"Joviality" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... trip had been successful. We re-entered the harbour very quietly as usual and when our craft had been moored unostentatiously amongst the plebeian stone-carriers, Dominic, whose grim joviality had subsided in the last twenty-four hours of our homeward run, abandoned me to myself as though indeed I had been a doomed man. He only stuck his head for a moment into our little cuddy where I was changing my clothes and being told in answer to his question that ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... were going forward, the "waking" was kept up in all the barbarous style of old times; eating and drinking in profusion went on in the house, and the kitchen of the hall rang with joviality. The feats of sports and arms of the man who had passed away were lauded, and his comparative achievements with those of his progenitors gave rise to many a stirring anecdote; and bursts of barbarous exultation, or more barbarous merriment, rang ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... said, "that we Irishmen drink from any particular love of liquor, but from good fellowship and joviality. One can hardly imagine a party of French nobles inflaming themselves with wine, and singing, as our fellows do. Frenchmen are gay in what I may call a feeble way—there is no go in it. There is no spirit in their songs, there is no real heartiness ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... argument, and my wonder at the skipper's conduct increased when, the next dawn finding us still becalmed, but with the added annoyance of a fog that almost hid the bowsprit's end, his demeanour swung back to joviality. I taxed him with ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... my boy!" he grunted, with a joviality he did not bother trying to make sound overly sincere. "So they have it! You must see our men immediately, and point out where they have gone wrong. You may leave it to me to ...
— Irresistible Weapon • Horace Brown Fyfe
... A wild joviality seemed to rush through the Dryad, as though she were intoxicated with opium. Her eyes spoke, her lips spoke, but the sound of violins and of flutes drowned the sound of her voice. Her partner whispered words to her which she did not understand, ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... Joviality radiated from him: it was infectious. The children felt that some happy influence had fallen upon their friend. Usually after dinner he was drowsy and "wishful to be quiet." To-day he told them stories of the sea, and sang ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... the halls, pleasantly conversing, and instantly the scene was again changed, as if by the stroke of a magic wand. The chilling silence melted into an agreeable smile, and all recovered their breaths and former joviality. ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... in possession of anything which could be utilised as a champagne opener. One gentleman, however, was very skilful in knocking off the necks of the bottles, and before we were half-way home we were all in a state of great contentment and joviality. There was a rather noisy discussion about politics and, with one exception, my companions were all fierce opponents of Gladstone. I fired at last—I daresay the champagne had something to do with it—and I ventured to tell those gentlemen ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... of old London City had not witnessed for many a long day. All the people were merry except the poor Jews, who, trembling within their houses, and scarcely daring to peep out, began to foresee that they would have to find the money for this joviality sooner ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... they were young men, husky and hearty and inspired with a beefish joviality at having found a place where they could ease their feet, and rest their legs, and slake their week-old thirst upon their own soothing brews. Being German they expressed their gratefulness in song. We had difficulty getting into the place, so completely was it filled. Men sat in the window ledges, ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... of this elfish concert, it seemed, was the birth of a fairy child, at which the fairies, with the exception of two or three who were discomposed at having nothing to cover the little innocent with, were enjoying themselves with that joviality usually characteristic of such an event. The astonished rustic finding himself amongst a host of invisible beings, in a wild moorland place, and far from any human assistance, should assistance be required, full of the greatest consternation, ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... to put in her wine. It was evening and a hard frost. I shall never forget the cold, cutting, dreary, dead look of every thing out of doors, with a wind through the wiry trees, and the snow on the ground, contrasted with the sudden return to warmth, light, and joviality. ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... not only to be with people, but to be making them enjoy themselves. Thus he was both generous and jovial. No one loved more to give presents; no one knew more droll stories and more poetry. Nor was his joviality by any means a descent; for not only before royalty was he dignified, but in the most democratic assembly. His was not, however, a forbidding dignity. Simple-hearted as a child, he was fond of children, and they were ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... seamy-faced man. "Quite an idea, that! Makes him one of us again! Well, he's welcome—in oils. Can't say much to us from canvas, eh?" And the rafters above him vibrated, as his violent efforts at joviality went up in loud and louder ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... not infer from all this that friend Theophilus is a social wet blanket, a goblin shadow at the domestic hearth. By no means. Nature has gifted him with that vein of humor and that impulse to friendly joviality which are frequent developments in sad-natured men, and often deceive superficial observers as to their real character. He who laughs well and makes you laugh is often called a man of cheerful disposition, yet ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Gibbons came through the crowd, with a great effect of smiling joviality. But he too glanced over the press of heads toward the glare of candle-light with a strained ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... than Nature had left it, as he perused, one after another, the documents found on Shipley. Though his demeanor towards myself remained quite amicable, it was clear that he judged me, to a certain extent, by my associations; and his simple joviality was somewhat clouded by an uneasy sense of responsibility. Nevertheless, the evening passed quickly enough round the guard-room fire; the men sang some simple chants, and the deep, rough voices sounded ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... Then come, represented by most happily conceived figures, the German rivers on whose shores are the world-famous vineyards whose names make epicures smack their lips; then the German impersonations of Saus and Braus, or Joviality and Good Living; after them a troop of cooks, and next a queer company of dancers. We see a poet crowned with vine leaves, a tipsy-happy Capuchin monk and a jester laughing at him. The series closes with a love-scene, broken in upon by a watchman ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... stood about, managing his tea-cup awkwardly and watching every one out of his deep-set, faded eyes. He seemed to have made a resolute effort at tidiness of attire, and his sister, a robust, florid woman with a splendid joviality about her, kept eyeing his freshly creased clothes apprehensively. It was not very long, indeed, before his coat hung with a discouraged sag from his gaunt shoulders and his hair and beard were rumpled as if he had been out in a gale. ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... audience, by two or three at once, and, not unfrequently, to the still greater confusion of story-tellers and audience alike, the whole proceedings were interrupted by the outrageous yells and turmoil of the two indomitable young Buzzbys, as they romped in reckless joviality with Dumps and Poker. But at length the morning light broke up the party, and stories of the World of Ice came to ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... time that he first came to Paris to study military tactics. He had fought hard against the French in the wars that were now ended; but his chivalrous bearing, his handsome person, and his reckless joviality made him at once a universal favorite in Paris. To the perfumed courtiers, with their laces and lovelocks and mincing ways, Maurice de Saxe came as a sort of knight of old—jovial, daring, pleasure-loving. Even his broken French was held to be quite ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... mental, moral, and political philosophy; 'And yet he bore it not about'; not 'as being loth to wear it out,'{1} but because he held that there was a time for all things, and that dinner was the time for joviality, and not for argument; Mr. Minim, the amateur composer of the music for the comedy; Mr. Pallet, the amateur painter of the scenery; and last, not least, ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... mint glass was kept fresh and fragrant but apparently father had forgotten entirely about all three. He ate twice as much as I had ever seen him consume and the worn lines in his face were slowly filling out into a delicious joviality. Mr. Hicks, the little tailor who had always clothed him, had little by little made over the outer man with new garments as the old ones grew restrictive, and Mother Spurlock had carried his entire discarded wardrobe, garment at a time, down to the Settlement for the clothing ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... lamplight shining on his bald head, sat in the midst of them, familiar by a score of years with their chants. Pae filled the pipe and the bowls and joined in the chorus, while the Paumotan boys, in a shadowy recess, sipped their rum and rolled their eyes in astonished appreciation of the first joviality of their lives. When the leader began the ancient cannibal chant, the song of war and of feasting at the High Place, the tattooed men forgot even the rum. The nights of riot after return from the battle, ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... senior officers, does duty also as a gunroom for the juniors. But here there is camaraderie and an absence of iron discipline, although a sub-lieutenant would be extremely ill advised either to drop the prefix "Sir" or to slap the Commander on the back in an excess of joviality, relying on "neutral territory" to save him from rebuke. It is, however, no uncommon event to see all ranks of officers engaged in a heated debate, or groups of juniors laughing round the fire while ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... darkly red, was certain that they had overheard; she stood glaring at the intruders, her foot tapping the floor. No one answered, and Mr. Pomeroy, after looking from one to the other in assumed surprise, pretended to hit on the reason. 'Oh, I see; I spoil sport!' he cried with coarse joviality. 'Curse me if I meant to! I fear we have come mal a propos, my lord, and the sooner we are ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... Hill's chapel, and had there lost a new hat. When he reported the misfortune to his father, the old Quaker replied: "John, if thee'd gone to the right place of worship, thee'd have kept thy hat upon thy head." Lord Macaulay was accustomed to say that he got his "joviality" from his mother's family. If his power of humour was indeed of Quaker origin, he was rather ungrateful in the use to which he sometimes ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... he, "in the common way she certainly is not; the merriment and the everlasting joviality which she occasions, and the ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... found, nevertheless, that cakes and ale still prevailed there. I am inclined to think that cakes and ale prevail most freely in times that are perilous, and when sources of sorrow abound. I have seen more reckless joviality in a town stricken by pestilence than I ever encountered elsewhere. There was General Dix seated on Federal Hill with his cannon; and there, beneath his artillery, were gentlemen hotly professing themselves to be secessionists, men whose sons and brothers ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... the voyage every thing appeared to augur well for the success of the expedition; the party were in high spirits, and no accident of any moment had yet occurred to check the joviality, which prevailed amongst the crew. The natives were every where disposed to carry on trade, and, in some places, saphies or charms were hung on the banks of the river to induce the white men to come on shore. Stibbs had endeavoured to conceal the ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... Winchester; but he had a second coronation in Westminster Abbey, on May 17, 1220, having on the previous day laid the foundation-stone of his Lady Chapel, which was to be the germ of an entirely new edifice. All previous coronations were said to be outdone by the feasting and joviality on this occasion. ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... rather a long day for you, child!" says Sir Roger, kindly, perceiving, I suppose, the joviality of the expression with which I am eying the German landscape. "The most tedious railway-journey ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... ill at ease. As the leisure member of the party, I enjoyed more of Cookie's society than the rest. On this occasion while the morning was still in its early freshness he was permitting me to make fudge. But his usual joviality was gone. I saw that he glanced over his shoulder at intervals, muttering darkly to himself. Also that a rabbit's foot was ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... having laid a very decided foundation upon which to build a tabernacle of joviality, and the nectar adding its exhilarating power in erecting a substratum for the fine work of the festival, it became necessary to top off with spicy speeches, which might indeed be compared to a compound ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... They were an amusing group—from the grinning steward, who, cap on head, figured away through all the steps he could recollect or invent (some of them marvels of skill and agility in their way), to the solemn young man, only anxious to do his duty creditably. But alas for the short-lived joviality of the multitude! After touching at Southampton the boat altered her course, and the effect of her occasional rolls in the trough of ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... to find something to complain of, if you were lodged in one of the palaces yonder. The place is solitary enough, it is true; but whether it is dull or not depends on ourselves, its most honourable occupants. I, for one, am determined to promote its joviality by the very praiseworthy exertion of obliging you, my discontented friend, with an inexhaustible series of those stories for which, I may say, without arrogance, I am celebrated throughout the length and breadth of all the ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... noticed that a dish containing cakes had been placed upon it, and in the middle an image of Priapus, made by the baker, and he held apples of all varieties and bunches of grapes against his breast, in the conventional manner. We applied ourselves wholeheartedly to this dessert and our joviality was suddenly revived by a fresh diversion, for, at the slightest pressure, all the cakes and fruits would squirt a saffron sauce upon us, and even spurted unpleasantly into our faces. Being convinced that these perfumed dainties had some religious significance, we arose ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... Carol, The Chimes, The Haunted Man, The Cricket on the Hearth,' and all the rest—and with "a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed," asks himself for the preternatural virtue that they once had. The pathos appears false and strained; the humor largely horseplay; the character theatrical; the joviality pumped; the psychology commonplace; the sociology alone funny. It is a world of real clothes, earth, air, water, and the rest; the people often speak the language of life, but their motives are as disproportioned and improbable, and their passions and purposes as overcharged, as ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... in the betting-room, and there was Harry Hill, my genial old friend, who had advised me to take care, and never to bet, "because we know our business better than you do." Alas! amidst the hubbub and excitement, to say nothing of the joviality of everybody and the excellence of the champagne, I said ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... chairs, two old round mirrors, and an old mahogany press in a corner. It was a chamber so sad in its appearance that no wholesome useful work could have been done within it; nor could men have eaten there with any appetite, or have drained the flowing bowl with any touch of joviality. It was generally used for such purposes as that to which it was now appropriated, and no doubt had been taken by Bozzle on more than one previous occasion. Here Lady Rowley arrived precisely at the hour fixed, and was told that the gentleman was ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... ready for another glass. I noticed that Mr. Pumblechook in his hospitality appeared to forget that he had made a present of the wine, but took the bottle from Mrs. Joe and had all the credit of handing it about in a gush of joviality. Even I got some. And he was so very free of the wine that he even called for the other bottle, and handed that about with the same liberality, when ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... The only group in which something approaching to cheerfulness was visible was in the knot of customers gathered round the sellers of fruit and drinks. On the road home the crowd sometimes shows a measure of joviality, and it is always customary to usher victorious wrestlers into their own village with shouts and loud proclamation of what has been accomplished. After a victory in one of the big city contests the hero may even be escorted home ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... the fish." The woodsman cried the taunt more insolently, and yet with a jeering joviality that irritated Parker more than downright abuse would ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... the part of the two gentlemen, in which Mrs. Tadman joined modestly, with many protestations, and, with the air of taking only an occasional spoonful, contrived to empty her tumbler, and allowed herself to be persuaded to take another by the bailiff, whose joviality on ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... do, the girl from Silver Ranch felt herself a good deal out of this nonsense and joviality. Ann could not talk the way these girls did. She felt serious when she contemplated ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... them with a solemn joviality as they came up, the Archbishop in front, the father and son together, and the two ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... moment later the proprietor of this roadside ranch, this artificial oasis in a land of desolation, strolled into the big bare room where half a dozen troopers were dozing or gambling, it was with an air of confidential joviality that he whispered to the ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... sheriff, in company with her father, again went over the dwelling. Every nook that might afford a hiding-place was examined thoroughly, and, as Fairfax had foreseen, another man was sent up to search the kitchen chamber. At length, all his joviality gone, Sheriff Will sat down by the sitting-room fire ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... and day-laborers, are strangely elevated and transported with mirth and joviality. Rich men as well as princes are used at certain times to make public entertainments and to keep open houses; but the feasts they make at the solemnities and sacrifices, when they now apprehend their minds to approach nearest the ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... breeze, trumpets brayed, drums beat; improvisatores twanged their guitars and mandolins loudly to attract attention, and failing in their efforts, swore at each other with the utmost joviality and heartiness; flower-girls and lemonade-sellers made the air ring with their conflicting cries: now and then a shower of chalky confetti flew out from adjacent windows, dusting with white powder the coats of the passers-by; clusters of flowers tied with favors of gay-colored ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... remarks the growing loveliness of the young maiden. While they are feasting a gipsy, Seppel, plays a serenade in honor of the birthday, which makes a deep impression on fair Susel. When the latter has departed, the joviality of the company increases. Hanczo and Friedrich, two friends laughingly prophesy to the indignant Fritz, that he will soon be married, and David even makes a bet, which, should he prove right will make him owner of one of his friend's vineyards. At ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... and careless, with inkstains on the sleeves of his jacket, and his cravat was large and billowy, under a chin shaped like the toe of an old boot. It was a little too early for the doctor, so I proposed a drink, and thereupon he developed a vein of joviality. As we sat over our vermouths he glorified the Company's business, and by and by I expressed casually my surprise at him not going out there. He became very cool and collected all at once. 'I am not such a fool as I look, quoth Plato to his disciples,' he said sententiously, ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... this was an artist—that conventional type which is privileged, in something of the same way as a Paris gamin, to represent riotous living to the bourgeois and philistine mind, the most mirific joviality, in short (to use the old Rabelaisian word newly taken into use). Yet this elderly person had once taken the medal and the traveling scholarship; he had composed the first cantata crowned by the Institut at the time of the ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... Clem's brutality went far towards redeeming her character. The exquisite satisfaction with which she viewed Jane's present misery, the broad joviality with which she gloated over the prospect of cruelties shortly to be inflicted, put her at once on a par with the noble savage running wild in woods. Civilisation could bring no charge against this young woman; it and she had no common criterion. ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... provided he had not courage to do so upon first coming to London. For some weeks before this period he is never seen without an interlined edition of Celsus and Gregory; not that he debars himself from joviality during the time of his preparation, but he judiciously combines study with amusement—never stirring without his translation in his pocket, and even, if he goes to the theatre, beguiling the time between the pieces by learning the literal order of a new paragraph. Every school possesses circulating ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various
... appeared to be a very eternity of suspense and anxiety, steps were heard approaching the berth; and, upon our throwing open the door, Sykes, somewhat the worse for liquor, made his appearance, hailing us, in tones of obviously forced joviality, with: ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... man between thirty and forty years of age, with a natural joviality now repressed by ambitious ideas. He is blessed with that medium height which is the privilege of sound organizations. He is rather plump, and takes great pains with his person. His forehead is getting bald, but he uses that circumstance to give himself the air of a ...
— Unconscious Comedians • Honore de Balzac
... be noticed, that the Bailie, knowing by experience that the day's joviality, which had been hitherto sustained at the expense of his patron, might terminate partly at his own, had mounted his spavined grey pony, and, between gaiety of heart, and alarm for being hooked into a reckoning, ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... would you like to be,—pig, buzzard, clown, or millionaire? Reflect upon it; I have now laid before you the whole theory of the modern loan-system. Come and see me often; you'll always find me a jovial, jolly fellow. French joviality—gaiety and gravity, all in one—never injures business; quite the contrary. Men who quaff the sparkling cup are born to understand each other. Come, another glass of champagne! it is good, I tell you! It was sent to me from Epernay itself, by a man for whom I once sold ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... stale and unprofitable; upon the bloody field he had been defeated and subsequently imprisoned; clever in diplomacy, the sagacity of his opponent, Charles, had in truth overmatched him; yet as the ostentatious Boniface, in grand bib and tucker, prodigal in joviality and good-fellowship, his reputation rests ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... She heard Mr. Hazlewood in the hall greeting the Pettifers with the false joviality which sat so ill upon him; she imagined the shy nods and glances which told them that the trap was properly set. Mr. Hazlewood led ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... vintage festivals, celebrated in rural districts in the month of November, and were characterized by drinking, feasting, and joviality of all kinds. ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... Cottage, talking of long subjects until the sweep of country toward Stony Brook became a blue haze and the lilacs were white around tennis-courts, and words gave way to silent cigarettes.... Then down deserted Prospect and along McCosh with song everywhere around them, up to the hot joviality ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... mood he spoke with a singular distinctness that came up from his husky and ordinary joviality like something dire and terrible—like that something that upon a clear smooth day will suggest to you suddenly the cruelty that lies always hidden in the ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... squaws were seen wending their way to their wigwams, bending under the weight of a side of bacon or a bag of flour. Now was a high time of joviality for them all—even the dogs licked their lips and prepared ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... he had given her. He knew that the greatest telescopes on earth could not reveal the Callisto moving about in Jupiter's sunshine, as even a point of light, at that distance, and, notwithstanding Cortlandt's learning and Bearwarden's joviality, he felt at times extremely lonely. They swept along steadily for fifty hours, having bright sunny days and beautifully moonlit nights. They passed over finely rounded hills and valleys and well- watered plains. As they approached the ocean and its level the temperature rose, and there was more ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... addressed himself to the serious business of the table and sent the wine around with a profusion which increased the hilarity, but rather threatened the temperance, of the company, until their joviality was interrupted by the annunciation that the scrivener had engrossed such deeds as required to be ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... in a bizarre, exotic, almost new color. Mannerisms, new details of Latin society found themselves shaped into neologisms specially created for the needs of conversation, in a Roman corner of Africa. He was amused by the southern exuberance and joviality of a doubtlessly corpulent man. He seemed a salacious, gay crony compared with the Christian apologists who lived in the same century—the soporific Minucius Felix, a pseudo-classicist, pouring forth the still ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... attains to truly dramatic scope and power. More admirable than everything else, however, is the subtly realistic treatment of the psychological processes in Fritz Nettenmair. His gradual deterioration, step by step, from self-indulgent joviality, through envy and jealousy, to the hatred of despair that does not even shrink from fratricide, is depicted with masterly insight and consistency. This phase of Ludwig's art strikes us as fresh and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... gentleman-like bearing and person, was looked up to as a lad of much more consequence than he really was. His manner was frank, brave and perhaps a little impertinent, as becomes a high-spirited youth. He was generous and freehanded with his money, loved joviality, and had a good voice for a song. He rode well to hounds, appeared in pink as became a young buck, and managed to run up fine bills in a number of quarters. In fact, he had almost every taste to a considerable degree. He was very fond of books of all sorts and had a very fair taste in ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... to decide wagers made upon his gorging, though at times during this last period his joviality deserted him. Anon his damp brow would be troubled, and he knew moments ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... the despairing lovers, by the magic of whose powerful wand the usual Pantomimic changes are effected in a trice—Jack becomes Harlequin; Rosebud, Columbine; Gaffer, Pantaloon; the Squire, the Lover; and the Priest, the Clown. Mirth, revelry, fun, frolic, and joviality are now the order of the day, and the scene changes to a view of Hyde Park and the Serpentine River on a frosty morning in January: in which is represented, with admirable effect, a display of patent skating. ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... October was occupied in these negotiations, and at night the Duke announced to his men that the next day would be the day of battle. That night is said to have been passed by the two armies in very different manners. The Saxon soldiers spent it in joviality, singing their national songs, and draining huge horns of ale and wine round their campfires. The Normans, when they had looked to their arms and horses, confessed themselves to the priests, with whom their camp was thronged, and received the sacrament ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... jacket, had the clear darkness all to himself. He was just as polite by night as he was by day, and he bowed and ushered imaginary buyers up the stone steps with the same perpetual civility, and the same unceasing smile, that bagged out his varnished cheeks into joviality. ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... the three sat down. Longstreet, looking curiously at the man, noted that whereas he was florid and jolly and gave the impression at first almost of joviality, upon closer scrutiny that which was most pronounced about him was the keen glint of his probing grey eyes. He came to learn later that Pony Lee had the reputation of being both a good fellow and a ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... half so well as "dear old Janet." But Mrs. Colwyn openly lamented the hard-heartedness thus displayed, and locked herself into her bedroom with (Janetta feared) some private stores of her own; and Nora refused to join the subdued joviality in the kitchen, and spent the afternoon over a novel in the front sitting-room. From the state of her eyes and her handkerchief at tea-time, however, Janetta conjectured that she had been crying for the greater part of ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... power, much goodness, cultivated minds, gracious and sincere generosity. Whoever comes to Rome will be morally well off as regards intelligence. He will be so, likewise, on account of the sociability of the inhabitants. The Romans are a jovial people. But even their joviality is as admirably subject to good order as it is graceful, and does not impair the natural goodness of their disposition. But perhaps I am wrong; and it were better I should assume a frowning aspect, and behold only attempts on life, importunate ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... Barry, what are you thinking of?" Owen rose and spoke with an eerie joviality. "There'll be no revenge about it! Mayn't I marry and settle down like another man? I'll guarantee that the first woman who wants me can have me; and if she plays the game she shan't regret it, ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... people our workhouses, our madhouses, and our gaols, yet the fiend walks not now, as it used to do, in unfettered freedom. It is no longer a fashionable vice, excused and half approved as the natural expression of joviality and good-fellowship; peers and commoners of every degree no longer join daily in the "heavy-headed revel" whose deep-dyed stain seems to have soaked through every page of our last-century annals. And it would appear as ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... of the outer gate; and when Stephen started on again toward the library, he crossed a man who was rapidly ascending the brick walk from the fountain at the foot of the hill. By his jaunty stride and his air of excessive joviality—the mark of the successful local politician—Stephen recognized Julius Gershom, the campaign-maker, as people called him, who had stood behind Gideon Vetch from the beginning of his career. "What an unconscionable bounder the fellow is," ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... Masson remarked what had before escaped attention. According to Phillips, an inmate of the house at the period—"By that time she had for a month, or thereabouts, led a philosophical life (after having been used to a great house, and much company and joviality), her friends, possibly incited by her own desire, made earnest suit by letter to have her company the remaining part of the summer, which was granted, on condition of her return at the time appointed, Michaelmas or thereabout. ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... improvements, he laid out fourteen thousand pounds of his own money. In the meantime, he hired a small house for himself on the hill without the park; and in that small tenement the King did him the honour of dining with him more than once after shooting. His Majesty, fond of private joviality, (67) was pleased with punch after dinner, and indulged in it freely. The Duchess, alarmed at the advantage the minister might make of the openness of the King's heart in those convivial, unguarded hours, and at a crisis when she ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... recognised, and has been ever since those days, that laughter alone promotes business and removes the thought of death. You cannot recall, as I can, sir, the continual stream which used to issue from theatres, music-halls, and picture-palaces in the days of the Great Skirmish, nor the joviality of the Strand and the more expensive restaurants. I have often thought," he added with a touch of philosophy, "what a height of civilisation we must have reached to go jesting, as we did, ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... court was paid to him by many different groups of interested people who were rarely at the pains to dissemble their aims. He formed a manner for the reception of these advances, compounded of joviality, cynicism, and frank brutality, which nobody, to his face at least, resented. If women winced under his mocking rudenesses of speech and smile, if men longed to kill him for the cold insolence of his refusal to let them inside his guard, they sedulously kept it from him. ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... is it you are dancing at?" he asked, in a tongue that was neither English nor French nor Norman, but an uncouth mixture of all three, and in a tone which was meant to imply joviality but carried no ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... and drinking until they became loud and boisterous, or morose and quarrelsome, and then slipping away to his own room, amused or irritated as the circumstances, or the temperament of his companions, had made or marred the joviality of the evening. On his nights alone, he put his hands into his pockets and walked for endless miles through the lighted streets, getting in a dim way a realisation of the hugeness of life. All of the faces going ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... the allegiance of the youth to his self-chosen leader. He had prepared Sheridan, and through him Fox and Bouverie, for this change of front. The openness, the charm, the self-effacing patriotism of the Minister thenceforth drew him as by an irresistible magnet. The brilliance and joviality of Fox and Sheridan counted as nothing against the national impulse which the master now set in motion and the pupil was destined to carry to further lengths. There was a natural sympathy between these men both in aim and temperament. It is a sign of the greatness of Pitt that from the outset he ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... as if you had been here all your life and treat everyone as an old pal, seemed to be the order of the day, and in that atmosphere it was impossible to feel anything but quite at home. Before tea was over we new arrivals were infected with the same spirit of joviality, and were ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams
... drunk solemnly. Clarence felt his cheeks tingle and in his excitement drank his own health with the others. Yet he was disappointed that there was not more joviality; he wondered if men always drank together so stiffly. And it occurred to him that it would be expensive. Nevertheless, he had his purse all ready ostentatiously in his hand; in fact, the paying for it out of his own money was ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... was about fifty years old, gray-haired, of a mauve complexion, jovial among his friends, and perhaps even more jovial with chance acquaintances. It was estimated by envious intimates that his joviality with chance acquaintances, specially with young men of the upper classes, with large purses and small foreheads—was worth hundreds of pounds a year to him. There was something about his comfortable appearance ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... he must not draw on it too often. Then Hollins came out, and I heard him muttering to himself. He fawned on Abbot while he was in the tent, but he was scowling and gritting his teeth when he left; and I heard him cursing sotto voce, until he suddenly caught sight of me. Then he was all joviality, and took me by the arms to tell me how 'Paul, old boy, has been raking me over the coals. We were chums, you know, and he thinks a heap of me, and don't want the home people to know of my getting on a spree,' was the way he explained it. ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... in cinder gray took no notice of this whispered string of observations, but again wetted his lips. Seeing that his friend in the chimney-corner was the only one who reciprocated his joviality in any way, he held out his cup toward that appreciative comrade, who also held out his own. They clinked together, the eyes of the rest of the room hanging upon the singer's actions. He parted his lips for the third verse, but at that moment another knock was audible upon ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various |
