"Badinage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... whom irony and pity are perpetually disputing. We think of Heine and his bitter-sweetness. Again with Zarathustra, Laforgue could say: "I do not give alms. I am not poor enough for that." He possesses the sixth sense of infinity. A cosmical jester, his badinage is well-nigh dolorous. His verse and prose form a series of personal variations. The lyric in him is through some temperamental twist reversed. Fantastic dreams overflow his reality, and he always dreams with wide-open eyes. Watteau's ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... at her in amazement; and directly it flashed upon him that there was too much solemnity in her look and tone for badinage. Something that he had noticed during the past few months came back to him, and he trembled with the weight of ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... to unearth the fortune. They were a cool, silent, slow, and stubborn race. Matthew Fisher followed his father and his grandfather, and inherited the family faith. All these years the tenders of the lord of the manor were ignored, and the Fishers enjoyed their title of courtesy or badinage. When Matthew was a boy there was a rhyme current ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... men were shaking hands and chatting together—from every side came expressions of friendship, laughter, jests, and badinage. Everywhere I could feel the tie which bound this youthful society in one, and everywhere, too, I could feel that it left me out. Yet this impression lasted for a moment only, and was succeeded, together with the vexation which it had caused, by the idea that it was best that ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... coalition presently," he boomed, looking from his wife to me and puffing out his enormous chest. Then, suddenly altering his tone, "Excuse this frivolous family badinage, Mr. Malone. I called you back for some more serious purpose than to mix you up with our little domestic pleasantries. Run away, little woman, and don't fret." He placed a huge hand upon each of her shoulders. "All that you say is perfectly true. I should ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... juncture there was a little commotion in the hall, and Miss Lenox did come in with Tony Thorpe. She had spoken to my mother, kissed Helen and answered Mr. Floyd's badinage before she saw me, yet when her eyes did turn toward ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... is historic. I regret that I must tell you of it over a little wire, for it admits of all exemplification. In this high, spacious, elegant apartment, laughter and levee, social pleasantry and refined badinage, had often held their session. Dancing and music had made those mirrors thrill which now reflect a pall, and where the most beautiful women of their day had mingled here with men of brilliant favor, now only a very few, brave enough to look upon death, were wearing funeral weeds. The ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... furniture, stores of hardware, groceries, dry-goods—all that man requires for his physical well-being. The town itself was swarming with eager jostling throngs bound for many diverse points, and friends of a day shouted hearty good-bys, or exchanged good-natured badinage, as they ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... promptly, and with a look of such benignity, that the Anglo-Saxon felt constrained to give up his intended badinage. ...
— Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman • R.M. Ballantyne
... guests entered, and it was impossible. She watched, however, from a little distance, while talking gaily to other guests; she watched at the dinner-table, as Jasmine, seated between her two royalties, talked with gaiety, with pretty irony, with respectful badinage; and no one could be so daring with such ceremonious respect at the same time as she. Yet through it all Lady Tynemouth saw her glance many times with a strange, strained inquiry at Rudyard, seated far away opposite her; at ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... And yet the doctrine thus formulated is the one that M. Rossi prefers. Now, would it please M. Rossi to have us render his theory of monopoly analytically and ours of labor synthetically? I can give him the satisfaction. . . . . But I should blush, with so earnest a man, to prolong such badinage. M. Rossi knows better than any one that analysis and synthesis of themselves prove absolutely nothing, and that the important work, as Bacon said, is to make exact comparisons and ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... an amused listener to Fanny's gay badinage, laughing merrily at the idea of Lucy's taking old women out to air and clothing her children in party dresses. His opinion of Lucy, as she had said, was that she was a pretty, but frivolous, plaything, and it showed upon his face as he asked the question he did, watching Anna ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... if "Kitty" should not be satisfactorily explained. I felt sorry for him, for every one caught at the idea of something new, and the thought of an explanation to the whole of that boatload, keen for all sorts of badinage, would have tempted me overboard, I am sure. However, Donaldson smiled very composedly, and said he believed the family were still in Texas, although he had heard nothing more than Thornton already ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... evening at the Grange. We were all chattering gaily about the coming event, and in speaking of the invited guests Eliza said something about the other Eliza Laurance, the great heiress, looking archly at Willis over her shoulder as she spoke. It was some merry badinage about the cousin whose namesake she was but ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... cheerful next morning at breakfast and for the time that they lingered at the oasis after the baggage camels had started. Sir Aubrey was morose and silent, and she exchanged most of her badinage with Stephens, who was superintending the packing of the tiffin basket that would accompany her in charge of the man who had been selected as her personal servant, and who was waiting, with Mustafa Ali and about ten ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... girl, he loved it. Brainy badinage of that sort is exchanged every day in the best society. You should hear dukes and earls! The wit! the esprit! The flow of soul! Mine is nothing to it. What's this in the iron pot? Is this what you feed them? Queer birds, hens—I wouldn't touch the stuff for ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse
... employ this little holiday time, which I have stolen out of a weary life, in a wild-goose chase. But, believe me, you allude to matters that are more a mystery to me than my affairs appear to be to you. Will you explain what you would suggest by this badinage?" ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... unfortunately discovered that the blockheads who could not comprehend us when we were serious, were still farther from understanding the ineffable beauty of our nonsense; so that in both cases we were the sufferers. They took our elegant badinage for our sober and settled opinions, and laughed in the most accommodating manner when we delivered our ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... sycamore disclosed some rude attempts at cultivation—a flowering vine trailed over the porch of one cabin, and a woman rocked her cradled babe under the roses of another. A little farther on Mr. Hamlin came upon some barelegged children wading in the willowy creek, and so wrought upon them with a badinage peculiar to himself that they were emboldened to climb up his horse's legs and over his saddle, until he was fain to develop an exaggerated ferocity of demeanor, and to escape, leaving behind some kisses and coin. And then, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... you with devout gratitude, for the many delightful moments I have enjoyed in your society. I regularly read your "London Charivari:" it is magnificent—superb! What wit—what agacerie—what exquisite badinage is contained in every line of it! You are the veritable monarch of English humour. Hail, then, great fun-ambule, PUNCH THE FIRST! Long may you live, to flourish your invincible baton, and to increase the number of your laughing subjects. Your ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... appeared dubious, and made no answer; but she noticed that the man now preceded them, and raised his hand when they came up with the band, which had apparently halted to indulge in retort or badinage with some of those ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... sporting contemporary, is bright breezy batting. The game should no longer depend for its sparkle on impromptu badinage between the umpire and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919 • Various
... a last flutter." All this had been said with such a mixture of indifferent badinage on his part, and of serious anger on hers, that Mrs. Holt, who saw it all and understood it, sat very uneasy in her chair. "To tell the truth," continued he, "all the instructions have been given to the lawyers, and I really do think that I had better be away during the making of ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... changed from an expression of pleasant badinage to one of sentimental interest, while he gazed abstractedly in the young lady's face, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... did rise above the medley of catcalls and gibes of a dark nature which passed in playful badinage between the sister services were of a nature exclusively frivolous; and the conversation of such officers as were not consuming the midday cocktail consisted entirely of a great thankfulness that they had seen the last of an abominable island, and a fervent prayer that they would never ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... window, carelessly holding in his hand a bouquet of faded jasmine, whilst he gazed with melancholy eyes upon the festive scene before him, and only by a shake of the head and a sad smile replied to the light badinage of the dancers as they passed the window. But now and then his eyes lighted up, and he sighed deeply as a certain dancer, prettier than the rest, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... great contrast to that which he wore in the heat of his sermonizing. Not that he forgot the dignity of his position for a moment, but he wore it too trenchantly; he could never unbend to the free play of side-talk. Hence he could not look upon the familiar spirit of badinage in which some of his brethren of the profession indulged, without serious doubts of their complete submission to the Heavenly King. Always the weight of his solemn duties pressed sorely on him; always amid pitfalls he was conducting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... be annoyed at this mingling of praise and badinage, especially when she relieved me from all sense of intrusion. Moreover, she looked so brilliant, so sparkling and happy, that I watched her, amazed at the metamorphosis from her ordinarily calm, intellectual conversation and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... precise, had never been able to defend himself against Verna Pickering's badinage, but Brandon's ready tongue took up ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... hoped to make Bee waver in her thorough approval of her own acts, this cheerful exchange of badinage, where the exchange was all on my part, undeceived me, for Bee simply looked at me without replying, so Jimmie uncoiled himself and handed the ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... these roisterers of the night-watch were a set of jolly dogs, and had been opening numerous bottles of red wine with which to pass lagging hours more pleasantly. They were already in that gay, thoughtless spirit of badinage which comes of fair allowance. Good humor had laid careless hand on duty, until, the stern restraint of discipline noticeably relaxing, good fellowship had become king. Their officer lay outstretched at full length upon three camp stools, a fellow long of limb, with face as dark ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... trust it may turn out no worse. The ghost of a squatter might prove a less unpleasant neighbour than the squatter himself, dispossessed of his squatment. Notwithstanding this badinage, I know you will act with judgment; and you can count upon my help in the matter, if you should require it." I grasped the speaker's hand, to express my gratitude; and the tight pressure returned, told me I ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... kiss! The word is sweet. I see not why your lip should shrink from it; If the word burns it,—what would the kiss do? Oh! let it not your bashfulness affright; Have you not, all this time, insensibly, Left badinage aside, and unalarmed Glided from smile to sigh,—from sigh to weeping? Glide gently, imperceptibly, still onward— From tear to ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... vocabulary, to designate his peculiar style, le marivaudage, a term which has had in the past rather more of discredit than of esteem in its general acceptation. Sainte-Beuve thus defines it: "Qui dit marivaudage, dit plus ou moins badinage a froid, espieglerie compassee et prolongee, petillement redouble et pretentieux, enfin une sorte de pedantisme semillant et joli; mais l'homme, considere dans l'ensemble, vaut mieux que la definition a laquelle il a fourni occasion et sujet."[141] With the increasing popularity of Marivaux, ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... drollery, pleasantry. farce, buffoonery, fooling, tomfoolery; shenanigan [U.S.], harlequinade &c 599 [Obs.]; broad farce, broad humor; fun, espieglerie [Fr.]; vis comica [Lat.]. jocularity; jocosity, jocoseness^; facetiousness; waggery, waggishness; whimsicality; comicality &c 853. banter, badinage, retort, repartee, smartness, ready wit, quid- pro-quo; ridicule &c 856. jest, joke, jape, jibe; facetiae [Lat.], levity, quips and cranks; capital joke; canorae nugae [Lat.]; standing jest, standing joke, private joke, conceit, quip, quirk, crank, quiddity, concetto^, plaisanterie [Fr.], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... some papers that day. He had dined early at the hotel and returned at once to the consulate. He was often a visitor at the Black Eagle. The beer was sweet and cool. So, having pocketed his papers, he was of a mind to carry on a bit of badinage with Fraeu Bauer. As he stepped into the big hall, in his evening clothes, he was as conspicuous as a passing ship ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... This badinage the poor wretch took with stoical, good grace; In fact, he smiled as though he thought he'd struck the proper place. "Come, boys, I know there's kindly hearts among so good a crowd— To be in such good company ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... The air was thick with tobacco smoke and rank with spirituous odours. Sprawled figures were everywhere, and on a sort of couch against the opposite wall, a cigarette between her fingers, a glass of absinthe at her elbow, her laughter and badinage ringing out as loudly as any, lay ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... the bunch, there was a lot of good-natured badinage indulged in all around, after the manner of ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... revelation in various ways—some incredulously, some with congratulations; others turned upon her the stream of badinage that had hitherto been directed at Aileen alone. And Tildy's heart swelled in her bosom, for she saw at last the towers of Romance rise above the horizon of the grey plain in which she had ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... there was an almost constant warfare of humorous badinage in connection with their several weaknesses. Josh would twit the fat boy on his enormous capacity for stowing "grub" away; and on the other hand, Nick generally came back with sarcastic remarks about "shadows," and "living skeletons," ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... physical degeneracy of our own people,—how the jaw is retreating, how the frame is growing slender and gaunt, how the chest flattens, and how tenderly we ought to cherish every octogenarian among us, for that we are seeing the last of them! If this is intended to be a piece of pleasant badinage, far be it from us to arrest a single smile it may awaken. But if it is given as a serious description, from which serious deductions can be drawn, then we say, that, as a delineation, it is, to a considerable extent, purely fanciful,—as an argument, utterly so. The facts, so far as they are ascertained, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... The badinage seemed in the worst possible taste to the watching Mrs. Delancy, but she forbore comment, although she saw her niece wince visibly. Cicily's pride, however, came to her rescue, and she contrived to restrain herself from any revelation of her ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... Almost the next act on the part of his fellow-townsmen was to hire a large and ferocious looking "cow-puncher" to recognise in Mr. D—— an ancient enemy, and make a vicious attack upon him with blank cartridges and much pomp and circumstance. Still it had no permanent effect on Mr. D——. Badinage could not wither him nor cussing stale his infinite variety. With all his exasperating traits, he had an impassable child-like faith in his doings and a soothing influence that made one smile when one ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... would have sufficed to stock half-a-dozen establishments. "Want a boy, sir?" "A girl for the childer, sir?" said the juveniles, while the offers of the adult ladies were more emphatic and less quotable. All, of course, was mere badinage, or, as they would have called it, "chaff," and it was meant good-humouredly enough; though, had I been a legitimate hirer, I do not know that I should have been tempted to add to my household from this source. Indeed, there were some not exactly pleasant reflections cast on the Slave Market ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... Her voice was gay with badinage, her eyes brimful of laughter. But Priscilla, unaccustomed to light repartee or chaff in any form, replied to her with ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... Richard Fitzpatrick is meant, who later on joined in writing The Rolliad, and who was the cousin and 'sworn brother' of Charles Fox. Walpole describes him as 'an agreeable young man of parts,' and mentions his 'genteel irony and badinage.' Journal of the Reign of George III, i. 167 and ii. 560. He was Lord Shelburne's brother-in-law, at whose house Johnson might have met him, as well as in Fox's company. There are one or two lines in The Rolliad ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... the corn in ear. For the simple and credulous—crosses and beads; for the hard-hearted and venal—material considerations; for the cultured and educated—a fine tissue of epigrams and anthropology; for the ladies—flattery and badinage. A spiritual ancestor of Anatole France's marvellous full-length figure of Jerome Coignard, Borrow's conception takes us back first to Rabelais and secondly to the seventeenth-century conviction of the profound ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... talking gayly, Billy and Uncle William, after the meal was over, ascended to the drawing-room. There, however, the man, in spite of the young woman's gay badinage, fell to dozing in the big chair before the fire, leaving Billy with only Spunkie for company—Spunkie, who, disdaining every effort to entice her into a romp, only winked and blinked stupid eyes, and finally curled herself on the rug ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... at their proper worth. Had it been any one else, Mr. Lloyd George would have been voted an unmitigated nuisance on all hands. As a result of prolonged residence in the Gay City at a somewhat later date, the Right Honourable Gentleman is now, it is understood, in the habit of bandying badinage with the midinettes in the argot of the Quartier Latin. But at the time that I speak of his acquaintance with the Gallic tongue was strictly limited (although he did put forward claims to be able to understand ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... midst of this delicious badinage the hostess had to rise to receive further guests. Conflicting emotions struggled within her ample bosom—namely, regret at leaving that thrice happy sofa, and satisfaction that others should behold the glory ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... spark of imagination in him, scarcely even a spark of the passion which, if it had been strong enough, might have swept her away in spite of her shrinking. He was a man of comely presence, whimsical, and quick, as she remembered, at light badinage, but when there was a crisis to be grappled with he somehow failed. His graces were on the surface. There was ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... is unaffected and simple in his tastes, except in the matter of his lodgings. I question if there is one of us who spends less than he does, but he no more understands you than you understand him; he takes your badinage seriously, and cannot understand that it is harmless fun. However, he is better in that respect than when he first came over, and in time, no doubt, his touchiness will die out. God forbid that he should ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... finding that he had no chance with Fanny where repartee or badinage was in question, had recourse again to the serious vein, and rejoined, "If my power to induce you to prolong your visit were at all equal to my will, you would remain for ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... Inconsistencies and carelessness of composition. 1. Pointless badinage and padded scenes. 2. Inconsistencies of character and situation. 3. Looseness of dramatic construction. 4. Roman admixture and topical allusions. 5. Jokes on the dramatic machinery. 6. Use of stock plots ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... Scotch terrier that is so covered with hair that you could not tell which was the head and which was the tail." This sally, which excited immoderate laughter, remains one of the happiest examples of Parliamentary retort and badinage. ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... tip of Sydney's tongue to use some badinage such as he would have done, in his light and easy fashion, to a servant-maid or shop-girl. But something in her look caused him, luckily, to refrain. He went as near as he dared to the ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... It was a delightful afternoon of June, the river warm and still, and the soft, fitful western breeze occasionally rich with the perfume of the gardens of Putney and Chiswick. Waldershare talked the whole way. It was a rhapsody of fancy, fun, knowledge, anecdote, brilliant badinage—even passionate seriousness. Sometimes he recited poetry, and his voice was musical; and, then, when he had attuned his companions to a sentimental pitch, he would break into mockery, and touch with delicate satire every mood of human feeling. Endymion listened to him in silence and admiration. ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... a fascinating voice with a ripple of badinage that seemed to play upon the sober surface of her thoughts. Then seeing that I did not answer she altered ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... in the Rocher de Caucale. He is about the sincerest man I ever knew, never pretending to feelings that are not in him,—never flattering. His feelings do not seem to be warm, though they are kindly. He is so single-minded that he cannot understand badinage, but takes it all as if meant in earnest,—a German trait. Revalues himself greatly on being a Frenchman, though all his most valuable qualities come from Germany. His temperament is cool and pure, and he is greatly delighted with any attentions from the ladies. A short time since, a lady ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... ailment. It was evident enough that her misery was real; but yet she spoke of herself and her sufferings with so much irony, with so near an approach to joking, that it was very hard to tell how far she was in earnest. Lucy, too, was so much given to a species of badinage which Mrs. Robarts did not always quite understand, that the latter was afraid sometimes to speak out what came uppermost to her tongue. But now that Lucy was absolutely in tears, and was almost breathless ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... his way to their table through a hurly-burly of back-slappings and "Bravos." As soon as he was able to sit down in peace, he drew Mr. Curtis a little aside to talk in private. The two boys were content to watch the changing scene and listen to the hearty badinage of the fashionable young blades about the tables. It was, you must remember, Jeremy's first experience of luxury, unless the good, clean quarters and wholesome meals aboard the Queen could be so ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... on a winter night beheld a strange spectacle: the vista of fires lighting the smoky concave; the bronzed groups encircling each,—cooking, eating, gambling, or amusing themselves with idle badinage; shrivelled squaws, hideous with threescore years of hardship; grisly old warriors, scarred with Iroquois war-clubs; young aspirants, whose honors were yet to be won; damsels gay with ochre and ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... During the half-jesting badinage that followed Amy stole away. Behind the house Webb was preparing to mount, when a light hand fell on his shoulder. "You will be careful?" said Amy, appealingly. "You don't seem to spare yourself in anything. I dread to have you go ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... from Mrs. Owen carried a serious responsibility. These things he pondered as they walked together. He felt the pathos of her black gown; but she had rallied from the first shock of her sorrow, and met him in his key of badinage. She was tall—almost as tall as he; and in the combined moon- and star-light of the open spaces their ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... in the one case we associate factitious pleasure, in the other factitious pain, with the object: both produce pernicious effects upon the temper, and retard the natural progress of the understanding. The advocates in favour of "scholastic badinage" have urged, that it excites an interest in the minds of children similar to that which makes them endure a considerable degree of labour in the pursuit of their amusements. Children, it is said, work hard at play, therefore ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... mercy of your perspicuity," said Victor, with a mock bow; "however, a truce to badinage—Douglas Dale is a rich man, and very much in love with Madame Durski; but he is the last man in the world to interfere with his cousin, by trying to win her affections, if he believes her attached to Sir Reginald. He is a fool in some things, as I have ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... Aline watching them the spirit of badinage in him was overmatched. He gave it up and asked what kind of a rig he should send round. Virginia furnished him the necessary specifications, and he turned ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... don't care a thing about me, and I did promise her the book, and I ran every step of the way to give it to her—didn't I, Uncle Nat?" he added, gayly, hoping to divert the topic. "You were behind the sun-dial when I passed—don't you remember?" He shrank a little from the badinage. ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... change of Kells's marked a subtle difference in the spirit of the bandits and the occasion. Gaiety and good humor and badinage ended. There were no more broad grins or friendly leers or coarse laughs. Gulden and his groups clustered closer to the table, quiet, ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... of good counsel, and I ask her earnestly if she knows any particularly pleasant place on the Saucelito or San Rafael coast, for the scene of our picnic is always supposed to be uncertain. The next moment I am back at my giddy badinage with the young ladies, wakening laughter as I go, and leaving in my wake applausive comments of "Isn't Mr. Dodd a funny gentleman?" and "O, I think he's just ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... From light badinage, we got talking of literature. Some one, Mr Mawley the curate, I think, drew a parallel between Douglas Jerrold and Thackeray, describing both, in his blunt, dogmatic ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... astonishment, she could not help exclaiming, "Behold the priest of my dream." She was requested to relate the dream, which she did quite simply, and as a matter of course, had to submit to a good deal of badinage about her vision, as they called it, but jest soon turned to earnest, and before parting M. de Maisonneuve and Sister Bourgeois conceived a lasting friendship for each other. He asked if she would like to go to Montreal and ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... and some of them were not pretty; but nearly all of them were rosy-cheeked, and all were pleasant to see because of the good cheer they showed. Some of the gallants affected the airy and easy, entertaining the company with badinage and repartee; some were openly bashful. Now and then one of the latter, after long deliberation, constructed a laborious compliment for his inamorata, and, after advancing and propounding half of it, again retired into ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... un habit de mezzetin Ce gros brun au riant visage Sur la guitarre avec sa main Fait un aimable badinage. ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... caresses; the scene where I had taken leave of their mother; the occasional chit-chat with the old smith, who had his forge there; the joyous songs of one of the captains accompanied by his guitar; and last not least, the innocent badinage of a young Hungarian fruiteress—the corporal's wife, who flirted with my companions—were among what we had lost. She had, in fact, taken ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... To Mr Arabin this badinage was peculiarly painful; and yet he could not tear himself away and leave it. He believed, still believed with that sort of belief which the fear of a thing engenders, that Mrs Bold would probably become the wife of Mr Slope. Of Mr Slope's little adventure in the garden he ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... interminable and she found herself contrasting the stiff formality with the genial hospitality of her father's table. She saw again the softly lighted room with its open windows through which the flowers peeped, and heard his gay badinage and his low, sweet laugh. Could she be the same Evadne, or ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... forward to walk by the side of his master's litter and encourage the carriers with that mixture of light badinage and heavy swearing which composed his method of ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... absence of ceremony and formal events. There was no president or secretary, and presently the party went into the dining-room and sat around a table, at either end of which Pauline and Wilbur presided over a blazer. Interest centred on the preparation of a rabbit and creamed oysters, and pleasant badinage flew from tongue to tongue. Selma found herself between the magazine editor and a large, powerfully built man with a broad, rotund, strong face, who was introduced to her as Dr. Page, and who was called George by every one else. He had ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... seemed to hear the heavy feet of their strange pursuers behind them, they had to stand and stamp while the French Colonel talked to the French wood-cutter with all the leisurely badinage and bickering of market-day. At the end of the four minutes, however, they saw that the Colonel was right, for the wood-cutter entered into their plans, not with the vague servility of a tout too-well paid, but with the seriousness of a solicitor who had been paid the proper fee. He told them ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... love-sick maiden. But Chopin's purity of character was marked; he shrank from coarseness of all sorts, and the Fates only know what he must have suffered at times from George Sand and her gallant band of retainers. To this impressionable man, Parisian badinage—not to call it anything stronger—was positively antipathetical. Of him we might indeed say in Lafcadio Hearn's words, "Every mortal man has been many million times a woman." And was it the Goncourts who dared to assert ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... conjunction with a ring, will be suffering no harm in thus deriving encouragement for the future, even should they attach no importance to their occurrence, but merely treat them as an occasion for harmless mirth and badinage. ...
— Tea-Cup Reading, and the Art of Fortune-Telling by Tea Leaves • 'A Highland Seer'
... talking, he dealing in light badinage of a flattering kind, which both amused and disturbed her a little, and presently he turned into a somewhat secluded alley, where he found a bench sheltered and shadowed by the overhanging boughs of ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... wages promptly; said good morning when she came, and good night when she went; answered her questions when she asked them seriously; relapsed into indifference or into a lazy and not too civil badinage when she provoked him to it; ...
— Between Friends • Robert W. Chambers
... too, whenever Thorold was my partner; other people's talk was very tiresome. They went over the platitudes of the day; or they started subjects of interest that were not interesting to me. Bits of gossip—discussions of fashionable amusements with which I could have nothing to do; frivolous badinage, which was of all things most distasteful to me. Yet, amid it, I believe there was a subtle incense of admiration which by degrees and insensibly found its way to my senses. But I had two dances with Thorold, and at those times I was myself and enjoyed unalloyed ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... I wish he would keep there!" Bessie would declare. She thought the Honourable Charles was jealous; for with the elder daughter the draper had come to indulge in a kind of heavy badinage which may have gratified George Boult, and apparently was not displeasing to Bessie, but which those who looked ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... carts labouring over the grass or rolling down the leafy lanes, again the smell of the hay is in his nostrils, and the soft English gloaming is stealing over the land. The more or less intoxicated reapers astride upon the load exchange their barbarous badinage with those who follow on foot; the pleasant glow of health, that follows upon a long day of hard work in the open air, warms the blood; and in the eyes of all is the light of expectation, born of a memory of the good red meat, ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... badinage, but it is uttered in sad earnest. The wife's irrational longing to extract absolute sympathy of taste, opinion and feeling, from her wedded lord, is a baneful growth which is as sure to spring up about the ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... sooner told of this than he shut the gate of his house, after sending his secretary to the commissary of police of the section. In the meantime, both the police agents and the girl entreated him to let them out, as the whole was merely a badinage; but he remained inflexible, and they were all three carried by the real police commissary ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... Rosebery, but then there was in the whole air that curious and almost audible silence—to use a conscious paradox—which conveys to the trained ear clearer sounds of absorption and attention than the loudest cheers. And then you began to forget the badinage of the earlier sentences—you forgave the frigidity and self-repression—you became strongly fascinated by the mobile face, inscrutable eyes, and the voice penetrated to your innermost ear; he gave you an immense sense of a clear, masterful, and resolute mind ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... writing. It was handed to him while he was in full tide of gay and successful conversation, in a whole room-full of company. He turned deadly pale when he saw the writing, but still preserved his composure, and finished the playful warfare of badinage which he was at the moment carrying on with a lady opposite; and, a short time after, was missed from the circle. In his room, alone, he opened and read the letter, now worse than idle and useless to be read. It was from her, giving a long account of a persecution to ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... could sit at a conference with Flavelle and not think hard; or accept a duty from his committee and not discharge it. He demanded on behalf of the public—service. No man ever sat on a committee with him who had time for badinage. That man with the slow, high voice and the steady look was judging other men by results. Men came to believe that when there was a public task to perform, Flavelle was the man to take it. He was almost forced into service, often by the ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... If this was badinage Miss Garland had the best of it, for Rowland almost fell a-musing silently over the question whether there was a possibility of irony in that transparent gaze. Before he withdrew, Mrs. Hudson made him tell her again that ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... terms of badinage, approached other men, inquiring how they bore themselves in the matrimonial dispute, and what were the subjects usually spoken of in the intimacies of family life. But from these people he received the smallest assistance.—Some were ribald, ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... her. His words were words of courteous badinage, but Lady Cynthia was conscious of a strange little ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... his thoughts, and between them he kept up a flow of badinage with Ocky, rallied his quiet mother into some show of life, and even directed a few flippancies at the glum figure which graced the head of the table. The tanner was taciturn, abstracted, and the only show of emotion registered by his wooden countenance was a flash of uneasiness when Copley made ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... a confession, though she knew it not. And she had ignored it, taking it as badinage, and he had been too weak to brand it truth. Strangely enough, she did not judge him for posing as Major Calvert's nephew. Strangely enough, that seemed trivial in comparison with the other. It was so natural for him to be the rightful heir that she could not realize that he was an impostor, ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... vers de soci'et'e we perpetually discover a laborious effort to introduce the lightness of the French badinage into a masculine and somewhat rough language."-Quart. Rev. vol. xix. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... exclaimed Jack, ignoring Peter's compliment and badinage. "Is there anything he does ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... badinage, exquisite irony, and interesting narrative, in the story of "The Cock and Fox!" And what knowledge of human nature and skilful construction in "The Wife of Bath's Tale!" We are half inclined, with George Ellis, to call these fables the "noblest specimen of ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... especially in the Coda with its haunting retrospect. The rhythmic formation of the opening sentence would be clearer if two measures had been thrown into one, for the swing is clearly that of a 6/4 measure. The Trio, with its Scarlatti-like crossing of the hands, is a playful bit of badinage, affording a delightful contrast to the Minuetto. Such genuine variety in mood makes the Three-part Form of ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... pleasantly accosted by him, and told he belonged to Company G, of Colonel M.'s Michigan volunteers; had been sick and was out on furlough at the house of a friend. One of them, a social kind of fellow, lingered on the threshold, amused at the badinage passing between the soldier and ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... fat, juicy little lamb's tails while you were at college, but I suppose, now, I'll have to surrender that prerogative along with the others." In an effort to be cheerful and distract his son's thoughts, he attempted this homely badinage. ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... ladies talk of love, reverend sages display their readiness in solving knotty problems, lovers sigh into the air long rhapsodies over the charms of their mistresses, sharp-tongued (but rarely coarse) serving-boys lure fools into greater folly or exchange amusing badinage at the expense of their absent masters. The story does not advance much, but that is of small account so long as the dialogue tickles ears taught to find delight in well-spoken euphuism. It is like listening to a song in a language one does not ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... of badinage had ceased. An intense silence reigned in the marquee. He, in common with many of the others, was beginning to recognise a note of something unusual in ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... stream of talk, in the way of badinage, asking his friends to name whatever article of diet they wished, as he could furnish one almost as well as another. Finally, when the thing had continued long enough, he produced the supper, and it was a surprise to Ned and Rosa indeed. ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... Secrets mouthed beneath the Rose, Rumorous Badinage of These and Those? - The Lady Lodger in the Flat upstairs Knows all you do and say - she ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... coarse, darling." There is a certain disadvantage in having known the woman who is the object of your tenderest emotions all your life, and to be on terms of the most familiar badinage with her. Dick was feeling this disadvantage acutely at the moment. He took a step toward her, and put a heavy hand on her shoulder. "Nancy, don't you love me?" he said, "don't ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... the car. Occasionally he turned to speak to Joe and Roger, but otherwise he took little part in his friends' badinage. ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose
... chairs at most alarming angles. A sort of animated lovers' lane is thus formed, through which the promenaders have to run the gauntlet, and are subjected to a certain amount of criticism. Everyone knows everyone. Good natured badinage plays like wild-fire, up and down and across the street. Later on, the tinkle of mandolin and guitar is heard far into the ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... social compact, in sentences which would not have disgraced the mellifluous pen of Bentham. From these he naturally digressed into an agreeable disquisition on the Anglo-Saxons; and, after a little badinage on the Bill of Rights, flew off to an airy apercu of the French Revolution. When he had arrived at the Isle of Fantaisie he begged to inform His Majesty that man was born for something else besides enjoying himself. It was, doubtless, extremely ...
— English Satires • Various
... bone with calculation, with depravity, with a brutal lust to succeed, and if you plumbed for their hearts you would find in all a stone. In their normal state they have the prettiest exterior, stake their friendship at every turn, are captivating alike. The same badinage dominates their ever-changing jargon; they seek for oddity in their toilette, glory in repeating the stupidities of such and such actor who is in fashion, and commence operations, it matters not with whom, with contempt and ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... reaction. The product of his hand and brain, completed, seemed inadequate and commonplace. He would smile grimly as with dogged persistence he started this latest child of his fancy out along the trail so thickly bestrewn with the skeletons of elder offspring. In measure, as badinage had previously passed him harmlessly by, it now cut deeply. No one in the entire town thought him a more complete failure than he considered himself. Skies, from being sunny, grew suddenly sodden; not a tenement or alley but thrust obtrusively ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... introducing me by my proper name, we diverted ourselves for some minutes with her alarm and excuses. After that it was time to take leave, if we would sup at home and the King would not be missed; and accordingly, but not without some further badinage, in which Mademoiselle de Brut displayed wit equal to her beauty, and an agreeable refinement not always found with ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... he gave way to his feelings without restraint. Now, to laugh at the king's weaknesses, his gluttony or follies, was one thing; to criticise his military conduct was another. The one was merely badinage, and the king himself might have laughed had he heard it; the other was treason, and, moreover, likely to touch the monarch on the delicate matter ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies |
