"Droll" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... instinct; and instinct—according to my late relative, Wilkie Collins—never errs, though reason often does so, as we know to our cost. Now, the picaninny knows what is good for him. Place him in promixity to a dust-hole or an ash-heap, and observe what takes place. He approaches it with that droll, yet pathetic, method of locomotion peculiar to his period of life—travelling on both hands and one knee, whilst with the big toe of the other hind-foot he propels himself along. In the very centre of the dirt, he deftly whirls into a sitting ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... by Miraut's loud barking, had risen and joined his master at the door. As soon as he was informed of what had occurred, he lighted a lantern, and with the baron set forth, under the guidance of the droll old actor, to find and rescue the chariot in distress. When they reached it Leander and Matamore were tugging vainly at the wheels, while his majesty, the king, pricked up the weary oxen with the point of his dagger. The actresses, wrapped in their ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... Robin laughed at the droll sight, he knew the wayfarer to be a certain rich corn engrosser of Worksop, who more than once had bought all the grain in the countryside and held it till it reached even famine prices, thus making much money from the needs of poor ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... The droll remarks of the Quarterly, and Hunt's kind defence, arrived as safe as such poison, and safer than ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... be so kind as to bring up all my journal with you. My Papa has promised me, he will bring up my baby house with him. I shall send you a droll figure of a young lady,[64] in or under, which you please, a tasty head Dress. It was taken from a print that came over in one of the last ships from London. After you have sufficiently amused yourself with it I am willing ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... she had replied, and treated her own attitude like a sentence in rather a droll way. "But for all that," said she, "I don't mean to be a wicked girl if I can help. This is an age of wicked young ladies. I soon found that out in the newspapers; that and science are the two ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... suitable to the taste of the day are finished, the author, eager to amuse himself, in spite of the small amount of merry ink remaining in the left cup, steals and bears eagerly therefrom a few penfuls with great delight. These said penfuls are, indeed, these same Droll Tales, the authority on which is above suspicion, because it flows from a divine source, as is shown in this the author's ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... Pitt, "a mile long. There's six thousand pound of timber in them there trees. Do you call that nothing?" He pronounced avenue—EVENUE, and nothing—NOTHINK, so droll; and he had a Mr. Hodson, his hind from Mudbury, into the carriage with him, and they talked about distraining, and selling up, and draining and subsoiling, and a great deal about tenants and farming—much more than I could understand. Sam Miles had been caught poaching, and Peter ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... The next stop was not far from the celebrated Caudine Forks, at a friend's villa, where they were very hospitably entertained, and supplied with a bountiful supper, at which buffoons performed some droll raillery. Thence they went directly to Beneventum, where the bustling landlord almost burned himself and those he entertained in cooking their dainty dinner, the kitchen fire falling through the floor and spreading the flames towards the highest part of the roof. It was a ludicrous moment, ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... the Illustrated London News the other day? There was a print in that paper of an assemblage of Teetotalers in "Sadler's Wells Theatre," and we straightway recognized the old Roman hand—the old Roman's of the time of Plancus—George Cruikshank's. There were the old bonnets and droll faces and shoes, and short trousers, and figures of 1820 sure enough. And there was George (who has taken to the water-doctrine, as all the world knows) handing some teetotal cresses over a plank to the table where the pledge was being administered. How often has George drawn that ...
— John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character • William Makepeace Thackeray
... anecdotes which tended to prove that even England's colonies were growing tired of her arrogance: he related droll stories told him by Colonials about the Queen ... obscene and nasty ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... all they had never doubted it was going to be, of peaceful nights passed in wholesome slumber, of days laden with fruitful works, of evenings with the poets, came into her head and made this tormented marching suddenly seem intensely droll. She laughed into her pillow till the tears rolled down her face, and the pains she had to take to keep all sounds from reaching Fritzing only ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... has really proposed to come, and we shall scramble on somehow. And I will get a Carriage and take him a long Drive into the Country where it is greenest. He is a very good fellow, and has lately lost his Mother, to whom he was a very pious Son; a man who can reverence, although a Droll in Punch. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... complied, and the children fairly danced in their delight at the comical strains, abrupt pauses, droll sentiment, and interlarded words of explanation. The more elderly guests were attracted, and the audience grew apace. Having finished her little musical comedy, Madge arose, and Mr. Arnault, aware of Stella Wildmere's ability to sing selections ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... the spot, Billy bent down, placed his hands upon his knees, and poured forth a stream of the most voluble vituperation ever invented by man. He called the monkey all the lazy, idle, good-for-nothing swabs, lubbers, and humbugs possible, while the effect was droll in the extreme. ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... contact with some of our crockery-ware, as to put me in a fright, and the comic look, with which he showed that he was aware of the mischief he had nearly done, amused me excessively. He was evidently a wag, and from the moment in which he discovered the congeniality of our feelings, when any droll incident occurred, he was sure to look at ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... pies, for Mrs. Smith had not much to give, and her spirit was generous, though her pastry was not of the best. It looked very droll to see pies sitting about on the thresholds of closed doors, but the cakes were quite elegant, and filled up the corners of the towel handsomely, for the apron lay in the middle, with the oranges right and left, like two ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... "Wherefore droll?" asked Joliet, with a huge surprise, which lasted him all through his next sentence. "I come here to marry my daughter. Everything is ready; we count on your presence at the wedding; the lawyer has drawn up the contract; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... said I, "might be produced against some of our sex, who join too readily to droll upon, and sneer at, the misfortune of any poor young creature, who has shewn too little regard for her honour: and who (instead of speaking of it with concern, and inveighing against the seducer) too lightly sport with the unhappy person's fall; industriously ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... case to the smiling brother of our guild who may chance to read it at some remote future day. The physician of whom I now write was one who already dreaded bleeding, thought less of medicines than his fellows, and was, in fact, exceptionally acute. He did some droll things for the sick prelate, and had reasons yet more droll for what he did, but his practice was, as may happen on the whole, wiser than his reasons for its use. His patient was a man once bulky, but now thin, overworked, worried, subject to asthma, troubled with ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... wine, to sing I see Is no apocrypha: for to rise high Commend this olio of this lord 'tis fit: Nay, ten to one, but you have part of it; There is that justice left, since you maintain His table, he should counter-feed your brain. Then write how well he in his sack hath droll'd, Straight there's a bottle to your chamber roll'd, Or with embroider'd words praise his French suit, Month hence 'tis yours with his mans, to boot; Or but applaud his boss'd legs: two to none, But he most nobly doth give you one. Or spin an elegie ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... unlikely in itself, but which I could put into shape? For it really is, my dear Martin, it really is in the finishing touches alone, that great experience and long study in these matters tell. Ha, ha, ha! Now it really will be,' continued Mr Pecksniff, clapping his young friend on the back in his droll humour, 'an amusement to me, to see what you make ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... of them, and had known them from childhood; and somehow they were all transformed from commonplace, and dignified into a comedy which was at once sympathetic and exquisitely droll. His narrow world had widened; his neighbours had sprung alive. His heart was tickled with a genial laughter, and his mirth tasted sweet to him, like a mellow apple. He could have hugged ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... not dare to say any more to Phyllis, but ran away as soon as she could get an opportunity, to play with Hetty and laugh admiringly at all her droll remarks. ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... Malines—what we call Mechlin—our train stopped nearly an hour. At the station a crowd of guides were shouting that there was time to go and see Rubens's picture of——, at the church of——. This seemed to us a droll contrast to the cry at our stations, "Fifteen minutes for refreshments!" It offered such aesthetic refreshment in place of carnal oysters, that purely for the frolic we went to see. We were hurried across some sort of square into the church, saw ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... was a droll affair:' and then, addressing himself to me, he continued, 'You remember your Uncle Terence? A funny dog he was, and in his young days the very devil for lovemaking and fighting. Look here,' said the speaker, pointing to a small circular ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... officer holding that rank had been wounded. There was a dash of sadness and tragedy in the journal which the two young men forwarded to her after they had been a few days in their old camp at Falmouth, but Strahan's indomitable humor triumphed, and their crude record ended in a droll sketch of a plucked cock trying to crow. She wrote letters so full of sympathy and admiration of their spirit that three soldiers of the army of the ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... very droll to see him sitting there and for a wonder telling her something very like the truth. This, however, had been the keystone of a moderately successful life. He had always told people that he was a ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... than by premeditation. There is no such thing as being "droll to order." One evening a lady said to a small wit, "Come, Mr. ——, tell us a lively anecdote;" and the poor fellow was mute the rest ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... with a droll accent and an amusing grimace; and then, encouraged by the friendly invitation and subtle encouragement in the manner of his sweet-faced listener, with a straightforward recital which the lady had expected from him, and which advanced him several leagues in her ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... top, flat as a pie tin, with the moth-eaten earlaps turned up at the sides and looking exactly like small furry ears. These, with the round steel spectacles which he wore—the only distinctive feature of his countenance—gave him an indescribably droll appearance. ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... all. This skin contracts whenever I form a wish—'tis a paradox. There is a Brahmin underneath it! The Brahmin must be a droll fellow, for our desires, look you, are bound ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... lamp shall gleam As in old nights; the chaplets woven then— Withered, perhaps, by time—may grace us yet; The laurel faded is the laurel still, And some of us are heroes to ourselves. And amber wine shall flow; the blue smoke wreathe In droll disputes, with metaphysics mixed; Or float as lightly as the quick-spun verse, Threading the circle round from thought to thought, Sparkling and fresh as is the airy web Spread on the hedge at morn in silver dew. The scent of roses you remember well; In the green vases they shall bloom again. And ...
— Poems • Elizabeth Stoddard
... well-nigh forgotten past. His father often sat by his sick-bed, and beguiled his small son from fears and pains by tales "of ship-wreck on outlying iron skerries' pitiless breakers, and great sea-lights, clothed in language apt, droll and emphatic." His mother and Cummie read to him day and night. Thus early the instinct of ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... say that," cried Dora, in a funny little wheedling tone, "don't now; you'll hurt some of our feelings, for we shall think you mean one of us, and you can't mean that, Tilly dear,"—the wheedling tone taking on a droll, merry accent,—"you can't, for you know how independent and high-minded we all are,—how incapable of ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... A droll little comedy of misunderstandings, told with a light touch, a venturesome spirit and an eye for ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... speaker was in such dry and droll contrast with his matter that Elliot had no difficulty in according the sympathetic smile which is the tribute of the jovial and manly sycophant to a superior he wishes ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... pains to hide his pleasure in her society, one might say that she was almost eager to show her delight in his. If it was a case of love at first sight, the earliest glimpse had been to the girl, who was all eyes for Glendenning. It was very pretty, but it was a little alarming, and perhaps a little droll, even. She was actually making the advances, not consciously, but helplessly; fondly, ignorantly, for I have no belief, nor had my wife (a much more critical observer), that she knew how she ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... aside his cares and problems when he was not actively engaged with them. A very sociable man, he liked not only to be with people, but to be making them enjoy themselves. Thus he was both generous and jovial. No one loved more to give presents; no one knew more droll stories and more poetry. Nor was his joviality by any means a descent; for not only before royalty was he dignified, but in the most democratic assembly. His was not, however, a forbidding dignity. Simple-hearted as a child, he was fond of children, ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... varied the idea by placing on her stamps a tiger's head surrounded by a broad circle of inscriptions. Owing to the short comings of native art the tiger is more often droll than ferocious. ...
— What Philately Teaches • John N. Luff
... feel sorry for the little foster-father. He was having a time of it! The first thing he knew, one of the little insurgents would tumble into the lake and— well, she couldn't imagine anything more droll than Mr. Bingle venturing into the water as a rescuer. At last, moved by an impulse that afterwards took its place as the psychic capstone in her career, she arose and resolutely went to his relief. He was panting and perspiring, for ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... the appearance of little greyish, fluffy balls, instead of the lovely red things they had expected, and were by no means consoled when their father told them that it would be three or four years before they gained their beautiful colour. However they became great pets, and were very droll, with their long legs, and slender necks, and great curved bills. They became extremely tame, and would, after a time, follow the girls about, and stalk up to the house of their own accord to be fed, their ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... shapes: here was the form of a child, here a youth, here a lover and his lass, here a little old dame, and scores more; while into the corners of the room drifted others that turned into the drollest of droll pipers—with kilt and brata and cap. It made him feel as if he had been dropped into the center of a giant kaleidoscope, with thousands of pieces of gray smoke turning, at the twist of a hand, into ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... the poet more than one droll trick. Having approached her with musical flattery, he fled from her with fear and abhorrence. For a time the highest and holiest of human affections was to his darkened mind no more than a carnal appetite; and he strove to conquer the emotions which he ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... most thoroughly enjoyable volume, bright, chatty, piquant, and informant, we learn the story of the travelling experiences, and occasional droll doings, of five young tourists.... Of all their little tours Mrs. A. Tweedie has something interesting and diverting to narrate. She managed to see most of the noteworthy objects and remarkable places, and her descriptions of them ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... won't bury its dead. It sits over their corpses like a persistent resurrectionist, in a fashion which is irresistibly disheartening. Did it never strike you, by the way, what a droll caricature might be made on that line? Time as a decrepit old sexton, ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... misapprehension of personalities his lordship addresses a love missive to the maid. Susan accepts in perfect good faith, and an epistolary love-making goes on till they are disillusioned. It naturally makes a droll and delightful little comedy; and is a story that is particularly clever in ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... he replied, looking at Jacquet. "Wasn't it a funeral with thirteen mourning coaches, and only one mourner in the twelve first? It was so droll we all ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... head to his foot, And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot; A bundle of toys he had flung on his back, And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack. His eyes how they twinkled; his dimples how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry; His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow. The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath. He had a broad face and a little ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... which all the virile energy and trampling audacity of Mr. Whitman fail to reconcile me. But there is room for everybody and everything in our huge hemisphere. Young America is like a three-year-old colt with his saddle and bridle just taken off. The first thing he wants to do is to roll. He is a droll object, sprawling in the grass with his four hoofs in the air; but he likes it, and it won't harm us. So let him roll,—let ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... brand-new boards, and best Fresh bosses, crimson ribbands, sheets with lead Ruled, and with pumice-powder all well polished. These as thou readest, seem that fine, urbane Suffenus, goat-herd mere, or ditcher-swain 10 Once more, such horrid change is there, so vile. What must we wot thereof? a Droll erst while, Or (if aught) cleverer, he with converse meets, He now in dullness, dullest villain beats Forthright on handling verse, nor is the wight 15 Ever so happy as when verse he write: So self admires he with so ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... earnest. MacGahan used gravely to entreat him to take greater care of his invaluable life, and hint that if any calamity occurred to him, the campaign would ipso facto come to an end. Andreas knew that MacGahan was quizzing him, but it was exceedingly droll how he purred and bridled under the light touch of that genial humourist, whose merits his own countrymen, to my thinking, have never adequately recognised. The old story of a prophet having scant ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... and roguery, gains a cruzado in the presence of another, the latter instantly says I cry halves, and if the first refuse he is instantly threatened with an information. The manner in which they cheat each other has, with all its infamy, occasionally something extremely droll and ludicrous. I was one day in the shop of a Swiri, or Jew of Mogadore, when a Jew from Gibraltar entered, with a Portuguese female, who held in her hand a mantle, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... great fun for our frolicsome Norman, always ready for a joke or a good story; and although Douglas had not taken unalloyed pleasure in the events of the evening, he, too, could see the droll side of them now that they were over. They were rehearsed with great glee at the breakfast-table the next morning; and it occurred to me that here, if he chose to use it, was the opportunity for Jim ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... said he was lookin' forward to the day when he could afford to get as drunk as he sometimes thought he'd like to be. He was a droll sort of a cuss, Jake was. He claimed he'd been savin' up his appetite and his money for nearly three years so's he could see which would last the longest in a ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... they may be; for the negus is strong punch, and the biscuit is tipsy cake,—and all this with a running fire of good stories, jokes, and witticisms on all sides, in the laughter for which even the droll-looking servants join ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... this kind of discourse, and did apply it to noble purposes. The great introducer of moral wisdom among the pagans did practise it so much (by it repressing the windy pride and fallacious vanity of sophisters in his time), that he thereby got the name of [Greek], the droll; and the rest of those who pursued his design do, by numberless stories and apophthegms recorded of them, appear well skilled and much delighted in this way. Many great princes (as Augustus Caesar, for one, many of whose jests are ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... crouched on the bank of a frog-pond, we tickled frogs with straws. Yes, and fun of the freshest we found it. Certain animals, and especially frogs, were created, shaped, and educated to do the grotesque, that men might study them, laugh, and grow fat. It was a droll moment with Nature, when she entertained herself and prepared entertainment for us by devising the frog, that burlesque of bird, beast, and man, and taught him how to move and how to speak and sing. Iglesias and I did not disdain batrachian ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... hear them tell of parentage and birth, And echo conversations dull and dry, Embellished with, he said, and so said I. At ev'ry interview their route the same, The repetition makes attention lame, We bustle up with unsuccessful speed, And in the saddest part cry—droll indeed! The path of narrative with care pursue, Still making probability your clue, On all the vestiges of truth attend, And let them guide you to a decent end. Of all ambitions man may entertain, ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... felicitously as anywhere, in the Balkan states; perhaps the case of Greece will be especially instructive. At the other, and far, end of the line will be found such other typical instances as the British, the Dutch, or, in pathetic and droll miniature, ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... former justices of peace, "for half a dozen chickens would dispense with a dozen of penal statutes," A juezes Gallicianos, con los pies en las manos: "To the judges of Gallicia go with feet in hand;" a droll allusion to a present of poultry, usually held by the legs. To describe persons who live high without visible means, Los que cabritos venden, y cabras no tienen, de donde los vienen? "They that sell kids, and have ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... the audience upon these occasions, and listen with great interest to Marguerite's entertaining stories of adventures at home and abroad, or Gabrielle's droll mimicry of the strongly marked characteristics of some one she has met or dreamed of. Sometimes the candles are extinguished, and a ghost story is told, for Gabrielle is fond of the supernatural, and her dramatic style of narration adds much to our enjoyment; indeed, chancing the ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... you might think it was presuming in me, ma'am, to be making little Miss Betty a present. Indeed," he added, with a droll little twinkle of his eyes, "it's trouble enough I've had keeping it. Biddy caught me making a little drawing of the fine chest, and would have it out of me what I was hiding; and once, when I was just using my two eyes at the window, she asked me was I planning to steal the silver. And what with ...
— Harper's Young People, September 28, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Katarina and Marie. Holding their hands, she walked between them toward me, and bade them notice my height. "I am his Cloud-Mother," she said. "How droll it is that parents grow down little, while ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... yon had, addressed her you would have thought her polite and stupid. Look at her. A flabby-faced woman she is now, with a swollen body, and no one has heeded her much these thirty years. I can tell you something; it is almost droll. Nanny Webster was once a gay flirt, and in Airlie Square there is a weaver with an unsteady head who thought all the earth of her. His loom has taken a foot from his stature, and gone are Nanny's raven locks on which he used to place ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... interlarded with "Ja," but he never says a worse word than that, and he drinks nothing but tea. As for a pipe, or a cigar even, when it is offered to him he screws up his queer face into a droll grimace and says, "No—thanks. I want all my nerves, I do, on this bit of road.—Walk along, Lady Barker: I'm ashamed of you, I am, hanging your head like that at a bit of a hill!" It was rather startling to hear this apostrophe all of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... among hundreds of homes in a little city where it is proposed to give every home, if possible, its utmost value. Many other pleasing examples could be cited if further turnings of the kaleidoscope were a real need, but this slender discourse is as long now as it should be. It seems droll to call grave attention to such humble things in a world so rightly preoccupied with great sciences and high arts, vast industries, shining discoveries and international rivalries, strifes and projects; yet what are all these for, at last, but the simple citizen, his family and his home, and ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... the droll-looking convict, pouncing upon the gun and dragging it from Nic's hand; "just the little tool I wanted! Where's its bread and cheese, mate? Why, deary me, if it ain't the little chap as used to look at us aboard the ship! How do ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... first had smiled at the droll figure made by the little boy, whom he supposed to be one of the kitchen scullions, but at this speech he stiffened up and looked very stern ...
— Gabriel and the Hour Book • Evaleen Stein
... and his features gave the idea of a man in the act of straining himself. In consequence, one of the city wits, upon the emperor's desiring him "to say something droll respecting himself," facetiously answered, "I will, when you have done relieving your bowels." [767] He enjoyed a good state of health, though he used no other means to preserve it, than repeated friction, as much (459) as he could bear, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... to last, almost without exception, this story is delightfully droll, humorous and illustrated in harmony with the story."—New ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... into a roar of laughter. They fairly howled with delight at Teddy's droll manner, but the Circus Boy did not even smile. He looked at them with a hurt expression in his eyes until the men were on the point ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... a coracle, which being placed over the head reaches to the thighs behind. It is made of platted bamboo, enclosing broad leaves of Phrynium. A group of Lepchas with these on, running along in the pelting rain, are very droll figures; they look like snails with their shells on their backs. All the Lepchas are fond of ornaments, wearing silver hoops in their ears, necklaces made of cornelian, amber, and turquoise, brought from Tibet, and pearls and corals from the south, with curious silver ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... scattered papers, "Here," He said, as died the faint applause, "Is something that I found last year Down on the island known as Orr's. I had it from a fair-haired girl Who, oddly, bore the name of Pearl, (As if by some droll freak of circumstance,) Classic, or wellnigh ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... remarkable fact that all the queer freaks, like clubs and corals, the cranks and tomfools, in droll shapes and satanic colors, the funny poisonous looking Morels, Inkcaps, and Boleti are good wholesome food, but the deadly Amanitas are like ordinary Mushrooms, except that they have grown a little thin, ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... described Coleridge as 'a noticeable man with large grey eyes,' goes on to say, 'He' (viz., Coleridge) 'did that other man entice' to view his imagery. Now we are sadly afraid that 'the noticeable man with large grey eyes' did entice 'that other man,' viz., Gillman, to commence opium-eating. This is droll; and it makes us laugh horribly. Gillman should have reformed him; and lo! he corrupts Gillman. S. T. Coleridge visited Highgate by way of being converted from the heresy of opium; and the issue is—that, in two months' time, various grave men, amongst whom our friend Gillman ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... the play was launched on November 6, 1905, at the Empire Theater in New York, that little Peter really came into his own. The human birds, the droll humor, the daring allegory, above all the appealing, almost tragic, spectacle of Peter playing his pipe up in the tree-tops of the Never-Never Land, all contributed to an event that was memorable in ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... many good stories which have for their point the passions of the natural man breaking forth, in members of this persuasion, in a shape more droll than distressing. One of the best of these is a north-country anecdote preserved by Francis Douglas in his Description of the East Coast of Scotland. The hero was the first Quaker of that Barclay family ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... pen can draw— Pathetic, kindly, droll or stern; And with a glance so quick to learn The inmost ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... different sets of people; but though Charles II. was a very clever man, he was neither wise nor good. He could not bear to vex himself, nor anybody else; and, rather than be teased, would grant almost anything that was asked of him. He was so bright and lively, and made such droll, good-natured answers, that everyone liked him who came near him; but he had no steady principle, only to stand easy with everybody, and keep as much power for himself as he could without giving offence. He loved pleasure much better than duty, and kept about him a set of people who amused him, ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... You are very lucky if you happen on a camp jester, one of the sort that sings, shouts, or jokes while on the march. He is probably not much as a porter, but he is worth his wages nevertheless. He may or may not aspire to his giddy eminence. We had one droll-faced little Kavirondo whose very expression made one laugh, and whose rueful remarks on the harshness of his lot finally ended by being funny. His name got to be ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... my athletic grand passion. Perhaps I was first attracted by the game's constant humor which was forever making the ball imitate or caricature humanity, or beguiling the players to act like solemn automata. For children are usually quicker than grown-ups to see these droll resemblances. I came by degrees to like the game's variety, its tense excitement, its beauty of posture and curve. And before long I vaguely felt what I later learned consciously: that tennis is a sure revealer of character. Three sets with a man suffice to give ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... replied with aboriginal simplicity: 'All the whisky and all the tobacco in the world.' 'Nothing else?' added the inquirer. 'Yes,' replied the Indian in an anxious tone, 'a little more whisky.' The same insatiable craving is shown in poor Isaac K——, the half-witted boy, whose droll sayings of a half-century ago are still remembered about Boston. 'Father,' he one day exclaimed, 'I wish every body was dead but you and me.' 'Why so, my son?' 'Why, then, father, you and I would go out and buy all ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... young man, undersized and slightly deformed, with close-cut hair, and a large face, droll, pliant and ugly as a gutta-percha mask. Before he opened his ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... never to occur to him, and he considered the whole matter in a light so business-like and professional as to be quite amusing. He talked of the Duke, said he was a good man to do business with, quick and intelligent, and 'how well he managed that little correspondence with Huskisson,' which was droll enough, for Huskisson dined there and was in ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... droll mortal!" laughed the cockney. "You poor droll mortal! As if I could ever be afraid of that! What is the matter with my going into training myself? Two can train, you know—even three. You almost make me feel sorry I tried to remedy the loss ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... cannot but think that we live in a bad age, O tempora, O mores! as 'tis in the adage. My foot was but just set out from my cathedral, When into my hands comes a letter from the droll. I can't pray in quiet for you and your verses; But now let us hear what the Muse from your car says. Hum—excellent good—your anger was stirr'd; Well, punners and rhymers must have the last word. But let me advise you, when next I hear from you, To leave off this passion which does not ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... Marquis had his right hand wrapped up in a black-silk handkerchief; so he gave me his left, and, from some awkwardness in meeting it, when I expected the right, I gave him only three of my fingers,—a thing I never did before to any person, and it is droll that I should have done it to a Marquis. He addressed me with great simplicity and natural kindness, complimenting me on my works, and speaking about the society of Liverpool in former days. Lord Lansdowne was the friend of Moore, and has about him the aroma ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... something, and Maignan that he had not got any; but before I could answer that he must get some, La Trape thrust his may to the front, and producing a small piece from his pocket, proceeded with a droll air of extreme carefulness to treat the hand. The other knaves fell into the joke, and the Spaniard had no option but to submit; though his scowling face showed that he bore Maignan no good-will, and that but for my presence he might not have been so ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... he was an admirable host. Without appearing at all to exert himself, he made every one feel at his ease, filled up every gap in the conversation with some droll anecdote or personal reminiscence, and still contrived to make us all imagine that we were entertaining instead of being entertained. The supper was a miracle of culinary skill, and the wines had a most refined and aristocratic flavor. He ate and ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... country boats were going home from the town, sometimes with a crew of women, who seemed to have made this their regular conveyance instead of following the more roundabout highways ashore. Some of these navigators rowed with a cross-handed stroke that jerked their boats along in a droll fashion, and some were propelled by one groping oar, the sculler standing at the stern as if he were trying to push his craft out of water altogether and take to the air, toward which the lifted bow pointed. ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... would calculate what sort and amount of concession it was necessary to make, and would make it, without caring a farthing about the University of Oxford or his own former speeches. The 'Times' in its remarks on his speech was very insolent, but excessively droll. ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... one shouldn't complain," said she, glancing indicatively round. "One can still be out of doors, and yet not get the wetting one deserves. And the view is so fine, and these faded old frescoes are so droll." ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... appeared, rather than let the affair pass unnoticed in our pages. We do so from a wish to preserve certain traits and anecdotes which the occasion drew forth,—to give the pleasant rather than the "untoward" events of the day: though we must own the whole appears to have been a very droll business, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various
... and by this evening I shall have forgotten all about it. But confess, Marquis," she added, with a coquettish laugh, "that this is a droll way of making ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... who ought to have been girls—and who would have made very droll girls. I know an old gentleman who used to bewail the degeneracy of the age and exclaim in despair, 'Boys will be girls!'" ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... caused by the sight which the architect had invited the prefect to come and enjoy, and which was certainly droll enough. The front of the gate-keeper's house was quite grown over with ivy which framed the door and window in its long runners. Amidst the greenery hung numbers of cages with starlings, blackbirds, and smaller singing-birds. The wide door of the little ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... finding he could not get rid of his troublesome guests, and having a chimney-sweeper in his house sweeping other chimneys, he gave the boy directions to descend into the room as above related, whilst he stood at a distance, and enjoyed the droll ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... arguments mean in reference to any expression of thought. I delight in telling what I think, but if you ask me how I dare say so, or why it is so, I am the most helpless of mortal men. I do not even see that either of these questions admits of an answer. So that in the present droll posture of my affairs, when I see myself suddenly raised into the importance of a heretic, I am very uneasy when I advert to the supposed duties of such a personage who is to make good his thesis against all comers. I certainly ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... solemnly, laying his hand on Dumay's shoulder, and thinking to himself how droll it was to make a soldier of the empire tremble, "this young girl may be all in all to you, but to society at large what is she? nothing. At this moment the greatest mandarin in China may be yielding up the ghost and putting half the universe in mourning, and what is that to you? ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... came in with such a droll ring in them. But there, we ought not to be talking now, but getting up into our ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... a droll sort of awakening. It was, indeed, a startling anomaly that this woman of the tribe without should be standing there beside him as his wife, if his sentiments were as he had said. In their travels together she had ranged so unerringly at his level in ideas, tastes, and habits ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... Earliest and Rarest Newspapers, with a Facsimile of a very Curious, Droll, and Interesting Newspaper ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various
... the fox had said: so the son went in and found the chamber where the golden bird hung in a wooden cage, and below stood the golden cage, and the three golden apples that had been lost were lying close by it. Then thought he to himself, 'It will be a very droll thing to bring away such a fine bird in this shabby cage'; so he opened the door and took hold of it and put it into the golden cage. But the bird set up such a loud scream that all the soldiers awoke, and they took him prisoner ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... brought, filled with luxuries, and placed directly under his nose. The temptation was terrible. He had been fasting and macerating himself for eight or nine days. He glared upon it with a gloomy longing. He then looked up wistfully, and a droll smile mantled across his vast face, and eddied in the holes of his ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... auld and droll, Rigwoodie hags, wad spean a foal, Lowping an' flinging on a cummock, I ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... a droll feller, Charley," chuckled Old John Ferris, rubbing his ear with unconcealed delight. "That's a ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... come in; nay, Sir, you stir not. [Ex. Page. 'Tis for your delight, Sir, I do't; for, Sir, you must understand, a Man, if he have any thing in him, Sir, of Honour, for the case, Sir, lies thus, 'tis not the business of an Army to droll upon an Enemy—truth is, every man loves a whole skin;—but 'twas the fault of the best Statesmen in Christendom to be loose in the hilts,—you ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... this droll explanation with a little nervous rush, as if she were speaking words she had got by heart. They gave me an impression of subtlety and at first I failed to follow. But after a moment her face helped me to see further, and then a light came into my mind. It was embarrassing, ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... inspires less and less in Americans. This, with his derivation from one of the unliterary Boston suburbs, and his unambitious residence in a place like Hatboro', gave her a sense of provinciality in him. On his part, he apparently found it droll that a woman of her acquaintance with a larger life should be willing to live in Hatboro' at all, and he seemed incredulous about her staying after summer was over. She felt that she mystified him, and ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... How droll it seems to think of him grown up and married to Annabel of all people! She never said a word about him, but this accounts for her admiring my pretty Chinese things and being so ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... letter of yours,—feeling something startled, to be sure, at the compellation, as if you were mesmerise, and had got an insight (calls me bambino half of the time)—looking at your mood reverential as a droll jest,—vexed at first, but then reconciled, about the book and the lecturing,—charmed and grateful beyond measure at what you say about your health,—when! at last!! I fell upon your request: "Now give me one brief ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... to make manifest; but in a word, one might attribute it to its vividness of reality—to the fact that every character seems to be a real living being, with whose minute peculiarities we are made familiar in a singularly droll and happy manner. With each we become close friends on first acquaintance, and as episode succeeds episode the friendship deepens, with no thought that our friends are mere imaginary creatures ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz
... It will buy an apple apiece. Come on! Let's go down to old Granger's. I saw some apples there big as your head; and bigger, too," said Noah, with a droll wink. ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... went to him he tossed his head coquettishly, and trotting away a few steps, turned and looked at her with a droll air. Colina called him in dulcet tones, and ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... Mr. Tupple shows to still greater advantage than he has done throughout the evening, and when Pa requests every one to fill their glasses for the purpose of drinking happiness throughout the year, Mr. Tupple is so droll: insisting on all the young ladies having their glasses filled, notwithstanding their repeated assurances that they never can, by any possibility, think of emptying them and subsequently begging permission to say ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Occasionally, as she sat for a moment with hind legs stretched out flat and fore paws planted between them, one of the cubs would approach and attempt some monkey play. A sound cuff on the ear invariably sent him whimpering back to his companion, who looked droll enough the while, sitting with his tongue out and his head wagging humorously as he watched the experiment. It was getting toward the time of year when she would mate again, and send them off into the world to shift for themselves. And this was perhaps their first ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... English clown, son of an Italian dancing-master, born in London; was bred to the stage from his infancy, appearing on the boards when not yet two years old; his Memoirs were edited by Dickens, who describes him as "the genuine droll, the grimacing, filching, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... seem so dissatisfied," said Mr. Payton, with so droll an attempt to look gloomy that Lucile then and there threw her arms about his neck and gave him an ecstatic kiss, crying joyfully, "Oh, you are the most wonderful ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... just as well you don't, for I am sure I could not say. I respect them both immensely. I have from boyhood," he added, with a droll look. ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... of mind to fall back upon the radical difficulty of all such solutions of the problem of family union as were practised in Otaheite, or were urged by philosophers in Paris, or are timidly suggested in our own times in the droll-sounding form of marriages for terms of years with option of renewal. That difficulty is the disposal of the children which are the fruit of such unions. Orou rejoins to this argument by a very eloquent account how valuable, how sought after, how prized, is the woman who has her quiver full ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... the inmates of this grim palace wear a peculiar costume and disguise, one feature of which is a cap of coarse materials, with a vizor to it, which conceals the features all but the chin and the eyes, which last peep, in a very droll way, through two holes cut ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... only in household matters, but in other affairs of life. Whenever she had visitors,—and she and James were hospitable in the extreme,—she was pretty sure to end up, sooner or later, if James were present, with some droll criticism of him, as much to his ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... grown to manhood, in unconventional, occasionally sordid surroundings, he had lost none of an innate gentleness with women, that delicate attention to the little, thoughtful, chivalrous things which, to discerning women, are the chief charm in a man. And withal he was a droll rascal, a rollicking, careless fellow who quickly discovered that, next to telling her that he loved her and would continue to love her forever and ever, it pleased Donna most to have him tell her about himself, to listen to his ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... 'just think how droll it is to run away with one's lover, and one's brother standing by aiding and abetting! Oh, fie! I'm ashamed of you! There, now, I've fastened this delightful ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... people urged, but he Replied, "There's no use talking; I roll around because, you see, It's easier than walking." And though it looked extremely droll To see the lad lie down and roll, It was, forsooth, For that fat youth Far easier ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... have made you laugh heartily, Jack, to see the droll manner in which the servants acted their parts" (there had been a sort of mystified masque), "more particularly the fat old butler, of whom they had made a Cupid, as Dick Griffin said, in order to show that love becomes drowsy and dull by good eating and drinking—I ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... giant's litany. The other types are as plainly stamped. The shepherd's are from the life, and contrast well with the stilted and rather tiresome prophets. The scenes at the babe's crib when the offerings are made of the shepherds' pipe, old hat, and mittens, are both droll and tender. ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous |
