"Facetious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... reprint of a very rare tract will no doubt be prized by the numerous advocates for the re-assembling of Convocation, who must feel indebted to Mr. Fraser for the care and learning with which he has executed his editorial task.—A Collection of Curious, Interesting, and Facetious Epitaphs, Monumental Inscriptions, &c., by Joseph Simpson. We think the editor would have some difficulty in authenticating many of the epitaphs in his collection, which seems to have been formed upon no settled principle.—The Physiology ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various
... Buffalmacco, painter of Florence, who was a pupil of Andrea Tafi, celebrated for his jests by M. Giovanni Boccaccio in his "Decameron," is well known to have been the close companion of Bruno and Calandrino, painters, and themselves facetious and pleasant men. He possessed a very fair judgment in the art of painting, as may be seen by his works, which are scattered throughout Tuscany. Franco Sacchetti relates in his "Three Hundred Tales" (to begin with the deeds ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... facetious memory, has told us of the girl who, having learned the alphabet, concluded that it was not worth going through so much to get so little. This, to say the least of it, was disrespectful to Cadmus, and should be condemned accordingly. Authors have feelings, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... perceptible in Langediu; but in the intervening eight years they had increased rapidly; still, although his body was so weak that he could only crawl on all-fours, he retained all the faculties of his mind, all his original vivacity and good-humour, and his facetious remarks excited the merriment of the whole assembly. I have in many instances observed that at Radack, old age brings with it no particular disease, and that the mind remains unimpaired till its mortal covering sinks into the ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... with tearful eyes amid a babel of jubilation, most of it facetious. "Be of good cheer, Peter, be ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... of the Navy George E. Badger, of North Carolina, was selected. He had been graduated from Yale College, but had never held other than local offices. His sailor-like figure and facetious physiognomy were very appropriate for the position, and he soon became a decided favorite at the Washington "messes," where he was always ready to contribute freely from his ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... regiments on the right and left of the 304th immediately began to jeer. With the passionate song of the bullets and the banshee shrieks of shells were mingled loud catcalls and bits of facetious ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... herself," said I, "I would agree with pleasure. She is a saint for whom I have a great fascination. She could work miracles. When an Irish chieftain made her a facetious grant of as much land as she could cover with her mantle, she bade four of her nuns each take a corner and run north, west, south and east, until her cloak covered several roods. She could have done the same with the soul of Carlotta. But the age of miracles is past, and I fear the Little Sisters ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... Christmas Eve all over the world, but especially where the English language is spoken. No sooner does the first facetious star wink upon this Eve, than all the English-speaking millions of this Boston-crowned earth begin casting off their hatreds, meannesses, uncharities, and Carlyleisms, as a garment, and, in a beautiful spirit of no objections to anybody, proceed to think what can be done for the poor in the way ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... of my duty which, I am free to confess, I hated: this was keeping watch at night. I loved sleep, and, after ten o'clock, I could not keep my eyes open. Neither the buckets of water which were so liberally poured over me by the midshipmen, under the facetious appellation of "blowing the grampus," nor any expostulation or punishments inflicted on me by the first lieutenant could rouse my dormant energies after the first half of the watch was expired. I was one of the most determined votaries of Somnus; and for his sake, endured ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... back. The darkness hung there like a curtain, just inside the outer walls of the building. Already a crowd had gathered to observe this new and strange phenomenon of the now celebrated Atlas Building. It was a curious and a facetious crowd, but not awestricken, as it had been at the first manifestations of this ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... wagons first, although we were soon to pass them. We had lifted the boats out of the water and put them lovingly in their straw again. And Mike and George formed the crew. The guides were ready with facetious comments. ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... started for the train. They went up second-class, and Mr. Joseph, who was in the best of humours, and wore a new pair of patent-leather boots and a glossy hat, to say nothing of a dazzling tie, enlivened the journey by whispering facetious remarks on their fellow-passengers to Ida, who in vain leant away from him, as far as possible, in her corner of the carriage, and endeavoured to concentrate her attention on the programme. But though her eyes ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... all blessed with those keen appetites that attend upon light purses and mountain air. The baron told his best and longest stories, and never had he told them so well, or with such great effect. If there was anything marvelous, his auditors were lost in astonishment; and if anything facetious, they were sure to laugh exactly in the right place. The baron, it is true, like most great men, was too dignified to utter any joke but a dull one; it was always enforced, however, by