"Pleasantry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unbar the doors of their magazines and expose their wares. Sometimes they were met by curses, but oftener by interest and some concern in their needs, and the interview was invariably concluded by a drink. It was three o'clock before this pleasantry was given over, and with a small waterproof bag of india-rubber strapped on his shoulders Dick returned to the hotel. But here he was waylaid by Beauty,—Beauty opulent in charms, affluent in dress, persuasive in speech, ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... having a home somewhere, would speak of this as the junior's home, and of himself as "his guest," as well as the guest of the family. Sometimes all three of the itinerants would meet there for days at a time. Such were seasons of great joy all around, and of some little pleasantry, although cautiously ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er
... followed. Girasole evidently was perfectly familiar with the road. The idea of brigands appeared to strike him as some exquisite piece of pleasantry. He looked as though it was only his respect for the company which prevented him from laughing outright. They had taken the trouble to summon him for that! And, besides, as the Count suggested, even if a brigand did appear, there would be always ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... honour, sir, unless you are pleased to be more explicit, it is impossible for me either to answer or understand you," said the lady; "you speak too seriously for a masquerade pleasantry, and yet not clearly enough to make your ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... he, 'I believe, if I am rightly informed, there can hardly be said to have been any duties hitherto,' and he gave a sort of half laugh, as though to pass off the accusation in the guise of a pleasantry. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... Die," but neither of them awoke in the minds of the children the faintest idea of playfulness or jocularity. Perhaps it was difficult to connect the serious men, who occasionally walked beside them and seemed to grow more taciturn and depressed as the day wore on, with this past effusive pleasantry. ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... Say that my pleasantry was misplaced, say that she was weary and strained beyond her power, say what you will in excuse, I allow it all. Yet it was not reason to fling my last guinea into the sea. A flash of petulance is well enough and ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... blue eyes wandered down the table and met it. Perhaps Madeline's own eyelids fluttered a little as she saw the sudden stricture in the face that received her message, and the grimace with which it uttered, pallid with apprehension, its response to a pleasantry of General Worsley's. She was not consummate in her self-control, but she was able at all events to send the glance travelling prettily on with a casual smile for an intervening friend, and bring it back to her dinner-roll without mischief. It did not adventure ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... us low fellows for a bit instead, which if yer don't like it, yer can lump it, and if yer won't lump it, where will yer have it?" and he tapped his bayonet invitingly. Needless to say, the speaker's pleasantry was impracticable. But the officer did not know that; he only knew the way they have in Germany. Wherefore the officer ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... of your last favour (but a few hours ago received) and of your dialogue with your mother—Are you not very whimsical, my dear? I have but two things to wish for on this occasion.—The one, that your charming pleasantry had a better subject than that you find for it in this dialogue—the other, that my situation were not such, as must too often damp that pleasantry in you, and will not permit me to enjoy it, as I used to do. Be, however, happy in ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... the ceremony Mr. Hooper raised a glass of wine to his lips, wishing happiness to the new-married couple in a strain of mild pleasantry that ought to have brightened the features of the guests like a cheerful gleam from the hearth. At that instant, catching a glimpse of his figure in the looking-glass, the black veil involved his own spirit in the horror with which it overwhelmed all others. His frame shuddered, his ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... situation had dawned upon him. A woman among a crowd of rough soldiers! Her brother and protector dying! And all surrounded by hordes of savage enemies who at any moment might kill them! The thought dismissed all pleasantry from his mind. Something must be done, and at once. Presently, ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... inspiring; the Second Part is more soothing and comforting. The First Part has deep and awful shadows mingled with its light, terribly instructive, and like warnings from hell and the grave. The Second Part is more continually and uninterruptedly cheerful, full of good nature and pleasantry, and showing the pilgrimage in lights and shades that are common ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... eaglets hatched in the ancient eyrie of his precipitous city, whom Browning tells us are not counted "till there is a rush of wings, and lo! they are flown," "What was so taking in him, and how is one to analyse that dazzling surface of pleasantry, that changeful, shining humour, wit, wisdom, recklessness, beneath which beat the most kind and tolerant of hearts?" asks Andrew Lang. But not only through the magnetism of his personal presence did he attract even strangers, ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... sulky and hulking boy—to take my harmless pleasantry so uncouthly? And how is this?" says she, stamping her foot. "May I not laugh a little at my lover if I choose? I will have you know, Euan, that I do what pleases me with mine own, and am not to sit in dread of your displeasure if I ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... coloured under this stinging pleasantry—whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. "As he's to come to you himself—and I don't know why the mischief he doesn't come!—he will ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... recollected, in the following words: 'Ladies and gentlemen, this is the last time I shall drink your health as a public man. I do it with sincerity, wishing you all possible happiness.' There was an end of all pleasantry. He who gives this relation accidentally directed his eye to the lady of the British minister, Mrs. Liston, and tears were running down ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... made a blunder in grammar or in rhetoric the whole evening. He is a theoretical Quidnunc—is tenacious in argument, though wary; carries his point thus and thus, bandies objections and answers with uneasy pleasantry, and when he has the worst of the dispute, puns very emphatically on his adversary's name, if it admits of that kind of misconstruction.' George Kirkpatrick is admired by the waiter, who is a sleek hand,(2) for his temper in managing an argument. Any one ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... probability he had, for he was an aggressive and brazen youngster without much respect for dignity and authority, and Tom was glad when they reached the hills, for he had been apprehensive lest his comrade might essay a familiar pleasantry with some grim official or launch himself into the perilous pastime of swapping ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... young officers might have felt to renew their pleasantry on the occasion, it was shamed into silence. There was a pure dignity about that little pale face which protected itself. They were quite struck, and Fleda had no reason to complain of want of attention from any of the party. Mr. Evelyn kissed her. ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... affair, however ridiculous, most immoral and reprehensible. What, shall a crack-shot make a target of an elder? Never! Let us seek more appropriate butts for our barrels! You may perhaps look upon the whole as a piece of pleasantry but let me tell you that you ran a narrow chance of being indicted for a breach of the peace! And remember, that even shooting a deer may not prove so dear a shot as bringing ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... At this pleasantry, Tremelius turned upon Cossinius and said: "You seem to be ignorant why I am called Scrofa, but, in order that our friends sitting beside you may understand, you should know my family did not always bear this swinish cognomen, nor am I of the race of Eumaeus. The first ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... the sport of a lawless majority; and the basest member of the committee, by a malicious word or a silent vote, might indulge his general spleen or personal animosity. Injury was aggravated by insult, and insult was embittered by pleasantry. Allowances of 20l. or 1s. were facetiously moved. A vague report that a director had formerly been concerned in another project, by which some unknown persons had lost their money, was admitted ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... air displays itself in many secondary ways. A certain sort of laboured pleasantry has already been recognised, and may perhaps have been remarked in these papers, as a sort peculiar to that climate. People utter their judgments with a cannonade of syllables; a big word is as good as a meal to them; and the turn of a phrase goes further than humour or wisdom. By the ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Noel's party I distinctly noticed that the coachmen did not fraternize with their grooms, nor the valets with the footmen and the lackeys, any more than the steward or the butler would mix with the lower servants; and when M. Barreau emitted any little pleasantry it was amusing to see how exceedingly those under his orders seemed to enjoy it. I am not opposed to this kind of thing. Quite on the contrary. As our oldest member used to say, "A society without a hierarchy is like a house without a staircase." The observation, however, ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... this? So you would vex me for sheer wantonness of heart in order to try my patience? By God, I swear to you that, if you continue these fashions of going on, you will find yourself very much out in your expectations. I see quite well that you have been put up to all this pleasantry in order to make me dismiss a servant whom I cannot do without, and who has always served me loyally for five and twenty years. By God, I will do nothing of the kind, and I declare to you that if I were reduced to such a necessity as to choose between losing one or the other, I ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... good also. This is the night of all others, when Indian orators try to be humorous and witty. As a race they do not excel along these lines, but sometimes they get off some very good things. While they began their speeches with some bright pleasantry that brought smiles, and even laughter, there was never anything unbecoming to the place, and all quickly drifted into a strain of thanksgiving to God for his blessings. To listen to their grateful joyous ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... Castle, and inquire for the Gudeman of Ballenguich. Donaldson, the landlord, did not fail to call on the Gudeman of Ballenguich, when his astonishment at finding that the King had been his guest afforded no small amusement to the merry monarch and his courtiers; and to carry on the pleasantry, he was thenceforth designated by James with the title of King of the Moors, which name and designation have descended from father to son ever since, and they have continued in possession of the identical spot, the property of Mr. ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... cattle and ranching with the grown-ups and took their good-natured joshing philosophically. He seldom retorted hastily, but, rather, blinked his eyes and wrinkled his forehead as he digested this or that pleasantry, and either gave it the indifferent acknowledgment of "Shucks! Think you can josh me?" or, if the occasion and the remark seemed to call for more serious consideration, he rose to it manfully, and often to the embarrassment of ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... that your mother cannot hear," returned Mrs. Ayres, with forced pleasantry. She sat down, and Lucy flung herself petulantly upon the bed, where she had evidently been lying, but seemingly not reposing, for it was much rumpled, and the pillows gave evidence of the restless tossing of a weary head. Lucy herself had a curiously rumpled aspect, though she was not exactly ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... is pleasantry. It would betray total ignorance of the Talmud and the rabbis to impute to them the scorn of woman prevalent at that time. The Talmud and its sages never weary of singing the praise of women, and at every occasion inculcate ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... debt, my lord, till ye ken what it 's for," she said, without a tone or inflection to indicate a pleasantry. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... the last year of peace A country disinherited by nature of its rights A pleasantry called voluntary contributions or benevolences A good lawyer is a bad Christian A terrible animal, indeed, is an unbridled woman A common hatred united them, for a time at least A most fatal success Absolution for incest was afforded at thirty-six livres Absurd affectation ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... fire of pleasantry at the expense of my poor steed; which, not content with attacking his physical, extended to his moral qualities. An old gentleman near me observing, 'that I ought not to have mounted him at all, seeing he was so damned groggy;' to which I replied, by insinuating, that if others ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... said he, passing it off with that old stock pleasantry of the range, which covered anything and everything that a man didn't want ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... vengeance. A bandit named Teutgaud, notorious in those times for his robberies, assaults, and murders of travellers, had thrown himself headlong into the cause of the commune. The bishop, who knew him, had by way of pleasantry and on account of his evil mien given him the nickname of Isengrin. This was the name which was given in the fables of the day to the wolf, and which corresponded to that of Master Reynard. Teutgaud and his men penetrated into the cellar of the church; they went along tapping upon all the casks; ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... at first, as a piece of pleasantry; but Grace expressing a strong desire to see a large town, or what was thought a large town in this country, in 1799, and Lucy looking wistful, though she remained silent under an apprehension her father could not afford ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... necessity of any labours but those of national undoing. Holding but an inferior and struggling rank in all the manlier provinces of the mind, in science, poetry, and philosophy; he was the prince of scorners. The splenetic pleasantry which stimulates the wearied tastes of high life; the grossness which half concealed captivates the loose, without offence to their feeble decorum; and the easy brilliancy which throws what colours it will on the darker features of its purpose; made Voltaire, the very genius of France. ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... that Jasper neglects nothing." I scarce know what reflexions this innocent pleasantry of mine provoked on the good lady's part; the upshot of them at all events was to make her say: "Well, I never asked her to come; I'm very glad of that. It's all ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... without any open violence, and with even some good-humored pleasantry on the part of the great crowd assembled. The draft was conducted openly and fairly, and the names of the conscripts were publicly announced and published by the press of Sunday morning. It appeared that the names of many men, too poor ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... in the laughter with which the big man enjoyed his own pleasantry. His mirth had some superficial signs of shamefacedness, but it was hopeful underneath. "The City!" he echoed, with meaning. "That's the curse of it. What do I know about the City? What business have I in the City? As you said, I'm the amateur. A strong man like you can make ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... and conceit;" such attention to the mother-tongue is prescribed, that the young nerves of the letter-writer must tremble when he takes up his pen. Besides, he is told that "he should be extremely reserved on the head of pleasantry," and that "as to sallies of wit, it is still more dangerous to let them fly at random; but he may repeat the smart sayings of others if he will, or relate part of some droll adventure, to enliven ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... legs our friend is speaking, without doubt," said the vicar of St Ewold's, with an attempt at grim pleasantry. ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... by this time, had recovered, in some measure, from their alarm; and, beginning to regard the whole matter as a well-contrived pleasantry, set up a loud shout of laughter at the predicament ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... increase of fortune from them; in case he lived with her in the beginning in habits of agreeable intimacy; and in case she, after she became meretricious, has the skill to soothe the man with engaging pleasantry and pretended civility, to prevent blame being imputed to herself; not to mention other cases, which, as in themselves they are legitimate causes of divorce, are also legitimate causes of concubinage; for the causes of retaining the wife at ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... on the tight-rope of sophistry. In the Moria Erasmus is all the time hovering on the brink of profound truths. But what a boon it was—still granted to those times—to be able to treat of all this in a vein of pleasantry. For this should be impressed upon our minds: that the Moriae Encomium is a true, gay jest. The laugh is more delicate, but no less hearty than Rabelais's. 'Valete, plaudite, vivite, bibite.' 'All common people abound ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... or take promises long enough to calculate interest," interposed Doctor Prescott, with stern pleasantry; "that's my rule, young man, and it's the one I expect others to follow in their business dealings with me. Don't give and don't take; then you'll make ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... His last pleasantry was uttered as he ascended the table. 'George,' he muttered, 'you are first in hand,' and thereafter he took farewell of his friends. Only one word of petulance escaped his lips: when the halters were found too short, his contempt for slovenly workmanship urged him ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... in another new boarder that day, a tall, slim man, possibly thirty years of age. He was introduced as Mr. Wakefield Smith, and he did all he could to make himself popular. Jerry felt that a good bit of his pleasantry was forced, but as there was no use in finding fault, he became ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... conscience was unwilling that it should be printed until developed into something more than a crude sketch,—and lastly came the Treatise on Fashionable Life, a manual which, under the form of pleasantry, was saturated with ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... apply a term which imports a joke to that, which if the Defendants are guilty of, is a gross fraud upon public and private property; and unless every species of depredation and robbery is to be regarded as a species of pleasantry, I think the name of hoax, which has been given to it, is very ill applied to a transaction of so ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... Jack knew all about the doings of Sand Court. He had often been with them, and delighted them all by talking "Court language," but to-day nobody responded to his pleasantry. Ruth and Marjorie were on the verge of tears, the boys were all angry at Hester, and Hester herself was in ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... that account also did they tolerate your unbelief, because it was a pleasantry and a by-path for the people. Thus doth the master give free scope to his slaves, and ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... and offices, Were not deriu'd corruptly, and that cleare honour Were purchast by the merrit of the wearer; How many then should couer that stand bare? How many be commanded that command? How much low pleasantry would then be gleaned From the true seede of honor? And how much honor Pickt from the chaffe and ruine of the times, To be new varnisht: Well, but to my choise. Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserues. I will assume desert; giue me a key ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... of the evening Emily got letters addressed to herself from Lady Eustace and Mrs. Leslie, informing her that they would have very much pleasure in dining with her on the day named. And Lady Eustace went on to say, with much pleasantry, that she always regarded little parties, got up without any ceremony, as being the pleasantest, and that she should come on this occasion without any ceremonial observance. Then Emily was aware that her husband had not only written the notes in her name, but ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... cider-cellars with the verbal fluency of Billingsgate. Under such auspices the ill-starred periodicals naturally oscillate between insipid propriety and labored coarseness. For a month or two the talented contributors go smoothly on in their career of untranslatable pleasantry, till some special atrocity calls forth the fatherly admonition of the police. Immediately a reaction ensues, filling the objectionable columns with harmless sneers at the weather and other safe objects of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... up suspiciously at the Doctor, as if he was getting some kind of advantage over him. That is the way people of his constitution are apt to take a bit of pleasantry. ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... telegram—there was a point of honor involved; that Lamon had no agency from him, nor title to speak."[158] (This late suggestion of the point of honor would seem, under the circumstances, to have been made in a spirit of sarcastic pleasantry, like Sir John Falstaff's celebrated discourse on the same subject.) The only substantial result of the conversation, however, was the written assurance of Mr. Seward, to be communicated to the Commissioners, that "the Government ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... began in a dim way to understand. This was the thing which Tissot had not been able to bear; which in the end had driven the young man with the small chin from the house. This was the pleasantry to which his feeble resistance, his outbursts of anger, of jealousy, or of protest had but added piquancy, the ultimate sting of pleasure to the jaded palate of the performers. This was the obsession under which she lay, the trial and persecution which she had warned him ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... evenness and animation on his side. I had seldom seen his mind greater or more collected. There was frequently a considerable degree of vivacity in his sallies, and they would probably have had a greater share, had not the concern and dejection I could not disguise damped the spirit of pleasantry he seemed not unwilling ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... read much, and was particularly well-informed in history and biography. Notwithstanding his remarkable frankness and all his oddities, his manners were engaging and polished: his conversation was original, energetic, and lively; he would often indulge in sallies of pleasantry to amuse the Empress, and as he was an excellent mimic, he would take off the uncouth manners and accents of some of the soldiers to the life. He had a dislike to writing, always asserting that a pen was an unfit implement for a soldier. ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... the novel is by its character-drawing and its pathos, I doubt if it would have captivated the world without its humor. This is of the old-fashioned kind, the large humor of Scott, and again of Cervantes, not verbal pleasantry, not the felicities of Lamb, but the humor of character in action, of situations elaborated with great freedom, and with what may be called a hilarious conception. This quality is never wanting in the book, either for the reader's entertainment by ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... together again by caprice or accident. L. H—— goes there sometimes. He has a fine vinous spirit about him, and tropical blood in his veins: but he is better at his own table. He has a great flow of pleasantry and delightful animal spirits: but his hits do not tell like L——'s; you cannot repeat them the next day. He requires not only to be appreciated, but to have a select circle of admirers and devotees, to feel himself quite at home. ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... the unsparing satirist was not content with this, but went on, with most of the other attendants upon the King, and being intimately versed in court scandal, he directed his lash with telling effect. As a contrast to the malicious pleasantry of the Cap Justice, were the gambols and jests of Robin Goodfellow—a merry imp, who, if he led people into mischief, was always ready to get them out of it. Then there was a dance by Bill Huckler, old Crambo, and Tom o' Bedlam, the half-crazed individual already mentioned as being among ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... broke out at breakfast with an intimate conviction. They'd see that she was actually starting— they'd receive a wire by noon. They didn't receive it, but by his theory the portent was only the stronger. It had moreover its grave as well as its gay side, since Granger's paradox and pleasantry were only the method most open to him of conveying what he felt. He literally heard the knell sound, and in expressing this to Miss Wenham with the conversational freedom that seemed best to pay his way he the more vividly faced the contingency. He could never return, and ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... The pleasantry made me laugh, but, unwilling that he should have the last word, I answered that he had guessed rightly, that such had been my intention, but that I had entirely altered my mind since I had ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... claims, at least, this praise, The dearth of information and good sense That it foretells us, always comes to pass. Cataracts of declamation thunder here, There forests of no meaning spread the page In which all comprehension wanders lost; While fields of pleasantry amuse us there, With merry descants on a nation's woes. The rest appears a wilderness of strange But gay confusion; roses for the cheeks And lilies for the brows of faded age, Teeth for the toothless, ringlets for the bald, Heaven, earth, and ocean plundered ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... Fortune at defiance"; he speaks also of "the buoyancy of his spirits and the inward light of his mind"; and adds,—"There is nothing gloomy or bitter in his ordinary talk, but, rather, a wild, rough, boyish pleasantry, much more like ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... resolved to set his mark—a mark never to be effaced;—on the forehead of Maupertuis, and wrote the exquisitely ludicrous Diatribe of Doctor Akakia. He showed this little piece to Frederic, who had too much taste and too much malice not to relish such delicious pleasantry. In truth, even at this time of day, it is not easy for any person who has the least perception of the ridiculous to read the jokes on the Latin city, the Patagonians, and the hole to the centre of the earth, without laughing ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... suffocated himself with this pleasantry, which he repeated at least forty times during tea; polishing his radiant face with the sleeve of his coat, and dabbing his head all over with his pocket-handkerchief, in the intervals. But he was not without a graver source ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... nephew met these brethren daily, for the most part, at John Durie's table. The group contained the very flower and chivalry of the Church. At their meals they discussed the incidents of the day's sittings, and their conversation was enlivened with many a pleasantry—it was always Melville's 'form' at table to 'interlase' discourse on serious subjects with 'merry interludes.' When the company rose from table they held lengthened devotional exercises: in the reading of Scripture each in his turn made his observations ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... both of charity and generosity. It was a frugality founded not upon avarice, but upon the love of independency. The extreme gentleness of his nature never weakened either the firmness of his mind, or the steadiness of his resolutions. His constant pleasantry was the genuine effusion of good-nature and good-humour, tempered with delicacy and modesty, and without even the slightest tincture of malignity, so frequently the disagreeable source of what is called wit in other men. It never was the meaning of his raillery to ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... sobs rose like the sad wailing of a little child overcome with grief. The lad's shoulders marked the heart-rending rhythm. Tears appeared through the crossed fingers. Lupin leaned forward and, without touching Beautrelet, said, in a voice that had not the least tone of pleasantry, nor even of the offensive pity ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... the horrid idea seemed to shoot through his brain that something serious was intended by the Cowboy. He called entreatingly to be released, and made rapid and incoherent promises of important information, mingled with affected pleasantry at their conceit, which he would hardly admit to himself could mean anything so dreadful as it seemed. But as he heard the tread of the horses moving on their course, and in vain looked around for human aid, violent trembling seized his limbs, and his eyes began to start from ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... not at present breathing the air either of Christ Church meadow or Trinity gardens; and if our version of a piece of mere pleasantry, which involves nothing in it beyond a moment's laugh, should be so happy as to satisfy the 'general reader,' we shall affect 'for the nonce,' to know nothing of the objections which more scientific persons, the students of the brilliant Hermann, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... hinder me of." This correspondent is one of "the women who seldom ask advice before they have bought their wedding clothes." There was no sense of childhood in an age that could think this an opportune pleasantry. ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... the world and all that it inhabits, were concentrated in Charles Fox, William Pitt, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and the circle of men of pleasantry, loose lives, and vivacious temperaments, who, with whatever diminishing lustre, revolved ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... the reputation he had acquired abroad: alert in play, active and vigilant in love; sometimes successful, and always feared, in his intrigues; in war alike prepared for the events of good or ill fortune; possessing an inexhaustible fund of pleasantry in the former, and full of expedients and dexterity ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... per annum," says the Professor, smiling, in order to throw a little pleasantry into the matter, which is becoming a trifle heavy. Mrs. Boodels asleep. "Though I thought it was more when ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... The soldierly pleasantry of the old king was much to the taste of the brave De Vargas, and called for a worthy return. He bade his men deliver a rich silken vest and a scarlet mantle to the messenger, to be ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... voice came, knew the caliph, and in him recognised the Moussul merchant, but was not in the least daunted; on the contrary he became convinced that he was awake, and that all that had happened to him had been real, and not a dream. He entered into the caliph's pleasantry. "Ha! ha!" said he, looking at him with good assurance, "you are a merchant of Moussul, and complain that I would kill you; you have been the occasion of my using my mother so ill, and of my being sent to a mad-house. It was you who treated the imaum and the four scheiks in the manner ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... of service, he was presented to a living sufficient to support him; but he often found it necessary to purchase his preferment by a species of Simony, which furnished an inexhaustible subject of pleasantry to three or four generations of scoffers. With his cure he was expected to take a wife. The wife had ordinarily been in the patron's service; and it was well if she was not suspected of standing too high in the patron's favor. Indeed the nature of the matrimonial ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... then, and the mass of men, catching sight of the mad, glad light that flared in his eyes, rolled back to give them room. He laughed at Harrigan. He was laughing at himself. They heard and marveled at the pleasantry of his answer. ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... enlivening, and Edward at last essayed conversation. He whispered several things which he thought quite bright and appropriate, but Ellen took them all very seriously and vouchsafed only monosyllables in reply. It being evident that she was not in a mood for pleasantry, he relapsed into silence. But he went on to think of sundry occasions upon which he had waited in a certain dark little anteroom at Primary No.—until the principal might find leisure to flog him. Having exhausted this subject, he looked about for something to read, and descried some ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... with. 'And now, boys,' said he once to a mob that had gathered at his door, 'if any of you has a stick, just leave it in my porch for a keepsake.' With shouts of laughter the shillelaghs came flying over the heads of the people in front till the porch was filled. The pleasantry gave Howe a stock of fuel, and sent away the mob disarmed ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... the one-eyed man, peering up at me beneath his hand. "Is they whiskers a-peepin' at me over 'is cravat or do my eyes deceive me?" Which pleasantry, called forth another roar of laughter ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... conversation into channels of his own choice was invaluable, in dealing with conceited disputatious orientals. "Indomitable in his purpose to do good, affable and courteous in manner, of ready tact, and abounding in resistless pleasantry, he gained access wherever he chose to go, and wielded an influence powerful for good upon all with whom he chose to associate. He commanded the respect of foreign ambassadors and travellers, of dignitaries in the Oriental Churches, bankers, and ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... melancholy, the clouds of which darkened the brightness of his fancy, and gave a gloomy cast to his whole course of thinking: yet, though grave and awful in his deportment, when he thought it necessary or proper, he frequently indulged himself in pleasantry and sportive sallies. He was prone to superstition, but not to credulity. Though his imagination might incline him to a belief of the marvellous, and the mysterious, his vigorous reason examined the evidence with jealousy. He had a loud voice, and a slow deliberate utterance, ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... Osmond's pleasantry; I decide nothing," said Madame Merle, but also as in pleasantry. "I believe you've a very good school, but Miss Osmond's friends must remember that she's very naturally meant ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... ready leash rewarded the felicity of this application, and sent the fool howling off to seek a more favourable audience, for his pleasantry. At the same time Raoul pressed up to Damian, and with an earnestness very different from his usual dry causticity of manner, begged him for God's sake not to make himself the general spectacle, by standing ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... this novel supper was spread over Paris, and marvellous tales were told of its magnificence and its cost. Mme. Le Brun writes: "Some ladies asked me to repeat this pleasantry. I refused for various reasons, and several of them were disturbed by my refusal. Soon a report that the supper had cost me twenty thousand francs was spread abroad. The King spoke of it as a joke to the Marquis of Cubieres, who fortunately ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... inconsistency the most shocking as to the fulfilment of some great moral obligation; just as from the brute restiveness of a word (Equotuticum), that positively would not come into the harness of hexameter verse, he has extracted a gay, laughing alias (viz., 'versu quod dicere non est'); a pleasantry which is nowhere so well paralleled as by Southey's on ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... next meeting this weekly regulation was established for the summer, and the lots were drawn once more. There was no question but that this pleasantry gave a new and unexpected turn to the company; and every one was stimulated to display whatever of wit and grace was in him, and to pay court to his temporary fair one in the most obliging manner, since he might depend on having a sufficient store of complaisance ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... Grave, by Mr. John Malcolm, only make us regret that we have not room for either in our columns; Mary Queen of Scots, by H.G. Bell, Esq., is one of the most interesting historical ballads we have lately met with; the Epistle from Abbotsford, is a piece of pleasantry, which would have formed an excellent pendent to Sir Walter's Study, in our last; Zadig and Astarte, by Delta, are in the writer's most plaintive strain; the recollections of our happiest years, are harmoniously told ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 340, Supplementary Number (1828) • Various
... like one detected; but speedily recovering herself, asked with calm pleasantry, "Surely you do not number me among your ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... Lazenby's morals were not bad, however. He was simply fond of making them appear terrible; even when in London he was more idle than wicked. He gravely suggested at last, as a kind of climax, that he and Pierre should go out on the pad together. This was a mere stroke of pleasantry on his part, because, the most he could loot in that far North were furs and caches of buffalo meat; and a man's capacity and use for them were limited. Even Pierre's especial faculty and art seemed valueless so ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... was in her throat, until, by stealing a glance at her husband, she saw the cloud passing over his fine brow; and happening to catch her affectionate smile; his face was at once lighted into a look of pleasantry. ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... had been too slow in the filling of it. The quarter-master has slipped Sharkey's pistols away from him, for it was an old joke with him to fire them cross-handed under the table and see who was the luckiest man. It was a pleasantry which had cost his boatswain his leg, so now, when the table was cleared, they would coax Sharkey's weapons away from him on the excuse of the heat, and lay them out of ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... business and pleasure are equally combined. They are essentially gregarious, and this industry brings many together during the long bright days. The light work leaves their tongues free, and families and neighbors pick together with a ceaseless chatter, a running fire of rude, broad pleasantry, intermingled occasionally with a windy war of words in a jargon that becomes all the more uncouth from anger, but ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... man's arts to use the peril in which (as I say) he was supposed to stand. He spoke of it to those who loved him with a gentle pleasantry, which made it the more touching. To Mr. Henry he used it as a cruel weapon of offence. I remember his laying his finger on the clean lozenge of the painted window one day when we three were alone ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... well the hardships that would be wrought among their fellows by a ten per cent. cut the length of the scale. It was McMahon who spoke first, with his usual air of good-nature in the sarcasm, but a note of grimness underlying the surface pleasantry. ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... smile as at some amiable pleasantry, but McLean caught the snarl of his lifted lip, and felt ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... their own coffers. Becoming sovereigns themselves, they retain these funds for their private emolument. Four principal sources yielded this revenue: royal domains, tolls and imposts, direct levies and a pleasantry called voluntary contributions or benevolences. In addition to these supplies were also the proceeds of fines. Taxation upon sin was, in those rude ages, a considerable branch of the revenue. The old Frisian ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the curiosity of several of the sifters, who had recently joined the "company," the parties alluded to were requested to favor them with the recital; and though the request was made with only a half-concealed irony, still it was all in good-natured pleasantry, and was immediately complied with. Old ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... seen in counties where are no waterbrooks, but folk make bread with wind—it is not for a man devoid of scholarship to determine. Enough that they who made the ring intituled the scene a "mill," while we who must be thumped inside it tried to rejoice in their pleasantry, till ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... Stangerson herself that the reticule had either been stolen from her, or she had lost it. She further corroborated all that had passed just as her father had stated. She had gone to the poste restante and, on the 23rd of October, had received a letter which, she affirmed, contained nothing but a vulgar pleasantry, which she had ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... Honourable Hilary, on whom this pleasantry was not lost. "You've be'n travelling on the lumber ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... strokes of pleasantry and lively criticism, and ever and anon reveal most delightful pictures of fireside groups. A high-toned morality pervades the whole. We feel sure that the book will be a general ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... that the majority of men look upon all who challenge their attention,—for a while, at least,—as beggars, and nuisances? They always try to get off as cheaply as they can; and the cheapest of all things they can give a literary man—pardon the forlorn pleasantry!—is the FUNNY-bone. That is all very well so far as it goes, but satisfies no man, and makes a good many angry, as I told you ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... ambition and greedy of applause. In talk, he is remarkable for a thirst of information, loving rather to hear than to communicate; for sound and studious views; and, judging by the extreme short-sightedness of common politicians, for a remarkable prevision of events. All this, however, without grace, pleasantry, or charm, heavily set forth, with a dull countenance. In our numerous conversations, although he has always heard me with deference, I have been conscious throughout of a sort of ponderous finessing hard to tolerate. He produces none of the effect of a gentleman; devoid ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "Cooky's sharpening his knife for Hump," was being whispered about among the sailors, and some of them twitted him about it. This he took in good part, and was really pleased, nodding his head with direful foreknowledge and mystery, until George Leach, the erstwhile cabin-boy, ventured some rough pleasantry on ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... images of the noble families. The streets were lined with an innumerable multitude. Their repeated acclamations expressed their joy at beholding, after an absence of thirty-two years, the sacred person of their sovereign, and Constantius himself expressed, with some pleasantry, he affected surprise that the human race should thus suddenly be collected on the same spot. The son of Constantine was lodged in the ancient palace of Augustus: he presided in the senate, harangued the people from the tribunal which Cicero had ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... briefly dismissed as 'a handsome beau'; but he had the merit or the good fortune to become a doctor of medicine, so that when the crash came he was not empty-handed for the war of life. Charles, at the day-school of Northiam, grew so well acquainted with the rod, that his floggings became matter of pleasantry and reached the ears of Admiral Buckner. Hereupon that tall, rough-voiced, formidable uncle entered with the lad into a covenant: every time that Charles was thrashed he was to pay the Admiral a penny; everyday that he escaped, the process was to be ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and gymnast alike tumbled over in a writhing heap upon the very edge of one of the big bonfires, Then there was a great shout of laughter, for the Indians dearly loved a joke, and such a rough piece of unintentional pleasantry was especially relished. ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... side. There was no friction in the division of labor, never anything but good feeling between them. Clemens had a poor opinion of his own comprehension of politics, and perhaps as little regard for Lamed's conception of humor. Once when the latter attempted something in the way of pleasantry his ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Saint-Ferdinand was blazing like a huge bonfire. The men told off to sink the Spanish brig had found a cargo of rum on board; and as the Othello was already amply supplied, had lighted a floating bowl of punch on the high seas, by way of a joke; a pleasantry pardonable enough in sailors, who hail any chance excitement as a relief from the apparent monotony of life at sea. As the General went over the side into the long-boat of the Saint-Ferdinand, manned by six vigorous rowers, ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... opium-pills to keep him lively upon the first night of a certain tragedy we may presume to be a piece of retaliatory pleasantry on the part of the suffering author. But, indeed, John had the art of diffusing a complacent equable dulness (which you knew not where to quarrel with) over a piece which he did not like, beyond any of his contemporaries. John Kemble had made up his mind ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... he had made a fatal mistake, and that it was too late to correct it. He saw that Jim was dangerously excited, and that it would not do to excite him further. He therefore rose, and with feigned pleasantry, said he should be very glad to ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... son, don't you know, Albert, a picture of innocence. He heard your husband's pleasantry, and his mother ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... This pleasantry finished the poor geographer. The crew burst out into loud Homeric laughter. Paganel ran about like a madman, seized his head with both hands and tore his hair. He neither knew what he was doing nor what he wanted to do. He rushed down the poop stairs mechanically and ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... 'Gentlemen,' said he, 'I am tired of receiving orders as commander-in-chief, and that I may give them, I have become a private, as you see.' The announcement was received with a shout of merriment; and, as in France a pleasantry would privilege a man to set fire to a church, the general was cheered on all sides, was remounted and the citizen army, suspending the 'Rights of Man' for the day, proceeded to march and manoeuvre according to the drill framed by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... was frequently used instead of the in naming an object as typical of its class, especially when the speech carries any flavour of pleasantry. Cf. Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, IV. ii. 46, 'Every true man's apparel ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... listened covered her burning cheeks till her dark eyes seemed to glow with their reflection; but, after struggling a moment with shame, she laughed, as if unwilling to understand him seriously, and replied in pleasantry: ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... their privilege to use that little Pliocene pleasantry about the boy who is not strong enough to work being educated for a preacher. We are apt to overlook the fact, however, that the boy not strong enough to work is often the only one who desires an education—all of this according ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... tittered at his stupid pleasantry; then the table fell silent to hear what answer I should make, and a frown sat like a thundercloud ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... over this mild pleasantry; a cordial understanding was developing between them, which meant much to Grandcourt, for he was a lonely man and his shyness had always deprived him of what he most cared for—what really might have been his only resource—the ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... is to say, she is an island. In the same way, it is sheer gross irrelevancy to speak of Britain as an island, unless indeed the word be understood as a mere modus loquendi arising out of a rather poor geographical pleasantry. Britain, in reality, is a small continent. Near her—a little to the south-east—is situated the large island of Europe. Thus, the enlightened French traveller passing to these shores should commune within himself: "I now cross to the Mainland"; and ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... successful usurper, but as a conqueror; the adored sovereign of his people; the pride of the nation; and apparently the chosen instrument of heaven, crowned with imperishable glory. The portrait of this great man is drawn throughout the play with the pencil of a master-hand. The pleasantry of the prince occasionally peeps through the dignified reserve of the monarch, as instanced in his conversations with Fluellen, and in the exchange of gloves with the soldier Williams. His bearing is invariably gallant, chivalrous, ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... upon my honour, that she shall be safe and inviolate; and I hope you don't doubt me, notwithstanding any airs she may have given herself, upon my jocular pleasantry to her, and perhaps a little innocent romping with her, so usual with young folks of the two sexes, when they have been long acquainted, and grown up together; for ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... learned from a 'horse-doctor' that he was 'dead as a door-nail, so there was an end,' returned their verdict accordingly, just as he returned to his senses, when an angry altercation and a pitched battle between the body and the coroner winds up the lay with due spirit and pleasantry. ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... with an attempt at pleasantry. "The sea will extinguish the volcano, and there will be an ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... anything, not even her boots, more than once. Her wit is positively brilliant, and in this connection it may be asserted once for all that it was she who first gave vogue to the greeting, "Doodledo," an abbreviated form of "How d'you do," though others have been given the credit for that sparkling pleasantry. In the art of "setting down" she is unapproachable, combining gentle courtesy with fine satire and mordant epigram, as on the occasion when a certain pushing and impossible outside person claimed her acquaintance in public with a loud "How are ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... mimicked a man shovelling gold pieces, but was too weak to prolong the pleasantry, and sat down on his empty trunk and wept, as Plade thought, ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... in their left hands and naked swords in their right, the youthful gallants fell in; some in front, others to the rear of the carriage, while Raoul and I, unable to oppose this ludicrous whim, walked on either side. Marie, who did not favour D'Arcy's pleasantry, sat so far back that her face could not be observed, but her aunt entered into the fun, and laughed merrily when the torchbearers, catching some luckless wight, forced him to bow humbly before the carriage and to cry, "Vivent ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... tears poured down, she straightway made answer: "Ah, that rational man who thinks to advise us in sorrow, Knows not how little of power his cold words have in relieving Ever a heart from that woe which a sovereign fate has inflicted. Ye are prosperous and glad; how then should a pleasantry wound you? Yet but the lightest touch is a source of pain to the sick man. Nay, concealment itself, if successful, had profited nothing. Better show now what had later increased to a bitterer anguish, And to an inward consuming despair might perhaps have reduced me. Let me go ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... knew not the value of this lamp, and the interest that Aladdin had to keep it safe, entered into the pleasantry, and commanded a slave to take it and make the exchange. The slave obeyed, went out of the hall, and no sooner got to the palace gates than he saw the African magician, called to him, and showing him the old lamp, said, "Give me a ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... Scotch Reviewers, he had alluded, with provoking pleasantry, to a meeting which had taken place at Chalk Farm some years before, between Mr Jeffrey, the Edinburgh reviewer, and Mr Moore, without recollecting, indeed without having heard, that Mr Moore had explained, through the newspapers, what was alleged to have been ridiculous in the affair. This ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... temperament, became convinced that his mistress was making him wear the horns, that she was hobnobbing with the General, and that she was in possession of one of the five keys of the house in the Eglisottes quarter; and as he was as jealous as an Andalusian, and felt a horror for that kind of pleasantry, he swore that he would make his rival pay a hundred fold for the trick which he ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... be thought inconsistent in Tisbina, notwithstanding Mr. Panizzi's pleasantry, to be so willing to take another husband, after having poisoned herself for the first; but she seems intended by the poet to exhibit a character of impulse in contradistinction to permanency of sentiment. She cannot help shewing pity ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... with such a gentleman as our seigneur, and to proffer words inimical to his authority—words the poorest noble in the world would hardly have endured! And yet it was necessary for this noble prince to endure and to tolerate it for the moment, and needful that he should let pass as a pleasantry what was enough to ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... the padre to give aid in battle to their Indian brethren, had been but a courteous pleasantry when uttered. It was a different matter when scouts were sent abroad by the pagan Ruler to seek trouble and bring it home to ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... bearing famous names; worlds within worlds, high diplomatic figures, the partisan leaders, the constant stream of agitated rumours about weighty affairs in England and Europe; the keen play of ambition, passions, interests, under easy manners and fugitive pleasantry; gross and sordid aims, as King Hudson was soon to find out, masked by exterior refinement; so much kindness with a free spice of criticism and touches of ill-nature; so much of the governing force of England still gathered into a few ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... benevolent pleasure in contemplating the festive scene. Not that any folly or ridicule escaped his keen penetration; but he saw every thing with an indulgent eye, and, if he laughed, laughed in such a manner, that even those who were the objects of his pleasantry could scarcely have forborne to sympathize in his mirth. Folly, he thought, could be as effectually corrected by the tickling of a feather, as by the lash of the satirist. When Lady Margaret M'Gregor, and Lady Mary Macintosh, ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... author, Boelsche, (Das Liebesleben in der Natur) has recently described love among all organized beings, including man, with a tone of forced pleasantry which spoils the profound knowledge of the author on the zoological and ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... moment fast—the man who takes his first drink with a smile ends in uproarious laughter, and he who frowns will often end in fighting. Vic Gregg did not frown as he drank, but the corners of his lips turned up a trifle in a smile of fixed and acid pleasantry and his glance went from face to face in the barroom, steadily, with a trifling pause at each pair of eyes. Beginning with himself, he hated mankind in general; the burn of the cheap whisky within served to set the color of that hatred in a fixed dye. He did not lift his ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... question in earnest, as she must take anything but the most obvious pleasantry concerning her baby. "The carriage runs very easily; we picked out the lightest one we could, and I never have any trouble with it, except getting up curbstones and crossing Cambridge Street. I don't like to cross Cambridge Street, there are always so many horse-cars. ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... when I'm the safe side o' the room—devil a ha'porth bar-rin' that neither you nor any man ought to reckon your chickens before they are hatched. Make money of that;" and after having discharged this pleasantry at the black, the worthy burgher made a hasty exit down stairs, followed at a more dignified ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... the Cemetery of San Michele, Piero the gondolier and Giovanna improve us with a little solemn pleasantry. ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... Captain Scraggs cheerily, "though when I was a young feller and first went to sea, it wasn't considered no pleasantry to spit on a nice clean deck. You might cut ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... afoot by a pleasantry of Ensign Tyler's, of Massey's dragoons, with a playful allusion to a letter in a feminine hand which Kenneth had let fall, and which Tyler had restored to him. Quip had followed quip until in their jests they transcended all bounds. Livid with ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... know nothing of them;" but now I verily believe you mean to twit me with my former experiment in railway knowledge, and have no intention to purchase shares in the La Mancha Company (and I doubt if there be any such) to countenance your Quixotic pleasantry. I did speculate once, it is true, in one—London and Falmouth Scheme—with very large promises. I was then living at W——, when one day, just before I was going to sit down to dinner, a chaise stops at my door, out steps a very "smart man," and is ushered into my library. When I went ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... they worked, Auguste and Rose, and how cheerfully they worked! One could hear her singing, and him whistling, at it all day. Yet they seemed to have abundant leisure to exchange a deal of pleasantry and harmless banter. Auguste was a Swiss, and a bigoted Protestant, and never lost an opportunity of holding forth on the superiority of the reformed religion. If he thought the family were out of hearing, he would grow very animated and declamatory. But Rose, who also had hopes, though perhaps ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... came in. Etta's face hardened, her lips closed with a snap. Steinmetz looked at her and at Maggie. For once he seemed to have no pleasantry ready for use. He walked toward a table where some books and newspapers lay in pleasant profusion. He was standing there when Paul came into the room. The prince glanced at Maggie. He saw where his wife stood, but he ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... to the boy's story of his love and regret with sympathy and apparent understanding. He encouraged him wherever he sought encouragement. He had a pleasantry of happy expression wherever it was needed. In a word he played to the last degree upon a nature as weak ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... which consists of forty members, took forty years to compile their Dictionary. JOHNSON. Sir, thus it is. This is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman.' With so much ease and pleasantry could he talk of that prodigious labour which he had ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... Marie Antoinette speedily gave the name of Madame l'Etiquette; this pleasantry the object of it could pardon, not so the French nation. The avowed dislike to ceremony manifested by the lively little dauphiness, her desire to substitute the simple manners of her native Vienna for the stately formality of Versailles, displeased ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... Cora on the iron grating, of the sidewalk inside, with his back to the brick wall of the store. Cora had not the slightest idea that Richardson had taken offence at his remark on Thursday night—for it was in no light offensive or insulting but simply a bit of ordinary pleasantry, and therefore, he was not aware of Richardson's object in asking him to come out from the saloon. But many of Richardson's intimate friends, who felt his death keenly, and were at that time disposed to the extreme penalty of the ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... commendable gruffness, considering his contentment at heart, as he hastily retreated to his gondola under the Rialto for needed shelter from the banter which followed him, until some other unwary victim became the centre of the well-meant pleasantry. ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... wife, Abiah, but of the whole Folger family, because they were devoutly pious, and as "reliable as the sun, or the earth on its axis." They were unpolished and unceremonial, and he liked them all the more for that. He wrote to his sister in a vein of pleasantry, "They are wonderfully shy. But I admire their honest plainness of speech. About a year ago I invited two of them to dine with me; their answer was that they would if they could not do better. I suppose they did better, for I never saw them afterwards, and so ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... Philosophy, or indeed with any philosophy of value. Mr. Spencer's warning to his readers seems to quite justify Mr. Bradley's rather caustic comment, "I do not wish to be irreverent, but Mr. Spencer's attitude towards his Unknowable strikes me as a pleasantry, the point of which lies in its unconsciousness. It seems a proposal to take something for God simply and solely because we do not know what the devil it can be." (Note to p. ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... such ill-timed pleasantry, we erupted pellmell into the drive, all frantic by word or deed to distract the terrier from his purpose. Shrieks, curses, and a copy of La Fontaine's Fables were hurled simultaneously and in vain ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... to encourage College boats during the races, but very useful just now. There were, at the point where the street plunges into the Common, some wooden turnstiles, and these of course were immensely in the way and men were flung about and there was a good deal of coarse pleasantry, and one mild freshman, who had been caught into the crowd by accident, was thrown on to the ground and very nearly trodden ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... but an honest, plain, downright [man], that would speak home without halting, and tell the truth of purpose to shame the devil—so that his plainness, mixed with a kind of facetiousness, and tartness with pleasantry, made him acceptable into the company of all men." There cannot, perhaps, be a greater proof of the estimation in which Somers was held by King Henry, than the circumstance of his portrait having been twice introduced into the same piece with ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... Mason had drawn and fortunately filled a hand with which he hoped to pay a part of the war-debt of the South and get a new overcoat in London. Later, however, the United States disavowed this act of Captain Wilkes, and said it was only a bit of pleasantry on ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... was of the sort that is ordinarily called quiet humor, because its effect does not pass off in shouts of merriment. Of this kind of pleasantry he gave the Lieutenant of the Tower a specimen, when he said, with as much courtesy as irony, "Assure yourself I do not dislike my cheer; but whenever I do, then spare not to thrust me out of your doors!" Of the same sort were the pleasantries with which, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson |
