United States or Uganda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The plot of one main incident Della's sacrifice of her hair in order to get a Christmas present for her husband takes place in the short space of a few hours, and works out to a half-humorous, half-pathetic climax, when Della and Jim display their Christmas gifts for each other.
Sandy turned abruptly to the piano, thrumming out a few desultory minor chords which probably gave his perturbed young soul a certain amount of relief, while Nan sat gazing with a half-maternal, half-humorous tenderness at the head of flaming red hair which had earned him his sobriquet. "Weel, so ye've come to see me at last or is it Sandy that you're calling on?"
"You mean is she good enough for Dick? He'll be a lucky man if he gets her, and I don't mind confessing that I thought of marrying her myself only she made it clear that she had no use for me. She was quite right; I'd have made a very poor match for a girl like that." Ida was not deceived by his half-humorous manner, for she remarked something that it was meant to hide.
"Well, Reuben, lad?" said the old man; but his voice was lost for his nephew in the noise which shook the air. "Dost not see me?" he cried, speaking loudly this time. "I'm fresh from the sunlight," Reuben shouted, with unnecessary force. "You spoke before. I couldn't hear you for the bells." The old man with a half-humorous gesture put his hands to his ears.
"I sees no 'ob course' about it, Massa Nadgel," observed Moses, who never refrained from offering his opinion from motives of humility, or of respect for his employer. "My 'dvice is to go on an' let de purfesser foller." "But I promised to wait for him," said the hermit, with one of his kindly, half-humorous glances, "and you know I never break my promises."
"THIS man...THIS man..." was the one fiery point in his darkened consciousness.... "What on earth are you talking about?" he brought out. "Why, facts," said Moffatt, in a cool half-humorous voice. "You didn't know? I understood from Mrs. Marvell your folks had a prejudice against divorce, so I suppose she kept quiet about that early episode.
Inside was a sort of mild morass, overspread with Englishmen professional-looking men with months-old beards, pink-cheeked young fellows as fresh as if they had just stepped off Piccadilly, men in faded knicker-bockers and puttees, men in sailor blue and brass buttons, men with flat caps and cockney accent, one with a Thermos bottle, and crisp "Right you are!" a good-natured, half-humorous, half-tragic cross-section of the London streets, drifting about here in the German mud.
Scribimus indocti doctique poemata passim, Horace had written in half-humorous bitterness; the crowd of names that flit like autumn leaves through the pages of Ovid represent probably but a small part of the immense production.
Her forehead was round and full rather than classic, and the thick dark eyebrows were somewhat rough and irregular, turning slightly upwards as they approached each other, a peculiarity which gave an almost pathetic expression to the eyes themselves; the small and by no means perfectly shaped nose was sensitively drawn at the nostrils, but had also an odd look of independence and inquiry; and the wide and shapely lips were more apt to smile with a half-humorous sadness than to part with laughter.
Literally, crowds of people from all parts of the North saw him, exchanged a sentence or two, and carried home their impressions; and those who were near him record the constant fortitude of his bearing, noting as marked exceptions the unrestrained words of impatience and half-humorous despondency which did on rare occasions escape him.
Word Of The Day