a bumper of excellent Hockheimer; ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... present. Every Sunday during term two or three prefects would sit down to dinner; masters turned up during the holidays; even the mighty Provost himself paid occasional visits, during which he put off most of his majesty and became as nearly human as a facetious judge. Nor did Father Rowley allow Silchester to forget that it had a Mission. He was not at all content with issuing a half yearly report of progress and expenses, and he had no intention of letting St. Agnes' exist as a subject for an occasional school sermon or a religious tax levied on ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... the worship of material luxury and wealth, which constitutes so large a portion of the "spirit" of our age, make somewhat for effeminacy and unmanliness? Is not the exclusively sympathetic and facetious way in which most children are brought up to-day—so different from the education of a hundred years ago, especially in evangelical circles—in danger, in spite of its many advantages, of developing a certain trashiness of fibre? Are ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... the "new British battle-cry" is another source of amusement. Whenever artillery or rifle fire sweeps over their trenches some facetious Tommy is sure to shout, "Are we downhearted?" and is met with a resounding "No!" and ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... Hyde-like change comes another, and I feel positively facetious. "Why I know your ring of course, the same as I know your handwriting on a telegram. What ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... son. In the childish maladies with which the boy was troubled, he would make daily inquiries and daily pay him a visit, entering the sick-room with a facetious and appalling countenance, letting off a few perfunctory jests, and going again swiftly, to the patient's relief. Once, a court holiday falling opportunely, my lord had his carriage, and drove the child ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it probably may be, he will thenceforth drop any farther correspondence with Adam, Noah, Abraham, &c.; and, lastly, that he may be benefited by the criticisms upon its faults and failings, while he himself lurks cunningly behind the curtain. But if, after all," says the facetious author, "this little northern urchin shall chance to spring forward under the influence of a more southern and warmer sun, the author will then endeavour to bring his goods to market as plump, fresh, and fair as ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 235, April 29, 1854 • Various
... The cure, however, of this defect in our literature, if any there be, may be looked upon as begun in the work whose title stands at the head of this notice. The author, indeed, had not the settled purpose of the facetious writers we have just dispraised, of making game of the subject of his book, no more than he has the wit and cleverness which half redeem their naughtinesses. The absence of these latter qualities is supplied in his case by the self-complacent good faith in which he puts forth his monstrous assumptions ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... to which we allude was the source of much facetious pleasantry with the young brethren. One of the infernal spirits had one evening declared that 'before morning they would have the deacon and Lupier.' 'Deacon' was an epithet applied to myself, as a token of familiarity. The tidings ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... again at the Court, and seated to a fine dinner, with all the friends who would join us, whereof there were as many as could sit comfortably to the long table. This feast was very joyous and merry, and except that the parson would be facetious over his bottle, nothing unseemingly or immodest was said. So we stayed at table in exceeding good fellowship till the candles were lit, and then the parson, being very drunk, we made a pretext of carrying ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... immediate!" nodded Mr. Brimberly, rising. "Mr. Jenkins is a true hartist, equally facetious and ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... to the child's, and rubbed his rough cheek against her soft one, with his old facetious caress. "Tell father where you've been," he whispered. Ellen gave him a little piteous glance, and her lip quivered, but she did ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... any man might be comfortable, ef he had a wife takin' boarders to support him, but mebbe if she was to be asked to tell the truth, she'd tell a different story," he said. Tappan spoke in a tone of facetious rage, and the others laughed, all except the barber. He had a curious respect for his ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the night before execution, was very facetious, had himself shaved, and called his supper a marriage feast; he remarked upon seeing Mrs. Irish (the keeper's wife) weep, "though my breakfast will be somewhat sharp, my supper will be more pleasant and sweet." The place of death was on the north side of ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... fast, and yet he could scarce keep himself at liberty to follow his business.... At the Revolution, when his interest fell from, and his debts began to fall upon him, he was at his wits' end.... His character for fidelity, loyalty, and facetious conversation was without exception"—Roger North's Lives of the Norths (Lord Keeper Guilford), ed. Jessopp, vol. i., pp. 381-2. He was originally made Lord Chancellor of Ireland in the reign of James II., during the viceroyalty of Lord Clarendon, 1686, when he was knighted. ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Gallus mean I Not Sheridan, but friend Delany. Begin, my Muse! First from our bowers We sally forth at different hours; At seven the Dean, in night-gown drest, Goes round the house to wake the rest; At nine, grave Nim and George facetious, Go to the Dean, to read Lucretius;[2] At ten my lady comes and hectors And kisses George, and ends our lectures; And when she has him by the neck fast, Hauls him, and scolds us, down to breakfast. We squander there an hour or more, And ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... old man, but an old rake," died in 1731. Gay calls him "facetious Disney," and Swift says that all the members of the Club "love him mightily." Lady M. W. Montagu ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... speaking seemed to have such a kind of idea with it; for it was courteous, and yet forcible; pleasant, yet overwhelming; facetious, yet austere; sententious, and yet vehement: like Socrates, in the description of Plato, who seemed outwardly to those about him to be but a simple, talkative, blunt fellow; whilst at the bottom he was full of such ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... me often to converse on those subjects, carried me to the Horns, a pale alehouse in——Lane, Cheapside, and introduced me to Dr. Mandeville, author of the "Fable of the Bees," who had a club there, of which he was the soul, being a most facetious, entertaining companion. Lyons, too, introduced me to Dr. Pemberton, at Batson's Coffee-house, who promis'd to give me an opportunity, sometime or other, of seeing Sir Isaac Newton, of which I was extreamly desirous; but ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... supply himself with a new outfit. He was enough of a philosopher to know that it is better to meet misery with a smile than with a scowl. Mark Tapley had many prototypes in the Confederate ranks, and the men were never more facetious than when things were at their worst. "The very intensity of their sufferings became a source of merriment. Instead of growling and deserting, they laughed at their own bare feet, ragged clothes, and pinched faces; and weak, hungry, cold, wet and dirty, with no hope of reward or rest, they ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... drag him down, so that his whole body is fearfully scratched, if not quite ripped up, by the rough bark. That is why people put valuable things with the dead in the grave, in order that their ghosts on arrival in Lamboam may have the wherewithal to purchase the good graces of the facetious ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... in a keenly analytical if somewhat facetious article, gave it as his opinion that the coming Australians will be as follows:—"They will not be so entirely agricultural as the Americans were; they will be horsemen, not gig-drivers. Descended from adventurers, not from Puritans, and eager, as ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... been a wit in his youth, the propensity to jocularity still survives; but the jests are generally such as you meet with in the very earliest editions of Mr Joseph Miller, though, for the sake of variety, they are often ascribed to the late facetious Mr Joseph Jekyll, or Mr Henry Erskine, or to some other of the Fogie's early contemporaries, if indeed the Fogie himself is not the hero of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... Do you like me? Do you think me pretty? How do I affect you?" and so on, the signs all being closely watched by the spectators, who applaud, giggle, chuckle or laugh uproariously by turns, as the case may be. Such a dance is a questioning bee, a collision of wits on the part of two really facetious Indians. ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... locks and beard in fury at the use of the facetious word. He loathed levity of any kind and the one kind he could not endure was the quip that ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... of the temperance, thoughtfulness, austerity, and grave earnestness of his temper. Whereas Cicero's love of mockery often ran him into scurrility; and in his love of laughing away serious arguments in judicial cases by jests and facetious remarks, with a view to the advantage of his clients, he paid too little regard to what was decent: saying, for example, in his defense of Caelius, that he had done no absurd thing in such plenty and ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the scene of our adventure with the White Streak as we facetious and appreciatively named the mustang, deep, flat cave indented the canyon wall. By reason of its sandy floor and close proximity to Frank's trickling spring, we decided to camp in it. About dawn Lawson and Stewart straggled in on spent horse and found ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... time, I thought perhaps it might be some facetious body, who expected to find amusement in puzzling or alarming me. Yet I was not alarmed: for what had I to fear or to conceal? The contents were perfectly harmless; and, being fully satisfied with the purity of my ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... what through life has befallen thee to produce this sadness?" inquired the facetious major, adding, that he saw the tale of his ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... anything of the sort except under stimulus of the horseradish which he ate in quantities off quick-lunch counters, could smart to tears at the thought of her. And over the emotions which she stirred in him, and which he could not translate, he became facetious—idiotically so. ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... we have seen,[85] Nashe confounds elves with fairies in deriving all alike from fauns and dryads. Robin is "mad-merry," "jocund and facetious," "a cozening idle friar or some such rogue" [in origin], and so forth—simply described by Shakespeare as a "shrewd and knavish sprite." The forms of mischief in which he delights are described in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... fallen flat. But when in some remote village I, using French, uttered the simplest and most commonplace remark to a French tavern keeper, with absolutely no intent or desire whatsoever, mind you, to be humorous or facetious, invariably he would burst instantly into peals of ...
— Eating in Two or Three Languages • Irvin S. Cobb
... of facetious clergymen, it is inevitable to think of Bishop Wilberforce; but his humour was of an entirely different quality from that of Sydney Smith. To begin with, it is unquotable. It must, I think, have struck every reader of the Bishop's ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... writing seems to you facetious; and no doubt, while we have nothing of more importance, we do sport with the pen. But examine these Fables with attention, {and} what useful lessons will you find {concealed} under them! Things are ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... his stool and hooked his thumbs into the arm-holes of his vest as he said this, leaned his back against his desk, and regarded the seaman with a facetious look. ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... name. It was a mean, small name, with a kind of facetious twist, she thought, about its end like the upward curve of a pugdog's tail. There it was, however. There was no doing anything with it. Wilkins she was and Wilkins she would remain; and though her husband encouraged her to ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... conceptions do not match the Fancies of our sleeps. At my Nativity, my Ascendant was the watery sign of Scorpius; I was born in the Planetary hour of Saturn, and I think I have a piece of that Leaden Planet in me. I am no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardize of company; yet in one dream I can compose a whole Comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof: were my memory as faithful as my reason is ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... near reach to his ankles, and a waistcoat of fur—of beaver, I believe, or of wild cat. He had a very long face, and lantern jaws. His nose was in proportion, and it curled down in a way which gave it a most facetious expression; while a very bright small pair of eyes had also a sort of constant laugh in them, though the rest of his features looked as if they could never smile. His complexion had a very leathery look, and his figure was tall and lanky in the extreme. I could ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... her friend was facetious. "Well, it just happened so, and it didn't matter, since, on my asking you, don't you know? to choose your time, you had taken, as suiting you ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... Journey out of Scotland, in order to his Majesties Restoration, and is indeed the Cream and flower of all his Works, and look't upon for a lofty and conceited Stile. His other things are for the most part of a tepid and facetious nature, reflecting on others, who as sharply retorted upon him, for he that throwes stones at other, 'tis ten to one but is hit with a stone himself; one of them playing upon his red face thus. I like the ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... great American journal said of it: "We find the paper upon which this production is printed of a most amusing quality." Another observed: "The binding of this tedious military work is the most humorous we ever saw." A third added: "In typographical details, the volumes now under consideration are facetious beyond compare." ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... say you are a facetious gentleman!' said he. 'You must have your way, I see. We are not three miles from Bedford by this ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a few well-chosen phrases that carried an undertone of faint irony, to introduce Ernest. Colonel Van Gilbert was subtly facetious in his introduction of the social reformer and member of the working class, and the audience smiled. It made me angry, and I glanced at Ernest. The sight of him made me doubly angry. He did not seem to resent the delicate slurs. Worse than that, he did not seem to be aware of them. ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... again; "and sin ye're gaun awa the morn, I'll see nae mair o' ye enoo—so fare ye weel. But, Archie, ye maun come an' tak your breakfast wi' me. I hae muckle to say to you; but ye manna be sae hard upon my baps as ye used to be," with a facetious grin to her mollified favourite, as they shook ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... certain Presbyterian clergyman had asserted that the oath prescribed in the Pontificale Romanum, which the Cardinal Wiseman must have taken to the Pope when he received the Pallium as Archbishop of Westminster, notoriously contained a clause enjoining the duty of persecution. This clause, a facetious Englishman said, ought to be translated, "I will persecute and pitch into all heretics to the utmost of my power"; and every one knew that the Pope of Rome looked upon the English as the greatest ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... of humorous drollery, that compensated for the vulgarity of his subjects. He sometimes painted interiors, domestic assemblies, conversations, mountebanks, etc., which he generally accompanied with some facetious trait of wit or humor, admirably rendered. Some of his works of this description are little inferior to the charming productions of Gabriel Metzu. His compositions are ingenious and interesting, his design ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... light-whiskered brigand on the nose (he was in the very act of tossing up a bouquet to a young lady in a first-floor window) with a precision that was much applauded by the bystanders. As this victorious Greek was exchanging a facetious remark with a stout gentleman in a doorway— one-half black and one-half white, as if he had been peeled up the middle—who had offered him his congratulations on this achievement, he received an orange from a housetop, ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... your Grace, you are too facetious! Trace the PREMIER here! Next you will be saying that he and his good lady were taking tea ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 13, 1893 • Various
... them; but they are men that eat the flesh, and cast away the hones, as I, who am also a man, have now done." Upon which the king admired at his answer, which was so wisely made; and bid them all make an acclamation, as a mark of their approbation of his jest, which was truly a facetious one. On the next day Hyrcanus went to every one of the king's friends, and of the men powerful at court, and saluted them; but still inquired of the servants what present they would make the king on his son's birthday; and when some said that they would give twelve ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... loudly dressed old lady at the head of the room. This was the hostess. Clay, the pawnbroker, a little man with a deeply wrinkled face and shrewd, beadlike, black eyes, was darting in and out amongst his friends, laughing loudly, cracking jokes, and making himself generally facetious and agreeable. He clapped Jim on the shoulders, assured him that he was delighted to see him, and dragged him up to the sofa, where Louisa and Sampson were having a very ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... Encouraged and strongly exhorted by Fagan, I did my duty resolutely; but, though affable and good-humoured with the men, I never at first condescended to associate with such low fellows: and, indeed, was called generally amongst them 'my Lord.' I believe it was the ex-link-boy, a facetious knave, who gave me the title; and I felt that I should become such a rank as well as any peer in ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... heart! a red cabbage couldn't exceed it in size, and, like that, it seemed naturally predestined to be everlastingly in a pickle! Still it was a heart! You were welcomed to his venison when he had it—his present saveloy was equally at your service. He must have been remarkably attached to facetious elderly poultry of the masculine gender, as his invariable salute to the tenants of his "heart's core" was, "How are you, my jolly old cock?" Coats became threadbare, and defunct trousers vanished; waistcoats ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various
... the facetious Linton will no doubt make one of your party, I have got by heart for his amusement a reasonable number of Border ballads, most of them a little longer than Chevy Chase, which I intend to throw in at intervals, just by way of securing my share in the conversation. {p.201} As for you, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... to Batavia Edwards narrowly escaped a second shipwreck. The Rembang was dismasted on a lee shore in a cyclone, and, but for the exertions of the English seamen, would assuredly have been stranded, the Dutch sailors, who, says the facetious Hamilton, "would fight the devil should he appear to them in any other shape but that of thunder and lightning," having taken to their hammocks. At Samarang, as already related, Edwards found the tender, which he had long given up for lost, and the price she fetched enabled the crew to purchase ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... fishing-gear and lent a hand to push off. "Ben't goin' alone, be 'e?" asked Renatus Warne. "Yes," said I. "The conger'll have 'ee then, sure enough." One or two offered chaffingly to come out and search for me if I shouldn't return before midnight; and a volley of facetious warnings followed me ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... manner, which he afterwards much improved by a courtly education; and, as his person was well-made and gracefull, so he took care to sett it off by all the ornaments and luxury of dress. He was of a sweet temper, and good-natured. His witt lively and sparkeling, and his humour pleasant and facetious. He loved books, and acquired the languages with great facility, whereby he cultivated and enriched his understanding with all manner of learning, but especially the belles lettres; add to this, a natural elegancy of expression, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... that tree. Then Meddy will tune up agin, an' mighty nigh cry her eyes out. He warn't even graced with a death-bed ter breathe his last; Meddy air partic'lar afflicted that he hed ter die afoot." Old Kettison glanced about the circle, consciously facetious, his heavily grooved face ...
— Wolf's Head - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... significance of the photoplay, let him now be discomfited by page fifty-nine, Standard Dictionary. The last letter in this list is a lasso: . The equivalent of the lasso in the Roman alphabet is the letter T. The crude and facetious would be apt to suggest that the equivalent of the lasso in the photoplay is the word trouble, possibly for the hero, but probably for the villain. We turn to the other side of the symbol. The noose may stand for solemn judgment and the ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... marriage pleasantries, facetious compliments and chaff, in which to my surprise (the solemnity of the service being still upon me) the Bishop ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... treated this subject in the genteel, or in the romantic, or in the facetious manner. Suppose we had laid the scene in Grosvenor Square, with the very same adventures—would not some people have listened? Suppose we had shown how Lord Joseph Sedley fell in love, and the Marquis of Osborne became attached ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his facetious query to be so answered, stopped his drawing for a moment. "What in the name of goodness attracted you to the ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... be very self-conceited, or very insensible, who cannot profit by her valuable instructions. The hour which brought to me the humiliating conviction, that I was a person of no consequence; that the world could go on very well without me; that my merry companions would not be one jot less facetious, though I was absent from their jovial parties, was after all not the ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... its antiquities. We were really diverted by the formal parsimony with which the good woman had contrived to invent a dinner for four, out of what would have hardly have sufficed as a whet to an English farmer. Were I blest with the culinary accuracy of the facetious Christopher North, or his friend Dr. Morris, I could better record a bill of fare which would form a complete contrast to the vaunted luxuries of their inspiring deity, Mr. Oman of Edinburgh. Suffice it, ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... has justly been said—we think by Hood—that the children of the poor are not brought up, but dragged up. However facetious this remark may seem, there is much truth in it; and that children, reared in the reeking dens of squalor and poverty, live at all, is an apparent anomaly in the course of things, that, at first sight, would seem to set the laws of sanitary provision at defiance, and make it appear a perfect waste ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... to be facetious, but really the matter worries me a little. Have you been laughing at me because I scolded you for neglecting your Latin, and because I took a copy of Catullus in my pocket when we made our Sunday excursion into the woods? Yet it was all ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... what was happening. We came to a stop; I heard a growing murmur of voices and laughter outside, and then the click of the raised sides of the wagon. I heard Mifflin's shrill, slightly nasal voice making facetious remarks as he passed out the cards. Evidently Bock was quite accustomed to the routine, for though his tail wagged gently when the Professor began to talk, he lay quite peaceably ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... superiority from his Lordship's rank, and is the sort of quizzing he might use to a person who came to hire himself as a valet to him at Long's—the waiters might laugh, the public will not. In like manner, in the controversy about Pope, he claps Mr. Bowles on the back with a coarse facetious familiarity, as if he were his chaplain whom he had invited to dine with him, or was about to present to a benefice. The reverend divine might submit to the obligation, but he has no occasion to subscribe to the jest. If it is a ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... puzzled. There was something in the earnestness of her manner which made a facetious compliment seem grossly inappropriate, and in the moment no ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... to get out of scrapes just that much better. Certainly there are few men on Earth who would not be willing to back such a group of men—or any one of you, for that matter! I'll back your trip!" His words became more facetious. "I know that Arcot and you, Bob, can handle a gun fairly well, I don't know so much about Wade and Fuller. What experience have you ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... fighting, and reaping a harvest of beautiful black eyes from the fists of Professor John Wilson. I see you in songs, in ballads, in calendars. I see you in the postern of time long elapsed. I see you in the looking-glass of my own facetious and song-recalling memory—but I should wish to see you in the real, visible, palpable, smellable beauty of your own person, standing before me in my own house, at my own fireside, in all the halo of your poetical radiance! Come over, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... of the miseries of this facetious genius was now approaching. To one of his friends, who was taking leave of him for some time, Scarron said, "I shall soon die; the only regret I have in dying is not to be enabled to leave some property to my wife, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... are trotting together," said Latimer, presently, trying to be facetious in an effort to regain control of himself. He looked up at ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... in high good-humour. He rejoiced in seeing the pert and officious young clerk of the works put in his proper place; and Sir George had lunched at the Rectory. There was a repetition of the facetious proposal that Sir George should wait for payment of his fees until the tower should fall, which acquired fresh point from the circumstance that all payments were now provided for by Lord Blandamer. The ha-ha-ing which accompanied this witticism ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... a very different thing. Its impudence did not mitigate the aggravation, but made it more acute. If he had picked out a fairy-tale, rather than two glorious poems—Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Bears, Rumpelstiltskin, for example—he could have been as facetious as he pleased. But that would not suit him. There would have been no darts to fling. Butler was a banderillero. All right; but then don't complain that the Miss Harrisons, Darwins, and others ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... generally observed to love to reside in empty pockets, so the gentleman whose ingenuity we have above remarked, as soon as he had parted with his money, began to grow wonderfully facetious. He made frequent allusions to Adam and Eve, and said many excellent things on figs and fig-leaves; which perhaps gave more offence to Joseph than to ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... and the wits grew facetious at the expense of the Mystery. Jokes on the subject appeared even ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... more to unite the nobles and to knit them together than the most dangerous secret associations. With his toasts, his guests have drunk in a permanent intoxication, a giddy frenzy, that never subsides. How often have his facetious jests stirred up the minds of the populace? and what an excitement was produced among the mob by the new liveries, and the extravagant devices ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... looks and disordered attire plainly indicating that they are on a regular "time." Those young men have been imbibing freely at some fashionable saloon in Court or Hanover street, and have come to consummate the evening's "fun" by having a dance with the fallen goddesses of Ann street. With a facetious perversity, they select as partners the most hideous of the negro women, and "mix in" the dance with a relish that could not be surpassed if their partners were each a Venus, and the cellar a magnificent hall of Terpsichore. The dance concluded, they throw down a handful of silver upon the ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... 12. The facetious Tom Brown, in his 2d dialogue on Mr Bayes' changing his religion, introduces our ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... listen to him this one time, but desired he would never speak to her again in the same strain, since such sort of conversation was neither entertaining to her, nor could be serviceable to him. Though no one was ever more facetious than Mademoiselle de Saint Germain, she yet knew how to assume a very serious air, when ever occasion required it. The Chevalier de Grammont soon saw that she was in earnest; and finding it would cost him a great deal of time to effect a change in her sentiments, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... in the crowd about the band-stand. She would have been surprised indeed if she could have guessed the effect upon the sprightly cavalier of this new evidence of the confidential relations existing between herself and his friend; and indeed, when a moment later he met them, with a facetious sally, it is doubtful whether anything short of clairvoyance could have divined ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... of such a course are utterly beyond the reach of native investigation and thought. They are consequently suspicious of the Greeks—et dona ferentes. The self-denial of missionaries who come out to China to all the hardships of Oriental life—though, as a facetious writer in the Shanghai Courier lately remarked, they live in the best houses, and seem to lead as jolly lives as anybody else out here—to say nothing of gratuitous medical advice and the free distribution of all kinds of medicine—all this is entirely incomprehensible to the narrow mind of ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... intended to be facetious, and yet leave much to be inferred regarding his habits. But the Demon ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... long voluminous polo-coat of John's that I used to borrow. Evelyn nearly always joined us, John not so often. Sometimes Dawson Cooper came. He was getting over his shyness. Sometimes he was quite brazen and facetious. It looked almost as if he was ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... went on, somewhat disturbed; it seemed to him that this uncle, though Julia's, was either going queer in the head or had chosen a poor occasion to be facetious. Next time, probably, it would be better to walk round the block below this. But it was no longer advisable to walk round any block. When he came to the happy gateway, the tuning of instruments and a fanfare of voices sounded from within the house; ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... Mangonah, the beautifully situated dwelling of R. W. Nash, Esq., barrister at law, the most active-minded and public-spirited man in the colony. After a short delay, to laugh at one of our friend's last coined and most facetious anecdotes, and also to visit his botanical garden, we rattled off again to Guildford; a scattered hamlet that was made acquainted with our approach by loud strains from the editor's bugle. Here, however, we paused ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... began, so abruptly that Mrs. March started with a violent shudder, "this is February fourteenth. Did any ancient person of your acquaintance lose his head to-day?" He turned a facetious glance that changed in an instant to surprise. His mother had straightened up with bitter indignation, but she softened to an agony ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... that very day publicly mentioned in the French army. The prince of Tingray, an officer in the Austrian service, having been taken prisoner in the battle that ensued, dined with mares-chal count Saxe, who dismissed him on his parole, and desired he would charge himself with a facetious compliment to his old friend, the earl of Crawford. He wished his lordship joy of being a French general, and said he could not help being displeased with the sergeant, as he had not procured him the honour of his lordship's ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... of the human countenance, voluntary or involuntary, superinduced by a concatenation of external circumstances, seen or heard, of a ridiculous, ludicrous, jocose, mirthful, funny, facetious or fanciful nature and accompanied by a cackle, chuckle, chortle, cachinnation, giggle gurgle, ...
— The Foolish Dictionary • Gideon Wurdz
... friends called him "Jack," and some of the more facetious ones shortened the cognomen "Jack Aston" by dropping the "ton," inconsiderately declaring that the briefer appellation fitted the man, even better than did his coat, which always was loose about the shoulders and too long in the sleeves. But all knew "Jack" to be an excellent fellow. His principal ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... could run into a crab, roll it over in the water, and when it was lying bottom upward, like a floating cask, he could move his ship to a distance, and make a target of it. So desirous was this brave and somewhat facetious captain to try his new plan upon a crab, that he forebore to fire upon the two vessels of that class which were approaching him. Some of his guns were so mounted that their muzzles could be greatly depressed, and aimed at an object in the water not ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... the devil inside shall jump out, like an ape stirred up to malice. He affects, too, a vulgar frankness, which is often the mask of selfishness, as a man who helps himself first at table with a "ha! ha!" in a facetious manner, a jocose greediness, which is most actual, real ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... is the things not said Comfort of leaving same things to the imagination Common attitude of the wholesale to the retail dealer Confident opinions about everything Couldn't stand this sort of thing much longer Designed by a carpenter, and executed by a stone-mason Facetious humor that is more dangerous than grumbling Fat men/women were never intended for this sort of exhibition Feeding together in a large room must be a little humiliating Fish, they seemed to say, are not so easily caught as men Florid man, who "swelled" in, patronizing the entire room ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Charles Dudley Warner • Charles Dudley Warner
... A facetious smile overspread Barney's face—"Och! be all manes; the same to you, kindly," said he, taking off his hat and making ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... love competitive examination; but I became, and am, very fond of Sir Charles Trevelyan. Sir Stafford Northcote, who is now Chancellor of the Exchequer, was then leagued with his friend Sir Charles, and he too appears in The Three Clerks under the feebly facetious name of Sir Warwick ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... across the common, a protecting twin on either side of Mrs. Dangerfield; and Captain Baster, in the strong facetious vein, enlivened the walk with his delightful humor. The gallant officer was the very climax of the florid, a stout, high-colored, black-eyed, glossy-haired young man of twenty-eight, with a large tip-tilted nose, neatly rounded off in a little knob forever shiny. The son of the famous pickle ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... to'gallant stu'ns'ls!" he bellowed, in a tone that put that of poor Mr Bitpin completely into the shade; his voice sounding as if the wild bull which that gentleman had apparently imitated, according to the facetious Larkyns, had since been under the instruction of Signor Lablache or some other distinguished bass singer and had learnt to mellow his roar into a deeper tone. No sooner, too, had the hands jumped into the rigging and the studdingsail halliards and tacks been cast ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... final result; they are all designed to prepare the way for Socrates, who gathers up the threads anew, and skims the highest points of each of them. But they are not to be regarded as the stages of an idea, rising above one another to a climax. They are fanciful, partly facetious performances, 'yet also having a certain measure of seriousness,' which the successive speakers dedicate to the god. All of them are rhetorical and poetical rather than dialectical, but glimpses of truth appear in them. When Eryximachus says that the principles of music are simple in themselves, ...
— Symposium • Plato
... prize. And sure great Skeffington must claim our praise, For skirtless coats and skeletons of plays Renowned alike; whose Genius ne'er confines Her flight to garnish Greenwood's gay designs;[15] Nor sleeps with 'Sleeping Beauties,' but anon In five facetious acts comes thundering on,[16] While poor John Bull, bewildered with the scene, Keeps wondering what the devil it can mean; But as some hands applaud, a venal few! Rather than sleep, why John applauds it too. Such are we now, ah! wherefore should we turn ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... intelligent, and portly personage—shows visitors over the rooms and picture-galleries. There is a superb collection of pictures by the Old Masters, about which Dickens had always something facetious to say to his friends. They illustrate the schools of Venice, Florence, Rome, Netherlands, Spain, France, and England, and were formed mainly by purchases from the Orleans Gallery, and the Vetturi Gallery from Florence, and include Titian's 'Rape of Europa,' ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... hour later the dark omnibus without windows, that went by the facetious name of the "Black Maria" received the convicted ones from the same street door by which they had been brought in out of the world the night before. The waifs and vagabonds of the town gleefully formed a line across the sidewalk from the station-house to the van, and counted with zest the abundant ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable |
