"Sarcasm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... satire on erecting stately monuments to worthless men. The following advice is nobly moral, the subsequent sarcasm just and ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... to enjoy himself there. He had found himself, had lost that craven fear of the Speaker that paralyzes most new members. He knew when to speak and when to be silent; and when he spoke unsuspected gifts of biting sarcasm, clever characterization, convincing scorn of the uneducated minister type came to his aid. His tongue played round his victims, unequipped as they were with his vast experience of reality, vaguely discursive, on the surface as are ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... carefully veiled sarcasm Liddy relapsed into gloom. Warner came in then with a handful of small tools, and Mr. Jamieson went with him to the basement. Oddly enough, I was not alarmed. With all my heart I wished for Halsey, but I was not frightened. At the door he was to force, Warner ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of egotism and self-importance to note her sarcasm, the young man beamed with self-satisfaction ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... machinery. Fanatical reformers have proclaimed its injurious effects; and it may have such; but they are a thousand times compensated by its value as a bond of union to the elements of the domestic circle. The tea-table has been the butt of many a jest and sarcasm, as a fountain of gossip and slander. This may be true; but the security it furnishes against the dissipation of the elements of the social circle outweighs thousands of such trifles, and we half suspect that this objection was originated, ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... English populace, as distinct from the French populace or the Scotch or Irish populace, may be said to lie between those two types. The first is the poor man who does not assert himself at all, and the second is the poor man who asserts himself entirely with the weapon of sarcasm. The only way in which the English now ever rise in revolution is under the symbol and leadership of Trabb's boy. What pikes and shillelahs were to the Irish populace, what guns and barricades were to the French populace, that chaff is to the English populace. It is their ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... the sarcasm in Hugo's tones. He heard only what he was pleased to take as a compliment to his own abilities. "Why, I believe thou art right," he answered. "Were I to make the plans, some that are now at the top would ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... most sarcastic member of the club, being celebrated for his sarcasm far and wide. It was a remarkable thing about him, often spoken of, that if you went to Tammas with a stranger and asked him to say a sarcastic thing that the man might take away as a specimen, he could not do it. "Na, na," Tammas would say, after ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... you wouldn't call on me when I invited you," said Helen, with poorly veiled sarcasm. It was this that made her bitter; she could never forget that she had asked this man to come to see her, ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... hung over it, smiled at it, brightening into delight at the echo of her own feelings! In the raillery of Rosalind her heart found words to speak; and her sense and wit were awakened by the sarcasm of the same character. "Pray you, no more of this: 'tis like the howling of Irish wolves against the moon," came like a healthy tonic after a week of ecstasy spent ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... instead of sandy, passed the tedious moments of waiting in a running commentary upon the idiosyncrasies and oddities of the people and refreshments of the past hours, with a verve which she fondly believed to be a combination of sarcasm and cynicism, but which, in reality, was the kernel of the nut of spitefulness, hanging from the withering bough of the ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... evening, took no notice of him, and when his eyes met Louis', they bore no more consciousness of his presence than if he had been a piece of stone. Frank Digby did not tease Louis, but he let fall many insinuations, and a few remarks so bitter in their sarcasm, that Reginald more than once looked up with a glance so threatening in its fierceness, that it checked even that audacious speaker. Even little Alfred was not allowed to sit with Louis; though Hamilton made no remark, nor even alluded to the subject to ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... astonishment deepened yet more, if that were possible, when he found that the license of five hundred dollars a year for each saloon was used by the town to support the public school system. That, to Philip's mind, was an awful sarcasm on Christian civilization. It seemed to him like selling a man poison according to law, and then taking the money from the sale to help the widow to purchase mourning. It was full as ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... was poor, I didn't mention him," replied Mendel, with unintentional sarcasm. "But I've heard from him several times. We both came over from Poland together, but the Board of Guardians sent him and a lot of others on ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... bear the shame of telling, you can at least bear that of listening. Remember that knowing—knowing what you know, or at least what you have heard—you could come here and propose marriage to me!' This she said with a cold, cutting sarcasm which sounded like the rasping of a roughly-sharpened knife through raw flesh. Harold groaned in spirit; he felt a weakness which began at his heart to steal through him. It took all his manhood to bear himself erect. He dreaded what was coming, as of old the once- tortured victim dreaded ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... of sarcasm in his voice, the tiresome attorney ventured to observe: "I sincerely trust that I am not unduly trespassing on the time of ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... this sally, seeing which the indignant Ike turned the tables upon Budge with an admirable piece of sarcasm. ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... less than genius—genius to observe, to narrate, and to judge. Even had he written as a mere recluse and critic, looking out upon his world from a monk's cell or from the corner of a housetop, the vividness, the tenderness, the sarcasm and the humour would still have been there. But Knox's genius was predominantly practical; and the difference between the transformation which befell him, and that which changed so many other men in his time, was that in Knox's case it changed ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... of the Depot, with a shade of sarcasm in his voice, "that so much trouble, and such marvelous penetration, ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... for which was carried without a negative; and then the house being resumed, the debate was cut short by the impatience of the majority to go and drink her majesty's health. This seeming violence gave occasion to a very long protest, drawn up by sir Archee Mac Sarcasm, in which he contrived to state the claim of the departed foetus so artfully, that it produced a civil war, and gave rise to those bloody ravages and massacres which so long laid waste the ancient kingdom of Kilkenny, and which were at last terminated by a lucky accident, well known, ...
— Hieroglyphic Tales • Horace Walpole
... had swung her away from him, until he was holding her at arm's length. He looked at her, from between narrowed lids, and there was bitter sarcasm in his eyes. ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... other side of the Chamber, for he could neither be cowed by threats nor restrained within the limits of punctilious courtesy. He dealt with them in the plainest language, and combined with powerful effect argument, sarcasm, and eloquent denunciation. Strong sense is a leading feature of his character, and a practical wisdom which renders him eminently capable in the discharge of details. In private life, he is genial and always good-natured, ready for a joke at all times, and enjoys his leisure hours ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... quiet for five minutes?" Maurice said. Johnny whistled and, behind his spectacles, made big eyes at Edith. "What's he got on his little chest?" Johnny inquired. But Maurice was deaf to sarcasm.... "It all goes ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... trace of sarcasm in this outburst? Serena was, for the moment, suspicious. She tried her hardest to look very ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Charles Edmonstone is. He has lost that spirit of repining and sarcasm, and lives as ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... expressed a truth, but in that case a tone of sarcasm must have winged them. As it was, they involved either hypocrisy or ungenerous irony at the expense of his questioner. Buckland could not but understand them in the latter sense; his face darkened. At that moment, Peak met his eye, and encountered its steady searching gaze with a perfectly calm smile. ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... sea?" said Bill in gentle sarcasm. Bill's aversion to the sea amounts almost to malevolence. She is ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... itself! In what rapt creative moment the Thought rose in Anacharsis's soul; all his throes, while he went about giving shape and birth to it; how he was sneered at by cold worldlings; but did sneer again, being a man of polished sarcasm; and moved to and fro persuasive in coffeehouse and soiree, and dived down assiduous-obscure in the great deep of Paris, making his Thought a Fact: of all this the spiritual biographies of that period say nothing. Enough that on the 19th evening of ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... a job that'll be easy to get?" said the third, with deep sarcasm—"say Prime Minister, or King of England. You've about as much chance of getting them ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... much with sarcasm and satire. These are weapons which are too sharply polished, and therefore too dangerous, to place in the hands of children. For here again, as in the case of analysis, they can only have a very incomplete conception of the case. They do not know the real ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... the mere enjoyment of putting her plans into words and Moffatt laughed too, but with an edge of sarcasm. ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... returned to their work now; but Wiry Ben, having had the worst in the bodily contest, was bent on retrieving that humiliation by a success in sarcasm. ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... arriere pensee of my phrase struck me, not by its own humour, but through the grave, kindly smile on the father's face. There was a pleasant sarcasm ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... Heinrich,—Your last letter was so cheerful that I have quite recovered from my depression. It may not be so long now before ...' and so on, like the other letters that I had read. It grinned at us there with a devilish sarcasm, but its trousers and boots were pitiful and human. The men finished the grave and then, with their feet, turned it over. As it rolled a flood of bright yellow insects swarmed out of its jacket, and a grey liquid trickled out of the skull. The last I saw of it was the ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... and women, beginning at the great-grandmother of the community, who illustrated to perfection the grim sarcasm of the fifth commandment. She had worked hard from morning till night, until too old to do so longer, and now hung around with aching weariness waiting for the grave. She generally poured into my cars a wail about her "rheumatisms", and "How long it do be waiting for ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... stage, destroying tyrants and delivering nations, and whose prodigies will still live in the memories of men ages after their monuments shall have crumbled to dust—I refer to the Wellington and Nelson monuments, and—the Albert memorial. [Sarcasm. The Albert memorial is the finest monument in the world, and celebrates the existence of as commonplace a person as good luck ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... his pleasure without me, and not to associate me with the ideas this new place gives him, is not that enough? Ah! I am no more loved by that great brain than I was by the musician, by the poet, by the soldier! Sterne is right; names signify much; mine is a bitter sarcasm. I shall die without finding in any man the love which fills my heart, the poesy that I have ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... executioner. He traced it to the Commentaries of Cardan, an astrologer, not a very trustworthy authority, who had himself heard it, he said, from "an unknown Bishop of Lexovia." "Unknown," observed Freeman, with biting sarcasm, "to no one who has studied the history of Julius Caesar or of Henry II." Froude had not been aware that Lexovia was the ancient name for the modern Lisieux, and for twenty years he was periodically reminded of the fact. Had he followed Freeman's methods, he might have asked whether ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... had just now been all humility, raised herself to her full height, and in a tone of bitterest sarcasm said slowly,— ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... she was acutely present to his consciousness—the woman's beauty, the child's innocence, the suffering and the strength in her face. "As you would be forgiven!" That was a further insult, it seemed to him. To talk of Rose wanting forgiveness. Then a strange kind of sarcasm took hold of him. So it was; she had not been able to believe in himself; he, Edmund, had not been ideal in any sense. Therefore she had passed him by, and then a hero had come whom she had worshipped, ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... sure," said Smathers with just the barest trace of sarcasm, which, fortunately, fell unheeded on MacNeil's ears. "But which ones ...
— Cum Grano Salis • Gordon Randall Garrett
... these mountains were once below the sea, Voltaire, recognising in this an argument for the deluge of Noah, ridiculed the new thinker without mercy. Unfortunately, some of De Maillet's vagaries lent themselves admirably to Voltaire's sarcasm; better material for it could hardly be conceived than the theory, seriously proposed, that the first human being was ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... but with an undertone that hurt Rafael deeply. There was a ring of sarcasm, of unspeakable scorn in it, which reminded the young man of Mephisto's mirth during his infernal serenade ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the girl hesitatingly, for she thought she detected sarcasm in his voice, and she had to look twice at him to make sure—and then she couldn't have told. "The gentleman on the ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... with ponderous sarcasm, "you'll be delighted to hear that I'm getting on uncommonly well—oh, uncommonly! Your high-spirited young friends batter me to sleep with slippers on most nights, and, as a general thing, kick me about during the day like a confounded football! ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... that Justinian died a heretic, adds, "The reigns of his four successors, Justin, Tiberius, Maurice, and Phocas, are distinguished by a rare, though fortunate, vacancy in the ecclesiastical history {23} of the East"; and the sarcasm, though not wholly accurate, may serve to express the gradual progress of unity which marked the years up to the accession of Heraclius. The history of religion is concerned rather with those outside than those ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton
... jury was one of fierce and terrible eloquence. Every art of persuasion, every trick of oratory, every force of personality he used with pitiless power. In ridicule, sarcasm, invective, pathos and logic, his voice rose and fell, pulsed and quivered, or rang with the peal of a trumpet. He held the jury in the hollow of his hand for four hours, while Ruth stared at him with her heart ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... is not probable that much will be done. They think Brougham speaks too often in the House of Lords, but he has done very well there; and on Friday he made a reply to Lord Stanhope, which was the most beautiful piece of sarcasm and complete cutting-up (though with very good humour) that ever was heard, and an exhibition to the like of which the Lords have not been accustomed. The Duke of Wellington made another imprudent speech, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... your Texas chilvaree over the ladies is some operatin'," retorted Anson, with fine sarcasm. "But thet ain't tellin' ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... sententious way; and he must have fostered the boy's natural strong spirit of revolt. Adolph loathed authority, especially the authority of irresponsible court officials; and in some of his preserved letters he lashes these gentry, the scum of humanity and the parasites of courts, with scathing sarcasm. His sarcasm had no practical result, because the officials never saw it—if they had they would have shrugged their fat shoulders and gone to draw their comfortable salaries. But he taught Wagner that officialdom is the curse of the human race; and in after years that certainly ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... judged by these people, on whom rhetorical artifices have long ceased to take effect; and to whom mere dexterity in putting together cleverly ambiguous phrases, and even the great art of offensive misrepresentation, are unspeakably wearisome. And, if that weariness finds its expression in sarcasm, the offender really has no right to cry out. Assuredly ridicule is no test of truth, but it is the righteous meed of some kinds of error. Nor ought the attempt to confound the expression of a revolted sense of fair dealing with arrogant impatience of contradiction, to ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... diligence, as if diligence and he were not familiars;' and the fact that Raleigh would sometimes write twice and thrice to him in one day, and on a single occasion at least, four times, proves that Cecil had a right to use this mild sarcasm. Several months before, Raleigh had attempted by his manifesto entitled The Spanish Alarum to stir up the Government to be in full readiness to guard against a revengeful invasion of England by her old enemy. He had thought out the whole situation, ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... 13, that the writings of Infidels, "have been injurious not so much by the strength of their arguments, as by the positive, and contemptuous manner In which they speak of Revelation, they abound in sarcasm, abuse, and sneer, and supply the place of reasoning, by wit and satire." If so sir, it is all in favor of the cause you defend; for the tiny weapons of wit, and ridicule, will assuredly fly to shivers under a few blows from the solid, and ...
— Letter to the Reverend Mr. Cary • George English
... engaged, and every single division had been beaten back. For four days, according to General Pope, they had been following a flying foe. "We were sent forward," reported a regimental commander with quiet sarcasm, "to pursue the enemy, who was said to be retreating; we found the enemy, but did not see ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... scrupulous courtesy of manner, but with a tone of sarcasm in his voice which caught the doctor's ear, and set up the doctor's controversial ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... assembly. He sedulously remained in the background until he had something of importance to say, but he then delivered his message with a skill, force, and animation that carried all his hearers irresistibly away. His logic, wit, and sarcasm, his clear voice, flashing eyes, and vigorous power of declamation, used only when the occasion was important, gave him in time almost absolute control in Athens, and had he sought to make himself a despot he ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... taken the poet instead to the vulgar respectability of Kennington! Leonard Upjohn described Kennington with that restrained humour which a strict adherence to the vocabulary of Sir Thomas Browne necessitated. With delicate sarcasm he narrated the last weeks, the patience with which Cronshaw bore the well-meaning clumsiness of the young student who had appointed himself his nurse, and the pitifulness of that divine vagabond in those hopelessly middle-class ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... Scotchman, and Englishmen had not wholly forgiven or forgotten the Scotch invasion of 1745. Since that time the Scotch had been regarded with general disfavor; Scotch poverty and Scotch greediness for the good things of England had furnished constant topics for raillery and sarcasm; and more than one demagogue and political writer had sought popularity by pandering to the prevailing taste for attacks on the whole nation. Foremost among these was Mr. John Wilkes, member for Aylesbury, a man of broken fortunes ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... the same thing, [Footnote: "The same thing":—Thus, in the calendar of the Church Festivals, the discovery of the true cross (by Helen, the mother of Constantine) is recorded (and, one might think, with the express consciousness of sarcasm) as the Invention of the Cross.] discover) the satellites of Jupiter, those very next things extant to mail-coaches in the two capital pretensions of speed and keeping time, but, on the other hand, who did not marry the daughter of ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... those disparaging insinuations which crowd the pages of this elaborate history? What reader suspends his curiosity, or calls off his attention from the principal narrative, to examine references, to search into the foundation, or to weigh the reason, propriety, and force of every transient sarcasm and sly allusion, by which the Christian testimony is depreciated and traduced; and by which, nevertheless, he may find his persuasion afterwards ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... Mr. Robert, tossing back the letter, "you answer the lady in your own direct and lucid way. You might suggest that we are neither highwaymen nor the Associated Charities, using any little whim of sarcasm that ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... The sarcasm which the lawyer threw into the playful banter of his tone was not lost on the financier. The mask of his cunning, dark visage was not slipped for a moment ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... extensive and various reading administered abundant resource; and he indulged it not less to the gratification of his auditory than to the aid of his cause. In such tactics, Mr. Wirt was well versed. In sarcasm and invective he was often exceedingly strong, and denounced with a power that made transgressors tremble; but the bent of his nature being kindly and tolerant of error, he took more pleasure in exciting the laugh, than in conjuring the spirit of ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... Tito that would apprise him of her late interview with Baldassarre, and the revelation he had made to her. What would such agitating, difficult words win from him? No admission of the truth; nothing, probably, but a cool sarcasm about her sympathy with his assassin. Baldassarre was evidently helpless: the thing to be feared was, not that he should injure Tito, but that Tito, coming upon his traces, should carry out some new scheme ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... the other in calm disregard of the sarcasm, "straighter and more indisputable, if anything. We are asking, as you will remember, how an arrow could have been carried from the southern to the northern gallery without attracting anyone's attention. I will show ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... Plekoskaya said with mild irritation and sarcasm. "I merely bend at the knees and hips and have a lunch of a weight adequate enough to keep me from floating off my chair and rushing about seeking trouble. Of course it takes years of experience to learn how to do this and most important, when." In kindlier tones ...
— I Was a Teen-Age Secret Weapon • Richard Sabia
... say what you wish. You would not let me go to mass. You would not let me fulfill my duty to God!" she said with such sarcasm as she alone knew how ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... arms in despair: "Oh, no," he asserted, emphasizing the ponderous sarcasm of his words with a dolorous shaking of the head, "he ain't no horse-thief. He's—judge of the supreme court. An' the reason he lives in the bad lands is because all the judges of the supreme court lives ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... that one's displeasure was plain enough at last; but not a bit of it. So far from resenting the rebuff, the fellow plucked my sleeve, and I saw at a glance that he had not even listened to my too elaborate sarcasm. ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... with this little piece of sarcasm. He was a good cricketer and a fine runner, but in school everybody knew him to be as poor a scholar as a fellow could be to be in the sixth ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... keen eyes wuz full of tears, and I knowed she would never stir him up agin with the sharp harrer of her irony and sarcasm if she had ever so good a chance. Josiah took out his bandanna and blowed his nose hard. He's tender-hearted. We knowed sunthin' how he felt; wuzn't we all, Dorothy, Miss Meechim, Arvilly, Robert Strong, ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... Aristotle, and of all those who disliked any innovation or change in the established order of things. The antagonism which existed between Galileo and his opponents, who were both numerous and influential, was intensified by the bitterness and sarcasm which he imparted into his controversies, and the attitude assumed by his enemies at last became so threatening that he deemed it prudent to resign the Chair of Mathematics in the ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... way to do them. People who did not think as he thought didn't THINK at all. On this drastic premise he went to work. There was of course continuous friction between him and the House of Burgesses. Dinwiddie had all a Scot's native talent for sarcasm. His letters, his addresses, perhaps in particular his addresses to the House, bristled with satirical thrusts at his opponents. If he had spelled out in full all the words he was so eager to write, he would have been obliged to lessen his output; so he used a shorthand system of his own, peculiar ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... to be saved and go with you and me to a better world by right of its possession, has less of it that this poor silly quadruped that's foreordained to perish"; and then he laughed, and said: "Why, look at me—I'm a sarcasm! bless you, with all my grand intelligence, the only think I inferred was that the dog had gone mad and was destroying the child, whereas but for the beast's intelligence—it's REASON, I tell you!—the child ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... of a young man whom he at first regarded as a somewhat facile, talkative and histrionic person. Ingram perceived, for example, that young Lavender had so little regard for public affairs that he would have been quite content to see our Indian empire go for the sake of eliciting a sarcasm from Lord Westbury; but at the same time, if you had appealed to his nobler instincts, and placed before him the condition of a certain populace suffering from starvation, he would have done all in his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... the name of this lady who knows more about my own house than I do?" asked Miss Grayson with unconcealed sarcasm. ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... higher rank than his own. Hence arose great difficulty in arranging the marriages of girls and sometimes the payment of a price to the bridegroom; while in order to retain the favour of the Bhats and avoid their sarcasm, lavish expenditure had to be incurred by the bride's father on presents to these rapacious mendicants. [469] Thus a daughter became in a Rajput's eyes a long step on the road to ruin, and female infanticide ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... or rather the lucky, Chevalier, nothing human ever received a hotter shower of surmise and sarcasm. That he was "an impostor, a swindler, a spy," was the Earl's conviction, declared in the most public manner. The whole body of matrons looked round on their blooming innocents, as if they had been snatched from the jaws of a legion of wolves and thanked their own ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... certain that pursuit is not preferable to revolving unsuccessfully through a cycle of professions,' said Mallinson in slow sarcasm. ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... from drivers and guides, consisted of four men—Major Abaza, chief of Asiatic exploration, Dodd the young American, whom we had engaged in Petropavlovsk, Viushin (view'-shin) a Cossack orderly, and myself. The biting sarcasm directed by Mithridates at the army of Lucullus—that if they came as ambassadors they were too many, if as soldiers too few—would have applied with equal force to our small party made up as it was of only four men; but strength is not ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... may be so bold as to ask, madam, where are you going?" he asked, with deep sarcasm ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... out with Boswell, for Oxford, where he remained about a fortnight, with Dr. Adams, the master of Pembroke, his old college. In his discourse, there was the same alternation of gloominess and gaiety, the same promptness of repartee, and keenness of sarcasm, as there had ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... superiority, thinking to annihilate the old Grecian, exclaimed "We have no opinion of his scholarship." Irate at this stupid pronunciamento against so renowned a man, young Landor looked up, and, with a sarcasm the point of which was not in the least blunted by age, retorted, "We, my Lord?" Of course such unheard of audacity and contempt of my Lord Bishop's capacity for criticism was severely reprobated by Landor Senior; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... pain at the thought of parting from money on such a scale. His earlier plans concerning Maggie had never contemplated any such extravagance. But he was silenced by the dominant force behind Barney's sarcasm. ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... Holliday's son then for the help that has saved my life,' said the medical student, speaking to himself, with a singular sarcasm in ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... in together, we both escaped unhurt; yet it was the bloodiest one we had ever been in. Of all the honours of Malplaquet, the Monroes had their full share; for, although the Duke did not like the Scots, and used at times to throw a sarcasm at their country, he always gave them a situation of danger, either from dislike or a reliance on their courage. About twelve months after Malplaquet, your father left the service and retired into France. Peace was now evidently at hand, and an armistice ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... side; she said in their hearing that she would as soon think of eating with the other cattle—a remark which embarrassed these poor devils merely because it referred to them, and not because it insulted or offended them, for it didn't. And yet they were not slaves, not chattels. By a sarcasm of law and phrase they were freemen. Seven-tenths of the free population of the country were of just their class and degree: small "independent" farmers, artisans, etc.; which is to say, they were the nation, the actual Nation; they were about all of it that was useful, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... honors badly, and the inability to express their dissatisfaction by means of violence had a bad effect on the tempers of the crew. Sarcasm they did try, but at that the cook could more than hold his own, and, although the men doubted his ability at first, he was able to prove to them by actual experiment that he could cook worse than ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... indescribable charm of mischievous sweetness. The silver arrows of her pungent wit have no barb, for evidently she does not mean that they shall really wound. Her appearance and carriage are beautiful, and her tones melt into music. There is no hint of the virago here, and even the tone of sarcasm is superficial. It is archness playing over kindness that is presented here." On her Ophelia, Mr. Winter remarks: "Ophelia is an image, or personification of innocent, delirious, feminine youth and beauty, and ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... this bitter sarcasm, the unhappy wretch was put into the cutter, and was soon left far behind. He made no effort to row, but was seen lying on his back with his legs up, when last made out by the ...
— Holiday Romance • Charles Dickens
... You have found out by that time all that there is to look for—the daily diminishing interest in your doings, the poorly assumed attention as you attempt to talk over some plan for the future; then the yawn, and by degrees, the covert sneer, the little sarcasm, and finally, the frank, open stare of boredom. Ah, Duke, when you all carry out your repressive legislation against women of evil lives, don't fail to include in your schedule the Unsympathetic Wives. They are the women whose victims ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero
... too,' I observed, a mixture of sarcasm and flippancy in my tones, I fear. 'You mean twonique, ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... Goldsmith than any man that I can compare him to: in his conversation, his apparent confusion of ideas ending with some felicitous phrase of genius, his naivete, his simplicity not untouched with a dash of sarcasm affecting innocence—one was often reminded of the gifted and interesting friend of Burke and Johnson. There was, however, one trait in which my father did not resemble Goldsmith: he had no vanity. Indeed, one of his few infirmities was ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Chesapeake, without raising the other question of the right of search and impressment, then His Majesty could only send a special envoy to the United States to terminate the controversy in a manner satisfactory to both countries. "But," added Canning with sarcasm which was not lost on Monroe, "in order to avoid the inconvenience which has arisen from the mixed nature of your instructions, that minister will not be empowered to entertain... any proposition respecting the ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... the Countess, as she previously had done, pursued her with every manner of hatred which a woman knows how to inflict: there was no end to the ingenuity of her tortures, the venom of her tongue, the bitterness of her sarcasm and scorn. When I first came to Court at X—, the young fellows there had nicknamed the young lady the Dumme Grafinn, the stupid Countess. She was generally silent, handsome, but pale, stolid-looking, and awkward; taking no interest ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... widow, her eyes flashing fire. "Go, heartless man! who dares to trifle thus with the feelings of a respectable and unprotected woman. Go, sir, you're only fit for the love of a—Dolly—Coddlins!" She pronounced the Coddlins with a withering sarcasm that struck the captain aghast; and, sailing out of the room, she left her tea untasted, and did not wish either of ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... many weeks, with one day's startling break, to be the sole preoccupation of the defenders. The enemy, even on this first day of January, were not willing to leave the garrison in doubt as to their presence, although, despite the possible touch of sarcasm, there was a grim sort of friendliness in their reminder. It again took the form of blind shells—this time fired from the Free State batteries—inscribed "Compliments of the Season." The ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... of telegraphs?" Rennie's sarcasm was cold. "Communication with Kentucky is not so impossible as you appear to think. You give me a name and address—or names and addresses—and I'll do the rest. All you have to do is substantiate background and your army service, proving no possible contact ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... with me, yuh say?" the other observed, with sarcasm in his tones. "Wall now yuh see me, p'raps yuh don't jest like my looks. If so be I thort them coward hounds up-river sent yuh down hyah tuh spy on us, an' inform thet rail-rid sheriff how he cud git tuh cotch us on the sly, I'd jest ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... no buts," I said. "Let's boil over together and trounce Mr. Hutchinson. Let us write a model letter for the use of season-ticket holders who have mislaid their tickets. We'll pack it full of sarcasm and irony. We will make an appeal to the nobler sentiments of the Board of Directors. We will remind them that they too are subject to ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 153, November 7, 1917 • Various
... the Holy See. His residence in England, his friendship with More, his admiration for the earlier and better part of Henry VIII.'s career, connected him with events of which Froude had Himself traced the development. Luther moved him sometimes to sarcasm. Toleration and comprehension were the watchwords of Erasmus. "Reduce the dogmas necessary to be believed," he said, "to the smallest possible number; you can do it without danger to the realities of Christianity. On other ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... more. Filipino children reverse this attitude. They are quite docile, seldom think of disputing authority as applied to discipline, but they will naively cling to a position and dispute both fact and philosophy in the face of quoted authority, or explanation, or even of sarcasm. The following anecdote illustrates this peculiarity. It happened in my own school and ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... second childhood, were you? Your intellect was so reduced that my epistolary gifts seemed quite considerable to you, did they? I rise superior to the sarcasm in your favor of the 11th instant, when I notice that five days' silence on my part is sufficient to throw you into the depths ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... too, during the past week, certain incidents of the same nature at Eton. There was the master who had rashly inquired, with deep sarcasm, on the fourth or fifth occasion in one week when Frank had come in a little late for five-o'clock school, whether "Guiseley would not like to have tea before pursuing his studies." Frank, with a radiant smile of gratitude, and extraordinary rapidity, had answered that he would like it very much ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... of John Manners she had determinedly refused all the advances of her would-be lover, and his every attempt had been met by her with chilling sarcasm; or, were she in a lighter mood, she had retreated into safer ground under cover of a burst of merriment. Had De la Zouch been possessed of ordinary perceptions he would have noticed that his conduct was alienating Dorothy from him more and more; but, ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... wish to proceed to extremities, and, as I gather from your speech that I am dealing with gentlemen"—really Winter's language had fully warranted the sarcasm—"if you will give me your word of honour that you will hand over to me all articles of value in your possession, I will leave your car untouched. If, on the contrary, you decline to oblige me, I shall be under the disagreeable necessity ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... not be your boon companion, and drink and generally conduct myself in a way unworthy of an English officer in the high position I hold in this country, I have been constantly marked out as the butt for your offensive sarcasm, even as far back as the time when, if you had possessed a spark of manliness or feeling, you would have respected me and shown consideration for one who was passing through such an ordeal as I pray ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... there now appeared to be four mouths to feed in the family instead of the customary three. He hoped she would heed his words and exercise greater prudence in the management of her household—and the courteous inflection of his tones as he voiced his hope was a masterpiece of sarcasm. It left his wife pale and resigned, his son ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... reply. Then he added, "Madam, when I solicited the favour of this conversation, it was with the sincerest desire of adjusting all differences between us, and it would but ill advance that purpose were I now to reply to you with warmth and petulance; condescend, on your part, to lay aside sarcasm and raillery. You have already too many advantages over me, and it would ill accord with your wonted generosity to insult a half-conquered foe." "You are right, my lord," answered I; "jests and recrimination will effect ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... aside the offers which had induced me to leave Chili, I would make a new offer, which should not only compensate for the difference in dispute, but leave a considerable surplus on my side into the bargain. Alarmed at the sarcasm, and perhaps judging from my manner, that I cared little for a service in which such petty expedients formed an important element, he at once gave up the false value which he had attached to the dollar, and agreed to estimate it at 960 ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... earnestness of the girl awed the young man, for never before had he seen her so serious and determined. In most, of their previous interviews she had met his advances with evasion or sarcasm, but these Hurry had mistaken for female coquetry, and had supposed might easily be converted into consent. The struggle had been with himself, about offering, nor had he ever seriously believed it possible that Judith would refuse to become the wife of the handsomest man on all that frontier. ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... slowly and with difficulty, impeded by obstructions which others do not feel, and depressed by discouragements which others never know, his lot is surely hard enough without having you to add to it the trials and suffering which sarcasm and reproach from you can heap upon him. Look over your school-room, therefore, and wherever you find one whom you perceive the Creator to have endued with less intellectual power than others, fix your eye upon him with an expression of kindness and sympathy. Such a boy will have suffering ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... But the sarcasm was no longer needed. Already poor Richard was very humble, his make-believe spirit all snuffed out. He observed at last how pale and set was his sister's face, and he realized something of the sacrifice she had made. Never in all his life was Richard so near to lapsing from the ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... said Chiquita, unabashed by the Senora's sudden appearance and onslaught, "may the day bring you many blessings! Look! Padre Antonio's greetings," and she held up the basket for the Senora's benefit. Then, with a subtle sarcasm which she knew would avenge her amply for the Senora's unprovoked attack, she said: "I stopped to inquire what the Senores would have for their breakfast. They say they will ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... with us, Henry," says the viscountess, with ever so little of sarcasm in her tone: "Beatrix is best out of this house whilst we have our guest in it, and as soon as this morning's business is done, she ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... hundred thalers. It was already the Saturday just previous, and his purse contained only four thalers. There was only one prospect left, and he went to a rich money lender, and in response to his request for relief in money difficulties, was met with this reply of irony and sarcasm from one who loved to indulge his enmity to the Christian faith. "You in money difficulties, or any difficulties, Mr. Loest! I cannot believe it; it is altogether impossible! you are at all times and in all places boasting that you have ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... affected or genuine, in the literature of the United States, is justly a matter of surprise and lamentation with the author. The American mind, as he remarks, has doubtless a strong tendency to humor. It delights in the expression of a mischievous irony or good-natured sarcasm. The querulous wailings which are the stock in trade of a certain class of writers are unnatural and discordant sounds. We should expect rather a serene and cheerful melody from a young and brave-hearted race, which is in intimate relations ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... burn. He had no defense against this sarcasm. He wanted praise for having accomplished something, instead ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... irreverent gossip current behind the scenes. To know the best and the worst that can be said of any great man, the best plan is to read the leading article of his party newspaper, and then to converse in private with its writer. The eulogy and the sarcasm may both be sincere enough; only it is pleasant, after puffing one's wares to the public, to glance at their seamy side in private. Walpole has a decided taste for that last point of view. The littleness of the great, the hypocrisy of the virtuous, and the selfishness ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... grew crimson and his eyes hard. "Lookin' fer something?" he asked with bitter sarcasm, his hands under the bar. Johnny grinned hopefully and a sudden tenseness took possession of him as he watched for the ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... wit, ingenuity, audacity, and acrimony. In this, as in his first controversy, he was opposed to antagonists whose knowledge of the subject in dispute was far superior to his; but in this, as in his first controversy, he imposed on the multitude by bold assertion, by sarcasm, by declamation, and, above all, by his peculiar knack of exhibiting a little erudition in such a manner as to make it look like a great deal. Having passed himself off on the world as a greater master of classical learning than Bentley, he now passed himself ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... avoidant of the obscene. For the most part, they are as ignorant of the large onward push of human thought as if they were farmers in some remote county of Arkansas. And yet they affect, at all times, an amusing omniscience. To "know it all" is a phrase beloved as sarcasm by their nimble vernacular, and though this (like "Come off!" and "Look here, what are you giving us?") is a form of speech incessantly on their lips, one is prone sometimes to reflect how amazing is the meagreness of real knowledge which their "knowing it all" piteously represents. They are ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... him short. "Not a word. You know perfectly well that you have neglected your duty grossly. Now tell me. Is it your own idea to drop saluting, or has Mr. CHURCHILL had a word in your ear?" (Sarcasm is my strong point.) ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... between her and her father, and what might before have been fear had become dislike. If she had to refer to him, especially if her plans for herself or her mother were crossed, there was always a tone of bitterness or of sarcasm about her; and her greater boldness and freedom of speech would occasionally manifest itself towards him. This was not indeed often, since not only did his cool contempt make her come off the worst in the encounters, but the extreme distress they gave ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... took up some slight remark made by my mother, which, though, it did not naturally mean anything of the sort, could be twisted into some reflection upon England, and made it a handle, first of vulgar sarcasm, and then, upon my mother's defending herself with some surprise and gentle dignity, hurled upon her a volley of abuse, ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli |
