"Jocular" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Weekes is spoken of by Anthony a Wood as a "jocular person" and a popular preacher. He enters Wood's Fasti by right of his co-optation as a D.D. in 1643, while the court was at Oxford; his education had been at Cambridge. He was a prebendary of Bristol and Dean of St. Burian in Cornwall, and suffered some persecution as ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... them, or if they gave them any attention it was jocular. Even Marvin viewed the day as lost, but Scattergood held him to the mark with a word passed now and then. It came three o'clock of the afternoon before nominations for the high office of legislator were the order of proceeding. ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... Smith we have already sufficient knowledge. As for Sir Justinian, we are not to think he was already married; the reference to his "new wife" is merely jocular, meaning his new wife when he shall get one; for Sir Justinian is still wife-hunting, and comes back to renew his suit with Dorothy after this date. "Your fellow-servant," who is as often called Jane, appears to have been a friend and companion of Dorothy, in a somewhat ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... do assure you, 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 pride is not ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... I am not far out of the way, returned Elnathan, endeavoring to imitate the expression of the others countenance, by looking jocular. Latin is a queer language, gentlemen; now I rather guess there is no one in the room, except Squire Lippet, who can believe that Far. Av. ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... scream out interesting passages in a joyous voice at the deaf old lady, prefacing each extract by the warning shout, "Solomon says!" She had the trick of firing off Solomon's utterances also upon strangers, astonishing them easily by the unfamiliar text and the unexpectedly jocular vein of these quotations. On the day the new curate called for the first time at the cottage, she found occasion to remark, "As Solomon says: 'the engineers that go down to the sea in ships behold the wonders of sailor nature';" ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... visitation from the "loafers" of the village, who would stretch themselves at full length on the floor and table, if we would let them, and altogether conduct themselves in such a manner as to call for summary treatment, very different from the more promising section. The half jocular but very decided manner in which he cleared the house on this occasion, and made them understand that they were to respect our privacy sometimes, and not make the Mission station an idling place, was very satisfactory. It was no ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... innocence, and he decided to discover by guile the secret which all other means had failed to reveal. He would, if possible, make his steward his own betrayer. One day, at a Court banquet, he turned in jocular mood to the minister and said, "Tell me now, my dear Torbern, was there really any truth in what Faaborg told me of your relations with my beautiful Lady! Don't hesitate to tell the truth, which only you know, for I assure you no harm shall ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... considerations of the right kind of light. The governess preceded the master up the stairs and into the room where Miss de Barral was found arrayed in a holland pinafore (also of the right kind for the pursuit of the art) and smilingly expectant. The water-colour lesson enlivened by the jocular conversation of the kindly, humorous, old man was always great fun; and she felt she would be compensated for the tiresome ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... genealogists, poets, and musicians, of the land. The word minstrel is derived from the Latin minister, a servant, because they were classed among the King's attendants. An earlier Saxon name for this class of performers was "Gleeman," in rude English, a Jogeler or Jocular; Latin, "Joculator." The word "glee" is from the Saxon "gligg," meaning music; and the meaning now attached to that word shows how intimately associated were pleasure and music in the national mind. The harp was the most ancient of Saxon musical instruments. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... made his entry into that town, the lord of Montbron, dressed in a harlequin's coat, and one of his legs naked, was compelled by an ancient custom to conduct him to the door of his abbey, leading his horse by the bridle. Blount's "Jocular Tenures" is a curious collection of such capricious clauses in the grants of ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... confident that I should very soon be able proudly to report that the grievances of Upper Canada were defunct—in fact, that I had veni-ed, vidi-ed and vici-ed them." Infatuated man, to compare himself to Caesar, even in this half-jocular manner, at such a time, and to suppose that the bitter animosities which had been accumulating for the best part of a generation could be swept out of existence at the mere wave of the hand of such a weak substitute for "the mighty Julius" ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... of science I've evidence ocular. A heart of one chamber they call unilocular, And in a sharp frost, or when snow-flakes fall floccular, Your wise man of old wrapp'd himself in a Roquelaure, Which was called a Wrap-rascal when folks would be jocular. And shell-fish, the small, Periwinkle and Cockle are, So with them will I finish ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... yourself—the whole rebuke, indeed, consisting in a little laughing, at what is called wanton tricks. Yes, Asmodeus, I admit that your power is very great; though I cannot help reminding you," he added, with a jocular though truly infernal grin, "that you were all but starved, above there, during the last dear years. As for you, my son Belphegor, lousy prince of Sloth, nobody has afforded us more pleasure than yourself, ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... had put on superior clothes to get up with; and the clerks had whispered to one another that it must be his wedding day, and ought to end in a half-holiday all round, and be chalked thenceforth on the calendar; but instead of being joyful and jocular, like a man who feels a saving Providence over him, the lawyer was as dismal, and unsettled and splenetic, as a prophet on the brink of wedlock. But the very last thing that he ever dreamed of doubting was his power to turn ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... than to see him endeavouring to imitate the careless and jocular tone of the young men of fashion. How awkward was he in the attempt to put on dandy airs when pulling up the corners of his cravat he would say, "Well, Madame, is there anything new to-day? Citizen, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... and her heart beat faster. It was a look that came into Dingan's face whenever Breaking Rock crossed his path, or when one or two other names were mentioned in his presence, for they were names of men who had spoken of Mitiahwe lightly, and had attempted to be jocular ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... the guests, relieved of the presence of the Honourable Sniftky, are rather more at their ease; a baronet (who was lord mayor, or something of that sort) waxes jocular, and gives decided indications of something like "how came you so;" the man at the foot of the table contradicts one of the diners-out, and is contradicted in turn by the baronet; the foreign count is in deep conversation with a hard-featured man, supposed to be a stockjobber; the clergyman extols ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... answered, that he was cutting his name upon it: To which the deponent replied, she could not see what he could mean by putting his name upon a thing of no value, and pulled it out of his hand in a jocular way, but he followed her, and took the hat from her, and she observed that the A. was then cut out in the hat; and after he got it, she saw him cut out the letter D., which he did in a hurry, and which the deponent believed was occasioned by the toying that was between ...
— Trial of Duncan Terig, alias Clerk, and Alexander Bane Macdonald • Sir Walter Scott
... heart-rending look upon the children; and the simplicity and touching sorrow of the young ones, while they clung to their distracted parent, wiping their eyes, and half concealing their faces,—contrasted with the marked insensibility and jocular countenances of the spectators and purchasers,—furnished a striking commentary on the miseries of slavery, and its debasing effects upon the hearts of its abettors. While the woman was in this distressed situation she was asked, 'Can you feed ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... this down to mere coquetry but this explanation failed now to satisfy altogether. There was something that lay deeper than that. Some sort of strain between them dating back, she surmised, to the talk her father had referred to down in North Carolina in the jocular assertion that he had told Paula she would have to begin now supporting the family. Had the same topic come up again ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... agricultural patriarchs, including the Tammuz of Berosus, it is possible that he was ultimately sacrificed and burned. The beating of Nimrod recalls the beating of the corn spirit of the agricultural legend utilized by Burns in his ballad of "John Barleycorn", which gives a jocular account of widespread ancient customs that are not yet quite extinct even ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... and waistcoat of a parish priest. He is roused from his trance by the chirp of an insect from a tuft of grass in a crevice of the stone. His face relaxes: he turns quietly, and gravely takes off his hat to the tuft, addressing the insect in a brogue which is the jocular assumption of a gentleman and not the natural ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... evidently cannot in the least degree perceive the drift of it, before the words are out of their mouths, he, as it were, thrusts them down again with a confident good-humoured volubility, a kind of jocular recklessness of law and logic, which often makes one wonder whether the judges are more inclined to be angry or amused; nay, I have once or twice seen one of them lean back and laugh outright, poor —— looking ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... clergyman, about forty years of age, who was rather a weak man, happened to be drinking wine in jocular company, and by accident swallowed a part of the seal of a letter, which he had just then received; one of his companions seeing him alarmed, cried out in humour, "It will seal your bowels up." He became melancholy from that instant, and in a day or two refused to swallow ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... pollard willow a small family of hot water-ers with a hamper, a little troubled by wasps in their jam from the nest in the tree and all in mourning, but happy otherwise, and on the lawn to the right a ginger beer lot of 'prentices without their collars and very jocular and happy. The young people in the rainbow shirts and blouses formed the centre of interest; they were under the leadership of a gold-spectacled senior with a fluting voice and an air of mystery; he ordered everything, and showed a peculiar knowledge of the qualities of the Potwell jams, preferring ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... and it's the men who are worth most in life who submit most readily to the process. When you're a little older, when, perhaps, you have children of your own, you'll understand better what I've done for you to-night; and you won't use toward my memory the tone of semi-jocular disdain that has entered into nearly every word you've addressed to me this evening. Now, if you'll excuse me," she added, wearily, "I think I'll go in. I'm very tired, and I'll rest till Dorothea comes. ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... had she sent for him? he thought. When he spoke to Lawrence, he in his usual jocular manner exclaimed: "Ah, so now you are to have Kaffee Klatsch with the Princess. I told you so. The lady is in love with you, and the Emperor is going to offer you her hand in marriage after he has bestowed on you an Iron ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... lights, up and down and to and fro. Here, on the plateau, it was the same. They danced like giant fireflies. He passed a blazing log about which were gathered a dozen men. Some wag of the mess had said something jocular; to a man they were laughing convulsively. Had they been blamed, they would perhaps have answered that it was better to laugh than to cry. Cleave passed them with no inclination to blame, and came to where, under the trees, the ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... from a half-dozen throats in which some strong but hitherto repressed passion, totally incomprehensible to me, found sudden vent, rose in one simultaneous sound from about that table, and I heard one jocular ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... of his. He did not always trouble to ask for a receipt: he kept a rough account of what was owing to him, and never asked for payment before it was offered him. He believed in the good faith of other men, and supposed that they would believe in his own. He was much more timid than his jocular, easy-going manners led people to suppose. He would never have dared to refuse certain importunate borrowers, or to let his doubts of their solvency appear. That arose from a mixture of kindness and pusillanimity. He did not wish to offend anybody, and ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... of the Spanish court, must have been growing ever more and more intolerable. Hundreds of his country folk, perhaps men and women whom he had known, were being racked, burnt alive, buried alive, at the bidding of a jocular ruffian, Peter Titelmann, the chief inquisitor. The "day of the maubrulez," and the wholesale massacre which followed it, had happened but two years before; and, by all the signs of the times, these murders and miseries were certain to increase. And why were all ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... Castelnuovo, a village on the outskirts of Rome, and caused both to be arrested. They were confined in the "New Prisons" at Rome, and tried for adultery. The result was a compromise—they were pronounced guilty, but a merely nominal punishment ("the jocular piece of punishment," as the young priest called it) was inflicted on each. Pompilia was relegated for a time to a convent; Caponsacchi was banished for three years to Civita Vecchia. As the time for Pompilia's confinement drew near, she was permitted to go to her reputed parents' home, ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... "I hear you have said Intellectual women are always your dread; Now tell me, dear sir, is it true?" "Why, yes," answered Tom, "very likely I may Have made the remark in a jocular way; But then on my honour, I didn't ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... intention to be mildly jocular, but Mrs. Porter's reply showed him that in jest he had spoken ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... at me while I spoke, and made no answer for a long time. At last she said with a sort of smile, which at the same time was not hilarious or jocular ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... fragments on to the platform and were preparing their normal meal. Gunga Dass cooked mine. The almost irresistible impulse to fly at the sand walls until I was wearied laid hold of me afresh, and I had to struggle against it with all my might. Gunga Dass was offensively jocular till I told him that if he addressed another remark of any kind whatever to me I should strangle him where he sat. This silenced him till silence became insupportable, and I bade him ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... speculators: they make a daily, if not more frequent promenade to the betting-office; and on the days when the races come off, they may be observed in shoals, nodding and winking knowingly as they pass one another. Some are seen with jocular countenances, and pass for pleasant fellows: they are impressed with the idea that their horses are looking up. In others, the jocular expression has passed away, and the philosophical observer sets them down ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... was, with the exception, perhaps, of the concluding paragraph just quoted, from the pen of Clare's friend and neighbour, Mr. Gilchrist, who wrote to Clare on the subject in the following jocular strain:— ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... he was joined by McLagan. The Irishman had seen the cattle come in, and was anxious to learn the particulars. His manner, after his recent ill-humor, was almost jocular. He realized that these were ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... and so levied tribute not only upon Fanny and Tom but also upon Mr. Cornelius, who still abode in the Faringfield house, and upon Philip Winwood. To Phil his manner was more than civil; 'twas most conciliating and flattering, in a pleasantly jocular way. ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... was most effusive in his congratulations; and Hendry, of course, followed suit. Harvey responded civilly enough, while Tessa, who had learned from the chief mate of the treacherous part they were playing towards her friend, could not repress a scornful curl of her lip as she listened to Chard's jocular admonition to Harvey, "to hurry up and put on some flesh, if only for the reputation of ...
— Tessa - 1901 • Louis Becke
... Jocular opinions of the passers-by were being freely exchanged back and forth; he paid no heed to them. The scoop dropped from his hand and clattered upon the floor; he let it lay. Silent and troubled, ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... heard of Tycho's arrival, invited himself to dine with him at the house of Pratensis. The conversation soon turned upon the new star, and Tycho found his companion very sceptical about its existence. Danzeus was particularly jocular on the subject, and attacked the Danes for their inattention to so important a science as astronomy. Tycho received this lecture in good temper, and with the anxious expectation that a clear sky would enable him to give a practical refutation of the ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... him narrowly; then cautiously he dropped into an attitude of exaggerated indifference. "It sure is—young feller. Now you hain't been watchin' that there leadin' lady more particularly, have you? I sort o' cal'ate she might have a takin' way with the fellers," and he prodded the tinker with a jocular thumb. ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... ACIS ARRANT, generally known to his jocular intimates as Knave ARRANT, had been living in luxury with his cousin's weak mother, whom he had contrived to marry. To effect this, however, he had been compelled to tear a will into little pieces, and had, at the same time, ruined that peace ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 7, 1891. • Various
... kind words from the Mother house, and a half-jocular hint that Superior General Philippe had me much in his mind. No doubt there had been a time when the idea of becoming a Director would have stirred my pulses. Surely it was gone now. I asked for nothing ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... for her dislike to tobacco was well known, and she answered in the same jocular tone: "Do you not think that a mattress stuffed with these leaves would be ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... lords met in council at the Tower, he and those who were in his interest met in separate council at his own residence, Crosby Palace, in Bishopsgate Street. Being at last quite prepared, he one day appeared unexpectedly at the council in the Tower, and appeared to be very jocular and merry. He was particularly gay with the Bishop of Ely: praising the strawberries that grew in his garden on Holborn Hill, and asking him to have some gathered that he might eat them at dinner. The Bishop, quite proud of the honour, ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... was only by chance that Doctor Bonamy had detected the imposition. Moreover, the Fathers had immediately required that the incident should be kept secret. What was the use of stirring up a scandal which would only have led to jocular remarks in the newspapers? Whenever any fraudulent miracles of this kind were discovered, the Fathers contented themselves with forcing the guilty parties to go away. Moreover, these feigners were far ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... day—("The ravings fed him" as Don captioned some contrib's quip about Simeon Stylites living on a column); but nevertheless the direct and alternating current must be turned on six times a week. His jocular exposal of the colyumist's trade secret compares it to the boarding-house keeper's ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... rubato in Chopin cannot be more readily realized than by his concession that he could never play a Viennese waltz properly, and by the fact that sometimes, when he was in a jocular mood, he would play one of his mazurkas in strict, metronomic time, to the great amusement of those who had heard him play ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... shall never forget her." "Do you recollect a stroll down to the bay shore one moonlight night?" Of course I remembered it. This was John Concklin, Mary's cousin. I remembered very well how he devoted himself to one I felt considerable interest in, while his cousin Mary and I talked in a jocular way about the cost of housekeeping, both agreeing that it would require but a very small sum to set up such an establishment as our modest ambition demanded. I was heartily glad to meet the young man. ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... wanted to be President; several times the delegation from his State presented his name to national conventions. He had no mean idea of his own merits; and his colleague, Senator Platt, told me once in a jocular way that if the Queen of England should announce her purpose of giving a banquet to one of the most distinguished citizens from each nation, and General Hawley should be invited as the most distinguished citizen of the United States, he would ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... to work at the sawmill, that was purring and grinding and shrieking again, all day and night. In the course of events they were learning all about the matter, and some of the more ribald asked her jocular questions. It was annoying, to say the least, to have a big logger come in and ask what were the news of the day, and if there was any more murdering going on. She projected to leave Carcajou as soon as she could, and made her ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... assistance to these two men in their vocation, for the Englishman acted as correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, and the Frenchman, as correspondent of what newspaper, or of what newspapers, he did not say; and when asked, he replied in a jocular manner that he corresponded with "his cousin Madeleine." This Frenchman, however, neath his careless surface, was wonderfully shrewd and sagacious. Even while speaking at random, perhaps the better to hide his ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... Granby street on her way home? But, poor fellow! he had tried to think his way through the difficulty. Every day for a week he had exercised himself in letter—writing: he had practiced every style, from the jocular to the gravely interrogative, and had succeeded pretty well as a stylist, but the point, the point, the bank deposit, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... vastly different from Henry Carson, this Mr. Schwirtz, but he had a mechanical city smartness in his manner and a jocular energy which the stringy-necked ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... usual mixture of serious and purely jocular satire, of learning and licence, of jargonic catalogues, of local references to Western France and the general topography of Utopia, this conclusion consists of two main parts—first, a most elaborate ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... became abstracted and restless; but if, by chance, the Revolution and the country were the topic, his whole system seemed altered—all his faculties were concentrated: he would listen for a great length of time, without speaking, and then would break silence by some light and jocular remark, that was too much at variance with his former manner, not to be affectation. But of the war, and of his father, he seldom spoke and always from ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... to begin my letter with an apology, but I feel that one is due for the very unsatisfactory manner in which, on a former occasion, I answered your grave inquiries about the pirates who thrive on the plunder of Maga. The jocular vein which I incontinently struck and perseveringly followed up, led me very wide of your mark, and I was obliged to leave you quite unsatisfied on another point, about which, for one who is not an author, you ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... away his sensations, as well as to convince his observers that he was quite at his ease. I know not how far he was successful, for they laughed as much when he failed, or more perhaps, than they would have done had his wit preserved its usual brilliancy. His manner told them he intended to be jocular, and that was their cue to ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... own standing in society, but one that called aloud the act of the parties to make it perfect and complete. How he should communicate his intentions to get a favorable reply, he was at a loss to know; he knew not whether to address Esq. Valeer in prose or in poetry, in a jocular or an argumentative manner, or whether he should use moral suasion, legal injunction, or seizure and take by reprisal; if it was to do the latter, he would have no difficulty in deciding in his own mind, but his gentlemanly honor was ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... from whence I might pass by a circuitous route into Bambarra. If I wished to follow this route he would appoint people to conduct me to Jarra, the frontier town of Ludamar. He then inquired very particularly how I had been treated since I had left the Gambia, and asked, in a jocular way, how many slaves I expected to carry home with me on my return. He was about to proceed when a man mounted on a fine Moorish horse, which was covered with sweat and foam, entered the court, and signifying ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... to his sister-in-law, who had retreated to a corner on the other side of the room. In a maudlin, jocular way he asked: ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... be greeted by Miss Tattersall with what had all the appearance of a discreetly covert wink, and I raised my eyebrows with that air of half-jocular inquiry which I fancied she would expect from me. She evaded the implied question, however, by asking me what time I "really got ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... called again, tricked out from head to foot in the latest fashion. She was a little flurried on entering a room full of jocular clerks. Escorted by Massinot, both of them with their eyes fixed on the ground, she reached my office. I closed the door after her. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... The doctor grew jocular; and who can resist a doctor's jokes, when they garnish such tidings as he was telling. Was ever so pleasant a doctor! Laughter through tears greeted these pleasantries; and oh, such transports of gratitude broke forth ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Bambarra. If I wished to follow this route, he would appoint people to conduct me to Jarra, the frontier town of Ludamar. He then enquired very particularly how I had been treated since I had left the Gambia, and asked in a jocular way how many slaves I expected to carry home with me on my return. He was about to proceed, when a man mounted on a fine Moorish horse, which was covered with sweat and foam, entered the court, and signifying that he had something of importance to communicate, the king immediately took ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... this yer a damned picnic?" said Uncle Billy with inward scorn as he surveyed the sylvan group, the glancing firelight, and the tethered animals in the foreground. Suddenly an idea mingled with the alcoholic fumes that disturbed his brain. It was apparently of a jocular nature, for he felt impelled to slap his leg again and cram his fist into ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... man's smiling arrest for debts which he did not owe, and of his jocular seizure by sheriffs armed with writs of Habeas Corpus, the annals of his incorporation in the fleet furnish many instances. Arrest for fictitious debt was specially common. In every seaport town attorneys were to be found who made it their regular practice. Particularly was this true of Bristol. ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... been surprised had they known how ripe the great jocular plot really was. "Yes, to-night," Jopp had said to the Peter's party at the corner of Mixen Lane. "As a wind-up to the Royal visit the hit will be all the more pat by reason of ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... Whatever Audrey had said or done, there was an end of her as far as he was concerned. It was from the boy's silence, too, that she realised the extent of his suffering. Before the inevitable thing had happened, he had done nothing but talk of Audrey, sometimes with melancholy, more often in the jocular strain adopted by self-conscious persons to carry off some ridiculous fatality. Anger following suspense had driven him to think of suicide; but now that it was all over with him, he had no idea of killing himself. Katherine had never been much afraid of that, and ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... only to be common, it ought to be universal. It is not likely to be in the present century; but at least, thinking people can consciously adopt an attitude of respect toward love, and consciously abandon as far as possible the attitude of jocular cynicism with which they too often treat it,—an attitude which is reflected so disgustingly in current vaudeville and ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... doubt a virtue, and Clarendon deserves honour for his bold words. But to tell the King that he was at once a sluggard and a debauchee; that he had lost the respect, and would probably soon forfeit the obedience of his subjects; and to scold his jocular raillery by painting him as courting the society and imitating the manners of buffoons, was scarcely a tactful way of insinuating a lesson of caution and establishing the confidence which makes a servant congenial to his master. We must honour ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... the Polish fashion, and he tried to be let off. The Prince pleaded for him; but these Poles, who, in order to make themselves understood, spoke Latin— and very bad Latin indeed—would not accept such an excuse, and forcing him to drink, howled furiously 'Bibat et Moriatur! Marege, who was very jocular and yet very choleric; used to tell this story in the same spirit, and made ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Pensioner with one leg. Both dismounting to assist Mrs. Mitts into the cab, the Greenwich Pensioner bore her company inside, and the Chelsea Pensioner mounted the box by the driver: his wooden leg sticking out after the manner of a bowsprit, as if in jocular homage to his friend's sea-going career. Thus the equipage drove away. No Mrs. Mitts returned ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... flickered in and out of the light in tumultuous masses. It seemed sailing weather to eye and ear; but down between the banks, the wind reached us only in faint and desultory puffs. There was hardly enough to steer by. Progress was intermittent and unsatisfactory. A jocular person, of marine antecedents, hailed us from the tow-path with a ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and shook away a tear or two, and laughed, but her speech was not as jocular as she meant ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... into the sunshine, there were as many people in the yard as there had been when he stood in the same place and watched the mob rushing his client's guards. But to-day their temper was different, and as he paused a moment, looking down on the upturned, laughing faces, with a hundred jocular and congratulatory salutations shouted up at him, somebody started a cheer, and it was taken ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... audacious, far, than King CANUTE of old—would control even the ocean. This man starts a Pacific Mail with a capital of ten millions, increases the amount to twenty millions, and swears it is worth thirty. Then he "puts his foot in it" and shows the knave in his deal, (dealings—jocular,) by ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 1, Saturday, April 2, 1870 • Various
... sous la Restoration.] must have been written about the second week of January, 1833, gives much interesting information concerning the writer's tastes and manners, the degree of success he had obtained, and the kind of life he was leading. After some jocular remarks on his long silence—remarks in which he alludes to recollections of Szafarnia and the sincerity of their friendship, and which he concludes with the statement that he is so much in demand on all sides as to betorn to ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... as Mr. Bowley was going that very moment—would like nothing better than a walk—they went together, Clara and kind little Bowley—Bowley who had rooms in the Albany, Bowley who wrote letters to the "Times" in a jocular vein about foreign hotels and the Aurora Borealis—Bowley who liked young people and walked down Piccadilly with his right arm resting on the boss ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... smile he had given the fat plutocrat in the automobile, nor yet the jocular radiance he had displayed to old Etienne. It was such a smile as the man had never smiled before—and he realized it. He did not want to smile. He wanted to weep. But he brought that smile from tender depths in his ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... her valuables are intact. Hastily anointing her, Pere Francois departs. He promises to return in the morning. He hastens to the nearest cabstand, and whirls away to Colonel Woods' hotel. Whose hand has dealt this blow? The financier is startled at the priest's face. Joseph has been jocular since the safe ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... jocular faculty was enfeebled, but it came to the rescue. He was staring at Vane. Evidently this young man was unimpressed by searing phrases and he must have heard several, for, if he remembered aright, "Polly Vane" with "her head like a billiard ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... to laugh at his friend's sudden change of manner; but there was something in the young surgeon's character—perhaps its deep earnestness—that rendered it impossible, at least for his friends, to be jocular when he was disposed to be serious. Fred became grave ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... according to Huxman: and you will assure yourselves, by feeling the subject, of the kind of rugosity this eruption causes. But do not let us sell the skin of the bear before we bring him to the ground," added the prince of science, who was unusually jocular. ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... warrant for the execution of that princess. She signed it readily, and ordered it to be sealed with the great seal of England. She appeared in such good humour on the occasion, that she said to him in a jocular manner, "Go, tell all this to Walsingham, who is now sick; though I fear he will die of sorrow when he hears of it." She added, that though she had so long delayed the execution, lest she should seem to be actuated by malice or cruelty, she ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... was received at first in silence, then Ringfield spoke, his slow utterances affording a contrast to the half-jocular, ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... willingness to go. Four horses were speedily harnessed, a child's sledge belonging to the landlord produced, a wheel and some levers placed thereon, and then the little caravan set off in the direction of the bridge, pursued by the jocular approbation of the soldiers, and accompanied by some of the officers, who showed as much interest in the expedition as ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... expressed a great deal of shrewdness. Dick had got his sandy hair; but Richard Mayne the elder had not his son's honest, kindly eyes. Mr. Mayne's were small and twinkling; he had a way of looking at people between his half-closed lids, in a manner half sharp and half jocular. ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... I think, of very different qualities in relation to different subjects. Certainly he was at times capable of considerable heaviness of hand,—of the Scotch "wut" which has been so irreverently treated by English critics. His rather elaborate jocular introductions, under the name of Jedediah Cleishbotham, are clearly laborious at times. And even his own letters to his daughter-in-law, which Mr. Lockhart seems to regard as models of tender playfulness ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... his cart, and clambered over the fence. Something in Custer's manner warned him that any allusions of a jocular nature would prove highly distasteful to his son, and he followed silently as Custer led the way down to ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... greeted us in the form of monthly numbers, each containing two or three essays which sounded as if they might have done duty as themes, a critical article or two, some copies of verses, and winding up with a few pages in fine print, purporting to be editorial, jaunty and jocular for the most part, and opulent in local allusions. It would he unnatural, if these juvenile productions did not often reflect the opinions of favorite instructors and the style of popular authors. A freshman's first essay is like the short gallop of a colt on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... her little world flowed on, repeating its high-pitched note of gratulation, of jocular welcome to the married state, as if to say, 'Well, now you are one of us—you've been brought in—this is life.' That was what these smiling people were thinking, as they welcomed the neophytes to the large ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... gathered around the terrified Chinaman and his captors, and he was plied with questions, some of a jocular character, by the miners, who were glad of anything that relieved the monotony ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger
... strongest, to enlist for the family in one of the home regiments. There lingered on his lips the thrill of a kiss half stolen, half yielded, while in his pockets were a number of telegrams since received, and the usually grave and stern young man was jocular and bantering. The two younger members of the firm ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... retainers had become sufficiently numerous to inspire confidence, the jungle people no longer hid. On the contrary, they came out to the very edge of the track to exchange greetings. They were very good-natured, exceedingly well-formed, and quite jocular with our boys. Especially did our suave and elegant Simba sparkle. This resident public, called from its daily labours and duties, did not always show as gaudy a make-up as did the dressed-up travelling public. Banana leaves were popular wear, and seemed to us at once pretty and fresh. ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... who have given the greatest boons to humanity have often been rough in manners, intolerant of infirmities, bitter in their social prejudices, hard in their dealings, and acrid in their tempers; and if they were occasionally jocular, their jokes were too practical to be in high favor with ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... PURDIE (with jocular solemnity). Ah, but it is not to be the garden. We are going farther afield. We have an adventure for to-night. Get thick shoes and a wrap, Mrs. Dearth; all ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... there was a great deal of angry discussion and violent altercation on the subject. In these debates, however, in accordance with my natural disposition, I took no part whatever, except by making some fruitless attempts to abate the resentment of the parties, by thrusting in a jocular remark or so, when anything particularly severe was said. Well, gentlemen, how was I rewarded for this charitable conduct, think you? ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... assign him a conventional station somewhat above that of his equals in navy rank—the Chaplain, Surgeon, and Professor. Moreover, he is frequently to be seen in close conversation with the Commodore, who, in the Neversink, was more than once known to be slightly jocular with our Purser. Upon several occasions, also, he was called into the Commodore's cabin, and remained closeted there for several minutes together. Nor do I remember that there ever happened a cabinet ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... picture audience total about two hundred, any time, but they come in groups of two or three at no specified hour. The newcomers do not, as in Vaudeville, make themselves part of a jocular army. Strictly as individuals they judge the panorama. If they disapprove, there is grumbling under their breath, but no hissing. I have never heard an audience in a photoplay theatre clap its hands even when ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... The talk grew less jocular as the drinks took effect, and Neill Ballard, separating himself from the crowd, came forward, calling loudly: "Come out o' there, Joe! Youse a hell of a sport! Come out and ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... occasioned his cousin such acute anguish, and when he expected from him the deepest sympathy, how were his feelings shocked as, throwing himself back upon his pillow, Godfrey burst into a loud fit of laughter, exclaiming in a jocular and triumphant tone, "By Jove, Anthony, but you ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... an atmosphere of their own, a sort of universal fame and the particular affection of their citizens. One of such streets is the Cannebiere, and the jest: "If Paris had a Cannebiere it would be a little Marseilles" is the jocular expression of municipal pride. I, too, I have been under the spell. For me it has been a street ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... like that. I'll have a divorce. I'll tell Sally...." a threat which seems to have a softening effect. "Can't you see, dear, that there is some misunderstanding?" Fenwick looks from her to the Baron, puzzled. The latter drops his jocular rallying. ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... they were launching the canoe and loading up, while the storekeeper made jocular remarks about poor, weak mortals and the contagiousness of "stampedin' fever." But when Bill and Kink thrust their long poles to bottom and started the canoe against the current, ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... invariably kept his strongest argument, or his boldest proposal, to the last, and invariably remembered it at the door (after previously taking his leave), as if it was a purely accidental consideration which had that instant occurred to him. Jocular friends, acquainted by previous experience with this form of proceeding, had given it the name of "Pedgift's postscript." There were few people in Thorpe Ambrose who did not know what it meant when the lawyer ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... bring to the surface the black diamonds of the earth. It was not altogether a pleasant occupation, but still, the task had to be accomplished. His Majesty was fond of ferocious practical jokes, and perchance this may have been the origin of the jocular description attached to his name. One day, some of his subjects complained that their hours of labour were ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various |
