarina, or a 72,000 pounds (480,000 thalers) annually; [OEuvres de Frederic, vi. 13.]—which latter he prefers to pay her, as the alternative: not an ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... somewhat startled by my proposition; but, seeing that I was in earnest, gladly consented, and forthwith commenced his studies. My aunt cautioned me about laughing, if he should chance to make comical blunders; and it was well that she did so, for some of his blunders were laughable in the extreme; but "forewarned is forearmed." After a time I learned that he really possessed an intellect of no mean order. He soon made rapid progress in study. He seemed fully to appreciate the pains I took in teaching him, and endeavored, by many little acts of kindness, to show ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... introduction among them was dramatic, if, indeed, we could give to an incident almost frivolous and laughable, the dignity of a dramatic incident; and yet the matter had a serious side to it. I had been commended by Bro. Bates, editor of the Iowa Christian Evangelist, to the church at Rushville, where I held a meeting of days. The meetings grew in interest, there were some important ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... meant, Sing through the air irreverent. I blame her not, the young athlete Who plants her woman's tiny feet, And dares the chances of debate Where bearded men might hesitate, Who, deeply earnest, seeing well The ludicrous and laughable, Mingling in eloquent excess Her anger and her tenderness, And, chiding with a half-caress, Strives, less for her own sex than ours, With principalities and powers, And points us upward to the clear Sunned ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... help hoping that the frigate and corvette have been sent to sea; if not, Higson will have pretty soon to give up his command, and we three, degraded from our rank, shall be ignominiously sent back into the midshipman's berth," said Tom, with a laughable grimace. ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... immovable, he began to throw himself into the most extravagant attitudes, shaking his foot from time to time. When he found that all his violence had no effect, he turned his rear to us in a most laughable manner, and absolutely groaned in spirit when he found that this last insult ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... of Miss Willard, no one enjoyed a really laughable thing more than she did, but I never felt like being a foolish trifler in her presence. Her outlook was so far above mine that I always felt not rebuked, but ashamed of ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... Christmas. One wonders where the wrist-pin man is, Mr. Stump. Does he intend to come in at all, or will he just snooze his little head off all day? One wonders what to say to the plant manager, Mr. Stump. How do you tell him that twenty men are standing idle on Sub-Assembly Line 3-A because, through a laughable oversight, there is no one to put in a wrist-pin? How do you explain it so he will understand, ...
— All Day Wednesday • Richard Olin
... Miss Phoebe," he would say cheerfully, when he had broken down for the twentieth time, "play on and I'll catch you up." He had thus a series of trysting places in every page or two, which might have been very laughable to an indifferent spectator, but which aggravated the Mays, father and son, to an intolerable extent. They were the two who suffered. As for Horace Northcote, who was not a great talker, it was a not disagreeable shield for his silent contemplation of Ursula, and the little things ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... is delightful, in fact!" cried Elizabeth, clapping her little hands. "How will Munnich curse himself for cruelty which now comes home to himself! That is very witty in you, Herr Lestocq; very laughable, is it not, Alexis? But, Alexis, you do not laugh at all; you look sad. What is the matter with you? Who has disobliged, who ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... that he might rob with safety, because he saw Macheath reprieved upon the stage. But if Johnson had wished to be convinced, he might very easily have discovered that highwaymen and housebreakers did frequent the theatre, and that nothing was more probable than that a laughable representation of successful villany should induce the young and the already vicious to imitate it. Besides, there is the weighty authority of Sir John Fielding, the chief magistrate of Bow Street, who asserted positively, and proved ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... away for safety, we could not tell, but having gone so far, we were determined not to be disappointed, so we embarked, and with an old garden-rake, and a long pole to propel the boat, we succeeded, at all events, in having a very laughable row. ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... for life, your serenity, and to speak truly, your greatness.—I, poor wretch, I am stuck on the earth as with soles of lead; everything disturbs me, tears me to pieces, ravages me, and I make efforts to rise. If I should take your manner of looking at the whole of life I should become laughable, that is all. For you preach to me in vain. I cannot have another temperament than my own; nor another esthetics than what is the consequence of it. You accuse me of not letting myself go, according to nature. ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... description of infinity, having "its centre everywhere and its circumference nowhere." Among the many kinds of egotism in which his eloquence is prolific, it may be difficult to fasten on the particular one which is most detestable or most laughable; but it seems to us that when his arrogance apes humility it is deserving perhaps of an intenser degree of scorn or derision than when it riots in bravado. The most offensive part which he plays in public is that of "the humble individual," bragging of the lowliness of his origin, hinting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... most superlative praise, is not ironical at all, but a most serious panegyrist, who never laughs, but does sometimes make his readers laugh, when they see his very unbecoming, mocking grimaces against the "old masters"—not that it can be fairly asserted that it is a laughable book. It has much conceit, and but little merriment; there is nothing really funny after you have got over, (vide page 6,) that he "looks with contempt on Claude, Salvator, and Gaspar Poussin." This contempt, however, being too limited for the "graduate of Oxford," in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... at this was mostly her own. It is not a laughable sight to see the comfortable fractions of Christian communities everywhere striving, with sincere, pious, well-meant, criminal benevolence, to make their poor brethren contented with the ditch. Nor does it become so to see these efforts meet, or seem to meet, some degree of success. ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... Watson wants to see his Cardinals crawl up out of the subway why doesn't he give Matson a chance? The youngster can pitch good ball, and the line of twirling that has been handed out by the Cardinals thus far this season would be laughable, ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... together with a number of atrocious characters and scenes and situations. But compared with the worst of a Congreve or a Wycherley, compared with the worst of our own contemporary plays and musical comedies, the worst of Plautus, now because of its being too revolting, now because of its being too laughable, is innocuous. His moral land is one of black and white, mostly black, without many of those really dangerous half-lights and shadows in which too many of our present day playwrights virtuously invite us to skulk ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... steps. And I have seen that French women do not read the 'Pantagruel.' You do not know it? Well, it is not necessary. In the 'Pantagruel,' Panurge asks whether he must marry, and he covers himself with ridicule, my love. Well, I am quite as laughable as he, since I am asking the same question ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... offers for one of them to seize it by the tail. In this position the muscles become contracted, the animal is unable to eject its fluid, and is quickly despatched." One might just as well talk of caressing a cobra de capello; yet this laughable fiction finds believers all over South and North America. Professor Baird gravely introduces it into his great work on the mammalia. I was once talking about animals in a rancho, when a person present (an Argentine officer) told that, while visiting an Indian encampment, ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... and vigorous could excel in. Slaves were there, but not enough to relieve the freemen from the necessity for hard work. Strange sacred customs, such as tapu (vulgarly Anglicized as taboo) and muru, laughable as they seem to us, tended to preserve public health, to ensure respect for authority, and to prevent any undue accumulation of goods and chattels in the hands of one man. Under the law of muru a man smitten by sudden calamity was politely plundered of all his possessions. It was the ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves |
