"Mocking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... but she was alone in a small, strange room. Then memory gathered up the threads of the past; but so strange, so blessed did the truth seem that she hastened to dress and go down to the old kitchen and assure herself that her mind had not become shattered by her troubles and was mocking her with unreal fancies. The scene she looked upon would have soothed and reassured her even had her mind been as disordered as she, for the moment, had been tempted to believe. There was the same homely room which had pictured itself so deeply in her ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... senses, it was to wonder again at the change that had come over the scene. The loud yells, the bitter taunts, the mocking laughs, were heard no more; and nothing broke the silence of the wilderness save the stir of the leaf in the breeze, and the ripple of the river against its pebbly banks below. He glanced a moment from the bush in which he was lying, in search ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... cut in with a doubtless scathing though, to Carteret, inaudible remark, at which Damaris laughed outright; and the fresh young voices trailed away in the distance alternately mocking ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... interrupted. "You're here to blackmail me—eh? Well—let me hear the worst," and across his rather Oriental face there spread a mocking, half amused smile. ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... it leads to the desert and the tongue swells out of the mouth, And you stagger blind to the mirage, to die in the mocking drouth. And sometimes it leads to the mountain, to the light of the lone camp-fire, And you gnaw your belt in the anguish ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... anything else. In front of me was the open window, through which shone the electric light, blatant and insistent; behind this, the clock of Excelsior—brightly lit and incandescent—glared in upon us, giant hands going round, seeming to threaten the hour of dawn and frightening sleep and mocking, bugbearing the short hours which the working-woman might claim ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... make it," his iteration sounded like a mocking echo flung back into his ears. "I must not sink," he asserted to himself. "Not until I have saved Trusia," his thoughts ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... far beyond the room; even that haunting consciousness that Bailey Girard was near her was but a far, hidden subconsciousness. She was out on a rocky slope beside a dead body—Lawson, his head thrown back, those mocking, caressing eyes, those curving, passionate lips, closed forever, the blood oozing from between his dark locks. As ever with poor Dosia, there was that sharp, unbearable pang of self-reproach, of self-condemnation. Of what avail her prayers, her belief in him, when he had died thus? Oh, she ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... you, through you this joy! We press our hands upon our breast and look upward with adoring gladness. Soft waves of bliss break through us. "The peace with God." "The sense of sins forgiven." Methodists and revivalists say the words, and the mocking world shoots out its lip, and ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... of technical proceedings, mocking justice by their very assumption of formality, it would be needless to refer. Solemnly, however, and by an authority which it was fatal to resist, Galileo was called on to renounce a truth which his whole life had been consecrated to reveal ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... The numeral four hundred was employed, like the Greek "myriad," to express vaguely any extraordinary number. The term may be rendered "the myriad-voiced," and was the common name of the mocking-bird, called by ornithologists Turdus polyglottus, Calandria ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton
... She laughed, a little mocking laugh, and started once more to pace up and down. "Oh, very well! You're not excited now. Then that's understood. You never are excited. You're as calm as a mountain." She paused again, though at a distance. "Now? What is it you're ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... for the wretched fate which she has brought down upon her lover, and the announcement of the means by which he may be released made to her in slumber by the Fay Morgana. Her maidens seek to rouse her with choral appeals, in which are heard phrases of her hunting song. Meanwhile mocking spirits appear about Merlin and taunt him in characteristic music. Then follows the compact with the demon, which releases him. He rushes into the battle accompanied by an exultant song from Viviane; but soon the funeral march, as his followers bear him from the field, tells the mournful story ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... Launcelot, "I pray you cease your mocking. It is not seemly. This stranger, whosoever he may be, has right to ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... he thought. Was she mocking him? Was she restraining her scorn of him only to make his humiliation the greater after a while? He looked at her, but there was no suspicion of malice in her ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... Ada with mocking sarcasm, and the contempt in her voice was indescribable. "What presumption! the lower classes are beginning to look up, ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... between this dark and formidable determination of the Italians, and their mocking gaiety and reckless levity, is just as marked as that, between the resolute countenances of the Orsini type, such as I noticed here, and the frivolous faces, which express nothing but a contemptuous superiority or mere indifference. Faces of this type were also to be seen among the spectators, or ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... smooth and subtle man was he— Of crafty heart and Christian mien; His wisdom—cheating sophistry, Flung o'er his sins a mocking sheen. ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... are the most wicked and the merriest mocking-bird God ever created," cried the duchess, "Have done with your scandals, go up to your room, piously say your evening prayers, and stretch yourself ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... and from the right bank. Its echoes had hardly ceased, when it was answered by a similar cry from the trees upon the left. So like were the two, that it seemed as if some one of God's wild creatures was mocking another. These cries were hideous enough to frighten any one not used to them. They had not that effect upon our voyageurs, who knew their import. One and all of them were familiar with the voice of the ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... the Kingis hart to gentilness, (for diverse of thame war his great familiaris,) and partly by geving bold and godly answeris to thair accusatouris, that the ennemies in the end war frustrat of thair purpoise. For whill the Bischop, in mocking, said to Adam Reid of Barskemyng,[39] "REID, Beleve ye that God is in heavin?" He answered, "Not as I do the Sacramentis sevin." Whairat the Bischop thinking to have triumphed, said, "SIR, Lo, he denyes that God is in heavin." Whairat the ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... III." are repeated references to events in the "Second Part"; to the murder of Rutland by the "black-faced Clifford"; to the crowning of York with paper, and the mocking offer of a "clout steeped in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland." It must not be forgotten that these striking likenesses, references, unities, are not between "Richard III." and the portion of the "Contention" assigned to Shakspere, but between the unquestioned author of "Richard" and that ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... sat alone in her home, musing, as she had often done. She had just been reading passages from "Dream Life," having opened the book at random to a chapter entitled, "A Broken Hope." Was life mocking her at every step? She turned the pages listlessly, and "Peace" flashed before her vision. Peace, at last. No matter how great the struggle, rest shall be ours. We may not attain what we have striven for on earth, but peace ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... came certain shepherds dragging with them one whose hands were bound behind his back. He had come forth to them, they said, of his own accord when they were in the field. And first the young men gathered about him mocking him, but when he cried aloud, "What place is left for me, for the Greeks suffer me not to live and the men of Troy cry for vengeance upon me?" they rather pitied him, and bade him speak and say whence he came and what he ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... save himself from an overthrow the blacksmith was forced to relax his hold, and sprang nimbly back beyond reach, to mature another attack. Roopnarain quietly walked round, rubbed his shoulders with earth, and with the same mocking smile, stood leaning forward, his hands on his knees, ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... was upon the old lady always, and if she so much as stealthily advanced a tea-spoon towards a neighbouring glass (which she often did), for the purpose of abstracting but one sup of its sweet contents, Quilp's hand would overset it in the very moment of her triumph, and Quilp's mocking voice implore her to regard her precious health. And in any one of these his many cares, from first to last, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... could still hear the noise made by the man, and once they were startled by his mocking laugh. So close was it that they knew he must have doubled on his tracks ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... soft laugh of triumph, which even in his light-headed state had seemed to John Derringham as the mocking of ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... for an instant to show it was I he addressed, but fixing his gaze again upon his wife and keeping it there while he continued speaking to me, delivered himself thus, with mocking irony: ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... all looked at Lucien while the Marquise was speaking. De Marsay, only a couple of paces away, put up an eyeglass and looked from Lucien to Mme. de Bargeton, and then again at Lucien, coupling them with some mocking thought, cruelly mortifying to both. He scrutinized them as if they had been a pair of strange animals, and then he smiled. The smile was like a stab to the distinguished provincial. Felix de Vandenesse assumed a charitable air. Montriveau ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... said Fouche, "for your death would bring joy to those who were the bitter enemies of Queen Marie Antoinette, and who would be your mocking heirs. Will you grant to the Count de Lille the uncontested right of calling himself Louis XVIII.?—the Count de Lille, who caused Marie Antoinette to ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... darkness fell around, a mocking bird was nigh, Inviting pleasant, soothing dreams with his sweet lullaby; And sometimes came the yellow dog to brag around all night That nary 'coon could wollop him in a stand-up barrel fight; We simply smiled and let him howl, for all Mizzourians know That ary 'coon can beat a dog if ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... McNeil's place in remote Ireland. Now, being in Bukowina, within measurable distance of his Carpathian abode, and curious to see a Polish lord at home, I remembered his invitation. It was already of long standing, but it had been warm, born in fact of a sudden fit of enthusiasm for me"—here a half-mocking smile quivered an instant under the speaker's black mustache—"which, as it was characteristic, I may as ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... admission!" She laughed at him, softly mocking. "And I'm so fond of trifling, too. Then what can you possibly want with me? I suppose you have really called to ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... don't believe me, come and see," said the Monkey, and seizing the Rabbit by his long ears, he hauled him up into the tree; and after mocking him, and making great game, he left him there, and ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... repeated Errington, in a slightly mocking tone, and elevating his eyebrows in a way that made Katherine blush ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... from beneath the roof through an opening in a stained window. It was the face of a mocking fiend, such as the old builders loved to place under the eaves to spout the rain through their open mouths. It looked at him, as he sat in his mitred chair, with its hideous grin growing broader and broader, until it laughed out aloud, such a hard, stony, mocking laugh, that he ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... When that which they had supposed was a big thunderstorm was right upon them, it seemed to be a mingling of groans and curses, of sobs and angry cries, of the blast of horns, of crackling fire, of the plaints of doomed spirits, of the mocking laughter of demons, of ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... the entire morning by the lake," Mr. Kennaston informed the party at large, "in company with a mocking-bird who was practising a new aria. It was a wonderful place; the trees were lisping verses to themselves, and the sky overhead was like a robin's egg in colour, and a faint wind was making tucks and ruches and pleats all over the water, quite as if the breezes ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... idea—one determination. If it was Jeanne who came in this way, he would kill Thorpe. If it was another woman, he would give Thorpe that night to get out of the country. He waited. He heard the gang-man's voice frequently, once in a loud, half-mocking laugh. Twice he heard a lower voice—a woman's. For an hour he watched. He walked back and forth in the gloom of the spruce, and waited another hour. Then the light went out, and he slipped back to ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... her father in the light of a rather delicate financial crisis. The affection which had always existed between father and daughter soon developed into something stronger—something volatile and half mocking on her part, indulgent and half mystified ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... and continued to smile. It would be best, perhaps, to humor her. Who knows but even hallucinations are subject to wiles and coquetry. A disturbing fancy, this—one of the distortions that insist upon raising their mocking heads from the midst of my ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... over the ground, making a silvery greenness where other plants could not grow. In and out of the sage, nests and scratches and hops this Thrasher, taking its name from the plant. He also ventures up on the mountain sides, giving his inquisitive, questioning, mocking notes, and so earns a second name in those places, where he is called ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... of the difficulty in recognising a variable species in our systematic works, is due to its varieties mocking, as it were, some of the other species of the same genus. A considerable catalogue, also, could be given of forms intermediate between two other forms, which themselves must be doubtfully ranked as either varieties or species; ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... information than most young ladies of the same age. She had been at an excellent school, if any schools are really excellent for young ladies; but there was, nevertheless, something in her style of thought hardly suitable to the softness of girlhood. She could speak of sacred things with a mocking spirit, the mockery of philosophy rather than of youth; she had little or no enthusiasm, though there was passion enough deep seated in her bosom; she suffered from no transcendentalism; she saw nothing through a halo of ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... sight with the marquise; you cannot find a better barrier between you than that. This passion of his is worth more to you than I. Yesterday there might have been some danger for you and for him; to-day you can take a maternal interest in him," he said, with a mocking smile, "and be ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... eager whisper. Jumping quickly to my feet, I saw in the library doorway Sue's dark little figure and her mocking, dancing eyes as she pointed me out to our father, her chum, whose face wore a smile of amusement. In a moment I had rushed out of doors and was running angrily to school, furious at myself for praying, furious at Sue for spying and at my father for that smile. ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... reckless daring that it was difficult to believe that the maker of it was in earnest. Even the two officers were for a moment staggered by it, and inclined to fancy the cibolero was not serious but mocking them. ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... all-sufficient evidence to her and to such as her, that there was a limit where the flaunting of their foul acts and opinions before the world must stop; certain of them, with a higher art, and to her a finer cruelty, a sharper torture, uttered no abuse, but always spoke of her in terms of mocking eulogy and ironical admiration. Everybody talked about the new wonder, canvassed the theme of her proposed discourse, and marveled how she would ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... toward one side. 2. High'way, a public road. Re-treat', a place of refuge or safety, Crouch'es, stoops low. 3. Taunt'ing, deriding, mocking. 4. ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... at the end of the gangway opened, and the big Jutlander came out with a tiny coffin under his arm. He was singing a hymn in an indistinct voice, as he stood there waiting. In the side passage, behind the partition-wall, a boy's voice was mocking him. The Jutlander's face was red and swollen with crying, and the debauch of the night before was still heavy in his legs. Behind him came the mother, and now they went down the gangway with funeral steps; ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... thought, and above all by her aristocratic Southern accent. After eight-and-forty years of the Five Towns, Mrs. Maldon had still kept most of that Southern accent—so intimidating to the rough, broad talkers of the district, who take revenge by mocking it among themselves, but for whom it will always possess the thrilling ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... cults of what I have called the "Church of the Quacks", there are thousands, perhaps millions of entirely sincere, self-sacrificing people. They will read this book—if anyone can persuade them to read it—with pain and anger; thinking that I am mocking at their faith, and have no appreciation of their devotion. All that I can say is that I am trying to show them how they are being trapped, how their fine and generous qualities are being used by exploiters of one sort or another; and ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... the demon voice in mocking gibe. But he—no, he would not listen; he would stifle it. Those words were the outcome of one love—the love of a ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... mocking breeze That rustles through the Jasmin flowers And stirs among the Tamarind trees; A little gurgle of the spray That drips, unheard, though silent hours, Then ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... by the voice of Aun' Sheba, the wailing of Sissy, and the groans and unearthly sounds to which Uncle Sheba was giving utterance. The adjacent fire was so far subdued that only a red glow in the sky above marked the spot. The stars shone in calm, mocking serenity on the wide scene of human distress and fear. "Alas," he thought, "what atoms we are; and what an atom is this earth itself! It would seem that faith is the simplest, yet mightiest effort of the mind at such a time," and he paused ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... them, his empty right hand depending near to the floor, and a thin stream of blood already trickling down his knuckles, his face smiling, and shining whitely with the damp of anguish, and the cold low 'ha, ha, ha!' mocking ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... began to wear the look of a nightmare, a harassing, feverish dream. We seemed to be fascinated hither and thither by an ignis fatuus, enticed into quagmires and quicksands by an altogether illusive, mocking, ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... as seen to-day presents all the classic coldness of construction of the reign of Louis XV. Its lines were severe and that the building was inspired by a genius is hard to believe, though in general it is undeniably impressive. Frankly, it is a mocking, decadent eighteenth century architecture that presents itself, but of such vast proportions that one sets it down as something grand if not actually ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... there came the recollection of his turning to look into the face of that magnificent looking young man who had been the cynosure of all eyes as he left the church with his mother. He was conscious also of a strange uncanny sense that this smiling handsome man, with mocking, dancing light in his eyes, was ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... A mocking, ribald cheer arose from the men around me. The platform was ascending. Why the long delay? A premonition of disaster chilled me. I ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... him at too great a range, and then both, realizing that they were dropping altitude too quickly and that soon Joe would be on their level, turned away and sought a new updraft. As they banked, their faces were clearly discernible. One raised a hand in mocking salute. ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... said a mocking voice behind her. Lenore started and turned round. Fink, who had been absent more than a week, had joined them. "See that you send off Blasius," said he to Anton, without taking any further notice of Lenore. "The rascal ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... his comrade. But Wolfhart cried, "Give over mocking, or I will put thy fiddle-strings out of tune, that thou mayest have somewhat to tell, if ever thou ridest again to Burgundy. I can no longer, ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... who illuminates him with a lamp suspended from a long pole. The performer takes something from his mouth, and, having made a laudatory address regarding its merits, replaces it between his teeth, and resumes his imitations of many birds and quadrupeds. His mocking-bird is very fair; his thrush, passable; but his canary less successful, being rather too reedy and harsh. Farm-yard sounds are thrown off with considerable imitative power. His pig is so good, indeed, that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... take much pains to destroy them. He is not only a murderer, but an exceedingly treacherous one, for both Mr. Audubon and Mr. Nuttall speak of his efforts to decoy little birds within his reach by imitating their notes, and he does this so closely that he is called a mocking-bird in some parts of New England. When he utters his usual note and reveals himself, his voice very properly resembles the 'discordant creaking of a sign-board hinge.' A flock of snow-birds or finches ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... together, and a wave of passionate jealousy swept over her. She had let him go alone; he was angry with her; and for three days he would be with Abby almost every minute. And suddenly, she heard spoken by a mocking voice at the back of her brain: "You look at least ten years older ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... stared at the captain as though he were mocking us: no land was in sight, and the raft, just as ever, was the center of a watery waste. Yet our senses had not deceived us; the water we had been ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... had not gradually faded away, according to the approved rules of romance, was entirely creditable to human nature on the mountain. A candle, burning in the room that Chichester occupied, shone through the window faintly, and fell on Babe, while Chichester sat in the shadow. As they were talking, a mocking-bird in the apple trees awoke, and poured into the ear of night a flood of delicious melody. Hearing this, Babe seized Chichester's hat, and placed it on ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... In a short time, the world will take fire and dissolve; it is combustible already. All women, not obedient, had better become so as soon as possible, and let the wicked spirit depart, and become temples of truth. Praying is all mocking. When you see any one wring the neck of a fowl, instead of cutting off its head, he has not got the Holy Ghost. ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... Rob could not get an ounce more speed out of the Flying Fish, and as the speedy hydroplane roared by them they heard a mocking shout ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... ever, Race. Why, you fool, I knew Juli would run straight to you, if she was scared enough. I knew it would bring you out of hiding. Why, you damned fool!" He stood mocking me, but there was a strained fury, almost a frenzy of contempt behind ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... yet, old feller," he was heard to mutter, as they heard the wildcat emit a mocking, tantalizing cry at some little distance away. "You see ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... conversation, when she chose to please, Geraldine Challoner infinitely surpassed the majority of women in her circle. Perhaps this may have been partly because she was a good listener; and, in some measure, on account of that cynical, mocking spirit in which she regarded most things, and which was apt ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... the brush a painter could have so altered the expression of this face, that what had been a serene representation of the Eternal Father should change to the sneering mask of a Mephistopheles; for though sovereign power was revealed by the forehead, mocking folds lurked about the mouth. He must have sacrificed all the joys of earth, as he had crushed all human sorrows beneath his potent will. The man at the brink of death shivered at the thought of the life led by this spirit, so solitary and ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... fired his timid heart with courage, had made a savage assault on a bluejay, the colors of whose feathers were strikingly suggestive of the Continental uniform. For a moment the two combatants fluttered in angry strife, and the result seemed doubtful, when a female mocking-bird flew from her nest in the shrubbery and drove them both ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... mountain path, all your walled cities and the least of your villages. For two-score years I wandered and starved over you, and the Lady Om ever wandered and starved with me. What we in extremity have eaten!—Leavings of dog's flesh, putrid and unsaleable, flung to us by the mocking butchers; minari, a water-cress gathered from stagnant pools of slime; spoiled kimchi that would revolt the stomachs of peasants and that could be smelled a mile. Ay—I have stolen bones from curs, gleaned the public road for stray grains ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... be the most beautiful work possible to the sculptor's art, portraying Audubon in the garb he wore when he was proud and happy to be called the "American Woodman," and at his feet should stand the Eagle which he named the "Bird of Washington," and near should perch the Mocking Bird, as once, in his description, it flew and fluttered and sang to the mind's eye and ear from the pages of the old ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II., No. 5, November 1897 - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... it was understood that besides the fleet of swift, small power-boats employed night after night in this profitable game of mocking the Treasury Department, latterly the smugglers had been freighting their cargoes by means of airplanes that would be able to land the contraband stuff in lonely places far back of the ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... His hours of table service, ceasing to be wearisome, had become veritable social functions, for was there not always the chance of a random word and smile? Those failing, there was always the pleasure of watching Opdyke, now lounging lazily in his seat and mocking at his fellows, now bending forward above the table, heedless of his cooling plate, the while he harangued his companions with a facility which seemed to Scott ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... I understand now," he returned. "I would not have behaved as I did last time if I had understood; but I thought you were mocking me; and I am so made that I can not help being frightened at the darkness. I beg your pardon for leaving you as I did, for, as I say, I did not understand. Now I believe you were ...
— Harper's Young People, December 30, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... hein, beau cousin, for whom, it seems, you have an admiration," commented the lady, interrupting her account to sip her cup of cream and chocolate, with a little finger daintily cocked, and shoot a mocking shaft at the young philosopher from the ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... stood before the parlor mirror, gazing into it, seeing—not the reflected image of her own elfish figure, or pretty, witching face, with its round, polished forehead, its mocking eyes, its sunny, dancing curls, its piquant little nose, or petulant little lips—but contemplating, as through a magic glass, far down the vista of her childhood—childhood scarcely past, yet in its ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... all night, all day, in the house. A little way above the farmstead it comes through marshy ground, which I fear has been the cause of much illness and sorrow to the poor, troubled family. I had a thrill of pain, as it seemed to me that the brook was mocking at all that trouble with all its wild carelessness and loud laughter, as it ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... joy is e'er our woe and shame, With hard persistence plays her mocking game; Bestowing favors all inconstantly, Kindly to others now, and now to me. With me, I praise her; if her wings she lift To leave me, I resign her every gift, And, cloaked about in my own virtue's pride, Wed honest poverty, ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman
... and women,—more or less,— Have minds o' the self-same metal, mould, and form!— Doth not the infant love to sport and laugh, And tie a kettle to a puppy's tail?— Doth not the dimpled girl her 'kerchief don (Mocking her elder) mantilla wise—then speed To mass and noontide visits; where are bandied Smooth gossip-words of sugared compliment? But when at budding womanhood arrived, She casts aside all childish games, nor thinks Of aught save some gay paranymph—who, caught In love's stout meshes, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... lock, and vainly strives To make a football of the Freshman's beaver, Or the sage Sophomore's indented felt. Behold the foremost, with deliberate stride And slow, approach the chapel, tree-embowered, Entering composedly its gaping portal; Then, as the iron tongue goes on to rouse The mocking echoes with its call, arrive Others, with hastier step and heaving chest. Anon, some bound along divergent paths Which scar the grassy plain, and, with no pause For breath, press up the rocky stair. Straightway, A desperate few, with headlong, frantic ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... in confusion, with a titter of mocking laughter ringing in my ears. I longed to hide my face, and I vowed that I would make no more rash ventures. I was about to stride away when a hand touched me on the shoulder, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... wrote his Christmas in India I think he must have been in a dak-bungalow down with fever, otherwise he would hardly have painted such a very gloomy picture. I, at least, didn't find it a mocking Christmas—but then India isn't my grim stepmother, as Victor Ormonde pointed out to me the other night, I can afford to be home-sick, can afford to let myself think of the "black dividing sea and alien plain," because here I have no continuing city. It ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... sob hangs on the edge of the smile. As if it could no longer be contained, now pours the full passionate grief of the broad descending strain. Death fiddles his mournful chant to echoing, expressive wind. On the abandon of grief follows the revel of grim humor in pranks of mocking demons. All the strains are mingled in the ghostly bacchanale. The descending song is answered in opposite melody. A chorus of laughter follows the tripping dance. The summoning chords, acclaimed by chorus, grow to appealing song in a brief lull. At the height, to the united skipping ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... had done me a service, I responded with a grateful smile; besides, his aspect was peculiarly prepossessing. I guessed him to be about five-and-thirty. He had a clear olive complexion, black moustache and short silky vandyke beard, and the most fascinating, the most humorous, the most mocking, the most astonishingly bright eyes I have ever seen in my life. I murmured a few expressions of thanks, while he prolonged the handshake with the fervour of a ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... husband, enjoying the respect and sympathy of all to whom homage is paid, and who, one day, will be queen! I am the only one, I alone! I stand in the shade, despised and scorned, avoided and shunned by every one. Those who recognize me, do so with a mocking smile, and when I pass by they contemptuously shrug their shoulders and say to one another, 'That was Enke, the mistress of the Prince of Prussia!' All this shall be changed," she cried aloud; "I will not always be despised and degraded! I will be revenged on my crushed and scorned ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... short, the most extraordinary eyes in the world. Rouge had destroyed by this time the diaphanous tints of her cheeks, the flesh of which was still delicate; but although she could no longer blush or turn pale, she had a thin nose with rosy, passionate nostrils, made to express irony,—the mocking irony of Moliere's women-servants. Her sensual mouth, expressive of sarcasm and love of dissipation, was adorned with a deep furrow that united the upper lip with the nose. Her chin, white and ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... on his brother, his eyes blazing with swift rage. But Nicholas, with a single glance from his calm, mocking, but deeply penetrating eyes, once more arrested him. "This boy trusts you so, Anton, believes so utterly in your good faith, the impartial judgment of you and your worm, Zaremba, that even you, whose very blood is green, would be moved if you could hear him.—However—where's the manuscript ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... rain is all around us. It is going to come pouring down, And the summer will be fair to see, The mocking-bird ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... which the cultured mob are so fond of, together with its aspirations to the sublime, to the exalted and the distorted, have become. No: if we convalescents require an art at all, it is another art—-a mocking, nimble, volatile, divinely undisturbed, divinely artificial art, which blazes up like pure flame into a cloudless sky! But above all, an art for artists, only for artists! We are, after all, more conversant with that which is in the highest degree necessary—cheerfulness, ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... defy them all, now that we have once understood each other. If she were able to do far more than she can—if she could load the winds with accusations against you—if she could haunt my dreams, and raise you up in visions mocking at me—I believe she could not move me now. Before, I blamed myself—I thought I was lost in vanity and error: now that I have once had certainty, we ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... that in the picture Macaulay has drawn of Claverhouse the soldiers under his command, and by implication Claverhouse himself, figure as relieving their sterner duties by a curious form of relaxation. They would call each other, he says, by the names of devils and damned souls, mocking in their revels the torments of hell. The authority for this surprising statement is Robert Wodrow, who was not born when Claverhouse returned to Scotland, and whose history of the Scottish Church was not published till more than thirty years after the battle of Killiecrankie.[18] ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... their excessively scrupulous conscience in these matters, that the name "Puritan" was given to the Calvinist by his enemy, at first a mocking designation analogous to "Catharus" in the Middle Ages. But the tide set strongly in the Puritan direction. Time and again the Commons tried to initiate legislation to relieve the consciences of the stricter party, but their efforts were blocked by the crown. From this time forth the church of England ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... Her mocking invitation spurred him to make the effort, so he removed the skees and waded a short distance up the hill. When he had secured his feet in position for a second ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... quickly, turning pale; 'do I hear aright, Milo, or are you mocking? God forbid that you should speak of ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... dearth of news. I need not say how suddenly and completely this affectation was laughed out of sight by the coming of the "humorous" writer, whose existence is justified by the excellent service he performed in clearing the tearful atmosphere. His keen and mocking method, which is quite distinct from the humor of Goldsmith and Irving, and differs, in degree at least, from the comic almanac exaggeration and coarseness which preceded it, puts its foot on every bud of sentiment, holds few things sacred, and refuses to regard anything ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... He became an independent preacher, and as such had many friends among the reformers, chief among whom was Calvin. His intimacy with Calvin led the more radical reformers to be suspicious of him, and not without reason. Walter Besant tells us that, "One hears he is a buffoon—he is always mocking and always laughing. That is perfectly true. He laughs at the pretensions of pope, cardinal, bishop, and priest; he laughs at monkery and monks; he mocks at the perpetual iteration of litanies; he laughs at the ignorance and superstition which he thinks are ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... turned towards the gray distance. Lois's vivid eye caught the full meaning of the woman beside him. The face hurt her: not fair, as Polston called it: vapid and cruel. She was dressed in yellow: the colour seemed jeering and mocking to the girl's sensitive instinct, keenly alive to every trifle. She did not know that it is the colour of shams, and that women like this are the most deadly of shams. As the phaeton went slowly down, Margret came nearer, meeting it on the road-side, the dust from the wheels ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... is on the track, The drought fiend holds his sway, With blows and cries and stockwhip crack We take the stock away. As they fall we leave them lying, With the crows to watch them dying, Grim sextons of the Overland that fasten on their prey; By the fiery dust-storm drifting, And the mocking mirage shifting, In heat and drought and hopeless pain we take ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... off—of their grandmother's death-bed, and Hawthorne writes it all down in his journal with minute realism. His genius felt some appeal in it that let him go on unchecked in the transcript of baby-life mocking death in all ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... the blow of her cold lips, the curse of her stony eyes. She has seen, she has learnt; I feel it, I know it. Yet she winds her arms around my neck, and calls me sweetheart, and smoothes my hair with her soft, false hands. We speak mocking words of love to one another, but I know her cruel eyes are ever following me. She is plotting her revenge, and I hate her, I hate ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... and Sir Gawaine reproached Sir Kay for his mocking of the young man, 'for,' said Sir Lancelot, 'I dare lay my head he hath the making of a man of ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... banker's clerk handed it over the counter to me, instead of the heavy envelope I had hoped for, it was a thin slip of an affair that fluttered away from my hand. It was so very slim and light that I feared to open it there, lest it should be but a mocking envelope, nothing more. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... out" that other friends were "somewhere in Europe." She expressed the wish that such correspondents as that might be in a place that was not at all vague. Two or three times people had called at the hotel when they were out and had left cards for them without an address and superscribed with some mocking dash of the pencil—"So sorry to miss you!" or "Off to-morrow!" The girl sat looking at these cards, handling them and turning them over for a quarter of an hour at a time; she produced them days afterwards, brooding upon ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... Lead forth manfully, March in order all; Bustling, hustling, justling, As it may befall; Flocking, shouting, laughing, Mocking, flouting, quaffing, One and all; All have had a belly-full Of breakfast brave and plentiful; Therefore Evermore With your voices and your bodies Serve the goddess, And raise Songs of praise; She shall save the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner |
