"Facetious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... causes some stir among the laughter-loving portion of the community; and its appearance at the present festive season is appropriate. We hold that it would be quite contrary to the fitness of things for any other hand than that of our old acquaintance, the facetious Judge Haliburton, to present to us a Christmas dish, and call it 'Traits of American Humour.' But even without the recollection of 'Sam Slick' to evoke the spirit of fun within us, we should have been forced to yield to the racy humour of these American 'Traits.' Dip ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... (farewell, sweet, sweet whitebait!), and quiet begins to enter your soul. Your wife smiles for the first time these ten days; you pass by plantations of ship-masts, and forests of steam-chimneys; the sailors are singing on board the ships, the bargees salute you with oaths, grins, and phrases facetious and familiar; the man on the paddle-box roars, "Ease her, stop her!" which mysterious words a shrill voice from below repeats, and pipes out, "Ease her, stop her!" in echo; the deck is crowded with groups of figures, and the sun ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that I may have spoken a little too sharply. Anyway, faithful Selina interceded for her friend. "Oh, dear sir, don't be hard on Elizabeth! She always means well." Mrs. Tenbruggen, as facetious as ever, made a grateful return for a small compliment. She chucked Miss Jillgall under the chin, with the air of an amorous old gentleman expressing his approval of a pretty servant-girl. It was impossible to look at the two, in their ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... mineral wealth of his barren Scottish possessions. With him Raspe took up his abode for a considerable time at his spray-beaten castle on the Pentland Firth, and there is a tradition, among members of the family, of Sir John's unfailing appreciation of the wide intelligence and facetious humour of Raspe's conversation. Sinclair had some years previously discovered a small vein of yellow mundick on the moor of Skinnet, four miles from Thurso. The Cornish miners he consulted told him that the mundick was itself of no value, but ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... learned nothing to his advantage, and went quickly but quietly to the St. Charles. There he closeted himself with two dependable "elbows," started his detectives on a round of the hotels, and himself repaired to the Levee district, where he held off-handed and ponderously facetious conversations with certain unsavory characters. Then came a visit to certain equally unsavory wharf-rats and a call or two on South Rampart Street. But still no inkling of Binhart or his intended movements came ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... a most wonderful escape, though it is related with a vein of humour which takes off all apprehension from the reader; to whom it must, undoubtedly, appear little less whimsical and facetious than John Gilpin's celebrated race: while, to balance the advantage of Cowper's admirable fiction, it has the boast ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... Fabric (stuff) teksajxo. Fabric fabriko. Fabricate fabriki. Fabrication fabrikado. Fabulist fablisto. Fabulous fabla. Faade antauxa flanko. Face vizagxo. Facet faceto. Facetious sxerca. Facilitate faciligi. Facility facileco. Facsimile faksimilo. Fact fakto. Fact, in (adv.) ja. Faction sekto. Factious malpaca. Factor (agent) faktoro. Factory fabrikejo. Faculty fakultato. Faculty kapablo. Fade velki. Fading velkanto. Fag laboregi. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... Were you, son? Gadsbud, much better as it is. Good, strange! I swear I'm almost tipsy; t'other bottle would have been too powerful for me,—as sure as can be it would. We wanted your company, but Mr. Brisk—where is he? I swear and vow he's a most facetious person, and the best company. And, my Lord Froth, your lordship is so merry ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... thee or myself? Without awaiting a reply, he made, it is said, a well-understood signal with his hand; and the unintending offender was beheaded on the spot." I may add that the hero of the story is said to have been the celebrated "Daftardar" whose facetious cruelties have still a wide fame ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... facetious gourmand suggests that the old story of "lighting a candle to the devil," probably arose from this adage—and was an offering presented to his infernal majesty by some epicure who was in want of ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... significant of the change in all procedure that the language of all court addresses is becoming more and more simple. The old days when the lawyers delivered homilies of Latin have disappeared. No longer does the lawyer refer to nunc pro tunc, or make facetious jokes in a language the layman and probably the court does not understand. If a lawyer makes too many Latin quotations, the court thinks him affected. He must be simple, direct, and to the point ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... formidable engines up the trail to the town, where he deposited them in the middle of the street. There he proceeded to auction them; attracting the crowd by the simple expedient of firing his Colt's revolver. The bidding was sluggish at first, but Johnny's facetious oratory warmed it. The first cradle was knocked down at one hundred and sixty dollars. The second was about to go for approximately the same amount, when Johnny held up ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... ventilation was very indifferent, the conditions became nauseating. To make matters worse the vile prison food precipitated an epidemic of acute diarrhoea and sickness, so that the atmosphere within the limited space became so unbearable as to provoke the facetious Cockney to declare that "'e could cut it with a knife," while he expressed his resolve "to ask th' gaoler for a nail to drive into it" to serve as a peg for his clothes! But it was no laughing matter, and we all grew apprehensive of being stricken down with some fearful ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... driving, eating and drinking, walking and talking, with magnates of every age, sex and condition. "At first it perfectly appalled me, Amey love," she wrote in her strange, facetious way, "none but the upper, upper cream of humanity wherever I went. Of course it is taken for granted that I am worthy of the great privileges extended to me. Everything is so intensely exclusive in this Christian country. People whose hands are soiled with the stain of labour, ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... sacrilegious masqueraders invaded the churches. They lampooned all things human and divine; the whip and the gallows liberally applied availed naught to check the popular licence. Every prohibitory edict became a dead letter. In such a season the Jews might well tremble, made over to the facetious Christian; always excellent whetstones for wit, they afforded peculiar diversion in Carnival times. On the first day a deputation of the chief Jews, including the three gonfaloniers and the rabbis, headed the senatorial cortege, and, attired in a ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the bishop occupied a seat in the aisle; according to the facetious newspaper he ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... Jimmie, joining in the laugh that followed Jack's facetious remark. "The joke's on me, all right! If I hadn't painted that figure 'three' in the name, we would have been on our way to England by this time! Oh, well," the boy added, "we'll get to England before long, anyhow, so I ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... fresh white coating. And then, at last, we were off, the wagons first, although we were soon to pass them. We had lifted the boats out of the water and put them lovingly in their straw again. And Mike and George formed the crew. The guides were ready with facetious comments. ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... A facetious individual who was taking a long walk in the country came upon a yokel sitting on a stile. As the gentleman was not quite sure of his road, he thought he would make inquiries of the local inhabitant; but at the first glance he ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... I have produced comparatively few; but, oh, those that are to come! I feel fit for anything, from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter. I think of the two, I rather lean to the manslaughter. Oh, I don't mean it in the facetious sense! that would be a terrible downfall from my present altitudes. To such devices the usual wretched girl, who has never drawn rebellious breath, or listened to the discourses of Valeria Du Prel, has to turn for a living, or to keep ennui at bay. But I, no, ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... hostess made them all laugh, and they began to talk about the genuine American character of the holiday, and what a fine thing it was to have something truly national. They praised Mrs. Makely for thinking of so many American dishes, and the facetious gentleman said that she rendered no greater tribute than was due to the overruling Providence which had so abundantly bestowed them upon the Americans as a people. "You must have been glad, Mrs. Strange," he said to the lady at my side, "to get back to our American oysters. There seems nothing ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... me afteh you, seh," he now explained, in his civil Southern voice; and he handed me a letter from my host. Had I not witnessed his facetious performances with Uncle Hughey, I should have judged him wholly ungifted with such powers. There was nothing external about him but what seemed the signs of a nature as grave as you could meet. But I had witnessed; and therefore supposing that I knew him in spite of his appearance, ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... some of the members called on me to discuss the points of my speech. All the gentlemen were serious and respectful with one exception. A man with an unusually small head, diminutive form, and crooked legs tried, at my expense, to be witty and facetious. During a brief pause in the conversation he brought his chair directly before me and said, in a mocking tone, "Don't you think that the best thing a woman can do is to perform well her part in the role of wife and mother? My wife has presented me with eight beautiful children; ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... the members. In the first of these two rooms, or ante-chamber, were half-length portraits of James I. and Charles I.; whole lengths of Charles II. and James II., and of William and Mary, and Anne; a head of the facetious Dr. Savage, of Clothall, "the Aristippus of the age," who was one of its most famous members, and its first Chaplain. In the larger room were portraits of many notable men in full wigs, and yellow, blue and pink ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... pleased to be very facetious at the Council the other day, though not very refined. A new seal for the Cape of Good Hope was approved, and the impression represented a Caffre, with some ornaments on his head which resembled horns. The King asked Lord Glenelg what these horns meant, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... xcv.), mentions a Hind bint Asma and tells a facetious story of her and the "enemy of Allah," ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... may be said of liquor, whether it be in its favour or not; it usually brings out all there is of the facetious in a man, rendering him conversable and pleasant; for the time being, at least. This was apt to be peculiarly the case with the Rev. Mr. Whittle and his deacons. In their ordinary intercourse with their fellow-creatures, these good people had taken up the idea that, in order ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... the way) by Gallus mean I Not Sheridan, but friend Delany. Begin, my Muse! First from our bowers We sally forth at different hours; At seven the Dean, in night-gown drest, Goes round the house to wake the rest; At nine, grave Nim and George facetious, Go to the Dean, to read Lucretius;[2] At ten my lady comes and hectors And kisses George, and ends our lectures; And when she has him by the neck fast, Hauls him, and scolds us, down to breakfast. We squander there an hour or ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... the Hyde-like change comes another, and I feel positively facetious. "Why I know your ring of course, the same as I know your handwriting on a telegram. What ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... could hear the dash of the waves far below, as our conductor's voice sounded out clear and peremptory, uttering the timely reminder; we could hear the words of two French commis-voyageurs, coming from the ditch-sunk diligence, making some facetious remark, one to the other, about their present adventure being very much like some of Alexandre Dumas's Impressions de Voyage; we could hear the cries and calls of the men refastening the horses, and preparing to push anew at the wheels; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... facetious tone and bantering manner, the girl plainly showed her resentment. Her face flushed, and, throwing down the magazine, she went towards the door of ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... was over, everything had been eaten; the enormous roast goose had dwindled to a very skeleton. Mr. Sieppe had reduced the calf's head to a mere skull; a row of empty champagne bottles—"dead soldiers," as the facetious waiter had called them—lined the mantelpiece. Nothing of the stewed prunes remained but the juice, which was given to Owgooste and the twins. The platters were as clean as if they had been washed; crumbs of bread, ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... uneasily). Nay, your Grace, you are too facetious! Trace the PREMIER here! Next you will be saying that he and his good lady were taking ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 13, 1893 • Various
... never be: the other I did not so much spare as since I wish I had; because myself have seen his demeanour no less civil than he excellent in the quality he professes: besides, divers of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing, that ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... for the purpose of imposition, though the fact is clearly ascertained by the testimony of that gentleman! —The reverend commentator argues on this occasion much in the same manner, as a well-known versifier of the present century, the facetious Ned Ward (and he too published a quarto volume of poems). Some biographer, in an account of the lives of the English poets, had said that "he was an ingenious writer, considering his low birth and mode of life, he having for some time kept ...
— Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley (1782) • Edmond Malone
... Bumsteadville. Christmas Eve all over the world, but especially where the English language is spoken. No sooner does the first facetious star wink upon this Eve, than all the English-speaking millions of this Boston-crowned earth begin casting off their hatreds, meannesses, uncharities, and Carlyleisms, as a garment, and, in a beautiful spirit of no objections to anybody, proceed to think what can ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... intelligent, and portly personage—shows visitors over the rooms and picture-galleries. There is a superb collection of pictures by the Old Masters, about which Dickens had always something facetious to say to his friends. They illustrate the schools of Venice, Florence, Rome, Netherlands, Spain, France, and England, and were formed mainly by purchases from the Orleans Gallery, and the Vetturi Gallery from Florence, and include Titian's 'Rape of Europa,' Rubens's 'Queen ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... have them in the Bag. I wish to give them all possible circulation. The Vault reflection is downright actionable, and to print it would be peril to the publisher; but I think the Tears have a natural right to be bagged, and the editor (whoever he may be) might supply a facetious note ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... episode was known throughout the court. When the Lady Priscilla Rutland made her appearance there was subdued laughter and titterings among the ladies and their gallants. Francis' shorn head was the cynosure of all eyes, but her manner was so haughty that it repelled all facetious remarks. ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... Bridget herself," said I, "I would agree with pleasure. She is a saint for whom I have a great fascination. She could work miracles. When an Irish chieftain made her a facetious grant of as much land as she could cover with her mantle, she bade four of her nuns each take a corner and run north, west, south and east, until her cloak covered several roods. She could have done the same with the soul of Carlotta. But the age of miracles is past, ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... Meddy will tune up agin, an' mighty nigh cry her eyes out. He warn't even graced with a death-bed ter breathe his last; Meddy air partic'lar afflicted that he hed ter die afoot." Old Kettison glanced about the circle, consciously facetious, his heavily grooved face distended in a ...
— Wolf's Head - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... invited to a juvenile party, bursts into the room with the cry of "Here we are again"—walking in on his hands like a clown—to find that he had come to the wrong house next door, and was scandalising a sedate and stately dinner party. Henry Mayhew had a story of which a facetious police officer of his acquaintance was the hero. The latter was driving "Black Maria" along the street when he was hailed by a waggish omnibus-driver who affected to mistake the depressing character of the passing ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... strong, healthy boy like John McGuire! Of course, he'll come back," retorted Susan. "Besides, likely the war'll be all over with 'fore he gets there, anyhow. An' as for feelin' it in your bones, Mis' McGuire, that's a very facetious doctrine, an' ain't no more to be depended upon than my flour sieve for an umbrella. They're gay receivers every time—bones are. Why, lan' sakes, Mis' McGuire, if all things happened that my bones told me ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... his facetious query to be so answered, stopped his drawing for a moment. "What in the name of goodness attracted you to the ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... and Tom Bouldon, in jumping across the tablecloth, had stepped exactly into the middle of one of them, splashing his trousers all over with currant juice, and considerably damaging the pie itself. It was in consequence the last consumed, but a facetious gentleman helped it out to the people who sat at the further end of the tablecloths, and knew nothing of the catastrophe. Then there was champagne, which some of the boys in their innocence called very good gooseberry wine, greatly to the disgust of the gentleman ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... he says, 'they are miserable.'" In reality Dalton does not "represent them" thus; he says "they are represented;" that is, he gives his information at second-hand, without naming his authority, who, to judge by some of his remarks, was apparently a facetious globe-trotter. It is of course possible that these young folks are much attached to each other. Even sheep are "miserable if separated only for an hour;" they bleat pathetically and are disconsolate, though there is no question of an "absorbing passion for ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... let them off from coming to the breakfast party, and with the well-bred sense of fitness they obeyed his bidding. Captain Stubbard (whose jokes had missed fire too often to be satisfied with a small touch-hole now) was broadly facetious at their expense; and Johnny, returning thanks for them, surprised the good company by his manly tone, and contempt of life before beginning it. This invigorated Scudamore, by renewing his faith in human nature as a thing beyond calculation. He whispered ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... and if it had gained anything by being made a wood and water station of the new railroad, it was only a new sort of grime and rawness. P. Dusenheimer, standing in the door of his uninviting groggery, when the trains stopped for water; never received from the traveling public any patronage except facetious remarks upon his personal appearance. Perhaps a thousand times he had heard the remark, "Ilium fuit," followed in most instances by a hail to himself as "AEneas," with the inquiry "Where is old Anchises?" At first he had replied, "Dere ain't no such man;" but irritated by its senseless repetition, ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... in the same breath, all the facetious accusation left her face. Even the warm glow of wonder which had lighted her wet eyes gave way to a ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... Polly, mixed an endless variety of drinks, she being particularly adept with strange swivel-stick concoctions learned at the ends of the earth. To Frederick, at such times, it seemed that his butler's pantry and dining room had been turned into bar-rooms. When he suggested this, under a facetious show, Tom proclaimed that when he made his pile he would build a liquor cabinet in every living room ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... face to his companion, who burst out laughing—a laugh in which he was joined by the others as they came up, Tomlins being the most facetious. ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... enormous creature of enormous power; but I have ever found that when narrating to them some specific example of this two-fold enormousness, they have significantly complimented me upon my facetiousness; when, I declare upon my soul, I had no more idea of being facetious than Moses, when he wrote the history of the plagues of Egypt. But fortunately the special point I here seek can be established upon testimony entirely independent of my own. That point is this: The Sperm Whale is in some cases sufficiently powerful, knowing, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... ever wickednesse to avow himselfe to be his enimy. He was a man very well bredd, and of excellent partes, and a gracefull speaker upon any subjecte, havinge a good proportion of learninge, and a ready witt to apply it, and inlarge upon it, of a pleasant and facetious humour and a disposition affable, generous, and magnificent; he was master of a greate fortune from his auncestors, and had a greate addition by his wife (another daughter and heyre of the Earle of Shrewsbury) ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... different military posts he had frequented not to understand that his present companion was only a subordinate. So imposing, indeed, had been the quiet superiority of the Tuscarora's reserve, that Charles Cap, for so was the seaman named, in his most dogmatical or facetious moments, had not ventured on familiarity in an intercourse which had now lasted more than a week. The sight of the curling smoke, however, had struck the latter like the sudden appearance of a sail at sea; and, ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... with another; brought his powers of mimicry into play, and kept the company in a roar. Tea was offered and accepted; an hour went off in the most sociable manner imaginable, at the end of which Glover bowed himself and his companion out of the house with many facetious last words, leaving the host and his company to compare notes, and to find out what an impudent intrusion ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... dinner, where several artists, amateurs and literary men were convened, a poet, by way of being facetious, proposed as a toast the health of the painters and glaziers of Great Britain. The toast was drunk, and Turner, after returning thanks for it, proposed the health of the ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... engagements of the bustling world! Adieu the sick impertinence of praise! And hope, and action! for with her alone, By streams and shades, to steal these sighing hours, Is all he asks, and all that fate can give! Thee too, facetious Momion, wandering here, Thee, dreaded censor, oft have I beheld 180 Bewilder'd unawares: alas! too long Flush'd with thy comic triumphs and the spoils Of sly derision! till on every side Hurling thy random bolts, offended Truth Assign'd thee here thy station ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... was common knowledge. That Mr. Pope proposed to marry the heroine of his misadventure afforded a fair mark for raillery, no doubt, but Gay, in common with the run of educated England in 1718, did not aspire to be facetious at Pope's expense. The luxury was too costly. Offend the dwarf in any fashion, and were you the proudest duke at Court or the most inconsiderable rhymester in Petticoat Lane, it made no difference; there was no crime too heinous for "the ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... Mr Gibney saluted the Chinaman in a facetious attempt to talk the latter's language. "Hello, there, John Chinaman. How's your liver? Captain he allee same get tired; he no waitee. Wha's mallah, John. Too long time you no come. ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... another fool, and to laugh at them all into the bargain. I longed to play the part of a magician. With that idea, when I left the house of the ridiculous antiquarian, I proceeded to the public library, where, with the assistance of a dictionary, I wrote the following specimen of facetious erudition: ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... a facetious youth. He rose from his seat, seized a ruler, and began a species of sword-play about Hood's head, keeping up a grotesque dance the while. Hood bore it with his wonted patience, ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... embalm it for future appreciation by journalizing, making the voyage out a far better joke than she had found it, and describing the inside car in the true style of the facetious traveller. Nothing so drives away fun as the desire to be funny, and she began to grow weary of her work, and disgusted at her own lumbering attempts at pen-and-ink mirth; but they sufficed to make Rashe laugh, they would be quite ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... stool, and hooked his thumbs into the armholes of his vest, as he said this, leaned his back against his desk, and regarded the seaman with a facetious look. ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... his leonine locks and beard in fury at the use of the facetious word. He loathed levity of any kind and the one kind he could not endure was the quip ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... ship, in a gale of wind, or what fell little short of a real gale, was not to be undertaken with twenty men, the extent of Daly's command; and he had recourse to the assistance of his enemies. A good natured, facetious Irishman, himself, with a smattering of French, he soon got forty or fifty of the prisoners in a sufficient humour to lend their aid, and the sail was set, though not without great risk of its splitting. From ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... was delivered in 1861, in defence of the Marquis Le Guillois, a nobleman of facetious humor, who edited a comic newspaper called Le Hanneton. He was seized with unexpected nervousness as he began, but before he had stammered out a dozen sentences he was stopped by the presiding judge, who told him mildly that no big words were required ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... conversation. The wine-cup flows freely; the Elder dips deeply-as he declares it choice. Temperance being unpopular in the south, it is little regarded at Marston's mansion. As for Marston himself, he is merely preparing the way to play facetious jokes on the Elder, whose arm he touches every few minutes, reminding him how backward he is in replenishing ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... incumbent on us to be constantly aware of the fickle dispositions of kings, who will one moment take offence at a salutation, and at another make an honorary dress the return for an act of rudeness; and they have said, That to be over much facetious is the accomplishment of courtiers and blemish of the wise.—Be wary, and preserve the state of thine own character, and leave sport and ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... while he opened Mary V's letter and read it, scowling and biting his lips. Mary V, it would seem, had read all that the papers had to say, and was considerably upset by the facetious tone of most ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... as preserved by oral tradition in the manner above explained; but it also comprises innumerable sayings or aphorisms of celebrated Rabbis, together with narratives of the most varied character—legends regarding Biblical personages, moral tales, fables, parables, and facetious stories. Of the rabbinical legends, many are extremely puerile and absurd, and may rank with the extravagant and incredible monkish legends of mediaeval times; some, however, are characterised by a richness of humour ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... system adopted at a new settlement in Australia. We will state at once, that our official authority is a Blue Book—one of those huge volumes printed from time to time, by order of parliament, for the edification—or as some facetious folks say, for the mystification—of M.Ps. Having carefully waded through its voluminous pages, we have jotted down the passages that especially struck us, and propose to present the pith and substance of our ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... recklessly facetious tone, and Tom Green followed it up with a remark to the effect that "he'd be blowed if he ever wos in sich a fix in his life;" intimating his belief, at the same time, that his "toes ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... They went up second-class, and Mr. Joseph, who was in the best of humours, and wore a new pair of patent-leather boots and a glossy hat, to say nothing of a dazzling tie, enlivened the journey by whispering facetious remarks on their fellow-passengers to Ida, who in vain leant away from him, as far as possible, in her corner of the carriage, and endeavoured to concentrate her attention on the programme. But ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... nothing is more revolting than platitude when it tries to be simple and amiable, instead of hiding its repulsive nature under the veil of art. This occasions the incredible trivialities loved by the Germans under the name of simple and facetious songs, and which give them endless amusement round a well-garnished table. Under the pretext of good humor and of sentiment people tolerate these poverties: but this good humor and this sentiment ought to be carefully proscribed. The Muses of the Pleisse, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... so he seldom praised them warmly, and there was some apparent indifference and want of feeling. Ill success did not depress, but happy prospects did not elate him, and though never impatient, he was not actively hopeful. Facetious friends called him the weather-cock, or Mr. Facingbothways, because there was no heartiness in his judgments, and he satisfied nobody, and said things that were at first sight grossly inconsistent, without attempting to reconcile them. He was reserved about himself, and gave ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... so abruptly that Mrs. March started with a violent shudder, "this is February fourteenth. Did any ancient person of your acquaintance lose his head to-day?" He turned a facetious glance that changed in an instant to surprise. His mother had straightened up with bitter indignation, but she softened to an agony of ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... 'ow." As to the Emperor, and taking his life—"why lor' bless you, I don't want to take any one's life. I 'ate war, more than ever after all I've seen of it. Upon my honour, gentlemen, all I want is Miss Warren." Here one member of the court made a facetious remark in German to a colleague who sniggered, while, with his insolent light blue eyes, he surveyed Bertie's honest, earnest face, thin and hollowed ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... number of messages it took before the sick man could be brought to sign another (a duplicate) that we might have one apiece, was one of the richest scraps of genuine drollery I ever saw in all my days. How, when the business was over, we became conversational; how I was facetious, and at the same time virtuous and domestic; how I drank toasts in the beer, and stated on interrogatory that I was a married man and the father of two blessed infants; how the ladies marveled thereat; how one of the ladies, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... short is the memory of man for an early love, especially a king's memory, when another is always to be found to take the vacant place." When we explained this philosophic reflection upon their sex to the men of the party, they declared that an unfair advantage was being taken by this facetious dame, simply because they were not able to answer back and vindicate the eternal fidelity of man. Then, as if divining what was being said, through her quick woman's instinct, she drew us toward a window in the study of Francis I and showed us these lines scratched ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... when we left the boat and entered our travelling-carriage; for I need scarcely say that both the boatmen and the grinning vetturino took me for the bridegroom whose place I temporarily occupied, and they were pleased to be facetious in a manner which was very embarrassing to me, but which I could not very well check. Moreover, I felt compelled so far to sustain my assumed character as to be specially generous in the manner of ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... but ended by getting weary of the repetition of the same effects. The heroine usually lives in the country with her father, and the lover, a plundered heir, is re-established in his rights and triumphs over his rivals. There are always a mendicant philosopher, a morose nobleman, pure young girls, facetious retainers, and interminable dialogues, stupid prudishness, and an utter ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... of a fool, Ralph," Matthew answered. And with a shovel that facetious occupant of the hearth lifted another cob of ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... tortillas and frijoles were brought down to them by the facetious turnkey, who was accompanied ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... hones, as I, who am also a man, have now done." Upon which the king admired at his answer, which was so wisely made; and bid them all make an acclamation, as a mark of their approbation of his jest, which was truly a facetious one. On the next day Hyrcanus went to every one of the king's friends, and of the men powerful at court, and saluted them; but still inquired of the servants what present they would make the king on his son's birthday; and when some said that they would ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... weighing the situation. "But you men should know how to get out of scrapes just that much better. Certainly there are few men on Earth who would not be willing to back such a group of men—or any one of you, for that matter! I'll back your trip!" His words became more facetious. "I know that Arcot and you, Bob, can handle a gun fairly well, I don't know so much about Wade and Fuller. What experience have ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... who also expressed regret that the so-called MacGregor had contrived to escape capture. The members of the "Lone Star Crush" were boisterously warm in their congratulations, chaffing the subaltern as well as they knew; but Wilmshurst, alive to the mannerisms of his brother-officers, took their facetious remarks in good part. ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... expression of humorous drollery, that compensated for the vulgarity of his subjects. He sometimes painted interiors, domestic assemblies, conversations, mountebanks, etc., which he generally accompanied with some facetious trait of wit or humor, admirably rendered. Some of his works of this description are little inferior to the charming productions of Gabriel Metzu. His compositions are ingenious and interesting, his design is correct and spirited, ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... small gentleman from Maine be kind enough to pass the plum-pudding—I mean the one that's got the most raisins in it?" said Johnny, who was inclined to be facetious. ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... voice. It was Mr Seymour. Most of his face was concealed in a large handkerchief, but by the look of his eyes, which appeared above, he did not seem pleased. He took in the situation at a glance. Fires in the house were not rarities. One facetious sportsman had once made a rule of setting the senior day-room chimney on fire every term. He had since left (by request), but ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... to Hugo's advertisements, there were several columns of news describing the singular phenomena of the sale, concluding with what a facetious reporter had entitled 'Interviews ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... dropped the curtains of Elsie's tent behind her, and made her way quietly through the trees, the tinkling sound of a banjo fell upon the still night air; and presently, as she neared Polly's retreat, this facetious serenade, sung by Jack's well-known voice, was wafted to ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... for cash, has now three hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds—Buffer particularly insisting on the odd seventy-five, and declining to take a farthing less. With Buffer, Boots, and Brewer, Lady Tippins is eminently facetious on the subject of these Fathers of the Scrip-Church: surveying them through her eyeglass, and inquiring whether Boots and Brewer and Buffer think they will make her fortune if she makes love to them? with other pleasantries of that nature. Veneering, in his ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... 218.).—A facetious friend, alluding particularly to law Latin with its curious abbreviations, says that it is so called because ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various
... about Charles, as even Henry had to admit—he worked hard. Ambition, the last infirmity of noble minds, offensive and irritating quality as it is, has at least this one good fruit.) Then Charles had been to a large dinner given by the Canadian delegation to members of the Secretariat, and had made a facetious speech; and now, at eleven-thirty, he was walking about the old city, followed at some distance ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... don't think those two last ones would do," she said, "because it is not to be a facetious book. But your first one is rather a good title," she added, looking at Irais and drawing out her note-book. "I think I'll ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... preposterous policy; amid which she had been condemned so ignorantly, so pitifully to sit, to walk, to grope, to flounder, from the very dawn of her consciousness. Didn't poor Mr. Pitman just touch the sensitive nerve of it when, taking her in with his facetious, cautious eyes, he spoke to her, right out, of the old, old story, the everlasting little wonder of ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... a kind of comedy, my idea would be to introduce something facetious in the middle of the comedy. No one will expect it, you see, and it will tickle ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... thus been brought about, as well as a general deterioration of reporting. Even in papers of the highest character an over-indulgence in headlines is coming into vogue, while the reporter is allowed too often to treat the unimportant and most personal events in a picturesque or facetious way without regard to truthfulness. On a lecture trip West last winter, a reporter of one of the most respectable and influential papers in the country asked if I was going to attack anybody in my speech, or say anything that would "stir up the mud." ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt
... in to him very fast, and yet he could scarce keep himself at liberty to follow his business.... At the Revolution, when his interest fell from, and his debts began to fall upon him, he was at his wits' end.... His character for fidelity, loyalty, and facetious conversation was without exception"—Roger North's Lives of the Norths (Lord Keeper Guilford), ed. Jessopp, vol. i., pp. 381-2. He was originally made Lord Chancellor of Ireland in the reign of James II., during ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... criticism nor in the conduct of life was Ovid's "Medio tutissimus ibis" ever a rule for him. In the "Noctes" for June, 1823, some of his characteristics are wittily set forth, with some spice of caricature, in a mock defiance given to Francis Jeffrey, "King of Blue and Yellow," by the facetious Maginn, under his pseudonym of Morgan Odoherty: —"Christopher, by the grace of Brass, Editor of Blackwood's and the Methodist Magazines; Duke of Humbug, of Quiz, Puffery, Cutup, and Slashandhackaway; Prince Paramount ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... one gentleman attired as a Greek warrior, catch a light-whiskered brigand on the nose (he was in the very act of tossing up a bouquet to a young lady in a first-floor window) with a precision that was much applauded by the bystanders. As this victorious Greek was exchanging a facetious remark with a stout gentleman in a doorway— one-half black and one-half white, as if he had been peeled up the middle—who had offered him his congratulations on this achievement, he received an ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... exclaimed, "I've always been drawn toward that kind of life. A musket will be a little heavier than a gun, that's all; then I shall see different countries, and that will change my ideas." He tried to appear facetious, poking around the kitchen, and teasing the magpie, which was following his footsteps with inquisitive anxiety. Finally, he went up to the old man Vincart, who was lying stretched out in his picture-lined niche. He took the flabby hand ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... in no hurry. He wrote slowly and deliberately, carefully copying the draft of the letter which was propped up in front of him. The spelling of some of the French words seemed to have troubled him at first, for when he began he made many facetious and self-deprecatory remarks anent his own want of education, and carelessness in youth in acquiring the gentle art of speaking so ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Adamant had no doubt that in this way he could run into a crab, roll it over in the water, and when it was lying bottom upward, like a floating cask, he could move his ship to a distance, and make a target of it. So desirous was this brave and somewhat facetious captain to try his new plan upon a crab, that he forebore to fire upon the two vessels of that class which were approaching him. Some of his guns were so mounted that their muzzles could be greatly depressed, and aimed ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... the gleaming rays which shine in the gay haunts of pleasure; but there were tapers instead of wax candles, and the chanting of prayers for the dead replaced the murmur of the ball-room. In the streets, instead of the facetious transparencies which indicate the costumers, there swung at intervals huge lanterns of a blood-red color, with these words in black letters: "Assistance for those attacked with the cholera." The true places for revelry, during the night, were the churchyards; they ran riot—they, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... so," said Gubblum, with many shakes of his big head. Let any facetious young gentleman who supposed that it was possible to make sport of him, understand once for all that it might be as well to throw a stone into ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... outcries, somewhat affrighting us till we interpreted them as the war-song with which, in imitation of his ancestors, he was prefacing the assault on Stamford. The conjurer, meanwhile, sat demurely in a corner extracting a sly enjoyment from the whole scene, and, like the facetious Merry Andrew, directing his queer glance particularly at me. As for myself, with great exhilaration of fancy, I began to arrange and color the incidents of a tale wherewith I proposed to amuse an audience that very evening; for I saw that ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that everybody else should do his duty; and the universal eruption of posters imploring us to subscribe to the War Loan indicates the emergence of a new Art—that of Government by advertisement. To the obvious appeals to duty, patriotism, conscience, appeals to shame, appeals romantic and even facetious are now added. It may be necessary, but the method is not dignified. All that can be said is that "Govertisement," or government by advertisement, is better than Government by the Press, a new terror with ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... work, which, though it may be, in its facts, almost true, and in its delineations perfectly accurate, will yet, in sixty years hence, be regarded, or rather, probably, disregarded, as a mere romance, and the gratuitous invention of a facetious fancy. ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... other, who was Barwood himself, with a smile such as heralds the facetious, "you will hardly condescend to receive our ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... No! No! any system which can produce the virile, splendid type of men we have before us today, is good enough for me, and," she added, drawing up her shoulders in perfect imitation of the Premier when he was about to be facetious, "if it is good enough for me—it is good ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... he, "you might be foolin' off for the money on your own account. Gone on a visit, has he? Well, you can hand him the key to-morrow, with my message. An' now I'll tell you my next notion. The St. Mawes packet"—this was the facetious name given to a small cutter which plied in those days between Falmouth and the small village of St. Mawes across the harbour—"the St. Mawes packet is due to start at seven-thirty. I won't risk boardin' her at ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... step is the only difficulty," is an old proverb. Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute, said the old facetious duchesse de Rambouillet, when touching on certain extravagancies of a young female. It was oddly enough applied lately by a lady, who hearing a clergyman declare, "That St. Piat, after his head was cut off, walked two entire ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... the propensity to jocularity still survives; but the jests are generally such as you meet with in the very earliest editions of Mr Joseph Miller, though, for the sake of variety, they are often ascribed to the late facetious Mr Joseph Jekyll, or Mr Henry Erskine, or to some other of the Fogie's early contemporaries, if indeed the Fogie himself is not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... worthily holds an illustrious place. His name is a household word with his countrymen; and whenever a young hopeful displays ever so crude an aptitude for caricaturing his schoolmaster, or giving with slate and pencil the facetious side of his grandmother's cap and spectacles, he is voted by the unanimous suffrage of fireside critics to be a "regular Cruikshank." In this connection I have heard him sometimes called "Crookshanks," which is taking, I apprehend, even a grosser ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... indulge in my faculty of invention and amplification, and you may possibly have an idea that I have done so in the account I have given you of my female parent's early adventures. Ho! ho! ho!" and he heaved back, and indulged in a long, low, hoarse laugh, such as a facetious hippopotamus might be supposed to produce on hearing a good pun ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... Direct your course to worthy deeds, In fuller day discharge your debts; For, when your sun of reason sets, The night succeeds; and all your schemes Of glory vanish with your dreams. Ah! where is now the supple train, That danced attendance on the Dean? Say, where are those facetious folks, Who shook with laughter at his jokes, And with attentive rapture hung, On wisdom, dropping from his tongue; Who look'd with high disdainful pride On all the busy world beside, And rated his productions ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... left it in Ardevora vestry the day she signed marriage with Paul Lebow (or, as he wrote it, Lebeau—"b-e-a-u,"): and the property had gone generations before. As she said 'pon her death-bed, "five-foot-six of church-hay will hold the only two achers left to me," she being a little body and very facetious to the last, and meaning her ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... natural genius, which was excellent, he might have equalled, if not excelled, many who claim a great share in the temple of the muses. Upon breaking out of the rebellion, 1642, he left London, and retired to Oxford, where he was much esteemed for his facetious company; he kept a common victualling house there, and thought he did great service to the Royal cause, by writing Pasquils against the round-heads. After the garrison of Oxford surrendered, he retired to Westminster, kept a public house in ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... Guthrie, the fat, funny, facetious Ted, did slide down a hill and take most of the hill with her? or if Nettie Brocton climbing a tree for dogwood berries attempted to fly by the merest accident? She had no choice but to drop into an ugly hole ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... Here was the intent facetious. And Ma Pettengill is never idly facetious. Always, as the advertisements say, "There's a reason!" And now, also for the first time, I noticed some printed verses on a sheet of thickish yellow paper tacked to the wall close beside the photograph—so close that I somehow divined ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... be facetious," he said. "You will observe that we are not retreating. You see no preparations to do so, but that's all I will tell you. More would be valuable information for ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... ear and out the other, without seeming for an instant to arrest Mr. Shackford's attention. The idea of Slocum not accepting money—anybody's money—presented itself to Mr. Shackford in so facetious a light as nearly to throw him into good humor. His foot was on the first step of the staircase, which he now began slowly to mount, giving vent, as he ascended, to a serious of indescribable chuckles. At the top of the landing he halted, ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... present. Every Sunday during term two or three prefects would sit down to dinner; masters turned up during the holidays; even the mighty Provost himself paid occasional visits, during which he put off most of his majesty and became as nearly human as a facetious judge. Nor did Father Rowley allow Silchester to forget that it had a Mission. He was not at all content with issuing a half yearly report of progress and expenses, and he had no intention of letting ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... Caleb, "your honour is pleased to be facetious; natheless, I might presume to say it was a convenient fashion, and used, as I have heard, in an honourable and thriving family. But touching your present dinner, I judged that this being St. Magdalen's [Margaret's] Eve, who was a worthy queen of Scotland in her day, your honours might judge ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... gardener with pleasure. I envy those who can render themselves familiar with the meanest of their followers, and talk with them in their own way; and dislike the advice of Plato, that men should always speak in a magisterial tone to their servants, whether men or women, without being sometimes facetious and familiar; for besides the reasons I have given, 'tis inhuman and unjust to set so great a value upon this pitiful prerogative of fortune, and the polities wherein less disparity is permitted betwixt masters and servants seem to me the most equitable. Others study how to raise and elevate ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... a chameleon," wrote Taylor, "remarking on its curious habit of casting one eye upward and the other downward at the same time,—'a faculty possessed also by some clergymen,'" added the facetious old man, as though he had discovered a new fact in natural history. Turning to a map of the Holy Land, Humboldt gave the young guest minute directions for his contemplated journey, until the very ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... Admirable Doctor," wrote that a cheerful mind brings power and vigor, makes a man rejoice, stirs up Nature, and helps her in her actions and motions; of which sort are joy, mirth, and whatever provokes laughter, as also instrumental music and songs, facetious conversation, and observation of the ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... learning has not the least tinge of pedantry. He knows a quantity of facetious stories, which he learnt in Italy and in Spain. He does not tell them badly, but I like him better in his more serious moods, because they are more natural to him. When he talks upon learned topics it is easy to see that they are rather troublesome to him than otherwise. I often blamed him for ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... incredible as it may seem, until that first performance of Barnwell, no writer, to quote Tom Davies' own words "had ventured to descend so low as to introduce the character of a merchant or his apprentice into a tragedy." Certain "witty and facetious persons who call themselves the town," continues Davies, brought to the first night copies of the old ballad on which the jeweller's play was based, meaning to mock the new tragedy with the old song; but so forcible and pathetic were Lillo's scenes that these merry gentlemen were obliged "to throw ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... savage and civilized bread. The savage mixes simple flour and water into balls of paste, which he throws into boiling water, and which come out solid, glutinous masses, of which his common saying is, "Man eat dis, he no die," which a facetious traveler who was obliged to subsist on it interpreted to mean, "Dis no kill you, nothing will." In short, it requires the stomach of a wild animal or of a savage to digest this primitive form of bread, and of course more ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... A facetious smile overspread Barney's face—"Och! be all manes; the same to you, kindly," said he, taking off his hat and ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... pleased to be facetious," she replied. "Will you not tell me your business? I have affairs ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... nodded Mr. Brimberly, rising. "Mr. Jenkins is a true hartist, equally facetious and ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... us, honest man, what through life has befallen thee to produce this sadness?" inquired the facetious major, adding, that he saw the tale of his trouble written ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... son. In the childish maladies with which the boy was troubled, he would make daily inquiries and daily pay him a visit, entering the sick-room with a facetious and appalling countenance, letting off a few perfunctory jests, and going again swiftly, to the patient's relief. Once, a court holiday falling opportunely, my lord had his carriage, and drove the child himself to Hermiston, the customary place of convalescence. ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... convinced her that the circumstances of his having been divorced he had not yet confided to the young woman. As he turned almost immediately away, Mrs. Byers in following him managed to get a better look at the girl, as she was exchanging some facetious remark to a neighbor. Mr. Langworthy did not speak until they had ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... generous—a poor, fettered, jealous, Anomaly, such—bear witness—is an author's mind. O, theme of many topics! chaos of ill-sorted fancies! Let us come now to the jealousies, the real or imaginary wrongs of authorship: hereafter treat we this at lengthier; "for the time present"—I quote the facetious Lord Coke, when writing on that highly exhilerating topic, the common-law—"hereof let this little taste suffice." Is it not a wrong to be taken for a mere book-merchant, a mercenary purveyor of learning and invention, of religion and philosophy, of instruction, or even of ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... or very insensible, who cannot profit by her valuable instructions. The hour which brought to me the humiliating conviction, that I was a person of no consequence; that the world could go on very well without me; that my merry companions would not be one jot less facetious, though I was absent from their jovial parties, was after all not the most ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... (from the great similarity of the two words, and the total absence of error from the former pages of the literary leviathan) that I should have passed it over as in the text, had I not perceived in the Edinburgh Review much facetious exultation on all such detections, particularly a recent one, where words and syllables are subjects of disquisition and transposition; and the above-mentioned parallel passage in my own case irresistibly propelled me to hint how much easier it is to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... of Persius are written in a free, expostulatory, and argumentative manner; possessing the same justness of sentiment as those of Horace, but exerted in the way of derision, and not with the admirable raillery of that facetious author. They are regarded by many as obscure; but this imputation arises more from unacquaintance with the characters and manners to which the author alludes, than from any peculiarity either in his language or composition. His versification ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... the apparition of Corinthian Tom, Jerry Hawthorn, and the facetious Bob Logic must be recorded—a wondrous history indeed theirs was! When the future student of our manners comes to look over the pictures and the writing of these queer volumes, what will he think of our society, ...
— John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character • William Makepeace Thackeray
... blending of the facetious with the horrible in this sanguinary scene. Before the battle, the Protestant preachers, in earnest sermons, had compared Henry with David at the head of the Lord's chosen people. In the midst of the bloody fray, when the field was covered with the dying and the dead, Henry grappled one of ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... fellow this," said Mowbray to himself, "and speaks in all the dignity of dollars; but I will be civil to him, till I can see what he is driving at.—You are facetious, Mr. Touchwood," he proceeded aloud. "I was only going to say, that although you set no value upon your connexion with my family, yet I cannot forget that such a circumstance exists; and therefore I bid you heartily ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Royale de vaguer a ses propres affaires," answered Prince Henri sternly: for he was an enemy to anything like a joke; but there is always wisdom in real wit, and it would have been well for his Most Christian Majesty had he followed the facetious counsels of his ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was a bronzed, stern-looking officer, perhaps ten years older than his chief; yet with all his military stiffness and sternness he was quite capable of relaxing into ordinary human feelings and becoming quite a facetious old fellow under favourable conditions. He could speak very little English. He enjoyed the humour of some Scottish stories and anecdotes I told, and which Kossuth translated for him. He was greatly pleased and amused when I initiated him into the art ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... word. Also, before the paper had been an hour off the press, Carruthers received a letter. It thanked Carruthers quite genuinely, even if couched in somewhat facetious terms, for his "sweeping vindication," twitted him gently for his "backsliding," begged to remain "his gratefully," and in lieu of signature there was a gray-coloured piece ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... indeed! Perhaps, Captain, you'd not think it too much throuble to come down; Miss Feemy of course has promised Mary to be there,"—and Pat attempted a facetious grin. ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... dinna." He began rubbing and giggling afresh. "It's a gran' thing, Wullie, to ha' a dutiful son; a shairp lad wha has no silly sens o' shame aboot sharpenin' his wits at his auld dad's expense. And yet, despite oor facetious lad there, aiblins we will ha' a hand in the Killer's catchin', you and I, Wullie—he! he!" And the great dog at his feet wagged his stump ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... went on, somewhat disturbed; it seemed to him that this uncle, though Julia's, was either going queer in the head or had chosen a poor occasion to be facetious. Next time, probably, it would be better to walk round the block below this. But it was no longer advisable to walk round any block. When he came to the happy gateway, the tuning of instruments and a fanfare of voices sounded from within the house; ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... to make facetious remarks. It was all done in a second. Kitty stood stock still as if some one had shot her. He gay manner ceased on the instant, she drew herself erect, and the next moment aimed a blow straight from the shoulder at the nearest of the men, knocking him over as completely as though he had ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... the proposed war-tax on automobile-owners. "Making war-taxes," he said, "isn't pleasant work. It puts one in the position of the facetious minister at Ocean Grove who took a little girl on his knee, ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery, and cowardice. Much less, I presume, will you be discouraged by any pretences, that malignants on this side the water[A] will represent your Paper as facetious and seditious, or that the Great on the other side the water will take offence at them. This dread of representation has had for a long time in this province effects very similar to what the physicians call an hydrophobia, or dread of water.—It ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... centered the attention of the audience. Colonel Dumas by I.C. Wilson was far in advance of his former attempts, and Beauseant by Thomas Beck added laurels to his already established reputation as a first-class amateur. Glavis by Master Asa Rawson was rendered in his usual facetious style, creating a universal twitter all around the hall. Mons. Deschappells by Albert Brown was laughable in the extreme, partly from the age of so young a father, as seen through the scarcity of his be-floured locks, and partly ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... Salemina was darning stockings in the inglenook at Bide-a-Wee Cottage, and I was reading her a Scotch letter which Francesca and I had concocted the evening before. I proposed sending the document to certain chosen spirits in our own country, who were pleased to be facetious concerning our devotion to Scotland. It contained, in sooth, little that was new, and still less that was true, for we were confined to a very small vocabulary which we were obliged to supplement now and then by a dip into Burns ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... of Menteith, Perthshire; he died at Glasgow on the 6th of October 1854. Mr Robertson maintained an extensive correspondence with the humbler bards, and succeeded in recovering many interesting lyrics, which would otherwise have perished. He was also reputed as the publisher of the facetious collection of anecdotes which appeared under the title of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... occasionally launch out in a bold strain of defiance and invective against the measures for the restoration of the Union, in which he would be seconded by Clement L. Vallandingham, of Ohio, and by the facetious S. S. Cox, who then ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... you are a facetious gentleman!' said he. 'You must have your way, I see. We are not three miles from Bedford by ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... isolation from neighbouring races may depend our decision as to the original or derivative character of such a tradition. Sometimes the passage of a story from one country to another can be proved by literary evidence. This is markedly the case with Apologues and Facetious Tales, two classes of traditions which do not come within the purview of the present work. But the story has then passed beyond the traditional stage, or else such proof could not be given. In tracing the history of a folk-tale which has entered into literature, ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... to Moore (September 19, 1818), he says, "I have finished the first canto ... of a poem in the style and manner of Beppo, encouraged by the good success of the same. It is ... meant to be a little quietly facetious upon every thing. But I doubt whether it is not—at least as far as it has gone—too free for these very modest days." The critics before and after publication thought that Don Juan was "too free," and, a month after the two first cantos had been issued, he writes to Murray ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron |
