"Ironical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... how he persists,' answered the Legate with an ironical smile. 'Write down what he says as correctly ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... a hundred paces or so, I could see that Darrow laboured under some great excitement. His usual indifferent saunter had, as I have indicated, given way to a firm and decided step; his ironical eye glistened; ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the theory, but I don't think many people would accept it." He was prepared to talk seriously with her, if she wished it, but no man could be serious in view of such a preposterous claim. So he fell back upon the cold, ironical calmness which exasperated Cora far more than a storm of rage would have done. "At any rate," he said, "I did not deprive you of ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... his glass with ironical invitation, while I sat aghast and speechless, my heart pounding against my ribs. This intolerable colloquy could not last forever. I deliberated what I should do if we were surprised. At the sound of a footfall or the soft creak of a plank I felt that I might lose all ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... was called at Faneuil Hall to consider the matter and pass fitting resolutions. There was something beautifully ironical in Boston interesting herself concerning the doings of a mob a thousand miles away, especially when Boston, herself, had done about the same thing only ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... cobbler would be more to the purpose," says I, "but if they hev none of them coolin drinks at art sworricks, here goes for the Moky." (N.B.—This I sed ironical. Korfy at sworricks ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... means not altogether worthy, had never dawned upon him. Nor had he dreamed it of her! Yet the man who waved his hand from the box-seat of the phaeton with a courtesy seemingly real, but, under the circumstances, brutally ironical, was Thorndyke, and the woman who sat ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... must remember that I was then only Marcos Marco, a peasant, and, having some slight knowledge of acting, it was only natural that my speech should be, as you find it in our common people, somewhat dry and ironical. ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... Vanderlyn's sensitive nerves. The disappearance of Mrs. Pargeter had become an engrossing, a delightful drama, not only to the members of the Pargeter household, but also to Poulain and his worthy wife; and it had been one of the smaller ironical agonies of Vanderlyn's position that he did not feel himself able to check or discourage ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... wire or thread, to make sudden and surprising motions, without meaning, grace, or nature in them. By far the best of his works are some of his shorter personal compositions, in which there is an ironical mixture of the quaint and serious, such as his lines on a picture of Gaspar Poussin, the fine tale of Gualberto, his Description of a Pig, and the Holly-tree, which is an affecting, beautiful, and modest retrospect on his own character. May the aspiration with which it concludes be fulfilled! [11]—But ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... was an ironical laugh, and he once more resumed his homeward journey, leaving Mike standing pale and trembling beside ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... farther into the desert, farther among the people of my own faith. I don't want to be surrounded by French. Some day perhaps I may return. But at present everything draws me onward. Tell me"—he dropped the earnest tone in which he had been speaking, and she heard once more the easy, half-ironical man of the world—"do you ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... man, ironical with all the rest of the world, was serious with her. From the moment he turned toward her, his voice, face, and conversation became as serious as if he had entered a church. He had a great deal of wit, and he used and abused it beyond measure in conversations in the presence ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... junior clerk, and the sunshine pouring through the windows—the only plate-glass windows in Garland Town—gilded the dome of Mr. Fossell's bald head. As the Commandant entered, Mr. Fossell looked up and nodded pleasantly, in a neighbourly way, albeit with a touch of ironical interrogation. He had heard gossip from his friend Pope of the doings on Garrison Hill, and, so far as he allowed himself to be jocose, he meant his glance to be interpreted. "Well, you are a pretty fellow! And pray what account are you going to ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... audible remarks were made, none of them at all flattering to the subject of them; but if the latter heard them he made no sign, but accepted the ball from Blair without fumbling it, much to the surprise of the onlookers. Among these were Clausen and Cloud, their mouths prepared for the burst of ironical laughter that was expected to follow the ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... enough to be refused three times to my certain knowledge; why, he doesn't deny it—proud to let the country know his devotion to the most charming of her sex," and he gave an ironical little nod for which she exchanged ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... with his chest on deck; the other two impressed men soon followed, and the disconsolate trio passed down the ship's side in moody silence, unmoved alike by the commiserating looks of their late shipmates or the jocular and more than half-ironical congratulations of the man-o'-war's men in the boat upon their entry into so promising a service as that of the ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... or AEgidius, who is introduced into the story. "Utopia" was not printed in England in the reign of Henry VIII., and could not be, for its satire was too direct to be misunderstood, even when it mocked English policy with ironical praise for doing exactly what it failed to do. More was a wit and a philosopher, but at the same time so practical and earnest that Erasmus tells of a burgomaster at Antwerp who fastened upon the parable ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... object! Can any expenditure be called excessive which enables us to hear Comrade Waller being mordant and ironical at ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... cause,' a saying in which theology and philosophy are blended and reconciled; not omitting to observe the deep insight into human nature which is shown by the repetition of the same thought 'All philosophers are agreed that mind is the king of heaven and earth' with the ironical addition, 'in this way truly they magnify themselves.' Nor let us pass unheeded the indignation felt by the generous youth at the 'blasphemy' of those who say that Chaos and Chance Medley created the world; ...
— Philebus • Plato
... you'll find out—with you watching their every move!" The lawyer had settled back in his chair, an ironical ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... issuing orders for a sumptuous dinner and saw them making preparations. Krenska circled about her on tiptoe and smiled at her with a subtle, ironical smile that irritated Janina. She felt dazed with exhaustion and the storm that was brewing within her, and beheld everything with indifference, for her mind was continually dwelling on the impending battle with her father. ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... their muskets into the night. Gerrard, hoarse with his vain exertions, half amused and half disgusted, was left with Rukn-ud-din and the Rajput Amrodh Chand and their men to defend the camp. He turned to make an ironical remark to the former, but found him standing like a statue, ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... taken by this undutiful child. All things considered, both in this controversy and the later one with Pope, Cibber did not come off worst. His few hits were personal and unscrupulous, and they were probably far more deadly in their effects than any of the ironical attacks which his adversaries, on their part, directed against his poetical ineptitude or halting "parts of speech." Despite his superlative coxcombry and egotism, he was, moreover, a man of no mean abilities. His Careless ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... go to him and say to him in manner most ironical." Mrs. Mallowe laughed to herself. Then she grew suddenly sober. "I wonder whether I've done well in advising that amusement? Lucy's a clever woman, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... arm, was exactly the same to me as if he had been a living actor, dressed in the same clothes, and imitating the gesture of a knight; and that the contrast of what was real, as we say, under the fiction appears to me less ironical in the former than in the latter. We have to allow, you will admit, at least as much to the beneficent heightening of travesty, if we have ever seen the living actor in the morning, not yet shaved, standing at the bar, his hat on one side, ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... justify inferences which his mysterious departure for London does not weaken, and his long absence, his infrequent visits to Stratford, the Duke's injunction to Viola—"let still the woman take An Elder than herself"—and the ironical bequest of his second best bed, neither diminish ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... that I pretend to know of this expression is that it is ironical, and may relate either to the head-dress of Paris, or to his archership. To translate it is impossible; to paraphrase it, in a passage of so much emotion, would be absurd. I have endeavored to supply its place by an appellation in ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... of my life! It is true." He paused with a low, ironical, malignant laugh; and then added, as he rose and turned away, "But the work is yet to ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... letting off steam, the heavy giant steamers whistled or hissed, or seemed to heave deep sighs, and in every sound that came from them could be heard the mocking note of ironical contempt for the gray, dusty shapes of men, crawling about their decks and filling their deep holds with the fruits of their slavish toil. Ludicrous and pitiable were the long strings of dock laborers bearing on their ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... nothing after her little ironical protest about the poor. She sat opposite the fire, between her mother and Mr. Scobel, but at some distance from both. The ruddy light glowed on her ruddy hair, and lit up her pale cheeks, and shone in her brilliant eyes. ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... lighted another cigarette, and, casting a glance partly ironical, partly provocative, at the good-looking young ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... stuff again to the last pennyworth," young McMurrough returned with an ironical laugh, "and without payment at all! Or stay! Perhaps you'll ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... for signs of an ironical divinity's hand in the great drama of existence would find no small indication thereof in the stupendous question-mark that is called Christianity. That mankind should be on its knees before the very antithesis of what was the origin, the meaning and the law of the Gospels—that in the concept ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... well-behaved, a more sober, a more quiet man, with a more well-regulated mind, he had never met with. A man with a larger family he had never known (cheers). The parish required a man who could be depended on ('Hear!' from the Spruggins side, answered by ironical cheers from the Bung party). Such a man he now proposed ('No,' 'Yes'). He would not allude to individuals (the ex-churchwarden continued, in the celebrated negative style adopted by great speakers). He would not advert to a gentleman who had ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... its peculiar racial characteristics. But above all, the story was notable for the passionless handling of a phase of our common life which is tense with potential tragedy; for the attitude, almost ironical, in which the artist observes the play of contesting emotions in the drama under his eyes; and for his apparently reluctant, apparently helpless consent to let the spectator know his real feeling in the matter. Any one accustomed to study methods in fiction, to distinguish between ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... those two advertisers on the street afterward we greeted them with ironical smiles intended to enrage. They had at Inglesby's instigation been guilty of a tactical blunder of which the men behind the Clarion had taken fiendish and unexpected advantage. It had simply never occurred to either that ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... may appear to advantage; while Madame de la Baudraye, accustomed to take the stage, acquired an indefinable theatrical and domineering manner, the air of a prima donna coming forward on the boards, of which ironical smiles would soon have cured her ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... heart-beating of ironical rage seized on the listener to that speech. Her good! The good of a corse that the breath is just abandoning; the good of a flower beneath a heel; the good of an old dog whose master leaves it for the last time! Slowly a weight like lead stopped all that ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... who had been good and loving. Henrietta had her father's passion for excitement but, being a woman, she had the greater need of being loved, and Rose raised her eyes and looked at Charles with an ironical appreciation of his worthiness, of his comicality. She saw him with Henrietta's eyes, and her white shoulders lifted and dropped in resignation. Then she looked at Henrietta and smiled frankly. 'Another dance has begun,' she said. 'Somebody must be ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... exhibition of some peculiar faculty, some brilliant talent. Their attitude seemed to imply that she was a kind of conversational mountebank, attired, intellectually, in gauze and spangles. This attitude gave a certain ironical force to Madame Munster's next words. "Now this is your circle," she said to her uncle. "This is your salon. These are your regular habitu; aaes, eh? I am so glad ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... resolved not to be outdone, even in ironical courtesy. "And now, Captain Urrea, if you will ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... portrayed; the upper part of her face, her clear forehead, her gentle eyes had become less conspicuous; and now the lower part stood out, with its somewhat sensual jaw, ruddy mouth, and superb teeth. And still she smiled with that enigmatical, girlish smile, which was, perhaps, an ironical one. ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... Spencer and me away last dispensary day; and partly it was that young coxcomb, Henry Ward, thought it not worth while to trouble me about a simple epidemic. Simple epidemic indeed!' repeated Dr. May, changing his tone from ironical mimicry to hot indignation. 'I hope he will be gratified with its simplicity! I wonder how long he would have gone on if it had ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Courtland's mind the question seemed so bitterly ironical that at first he leaned half angrily forward, in an unconscious attempt to catch the speaker's expression in the darkness. "I should hardly venture to give an opinion," he said, after a pause. "Miss Dows' relations with her ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Dear Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys, When last you left me I prayed that we might never meet again. But time is stronger than I fancied, and here I am writing to you. Fate must have been in her most ironical mood to bring us so near in this corner of the world. I thought you were in another continent; but if you will let me accept the chance which brings us together, and call upon you as an old friend, I shall really be grateful: for there will be much ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... courts danger; nor is he indisposed to risk even his life. He gives favours, but does not accept them; he is proud to the great, but affable to the lowly. He attempts only great and important matters; is open in friendship and in hatred; truthful in conduct, with an ironical reserve. He talks little, either of himself or of others; neither desiring his own praise, nor caring to utter blame. He wonders at nothing, bears no malice, is no gossip. His movements are slow, his voice deep, his diction ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... broke out over the faces of the frequenters of the boulevard, who daily, from their chairs, watch the passers-by, and indulge in the agreeable pastime of analyzing them. That smile is peculiar to Parisians; it says so many things—ironical, quizzical, pitying; but nothing save the rarest of human curiosities can summon that look of interest to the faces of Parisians, sated as they are with every ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... hopelessly and unreasonably complicated his existence for him. One absurdity more or less in the development did not matter—all absurdity was distasteful to him; but, urbane as ever, he produced a faintly ironical smile, and said in his calm voice, "It certainly will do away to some extent with the monotony of ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... answered at last by a Brief ordering him to appear at the Papal Court. His failing strength exhausted itself in a sarcastic reply which explained that his refusal to comply with the summons simply sprang from broken health. "I am always glad," ran the ironical answer, "to explain my faith to any one, and above all to the Bishop of Rome; for I take it for granted that if it be orthodox he will confirm it, if it be erroneous he will correct it. I assume too that as chief Vicar of Christ upon earth ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... every one saw as clearly into me as I do myself, instead of retiring from an accusation, I step up to meet it, and rather give it some kind of colour by an ironical and scoffing confession, if I do not sit totally mute, as of a thing not worth my answer. But such as look upon this kind of behaviour of mine as too haughty a confidence, have as little kindness for me as they who interpret the weakness of an indefensible cause; namely, the great ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... Macassar Oil that delightful joke which made people so merry at the Funambules, when Pierrot, taking an old hair-broom, anointed it with Macassar Oil, and the broom incontinently became a mop. This ironical scene excited universal laughter. Finot gaily related in after days that without the thousand crowns he earned through Cephalic Oil he should have died of misery and despair. To him a thousand crowns was fortune. It ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... His praises were ironical. He knows How to use words as weapons, and to wound While seeming to defend. But look, Bastiano, See how the setting sun lights up ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... of his lips, and not without a slightly ironical twinkle of the eye, the usher murmured a name, which, if they had heard it, would have angered all those exalted personages who had been waiting an hour for the costumier of the opera ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... his regard with the half-ironical, half-patronizing look a dull man puts on with a person of less fortune but more brain. "I didn't see you, Mr. Putney, until I was quite upon you. ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... your own business, and all without exception wrinkled at the corners with a suggestion of dry humor. In my half-conscious scrutiny I probably stared harder than I knew, for all at once a laughing pair of blue eyes suddenly met mine full, and an ironical voice drawled, ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... of 1830 gave a wonderful stimulant to the little society of St Simon. It extended rapidly, and adjourned its sittings from a private house to an ample theatre, where three tiers of boxes held the admiring or ironical auditory. Fetes, and the presence of charming women, increased the number of proselytes; artists, physicians, advocates, poets, flocked to share in the generous hopes of the new era. The capital and the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... the stampede somewhat, much as routs have been stopped by some great historic warcry. A few deputies hurried back to their benches. All eyes turned toward the extreme Left of the Chamber, where, a white head, rising above the red seats over a pair of spectacles and a gently ironical ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... idlers,—club men, sporting men, men of fashion, rank, and fortune. He did so with a purpose, for these persons spoke well of him,—spoke well not only of his talents, but of his honourable character. His general nickname amongst them was "HONEST GORDON." Kenelm at first thought this sobriquet must be ironical; not a bit of it. It was given to him on account of the candour and boldness with which he expressed opinions embodying that sort of cynicism which is vulgarly called "the absence of humbug." The man was certainly ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the N. slope of the Palatine, chosen as the safest meeting-place, and near Cicero's house. 17-18. castra ... collocata, the camp of Manlius (one of the veteran centurions of Sulla) was planted at Faesulae (Fiesole), arocky fastness three miles N.E. of Florence. 19. imperatorem: ironical, as though Catiline were the legally appointed general of ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... hence that translating a Greek verb in the perfect by the participle aforesaid, was not such a very heinous offence after all. This bomb-shell was not, however, thrown into Mr. Benson's magazine without an immense amount of smoke and noise. He adopted the celebrated ironical Congressional style: "This eminent Greek scholar," "this pattern of classical criticism," "this prodigy of the English universities, who has had his own private tutor, must now be informed that the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... the side-door, rather guiltily, to avoid the eyes of the shop. They feared that in the parlour they would be the centre of a curiosity half ironical and half reproving; for had they not accomplished an ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... de Fronsac never failed, when he came to pay his respects to the Queen at her toilet, to turn the conversation upon Trianon, in order to make some ironical remarks on my father-in-law, of whom, from the time of his appointment, he always spoke as "my colleague Campan." The Queen would shrug her shoulders, and say, when he was gone, "It is quite shocking to find so little a man in the son of the ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... great compliment of an invitation to occupy this chair, I was conscious of a certain ironical fitness in my position. The politician and the actor divide between them the distinction of supplying the most constant material for the most intimate and searching vigilance of the newspaper press. [Laughter.] So when this great corporation of the newspaper press fund gives ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... humming, 'I'll go to him and say to him in manner most ironical.' Mrs. Mallowe laughed to herself. Then she grew suddenly sober. 'I wonder whether I've done well in advising that amusement? Lucy's a clever woman, but a ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... a last ironical smile and bow, he once more kissed her hand, and disappeared down the footpath in the wake of the soldiers, and followed ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... day together, and in the evening, at my hotel, he criticized my effects while I packed, in his usual ironical vein. ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... spring in the air, The strong clean scents of earth, The call of the golden shaft, Ringing across the hills) He takes up his heartening book, Opens the volume and reads, A page of old rugged Carlyle, The dour philosopher Who looked askance upon life, Lurid, ironical, grim, Yet sound at the core. But weariness returns; He lays the book aside With his glasses upon the bed, And gladly sleeps. Sleep, Blessed abundant sleep, Is all ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of Natural Society" is a great book, and the fact that in the second edition Burke had to explain that it was an ironical paraphrase does not convince us it was. The things prophesied have come about and the morning stars still sing together. Wise men are more and more learning by inclining their hearts toward Nature. Not only is this true in pedagogics, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... English. "Name Big Tiger. Me, they call Little Tiger." A shade of suspicion crept over his face. "You white you say you friend. More whites hid behind trees and shoot and kill many of Big Tiger's braves," he said with an ironical smile. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... her. "I don't see how the man did it!" she mentally declared. "I wonder if that item is just a huge joke, because the picture was so bad that the reporter tried to be ironical." ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... natural one on your part,' she said, with the impenetrably ironical manner which she could assume on certain occasions. 'As a native of horse-racing England, you belong to a nation of gamblers. My brother died no extraordinary death, Mr. Westwick. He sank, with many other unfortunate people, under ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... rescue of desperate sinners, related so jocosely as to keep the crowd in a roar of laughter. He had laughed with the rest, but he could not imagine his guide, with the stern, grave eyebrows, writhen features and earnest, ironical tone, covering—as even he could detect—the deepest feeling, enjoying such broad sallies as tickled the slow merriment of village clowns ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Morley nodded. "Very ironical, isn't it?" he said. "She was always talking and hoping for the money, and now when it comes she is unable to enjoy it. What tricks Fate plays ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... procuress well known in her day, and described in the "Tatler" (No. 84) as "the celebrated Madam Bennet." We further learn, from the "Spectator" (No. 266), that she was the Lady B. to whom Wycherley addressed his ironical dedication of "The Plain Dealer," which is considered as a masterpiece of raillery. It is worthy of remark that the fair sex may justly complain of almost every word in the English language designating a woman having, at some time or another, been used ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... MacIan looked at those three sides of English cliff hung with their noisy load of life. He had been at a loss to understand the almost ironical magnificence of all those teeming creatures and tropical colours and smells that smoked happily to heaven. But now he knew that he was in the closed court of death and that ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... can't," he said, almost gruffly. "Go in, Con., and be prepared to welcome Sybil back; and I," he added, moving away, and turning a wicked look over his shoulder, "will be prepared to welcome Burrill;" a low, ironical laugh followed these words, and Evan Lamotte leaped the low garden palings, and went back as he had come, by the ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... "Come," said he, smiling, with a dash of raillery, over his coffee-cup; "admit you are a humbug, you whitened sepulchre of an anticipated chick! Until you found a congenial soul and overwhelmed me with your confidence, what a career of deception—not mean, of course, but cynical—ironical—you have been leading. What a jest it must have been to you to be sold as new laid! How you laughed in your quiet way at the mockery of life. Surely it was a worthy pair to Swift in cassock and bands conducting a marriage service. I can well fancy your ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... without enquiring the cause of the tumult, instantly proceeded to the harem, and lifting the Purdah stood in the presence of his wives. 'What is this?' said he, glancing savagely round.—'We expected your return and have prepared a feast to welcome you,' was the ironical reply of the favourite wife, who at the same time trembling in her limbs scarce dared to face the enraged tyrant, 'It is a lie, offspring of a Kaffir; you shall pay the penalty of your disobedience of my orders. Here, Saleh, take her and throw ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... Thermidor. Though cold in temperament, extremely reserved in manners, and fond of industrious seclusion, Robespierre did not disdain the social diversions of the town. He was a member of a reunion of Rosati, who sang madrigals and admired one another's bad verses. Those who love the ironical surprises of fate, may picture the young man who was doomed to play so terrible a part in terrible affairs, going through the harmless follies of a ceremonial reception by the Rosati, taking three deep ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... to the point by asking if she knew what had befallen his father. Jane had heard the news the night before. He thereupon put the whole situation before her just as it had been suggested in Droom's ironical remark. It was not until after the question had been passed upon by Mr. and Mrs. Cable that she reluctantly consented to visit Graydon's father—solely for the purpose of gleaning what information she could ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... and ironical glee, since it joyed him thus to gibe at one that had loved his wife. He—with his own ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... graduated B.A. in 1748; M.A., 1751. In 1750 he came to London, to the Middle Temple. In 1756 Burke became known as a writer, by two pieces. One was a pamphlet called "A Vindication of Natural Society." This was an ironical piece, reducing to absurdity those theories of the excellence of uncivilised humanity which were gathering strength in France, and had been favoured in the philosophical works of Bolingbroke, then lately published. ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... and I confess it never even crossed my mind that anybody would write such a thing except as a tribute to your genius and the intellectual interest of the subject; nor can I believe it now. It may strike you as so ironical as to be incredible; but it is really one of those ironies that are also facts, that I rather welcomed the idea of a criticism in the paper (which so often differs from you) from a modernist and collectivist standpoint more like your own. I should imagine Pugh would agree with you ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... a man of letters, a Scotchman of the intellectual type, quick, ironical, sentimental, and on his knees before the woman he adored but did not want to marry. Maurice Pervin was different. He came of a good old country family—the Grange was not a very great distance from Oxford. He was passionate, sensitive, perhaps over-sensitive, wincing—a big fellow with heavy ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... across the hearth at him with a half amused, half ironical smile, and said nothing. It is so hard to explain to an outsider the involuntariness of ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... young Marquis de Villefranche who spoke, a little haughtily, with a certain ironical condescension towards the rich parvenu, who was about to have the honour of crossing swords with one of the ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... up at the ends, big and strong, with grey eyes, and a sort of sage self-reliance; only twenty-six, but might be forty. Here is a real Latin, who was buried by an explosion at Verdun; handsome, with dark hair and a round head, and colour in his cheeks; an ironical critic of everything, a Socialist, a mocker, a fine, strong fellow with a clear brain, who attracts women. Here are two peasants from the Central South, both with bad sciatica, slower in look, with a mournful, rather monkeyish expression ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... age. Heraclitus the philosopher, out of a serious meditation of men's lives, fell a weeping, and with continual tears bewailed their misery, madness, and folly. Democritus on the other side, burst out a laughing, their whole life seemed to him so ridiculous, and he was so far carried with this ironical passion, that the citizens of Abdera took him to be mad, and sent therefore ambassadors to Hippocrates, the physician, that he would exercise his skill upon him. But the story is set down at large by Hippocrates, in his ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... cruel joke, or perhaps scornful raillery; or was it an ironical outbreak of awakened jealousy, or was it pure wickedness? We shall see what comes ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... asleep as soon as she stretched her body on their warm surfaces. She used to wonder at her own inactivity. She could lie there hour after hour in the sun and listen to the strident whir of the big locusts, and to the light, ironical laughter of the quaking asps. All her life she had been hurrying and sputtering, as if she had been born behind time and had been trying to catch up. Now, she reflected, as she drew herself out long upon the rugs, it was ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... up, one arm about the mast, and catching the slant beam of the late-rising moon on his face, that shone awfully rapt and intent, saluted them with an ironical cheer, and dashed on. Eloise held the tiller for the moment, still pulsating with her late emotions, not above a trifling play of vanity, welcoming the exhilaration of a race, where she might half forget her trouble, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... pistol under Cleggett's hand, and from the pistol to Cleggett's face, with ironical gravity, before he spoke. "I should have thought, from the way you cling to that pistol, that perhaps your nerves might be a little ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... the compliment might be ironical; and there was ever afterwards a reflection of her uncertainty in her opinion of Roderick's genius. Mr. Leavenworth responded that with all deference to Miss Blanchard's beauty, he desired something ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... We may forgive those who wrong us, but not those we have wronged. He never forgave me for having been robbed by him!" And the old man's voice grew hard and ironical at the recollection. ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... perhaps thus perilously skated over, the passengers were as profuse in their thanks and apologies as they had been constrained and artificial before. Heckshill and Frenshaw vied with each other for a glance from the audacious Flo. If their compliments partook of an extravagance that was at times ironical, the girl was evidently not deceived by it, but replied in kind. Only the expressman who seemed to have fallen under the spell of her audacious glances, was uneasy at the license of the others, yet himself dumb towards her. The lady discreetly drew nearer to ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... than a river to stop me," he said in his old, half-demure, half-ironical fashion. And that was all Sheila ever heard of that brief epic of his journey. He drew away from her now and went ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... "Here Cumberland lies". According to Boaden's 'Life of Kemble', 1825, i. 438, Mrs. Piozzi rightly regarded this portrait as wholly ironical; and Bolton Corney, without much expenditure of acumen, discovers it to have been written in a spirit of 'persiflage'. Nevertheless, Cumberland himself ('Memoirs', 1807, i. 369) seems to have accepted it in good faith. Speaking of Goldsmith he says — I conclude ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... voice, and were firmly resolved, whatever he might say, not to let themselves be taken in. He felt this especially when he talked to the cleverest of the peasants, Ryezunov, and detected the gleam in Ryezunov's eyes which showed so plainly both ironical amusement at Levin, and the firm conviction that, if any one were to be taken in, it would not be he, Ryezunov. But in spite of all this Levin thought the system worked, and that by keeping accounts strictly and insisting on his own way, he would prove to them in the future ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... failed to see the consequences of his own premises. No one could have seen more clearly, nor have said more lucidly, what should suffice to show a sympathetic reader the conclusion he ought to come to. Even when ironical, his irony is not the ill-natured irony of one who is merely amusing himself at other people's expense, but the serious and legitimate irony of one who must either limit the circle of those to whom he appeals, or must know how to make the same language appeal differently to ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... The ironical character of Irechester's smile grew more pronounced, and his voice was at its driest: "Certainly you can ask Beaumaroy, Miss Walford. As far as asking ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... that mutilated the bodies; and of Louis XI, of the lover's war, of D'Aubigne and of the charlocks, the birds, the polished ivy, the denuded brambles, tasting in my pensive and idle occupation—what is greatest in men, their memory;—and what is most beautiful in nature, her ironical encroachments and eternal youth. ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... Judson if she had any suspicion of the person who had tampered with the packet. She looked at me with an icy smile, and answered in ironical accents, which were even more chilling than the ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... he stooped to pick up a rock, but when he hurled it the last tentacle was just sliding into the pool, and it seemed to him that it waved an ironical ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... across the terrace with swords trailing and spurs ringing, and disappeared in the darkness. They had not all left the Emperor, when, suddenly, Jack heard behind him the voice of the Marquis de Nesville, cold, sneering, ironical. ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... pursue us through life; in battle Death sometimes comes with a touch so swift and so ironical that we are ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... to Trenchard the thing that he had dreaded. Writing of it now I cannot disentangle it from the circumstances and surroundings of his account of it to me. He was looking back then, when he spoke to me, to something that seemed almost fantastic in its ironical reality. Every word of that conversation he afterwards recalled to himself again and again. As to Marie Ivanovna I think that he never even began to understand her; that he should believe in her was a different matter from his ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... tones slightly ironical, and showed that Marguerite Verne held views not in accordance with good form and fearlessly regarded ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... saw M. Camusot, a judge recently called to Paris from a provincial Court of the same class, as he went forward bowing to the Judge and the President, Popinot could not repress an ironical smile. This pale, fair young man, full of covert ambition, looked ready to hang and unhang, at the pleasure of any earthy king, the innocent and the guilty alike, and to follow the example of a Laubardemont rather than that ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... in whom the demands of the stomach seem to be in direct proportion to the activity of the brain. A question Hubert put about the train led to a brief account of what was going on. Mr. Wyvern spoke on the subject with a gravity which was not distinctly ironical, but suggested criticism. ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... respectful, when he ought to be; insolent, when he dared to be; excellent company, un charmant garcon. The promised land lay before him. Panshin quickly learnt the secret of getting on in the world; he knew how to yield with genuine respect to its decrees; he knew how to take up trifles with half ironical seriousness, and to appear to regard everything serious as trifling; he was a capital dancer; and dressed in the English style. In a short time he gained the reputation of being one of the smartest and most attractive young men ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... ironical tone in his voice which he could not quite disguise and which astonished ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to add that the ironical reception given to such exhibitions of boastfulness rouse in him a feeling of irritation which is all the greater for the fact that he does not ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... that she privately worshipped a shark. The chief himself was somewhat of a freethinker; at the least, a latitudinarian: he was a man, besides, filled with European knowledge and accomplishments; of an impassive, ironical habit; and I should as soon have expected superstition in Mr. Herbert Spencer. Hear the sequel. I had discovered by unmistakable signs that they buried too shallow in the village graveyard, and I took my friend, as the responsible authority, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ride with me. He threw away his cigarette and straightened himself in the saddle with such a smile as he might have bestowed on the whims of a child. He obeyed me exactly in everything, with an exaggerated ironical precision, and seemed to find amusement in it. I questioned him about Manuel. He had gone to one of the lower ranches, would not be back for weeks. By whose orders was he attending me? By Manuel's, he said. He ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... murmuring in an ironical tone a few words that they could not understand, and he returned to ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... does not exactly plunge into the middle of things; but he spends comparatively little time on the preliminaries of the ironical Prologue to the "very illustrious drinkers," on the traditionally necessary but equally ironical genealogy of the hero, on the elaborate verse amphigouri of the Fanfreluches Antidotees, and on the mock scientific discussion ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... I sat breathless, hardly able to believe my ears. Then my senses and my voice came back to me, while a crushing weight of responsibility seemed in an instant to be lifted from my soul. That cold, incisive, ironical voice could belong to but one man ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... to all of us, M. Boniface, a great sportsman and a connoisseur of wine, a man of wonderful physique, witty and gay, and endowed with an ironical and resigned philosophy, which manifested itself in caustic humor, and never ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... animadverted on the conduct of the ministry in the most acrimonious terms, stigmatized some great names with all the virulence of censure, and even assaulted the throne itself with oblique insinuation and ironical satire. The ministry, incensed at the boldness, and still more enraged at the success of this author, whose writings were bought with avidity by the public, determined to punish him severely for his arrogance and abuse, and he was apprehended by a warrant from the secretary's office. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... he not have said so? What object could he have in writing an elaborate work to support a theory which he knew all the time to be untenable? The impropriety of such a course, unless the work was, like Buffon's, transparently ironical, could only be matched by its fatuousness, or indeed by the folly of one who should assign action so motiveless to any one out ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... hint, and more than a hint, of the extraordinary charm which enveloped him; the thick, wavy hair, the fine nose, the full, but firmly moulded, lips, are attractive enough. But the large, dark eyes under strongly marked eyebrows, which are at once pathetic, passionate, ironical, and mournful, evoke a singular emotion. Every gift that men hold to be advantageous was showered upon Melbourne. He was well born, wealthy, able; he was full of humour, quick to grasp a subject, an omnivorous reader and student, a famous sportsman. ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... said Robert, with ironical approval; 'stand here all day arguing while the candles burn out. You'll like it awfully when it's all dark ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... This ironical tone was discord to my bursting, over-boiling-heart; I was nettled by his insolence, and replied with bitterness; "There is a spirit, neither angel or devil, damned to limbo merely." I saw his cheeks become pale, and his lips whiten and quiver; his anger served ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... of all this—it remembers the reply of the Russian Minister, couched in a tone of haughty sarcasm and of indignation that deigned to be ironical. There was then but one step to take, according to the views of the French Government, and that was action. They appealed to that England which had itself thus set the example of agitation on the subject; and England, wisely as I think, recurred to her traditionary policy, the Government confessing ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... Swede. "I guess you're right. I guess if it was any way at all, you'd owe me somethin'. That's what I guess." He turned to the cowboy. "'Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!'" he mimicked, and then guffawed victoriously. "'Kill him!'" He was convulsed with ironical humor. ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... to disturb M. Formery in the middle of the process of reconstruction," said the Duke; and a faint, ironical smile played round the corners of ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... great analyst of the human countenance, "in the annexed group, that unnatural wretch, with the infernal visage, insulting his supplicating mother; the predominant character on the three other villain-faces, though all disfigured by effrontery, is cunning and ironical malignity. Every face is a seal with this truth engraved on it: 'Nothing makes a man so ugly as vice; nothing renders the ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... had not the courage to come again himself?' he softly suggested, with just the suspicion of an ironical laugh. 'Thought, perhaps, I would exact too much commission; or make him pay too roundly for ...
— The Staircase At The Hearts Delight - 1894 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... up a companion piece of Pilate and Herod shaking hands. Then, after that meeting amid the ashes of Hougomont, where they dreamed they had trodden out the embers of all democracy, the Prussians rode on before, doing after their kind. After them went that ironical aristocrat out of embittered Ireland, with what thoughts we know; and Blucher, with what thoughts we care not; and his soldiers entered Paris, and stole the ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... somewhat ungallant sentiment, a Russian scholiast remarks:—"The whole of this ironical stanza is but a refined eulogy of the excellent qualities of our countrywomen. Thus Boileau, in the guise of invective, eulogizes Louis XIV. Russian ladies unite in their persons great acquirements, combined ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... four Provinces who knew all about it, for he had not read it in books but had himself been through its mill, which like an automatic machine ground him relentlessly since the end of the month of June. Not the least but one of the cruellest and most ironical phases — and nearly every clause of this Act teems with irony — is the Schedule or appendix giving the so-called Scheduled Native Areas; and what are ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... can imagine Sir S. voting for the change, because I fancy that he would endure torture rather than be thought sentimental. He describes a place or a thing or a person glowingly, then hurries to cap his description with a few joking or even ironical words, lest he should be suspected of ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... translator, s. of a Nonconformist minister, was at Oxf., and was the friend of most of the literary men of his time, by whom his early death from smallpox was bewailed. He made clever adaptations of the classical satirists, wrote an ironical Satire against Virtue, and four severe satires against the Jesuits. He is cynical to the verge of misanthropy, ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... always expressed whenever the Teutons see trouble brewing. Undoubtedly it is practised to keep the prisoners keyed up to a feverish pitch of hopefulness. Certainly it succeeded for a time, although such announcements at a later date, when we had seen through the subterfuge, were received with ironical cheering ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... amateur of a father he had been. There was not a single memory in which anger played a part; not one reconciliation, because there had never been a rupture; nor one heart-to-heart confidence, not even when Jolly's mother died. Nothing but half-ironical affection. He had been too afraid of committing himself in any direction, for fear of losing his liberty, or interfering ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... for the good opinion you have of me," said the Count in an ironical tone; "why then did you demand that foolish manifestation in the theatre of San Carlo? Do you not see that I have given you sufficient pledges by risking my life at the Venta of Pompeia, where I, who had every ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... are not forthcoming. He died on the eighteenth of September 1830, saying, "Well, I have had a happy life"; and despite his son's assertion that, like Goldsmith, he had something on his mind, I believe this to have been not ironical but quite sincere. He was only fifty-two, so that the infirmities of age had not begun to press on him. Although, except during the brief duration of his second marriage, he had always lived by his wits, it does not appear ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... he was quickly frustrated, for the young count grasped him by the collar as he endeavored to pass, with a grasp of iron, and said to him in an ironical tone ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... Ironical inscription! Still the fountains gush from the rocks, the poplars tremble in the breeze, the sweet incense rises from the orange-flowered styrax, the birds chant the joy of living, the sunlight and the moonlight ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... ironical curtsey.] Nothing! [Carelessly.] Let us go to roost! [CHANTECLER goes to the back and is preparing to rise to a branch. The PHEASANT-HEN aside.] He does not know that when the Nightingale sings one listens, supposing it to be a minute, and lo! the whole night has been spent ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... verse there is something brooding, obscure, tremulous, half-inarticulate, as he meditates over man, nature, and destiny: Nature, 'waking by touch alone,' and Fate, who sees and feels. In The Mother Mourns, a strange, dreary, ironical song of science, Nature laments that her best achievement, man, has become discontented with her in his ungrateful discontent with himself. It is like the whimpering of a hurt animal, and the queer, ingenious metre, with its one rhyme set at wide but distinct and ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... me, mother, by not trying it again too soon," was George's ironical reply as he put her ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... speaking, occasionally holding it up for others to see, with studied carelessness; as he put the question, he suddenly raised his eyes, without changing his position, and fixed them searchingly, with a sort of ironical simplicity, on Mr. ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... peculiar and perhaps an ironical emphasis on the word, "what would ye have? There is not a breath of air stirring and the ship ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... talk," said the young magistrate, with an ironical smile. "I like the palanquin in the court of Germany. That is probably what novelists call local color. O Racine, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... laugh aloud, for that was a burst of feeling in which he was seldom known to indulge; but every feature of his weatherbeaten visage contracted into an expression of bitter, ironical contempt. Borroughcliffe felt the iron fingers, that still grasped his collar, gradually tightening about his throat, like a vice; and, as the arm slowly contracted, his body was drawn, by a power that it was in vain to resist, close to that of the cockswain, ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... one at a time, but both at the same time—I will fight both or none. If you are my superior officer, you must descend," replied Jack, with an ironical sneer, "to meet me, or I will not descend to meet that fellow, whom I believe to have been little better than ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... advances, objects of inconsiderable value such as a lord might distribute to his vassals,'or when he was refused a princess of solar blood, or even an Egyptian bride of some feudal house; at such times, however, an ironical or haughty epistle from Thebes would recall him to a sense ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero |
