"Popinjay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is sung to the knell Of a churchyard bell, And a doleful dirge, ding dong, O! It's a song of a popinjay, bravely born, Who turned up his noble nose with scorn At the humble merrymaid, peerly proud, Who loved a lord, and who laughed aloud At the moan of the merryman, moping mum, Whose soul was sad, and whose glance was glum, Who sipped no sup, and who craved no crumb, As he sighed for the ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... scene, their dusty attire (albeit rich enough beneath the marks of travel), sun-burned visages and stolid manner in marked contrast with the bearing and aspect of the king's gay following. One of the alien troop pulled a red mustachio fiercely and eyed a blithe popinjay of the court with quizzical superiority; the others remained, ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... much enraged, having been so long making a breach, at great loss, which was eighty paces wide, that fifty men of their front rank should enter in, only to find a rampart stronger than the wall. They threw themselves upon the poor cats, and shot them with arquebuses as men shoot at the popinjay. ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... The Popinjay or Popingo (signifying painted bird) is a very favourite and popular diversion in Denmark, and of which it may be interesting to give some account. A society is constituted of various members, called the "King's Shooting Club," who have a code of laws and regulations drawn up for their ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various
... Quincangrogne, because it was a lonely place, far from other habitations. The husband and the wife were thus both in his service, and he had by La Beaupertuys a daughter, who died a nun. This Nicole had a tongue as sharp as a popinjay's, was of stately proportions, furnished with large beautiful cushions of nature, firm to the touch, white as the wings of an angel, and known for the rest to be fertile in peripatetic ways, which brought it to pass that never with her was the same thing encountered twice ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... me with his sword, "is that 'gamin' yonder like an artillery-driver? or is it to a drummer-boy you intrust the caisson of an eight-pounder gun? Dismount, sirrah, and come hither," cried he to me, in a voice that sounded like an order for instant execution. "This popinjay dress of yours must have been the fancy of some worthy shop-keeper of the 'Quai Lepelletier;' it never could belong to any regular corps. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... more,' she said, 'but a mere Flanders popinjay. It has changed my ain self upon me, as well ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the popinjay officer reckoned without his host, for that gentleman had the most indomitable eyes in Arizona. It was not necessary for him to stiffen his will to meet the other's attack. His manner was still lazy, ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... "Grinning old popinjay!" thought Mr. Parkinson; and envied him and internally noted, and with an unholy fervor cursed, the adroitness of intonation and the discreetly modulated gesture with which the colonel gave to every point of his merry-Andrewing its ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... victims, sooth their egoism by arrogating the whole agency to themselves, thus giving it a specious appearance of the volitional, and even of the audacious. The average man is an almost incredible popinjay; he can think of himself only as at the centre of situations. All the sordid transactions of his life appear to him, and are depicted in his accounts of them, as feats, successes, proofs of his acumen. He regards it as an almost magical exploit to operate ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... him, if he is through and through dilettante, jack-of-all-trades, he is a man only less poverty-stricken than a tramp. He has the illusion of efficiency. He wonders that society generally judges that he is not worth his salt, that on every battlefield Hotspur curses him for a popinjay, that in every company of master workmen met for council he is at most a tolerated guest. The judgment upon him—not my judgment, but the judgment which the days thrust in his face—is this: that when there is ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... stirred a murmur of surprise in the gathering. "Did the pink and gold popinjay beat you?" Montigny asked, interpreting ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... grain that is the bread of man, chanting the hymn used at seed-time, calling on the mother earth to make the green herb spring, and on Ukko to send clouds and rain. So the corn sprang, and the golden cuckoo—which in Finland plays the part of the popinjay in Scotch ballads, or of the three golden birds in Greek folksongs—came with his congratulations. In regard to the epithet 'golden,' it may be observed that gold and silver, in the Finnish epic, are lavished on the commonest objects of ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... Uxbridge were familiarly known as Bible Grainge and Gridiron Grainge. Many animal surnames are to be referred partly to this source, e.g. Bull, Hart, Lamb, Lyon, Ram, Roebuck, Stagg; Cock, Falcon, Peacock, Raven, Swann, etc., all still common as tavern signs. The popinjay, or parrot, is still occasionally found as Pobgee, Popjoy. These surnames all have, of course, an alternative explanation (ch. xxiii.). Here also ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... "A pretty popinjay, brought out for my lady's amusement!" said the stranger, smiling; "you make rare sport with your antic tricks, at the fort ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... talking-birds. These are not so common as in Maerchen, but still are very general, and cause no surprise to their human listeners. The omniscient popinjay, who "up and spoke" in the Border minstrelsy, is of the same family of birds as those that, according to Talvj, pervade Servian song; as the [Greek: tria poulakia] which introduce the story in the Romaic ballads; as the wise birds whose speech is still understood by exceptionally ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... in procession to the bonfire, and even deigned to light it; after which the assembly marched thrice round the burning pile. At Aix a nominal king, chosen from among the youth for his skill in shooting at a popinjay, presided over the midsummer festival. He selected his own officers, and escorted by a brilliant train marched to the bonfire, kindled it, and was the first to dance round it. Next day he distributed largesse to his followers. His reign lasted ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... describes the sport, "Shooting at the Popinjay," "as an ancient game formerly practised with archery, but at this period (1679) with firearms. This was the figure of a bird decked with parti-coloured feathers, so as to resemble a popinjay or ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Grace," answered Hugh, "for whom I have a message that he will be glad to hear, and, popinjay, this for yourself; were it not for his presence it is you who should stop upon the road till you ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... emphasis; "that brief little word does, indeed, so far explain your mystery;—but come from behind the chair, you silly popinjay! I will wager you have suffered yonder gay young apprentice to sit too near your heart. I have not heard you mention young Vincent for many a day—perhaps he has not been out of mouth and out of mind both. Have you been so foolish as to let him speak to you seriously?—I ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... MARCH, 1737.... Prince von Mirow was here yesterday; and tried shooting at the popinjay with us; he cannot see rightly, and shoots always with ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... the popinjay is an amusing dog—tells a story; sings a song; and saves us the trouble of flattering the Queen. What does she care for old politicians and campfed bears like us? No: Apollodorus is good ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... "'That —— milk-and-water popinjay to come courting my Poll. So see you follow Gregory, mistress, and without wait or parley come with him to the Peacock Inn, where I lie to-night. The grays are in fine fettle and thy black mare grows too fat for want of exercise. Thy mother-in-law commands thy instant return ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... all ruled with a rod of iron. For the most part it swayed lightly, with a certain moral effect only over the head of the rank and file, but it grew to a crushing beam for the officer who did not with alacrity habitually attend to his every duty, great or small. The do-nothing, the popinjay, the intractable, the self-important, the remonstrant, the I thought, sir—the It is due to my dignity, sir—none of these flourished in the Army of the Valley. The tendencies had been there, of course; they came up ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... ended. Again the matter of clothes was harped upon. The three gorgeously caparisoned chamberlains, who had inducted me to the shelter, laid before me changes of raiment bedecked with every imaginable kind of frippery, and would have me transform myself into a popinjay in fashion like ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... me of little else that signifies. I met a lady there with whom I had some talk, a friar, a fool, a popinjay, and some soldiers. But,"—he shifted abruptly, his tone growing haughty—"whatever I did, I did as best seemed to me, and I have yet to learn that the Count of Aquila must give account of what he does and where he does it. You have not told me yet, sir, by what right, ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... and of course I'm glad you don't. You'd be a detestably conceited popinjay if you did. But I do, and in a strictly limited way I'm going to explain it to you for your own good, and as a warning. I can't explain it fully without treason to my own sex. But I'll tell you this much: you have a singularly ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... over, a loud shout announced that the competitors were about to step forth for the shooting of the popinjay— the figure of a bird suspended to a pole. When a slender young man, dressed with great simplicity, yet with an air of elegance, his dark-green cloak thrown back over his shoulder, approached the station with his fusee in his hand, there was a ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various |
