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He also wore his hair, which was straight and stiff, and separated behind; and he often had, seemingly, convulsive starts and odd gesticulations, which tended to excite at once surprise and ridicule. Mrs. Porter was so much engaged by his conversation that she overlooked all these external disadvantages, and said to her daughter, "This is the most sensible man that I ever saw in my life."

Considering the harsh features of the common people in this country, their diminutive stature, their grimaces, and that long appendage, they have no small resemblance to large baboons walking upright; and perhaps this similitude has helped to entail upon them the ridicule of their neighbours.

"You may estimate your capacity for the Comic," says Meredith and the statement might be applied as well to the Bromidic "by being able to detect the ridicule of them you love, without loving them less." The Bromide has no salt nor spice nor savor but he is the bread of Society, the veriest staff of life.

He attacks all the little vanities and all the big vices of his time, not in Swift's terrible way, which makes us feel hopeless of humanity, but with a kindly ridicule and gentle humor which takes speedy improvement for granted.

Instead of this, in most French comedies, the husband is generally made the butt of ridicule, and the whole plot often lies in his being outwitted by some conceited spark. Marriage, in short, is incessantly railed at in such a lively, satirical manner as to delight nine-tenths of the audience.

My mother-in-law shamed me morning, noon, and night about my gluttonous habits. Her scoldings were a blessing in disguise, however; they roused my dormant spiritual tendencies. One morning her ridicule was merciless. "'I shall soon prove to you, I said, stung to the quick, 'that I shall never touch food again as long as I live. "My mother-in-law laughed in derision.

Ridicule, on the other hand, is the smallest of all faculties that other men are at pains to repay with any esteem.... Its nourishment and essence is denial, which hovers only on the surface, while knowledge dwells far below,... it cherishes nothing but our vanity, which may in general be left safely enough to shift for itself.

Moreover, the few seconds that are saved in the course of the day, by writing ill instead of well, do not amount to an object of time by any means equivalent to the disgrace or ridicule of writing the scrawl of a common whore. Consider, that if your very bad writing could furnish me with matter of ridicule, what will it not do to others who do not view you in that partial light that I do?

Garrick's account he did not appear to have been profoundly reverenced by his pupils. His oddities of manner and uncouth gesticulations could not but be the subject of merriment to them; and in particular, the young rogues used to turn into ridicule his awkward fondness for Mrs.

Before he was fifteen, there was not a stream nor a legend that belonged to his native hills which he had not celebrated in song. His pen was always ready to assist the shepherd lads in their rustic loves; and the crabbed and grasping little tyrants of the valley had, more than once, winced under his satire or his ridicule.