"Jocular" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... conferred by his first-class ticket. The judge, who was going in a different train, put his head into the window of their compartment and urged them to settle their political differences by a similar compromise. He made a habit of being festive and jocular when he was on holiday, and he particularly enjoyed poking fun at the inhabitants ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... during which every shilling had been scrupulously devoted to accumulation, had quite doubled the original amount. So far from being penniless, therefore, Maud's fortune was often alluded to by the captain, in a jocular way, as if purposely to remind her that she had the means of independence, and duties connected with it. It is true, Maud, herself, had no suspicion that she had been educated altogether by her "father," and that her own money had not been used for this purpose. To own the truth, ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... continued in this jocular strain; but at this moment several gentlemen, with whom they had appointed a meeting, came in by different secret ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... the master up the stairs and into the room where Miss de Barral was found arrayed in a holland pinafore (also of the right kind for the pursuit of the art) and smilingly expectant. The water-colour lesson enlivened by the jocular conversation of the kindly, humorous, old man was always great fun; and she felt she would be compensated for the tiresome beginning ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... the "Quarterly" was, with the exception, perhaps, of the concluding paragraph just quoted, from the pen of Clare's friend and neighbour, Mr. Gilchrist, who wrote to Clare on the subject in the following jocular strain:— ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... firmly under the lock, and no one meets with less rebuke than yourself—the whole rebuke, indeed, consisting in a little laughing, at what is called wanton tricks. Yes, Asmodeus, I admit that your power is very great; though I cannot help reminding you," he added, with a jocular though truly infernal grin, "that you were all but starved, above there, during the last dear years. As for you, my son Belphegor, lousy prince of Sloth, nobody has afforded us more pleasure than yourself, so ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... man's smiling arrest for debts which he did not owe, and of his jocular seizure by sheriffs armed with writs of Habeas Corpus, the annals of his incorporation in the fleet furnish many instances. Arrest for fictitious debt was specially common. In every seaport town attorneys were to be found who made it their regular practice. Particularly was this ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... was injured fatally. Frischlin was considered one of the best Latin poets of post- classical times; but his genius was marred by his immoderate and bitter temper, which caused him to imagine that the gentle banter and jocular remarks of his acquaintances were insults to be repaid by angry invective and bitter sarcasm, with which his ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... flood, an' the old Cumberland is bank-full an' still a-risin'. The flat boat is softly raisin' an' fallin' on the sobbin' tide. It's then them jocular impulses seizes me, that a-way; an' I stoops an' casts off her one line, an' that flat boat swims silently away on the bosom of the river. The sports inside knows nothin' an' guesses less, an' their gayety swells on without ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... into amiability. "Is this yer a damned picnic?" said Uncle Billy with inward scorn as he surveyed the sylvan group, the glancing firelight, and the tethered animals in the foreground. Suddenly an idea mingled with the alcoholic fumes that disturbed his brain. It was apparently of a jocular nature, for he felt impelled to slap his leg again and cram his fist into ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... tears trickled from her eyes. But just as she was feeling unable to retrace her steps, and unable to remain standing any longer, and quite at a loss what to do, she overheard the sound of jocular language inside, and listening carefully, she discovered that it was, indeed, Pao-y and Pao-ch'ai. Lin Tai-y waxed more wroth. After much thought and cogitation, the incidents of the morning flashed unawares through her memory. "It must, in fact," she mused, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... the dormitory bell sounded, and he could hear the scuffling of feet on the lobby outside, and the clamour of voices as boys hustled one another in front of the boards. Evidently the majority regarded the announcement in a jocular manner; and when a distant shout of laughter came up from the passage below, and down from the landing above, it was clear that Forders did not take the matter very much ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... MacDonald retained his whole-souled benevolence, though it seemed to take on a slightly exaggerated tone. Kearns was coolly dispassionate and noncommittal, while Elam Harnish appeared as quizzical and jocular as ever. Eleven thousand dollars were already in the pot, and the markers were heaped in a confused pile in ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... instructions are to be issued giving the correct form of reply to such questions as, "Can I take this train to Rugby?" The answer in this case will convey a jocular suggestion that the task is best left to the engine-driver; and others in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 3, 1917 • Various
... of this exordium, and the imposing manner of Don Estevan, following so closely upon the jocular mien he had hitherto exhibited, made a painful impression upon the mind of the Senator. There was a short moment in which he regretted being so advanced in his opinions, and during this time the great dowry of Rosarita and her rosy lips had but ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... is detarmined to indulge in a jocular spirit the day. The truth is, your honor, I hae no men to assist me but common laborers, who are athegether ignorant of gerdening; now, if I had a man who could ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Lawson was published, spoke of the "aggressive, soft-hatted "stoush brigade". Anyone today who is disrespectful of authority or convention is said to show the larrikin element in the Australian character. larrikiness: jocular feminine form leather-jacket: kind of pancake (more often a fish, these days) lucerne: cattle feed-a leguminous plant, alfalfa in US ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... deal of Professor Blackie in the North and West, and no wonder. He was a laughing, jocular, impressionable man, who hobnobbed with landlords and amiably slapped drivers and policemen on the back, throwing a Gaelic greeting at them as he did so. His faculty for writing poetry is seen in many a guidebook; Oban, Inverness, Pitlochry, and numberless other places, have had their ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... the terrible smile? [The young fellow whom they call John winked very hard, and made a jocular remark, the sense of which seemed to depend on some double meaning of the word smile. The company was curious to know ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... the Niebelungen frescoes in Munich; from that to the Niebelungen itself, and then, by easy transition, to the ballads of Uhland and Heine. Lavender was in one of his most impulsive and brilliant moods—gay and jocular, tender and sympathetic by turns, and so obviously sincere in all that his listeners were delighted with his speeches and assertions and stories, and believed them as implicitly as he did himself. Sheila, sitting at a distance, saw and heard, and could not help recalling ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... had investigated the phenomena of the "materialisation" of spirits, some ten years before, and had bent the fierce light of the scientific method upon him. To Olive it appeared that Mr. Burrage and Mr. Gracie had ceased to be jocular; but that did not make them any less cynical. Henry Burrage said to Verena, as she was going, that he hoped she would think seriously of his mother's invitation; and she replied that she didn't know whether she should have much time in the future to give to people ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... never inquired. Once he had suggested calling for her at her office, and she had abruptly vetoed the suggestion. Paul was too remarkable a young man to escape the notice of her associates; her feelings towards him were too fine to be scratched by jocular allusion. After a time, having failed to meet her in the human torrents of Cheapside and Cannon Street, Paul gave up the search. Jane was lost, absolutely lost—and, with her, Barney Bill. He went on tour again, heavy-hearted. He felt that, in losing these two, he had committed an ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... heroic as not to rejoice exceedingly at having escaped death by hanging, even though it might prove to be a respite, rather than a pardon. At such a moment, the young man could have excused a much more offensive intrusion, and the sudden change in his prospects disposed him a little to be jocular; for truth compels us to add that gratitude to God entered but little into his emotions. The escape from death, like his capture, and the other incidents of his cruise, was viewed simply as the result of the ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... to think it is coming, but it does not come; the machine can't draw up what is not to be found in the spring; Providence has made him a light, jesting, paragraph-writing man, and that he will remain to his dying day. When he is jocular he is strong, when he is serious he is like Samson in a wig; any ordinary person is a match for him: a song, an ironical letter, a burlesque ode, an attack in the newspaper upon Nicoll's eye, a smart speech of twenty minutes, full of gross misrepresentations and clever turns, ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... out upon a lowering sky—everywhere gray and thick: turning black beyond the distant hills. An hour ago the Department wagon had rattled away with the body of Mr. Poddle; and with the cheerfully blasphemous directions, the tramp of feet, the jocular comment, as the box was carried down the narrow stair, the last distraction had departed. The boy's mother was left undisturbed to prepare for the crucial moments in ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... deliver her the warrant for the execution of that princess. She signed it readily, and ordered it to be sealed with the great seal of England. She appeared in such good humour on the occasion, that she said to him in a jocular manner, "Go, tell all this to Walsingham, who is now sick; though I fear he will die of sorrow when he hears of it." She added, that though she had so long delayed the execution, lest she should seem to be actuated by malice or cruelty, she was all along sensible of the necessity of it. In the same ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... write a great deal. This certainly was his reputation. The numberless memoirs, petitions, and letters which flew from his pen gave even rise to jokes and bywords. Francesillo de Zuniga, Charles V.'s jester, in one of his jocular epistles exclaims: "I hope to God that Gutierrez will always have all the paper he wants, for he writes more than Ptolemy and than Columbus, the discoverer of ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... like an old woman's dream, but still it was an excitement, jocular in the morning, and just, perhaps, a little fearful as night overspread the vast and desolate building, but still, not wholly unpleasant. This little flicker of credulity suddenly, however, blazed up into ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... commence at 8 o'clock. Doors were open at 61/2. Some time previous to that hour, the stairs leading from the street door to the hall were lined with the lads of the village, who amused themselves with making jocular remarks about "the man in the cage there" (meaning Marcus), and "t'other man at the door, whose shirt was out of jail" (meaning Tiffles). Marcus smiled grimly at his assailants through the small pigeon hole; and Tiffles, who felt reckless in the sure view of a failure, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... so variegated, so like his own harlequin in his 'ghastly vest of white patchwork,' 'the apparition of a dead rainbow'; what is it that gives to a style, which no man can analyse, its 'terseness, its jocular pathos, which makes one feel in laughter?' Those are his own words, not used of himself; but do they not do something to define what can, after all, never ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... The regular pacing of the sentinel ceased and he hailed the approaching quartet in a jocular way. They answered with thick tongues and coarse laughter. Presently they passed out of view of the boys, having come close within the shadow of the ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... but, to boot, a Chelsea Pensioner with one leg. Both dismounting to assist Mrs. Mitts into the cab, the Greenwich Pensioner bore her company inside, and the Chelsea Pensioner mounted the box by the driver: his wooden leg sticking out after the manner of a bowsprit, as if in jocular homage to his friend's sea-going career. Thus the equipage drove away. No Mrs. Mitts returned ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... trees, felt a slap of rain, and heard, not far away, the measured beating of breakers as they charged at the foot of our cliff, when the wind, plucking the latch from my grasp, slammed the lattice and went yelling around the corner of the house like a jocular demon. I began to dress, thinking, as I had often thought before, that the place had a kind of fantastic kinship with the sea; every timber in it seemed to strain and creak to the repeated onsets of the storm, like those of any ship. The house stood steady enough, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... employment was no sinecure; for this was the favourite stall with the purchasers of better style, since the articles were, in general, tasteful, and fairly worth the moderate price set on them. At Miss Cleveland's counter there was much noisy laughter— many jocular cheats—tricks for gaining money, and refusals to give change; and it seemed to be very popular with the Stoneborough people, and to carry on a brisk trade. The only languor was in Lady Leonora's quarter—the articles were too ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... friends again. And with such jocular asperities the days passed quickly and agreeably until my nephew arrived with the plans and specifications. Frederick Grinnell was not only my nephew, but an architect of reputation and promise, considering his years and experience. ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... weaker. If you had charged with the Six Hundred, you would not have remarked during the charge that one of your sleeves was too tight. Perhaps in your boyhood, a companion of a turn at once thoughtful and jocular, offered to pull a hair out of your head without your feeling it. And this he accomplished, by taking hold of the doomed hair, and then giving you a knock on the head that brought tears to your eyes. For, in the ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... rose from his chair, remarking, in a jocular manner, "I expect it's one of you young ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... Alexander. Even Imperial children do not seem to be able to shake off the dark historical recollections that hang about the Winter Palace. In the manner of children they will make a ghastly sport of them. Once, when they were in a specially jocular mood, Alexander, in company with his brother Constantine and some comrades in play, enacted—as youngsters in their apishly imitative mood will do—one of the most hideous scenes that concluded a previous reign. The throttling ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... smile. The professor confessed in a jocular tone his impatience to complete the circuit of the globe and be done with it. It was impossible to remain quartered on the dear excellent Dunsters for an indefinite time. And then there were the lectures he had arranged to deliver ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... bandoliers, mounted and set out in our shirt sleeves (mark that!) with our guides in their civilian togs (mark that!). From these individuals we gathered we were off cattle-lifting, the Boers having left some in a kloof about a couple of miles south of the camp. With jocular allusions to our last quest of a similar nature (the laager near Rustenburg) we smoked and trotted along, comfortable in our shirt sleeves after so much of the usual marching order. Following, came four "boys" to drive the cattle ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... you at last!' he said, regarding me with a jocular smile and a head cocked on one side, pretty much after the fashion of a thrush eyeing a worm. 'But, excuse me, after so much finesse it ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... material, so that in case of fire they could not be closed without great exertion; or they have been allowed to get out of order, so that in case of fire they are useless. This has been so common that it has given rise to the jocular expression of insurance men, when they are told that a fire door exists between the two buildings, "Warranted to be open in case of fire." The strictest regulations should exist in regard to closing the fire doors nightly. Frequently we find that ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 • Various
... affection for the past. He remembered his aunt Mary, though he had not seen her for years. His half brothers, Bill and Guy, had changed but little except perhaps to grow lean and rangy. Bill resembled his father, though his aspect was jocular rather than serious. Guy was smaller, wiry, and hard as rock, with snapping eyes in a brown, still face, and he had the bow-legs of a cattleman. Both had married in Arizona. Bill's wife, Kate, was a stout, comely little woman, mother ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... biscuit in milk, and teasing her small dog with it. Lord Parham meanwhile described to Lady Tranmore—at wearisome length—the demonstrations which had attended his journey south, the railway-station crowds, addresses, and so forth. He handled the topic in a tone of jocular humility, which but slightly concealed the vast complacency beneath. Kitty's lip twitched; she fed Ponto hastily with ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Mr. Heatherbloom, or any other blooming name!" Recovering his jocular manner. "It's not for me to inquire the 'why,' or care a rap for the 'wherefore.' Ethics hasn't anything to do with the realm ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... due to a weakness of composition, to the goddess IIII., who is the presiding deity of the plots of New Comedy.[132] However, there are times when appreciable fun can be extracted from this, if the actor speak in a bland jocular tone, taking the audience into his ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... with a 'how d'ye do, Cutaway?' and in my excitement at the prospect of receiving the $80, which I then wanted the worst kind, I shook hands with him, asked how his family was, and got as familiar and jocular with him as though he was the most cherished friend I had in the world! Well, now what do you suppose was the result of that ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... many jokes made at first, and a general spirit of hilariousness reigned, but it was observed by one of the keener witted ones that, despite his jocular tone, there was an underlying seriousness in Tom's air which might argue that he felt the weight of his responsibility. When the women began to come in, as they did later in the day, he received them with much cordiality, rising from his chair ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... surveillance, and by her organizing that the tall and handsome blacksmith who taught the lower boys should extend his influence over the upper boys. His influence was more than effectual. It consisted in gripping any recalcitrant boy just above the knee, and jesting with him in a jocular manner, in the dialect. The blacksmith's hand was all a blacksmith's hand need be, and his dialect was as broad as could be wished. Between the grip and the homely idiom no boy could endure without squealing. So the Sunday School paid more attention to ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... I crack a judicial jest, Witnesses, jurors, suitors smile, They quite understand I do my best, A wearisome action to beguile: "Silks" and "Juniors" seem to force, A jeering laugh as a matter of course. Ah me! who would be, A jocular ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 5, 1892 • Various
... State as "the sword, the shield, and the ornament of his party." Young was as dauntless as Spencer, and, if anything, a more distinguished looking man. He was without austerity and easy of approach; and, although inclined to reticence, he seemed fond of indulging in jocular remarks and an occasional story; but he was a man of bad temper. He fretted under opposition as much as Clinton, and he easily became vindictive toward opponents. This kept him unpopular even among men of his own faction. Clinton thought him "much of an imbecile," ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... attempts, on the part of other birds, to imitate his truly original style. The Mocking-bird gives up the attempt in despair, and refuses to sing at all when confined near one in a cage. I cannot look upon him as ever in a very serious humor. He seems to be a lively, jocular little fellow, who is always jesting and bantering, and when half a dozen different individuals are sporting about in the same orchard, I often imagine that they might represent the persons dramatized in some comic opera. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... Dr Johnson, 'fill him drunk again. Do it in the morning, that we may laugh at him all day. It is a poor thing for a fellow to get drunk at night, and sculk to bed, and let his friends have no sport.' Finding him thus jocular, I became quite easy; and when I offered to get up, he very good-naturedly said, 'You need be in no such hurry now.' [Footnote: My ingenuously relating this occasional instance of intemperance has I find been made the subject both of serious criticism and ludicrous ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... not all sentiment. They are jocular, and contain puns and play upon names. Three out of the five end with an invitation to everyone to raise their glasses with a Hoch to the married pair. This is done over and over again at German weddings, and as all the guests want to clink ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... morning as this, that I and my Lord Mumble and the Duke of Tenterden were out upon a ramble: we called at a little house as it might be this; and my landlady, I warrant you, not suspecting to whom she was talking, was so jocular and facetious, and made so many merry answers to our questions, that we were all ready to burst with laughter. At last the good woman happening to overhear me whisper the duke and call him by his title, was so surprised and confounded, that we could scarcely get a word from her; and the duke ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... from whence I might pass by a circuitous route into Bambarra. If I wished to follow this route he would appoint people to conduct me to Jarra, the frontier town of Ludamar. He then inquired very particularly how I had been treated since I had left the Gambia, and asked, in a jocular way, how many slaves I expected to carry home with me on my return. He was about to proceed when a man mounted on a fine Moorish horse, which was covered with sweat and foam, entered the court, and signifying that he had something of importance to communicate, the king immediately ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... past and future did these few jocular words awaken in the mind of our young sealer! He fancied that he saw Mary standing in the porch of her uncle's habitation, a witness of the approach of the schooner, looking wistfully at the still indistinct images of those who were to be seen on her decks. Mary had often ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... wrote these jokes with such ease that he sent manuscripts to the publishers faster than they could acknowledge the receipt thereof. I won't say that they were all good jokes, or that to read a great book full of them is a work at present altogether jocular. Writing to a friend respecting some memoir of him which had been published, Hood says, "You will judge how well the author knows me, when he says my mind is rather serious than comic." At the time when he wrote these words, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... wouldn't—wouldn't make so free with them when they come, and if there might be a little order, and if they could have been postponed till the resident governesses had arrived. But now they are there, all of them, as merry and jocular as you like, running about the place, racing here and there, and devouring all our best fruit, tramping in and out of the greenhouses and conservatory, and making such a noise just over your study. It ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... the day before are transcribed and subjected to a preliminary working-out, the natural history collections are examined and looked over, studies and authorship are prosecuted. The work is now and then interrupted by conversation partly serious, partly jocular. From the engine-room in the neighbourhood we hear the blows of hammers and the rasping of files. In the 'tweendecks, pretty well heated, but not very well lighted, some of the crew are employed at ordinary ship's work; and in the region of the kitchen the cook is just in ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... little world flowed on, repeating its high-pitched note of gratulation, of jocular welcome to the married state, as if to say, 'Well, now you are one of us—you've been brought in—this is life.' That was what these smiling people were thinking, as they welcomed the neophytes to the large vale of human experience. ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... merry as a marriage bell; joyful, joyous, jocund, jovial; jolly as a thrush, jolly as a sandboy^; blithesome; gleeful, gleesome^; hilarious, rattling. winsome, bonny, hearty, buxom. playful, playsome^; folatre [Fr.], playful as a kitten, tricksy^, frisky, frolicsome; gamesome; jocose, jocular, waggish; mirth loving, laughter-loving; mirthful, rollicking. elate, elated; exulting, jubilant, flushed; rejoicing &c 838; cock-a-hoop. cheering, inspiriting, exhilarating; cardiac, cardiacal^; pleasing &c 829; palmy. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... and as he switched it up and down with a powerful arm, to try its weight and pliancy, the whistling of the instrument through the air was music to his ears, and whispered of promised joy in the flagellation of the jocular attorney. ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... debate was raging in Congress. At a dinner of the Associated Chambers of Commerce, in early March, the Ambassador made a few impromptu remarks. The occasion was one of good fellowship and good humour, and Page, under the inspiration of the occasion, indulged in a few half-serious, half-jocular references to the Panama Canal and British-American good-feeling, which, when inaccurately reported, caused a great disturbance in the England-baiting press. "I would not say that we constructed the Panama Canal even for you," he said, "for I am speaking with great ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... Baiame, was originally, not a Father and guardian, but a lewd and tricky ghost of a medicine-man, a dancer of indecent dances, a wooer of other men's wives, a shape-shifter, a burlesque droll, a more jocular bugbear, like Twanyirika. By what means did he come to be accredited later with his loftiest attributes, and with regard for the tribal ethics, which, in practice, he daily broke and despised? Students who argue for the possible priority of ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... a divorce," said the budding barrister, in a jocular tone. "I am afraid we can't manage that ...
— Sam's Chance - And How He Improved It • Horatio Alger
... given the greatest boons to humanity have often been rough in manners, intolerant of infirmities, bitter in their social prejudices, hard in their dealings, and acrid in their tempers; and if they were occasionally jocular, their jokes were too practical to be in high favor with what is called ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... Jocular opinions of the passers-by were being freely exchanged back and forth; he paid no heed to them. The scoop dropped from his hand and clattered upon the floor; he let it lay. Silent and troubled, unaware of the demands of an insistent customer, he looked after ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... he said, "to give way to a jocular mood, and to laugh at everything, probably because God has granted us this faculty to compensate for the difficulty which we find in believing, in the same manner as playthings are given to children. But ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... Saturae he wrote no less than 150 books, of which fragments have been preserved amounting to near 600 lines. Menippus of Gadara, the originator of this style of composition, lived about 280 B.C.; he interspersed jocular and commonplace topics with moral maxims and philosophical doctrines, and may have added contemporary pictures, though ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... text, Your only one, till sides and benches fail. No: he was serious in a serious cause, And understood too well the weighty terms That he had ta'en in charge. He would not stoop To conquer those by jocular exploits, Whom truth and ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... adding, "It will, no doubt, be eagerly accepted by one of your lordship's supporters in the Upper House." On another occasion, when Lord Normanby was soliciting Lord Melbourne to be made a marquis, the noble Premier observed, in his jocular way, "Why, Normanby, you are not such a d——d fool as to want that!" The favour, however, was ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... young Israelite, lavishly adorned with feathers, came running to know if we wished to see the church—by which name he put the synagogue to the Gentile comprehension. The street through which we passed had shops on either hand, and at the doors groups of jocular Hebrew youth sat plucking geese; while within, long files of all that was mortal of geese hung from the rafters and the walls. The ground was webbed with the feet of geese, and certain loutish boys, who paused to ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... away on a long journey and had tried to straighten up matters previous to his departure. The visitor gazed curiously about the room. He had a strange foreboding, but forced himself to ask in a jocular mood: "Going ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... pleased. This easy, jocular treatment of a serious and formal subject was just what she wanted. It would help show the listening Abner that the wearing of the social uniform was nothing very formidable after all, and did not necessarily doom one's ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... mortuis nil, nisi bone 'em!" suggested Miss Hurribattle, with such perfect gravity that neither Miss Prowley nor the clergyman suspected the jocular atrocity that was hidden ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... 1780 and 1814 were all of one pattern, and the one which Gourdon composed upon the Cup-and-Ball will give an idea of them. They required a certain knack or proficiency in the art. "The Chorister" is the Saturn of this abortive generation of jocular poems, all in four cantos or thereabouts, for it was generally admitted that six would wear the ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... pilots swooped down upon them to learn the particulars. As usual they were inclined to be jocular, and greeted the limping Beverly with a volley of questions, as well as remarks concerning that "luck" of ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... extremely vivid dream, Myra," continued Don Carlos, ignoring the jocular question. "I dreamed you were in my arms, straining me close to your breast, and returning my hungry kisses with passionate ardour. We were drinking Love's cup of rapture together, my beloved and I, ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... submit most readily to the process. When you're a little older, when, perhaps, you have children of your own, you'll understand better what I've done for you to-night; and you won't use toward my memory the tone of semi-jocular disdain that has entered into nearly every word you've addressed to me this evening. Now, if you'll excuse me," she added, wearily, "I think I'll go in. I'm very tired, and I'll rest till Dorothea comes. When she arrives you must bring her to me directly; and she must stay with ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... patience, if for no other reason, Sir Gilbert," answered the minister, with a hard laugh, meant to be jocular. "But indeed such affairs cannot be managed in a moment. You will have plenty of time to make a good use of your money, if you should have to wait another year ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... rather indifferent young painter, who in 1819 boarded at the Vauquer pension. A tutor at college and a Museum attache; very jocular; given to personal witticisms, which were often aimed ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... offices that were required. It was a complex trophy of Moreau's horrible skill,—a bear, tainted with dog and ox, and one of the most elaborately made of all his creatures. It treated Montgomery with a strange tenderness and devotion. Sometimes he would notice it, pat it, call it half-mocking, half-jocular names, and so make it caper with extraordinary delight; sometimes he would ill-treat it, especially after he had been at the whiskey, kicking it, beating it, pelting it with stones or lighted fusees. But whether he treated it well or ill, it loved nothing so much ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... But when they did so, which was in a short time, it was for us to clear away, with orders at the same time to keep the remainder of the beef for ourselves; so we removed our dinner traps, passing a good many remarks in a jocular spirit on our green pasture, wet cloth, and our scientific dishes, plates, knives, and forks, much to the amusement of the colonel and captain who were looking on, and then sat down to our own supper, which we very much needed. I remember remarking to my comrade ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... "Why not send for Jocular Jimson Jones?" suggested the head and leading spirit of the Improvement Company. "We can offer him one of our cottages, and pay his debts if he has any, if he will live here and give us the ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... the motion picture audience total about two hundred, any time, but they come in groups of two or three at no specified hour. The newcomers do not, as in Vaudeville, make themselves part of a jocular army. Strictly as individuals they judge the panorama. If they disapprove, there is grumbling under their breath, but no hissing. I have never heard an audience in a photoplay theatre clap its hands even when the house was bursting with people. Yet they often see the film through twice. When they ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... divided their plunder, receiving forty-two diamonds per man, or in smaller proportion according to their magnitude. A foolish jocular fellow, who had received a large diamond of the value of forty-two, was highly displeased, and so went and broke it in pieces, exclaiming, that he had many more shares than either of them. Some, contended with their treasure, and unwilling to run the risk of losing what they possessed, and perhaps ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... latent about my footsteps, and that it was still within the bounds of possibility that I might hear the cry of the trapped victim, my historic attitude entirely failed, and I was sensible of some repugnance for the natives. But here, too, the priests maintained their jocular attitude: rallying the cannibals as upon an eccentricity rather absurd than horrible; seeking, I should say, to shame them from the practice by good-natured ridicule, as we shame a child from stealing sugar. We may here recognise the temperate ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... think, of very different qualities in relation to different subjects. Certainly he was at times capable of considerable heaviness of hand,—of the Scotch "wut" which has been so irreverently treated by English critics. His rather elaborate jocular introductions, under the name of Jedediah Cleishbotham, are clearly laborious at times. And even his own letters to his daughter-in-law, which Mr. Lockhart seems to regard as models of tender playfulness and pleasantry, ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... have been surprised had they known how ripe the great jocular plot really was. "Yes, to-night," Jopp had said to the Peter's party at the corner of Mixen Lane. "As a wind-up to the Royal visit the hit will be all the more pat by reason of their great ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... expression of countenance, and twinkling light grey eyes, which he had a trick of blinking when about to perpetrate a joke. His trousers were a little too short, his coat-sleeves—when he wore a coat—a little too long. On ordinary occasions his hat was tilted to the back of his head, and when in a jocular humour he cocked it knowingly over one eye. Probably these peculiarities, coupled with a certain dry method of enunciating, added ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... seems to assign him a conventional station somewhat above that of his equals in navy rank—the Chaplain, Surgeon, and Professor. Moreover, he is frequently to be seen in close conversation with the Commodore, who, in the Neversink, was more than once known to be slightly jocular with our Purser. Upon several occasions, also, he was called into the Commodore's cabin, and remained closeted there for several minutes together. Nor do I remember that there ever happened a cabinet meeting of the ward-room barons, the Lieutenants, in the Commodore's cabin, but the ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... them with great apparent cordiality, and entered into a long discourse with them, promising them the assistance of himself and order, and received from them a profusion of thanks. After a time Murtagh, observing, in a jocular tone, that consulting was dull work, proposed a game of cards, and the leaders, though somewhat surprised, assenting, he went to a closet, and taking out a pack of cards, laid it upon the table; ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... ACIS ARRANT, generally known to his jocular intimates as Knave ARRANT, had been living in luxury with his cousin's weak mother, whom he had contrived to marry. To effect this, however, he had been compelled to tear a will into little pieces, and had, at the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 7, 1891. • Various
... we wanted to borrow money," Bill retorted to the jocular latter part of the bartender's speech. "What time ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... either. All that happens is that a number of weary people who used to say, 'Something like a bird,' now say, 'Some bird,' with undiminished weariness. But they might just as well use dull and decent English; for in both cases they are only using jocular language without seeing ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... Smith we have already sufficient knowledge. As for Sir Justinian, we are not to think he was already married; the reference to his "new wife" is merely jocular, meaning his new wife when he shall get one; for Sir Justinian is still wife-hunting, and comes back to renew his suit with Dorothy after this date. "Your fellow-servant," who is as often called Jane, appears to have been a friend and companion of Dorothy, ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... as conducing to his material interests, he every now and then requires a change of scene and of occupation. Something to divert the mind from its ordinary series of ideas—something to enable us to lose ourselves in a temporary illusion, were it only a jocular supposition of our being something a good deal worse than we are—something, above all, to stir the hearty laugh, which proves its being good for us by the very help it gives to digestion—is required at frequent intervals—all free from what tends to debase and corrupt. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... spoke in a cool, calm, almost jocular tone, the trapper acted with a degree of rapidity and vigour which showed that he thought the crisis a momentous one. With his fettered hands he plucked the knife from the girdle of the dead Indian and gave it to Larry O'Hale, ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne
... if not more frequent promenade to the betting-office; and on the days when the races come off, they may be observed in shoals, nodding and winking knowingly as they pass one another. Some are seen with jocular countenances, and pass for pleasant fellows: they are impressed with the idea that their horses are looking up. In others, the jocular expression has passed away, and the philosophical observer sets them down as melancholy ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... door, he found the queen lying on the bed exactly as he has seen her through the hole, and the physician, examining the lantern swathed in bandages, and saying, "How it is the little treasure, this morning?" in exactly the same voice as the king had heard. A jocular and cheerful expression, because physicians and surgeons use cheerful words with ladies and treat this sweet flower with flowery phrases. This sight made the king look as foolish as a fox caught in a trap. The queen sprang up, reddening with shame, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... power of making cartoons—living, jocular cartoons—of their wearers. It would hardly seem necessary to call attention to the fact that a man of huge dimensions should not wear a short coat, such as shown in sketch No. 91, yet his type is too frequently seen attired in this style. A man so dressed certainly seems the living exemplification ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley
... exacting mien of 1812 was very different from the half-jocular, half-sarcastic curl of the lip and sparkle of the eye which had inspired his followers in former days quite as much as his stirring, incisive harangues. Yet careful study will prove that his sagacity as a great captain was in ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane |
