"Persiflage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... blunderer, Mr. Thomas Paine, in his Age of Reason, and whispered in my ear, what damned hypocrism all Jesus Christ's business was. I dare aver, that few men have less reason to charge themselves with indulging in persiflage than myself. I should hate it, if it were only that it is a Frenchman's vice, and feel a pride in avoiding it, because our own language is too honest to have a word to express it by. But in this instance the temptation had been too powerful, ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... or openly bored. Several times the American had looked furtively at the arresting face, marred by too apparent mental resentment, but the barricade of Johnston Smyth's angular personality had been too powerful for him to surmount with anything but the most superficial persiflage. ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... dealt the Dutchman what you might call idle persiflage until you fellows had been gone a few minutes, and then I held him out my dollar. 'What's that?' says he. 'That's a dollar,' says I, 'to pay for my dinner.' 'How about all those other fellows?' says he. 'I got nothing to do with them,' says I. 'They can pay for their own ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... look, and saw the fierce demand through the softness and persiflage. He gave it no answer, but, turning to her, kindled into the man whom she was so proud to show as her capture,—a man far off from Stephen Holmes. Brilliant she called him,—frank, winning, generous. She thought she ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... Hume, eat a haunch of venison from Drummond Castle, and seemed happy. We had music and a little dancing, and enjoyed in others the buoyancy of spirit that we no longer possess ourselves. Yet I do not think the young people of this age so gay as we were. There is a turn for persiflage, a fear of ridicule among them, which stifles the honest emotions of gaiety and lightness of spirit; and people, when they give in the least to the expansion of their natural feelings, are always kept under by the fear of becoming ludicrous. To restrain ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... talking in the Row, everlastingly gossiping, bantering and sarcastically praising things, and going on in a style which was a curious commingling of earnest and persiflage. Col. Sellers liked this talk amazingly, though he was sometimes a little at sea in it—and perhaps that didn't lessen the relish of ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... there is always a lot of nervous chatter—airy persiflage flies to and fro and much laughing is indulged in. But it has a forced, strained sound, that laughter has; it does not come from the heart, the heart being otherwise engaged for the moment. Down a winding footpath moves the procession, with ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... household virtues. Every one seems to have accepted the philosophy of the irrepressible Ninon, who "returned thanks to God every evening for her esprit, and prayed him every morning to be preserved from follies of the heart." If a young wife was modest or shy, she was the object of unflattering persiflage. If she betrayed her innocent love for her husband, she was not of the charmed circle of wit and good tone which frowned upon so vulgar a weakness, ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... way back to their rooms Harry and Frank were greeted by all sorts of calls and persiflage from the sophomores, who had gathered in knots to watch ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... stand. Orchestra music flickered. Young girls, the traditions of demure sixteen hanging by one-inch shoulder straps, and who could not walk across a hardwood floor without sliding the last three steps, teetered in bare arm-in-arm groups, swapping persiflage with pimply, patent-leather-haired young men who were full of nervous excitement and eager to ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... Ridicule. — N. ridicule, derision; sardonic smile, sardonic grin; irrision[obs3]; scoffing &c. (disrespect) 929; mockery, quiz|!, banter, irony, persiflage, raillery, chaff, badinage; quizzing &c. v.; asteism[obs3]. squib, satire, skit, quip, quib[obs3], grin. parody, burlesque, travesty, travestie[obs3]; farce &c. (drama) 599; caricature. buffoonery &c. (fun) 840; practical joke; horseplay. scorn, contempt &c. 930. V. ridicule[transitive], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... derision; sardonic smile, sardonic grin; irrision^; scoffing &c (disrespect) 929; mockery, quiz^, banter, irony, persiflage, raillery, chaff, badinage; quizzing &c v.; asteism^. squib, satire, skit, quip, quib^, grin. parody, burlesque, travesty, travestie^; farce &c (drama) 599; caricature. buffoonery &c (fun) 840; practical joke; horseplay. scorn, contempt &c 930. V. ridicule, deride, mock, taunt; snigger; laugh in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... mockery, and exaggeration, but it has grown to be a part of my nature, as features habituated to a mask insensibly assume to some extent its outlines. I will try to put aside my flippant hollow attempts at persiflage, which constitute my worldly mannerism, and tell you in a few simple words. When I was about your age, I think my nature must have resembled yours, for many of your ideas and views of duty in this life remind me in a mournfully vague, tender way of my own early youth; and from that far distant ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... "Cut the persiflage, you two," Garlock ordered. "Consider three things. First, as you all know, I've been trying to figure out a generator that would give us intrinsic control, but I haven't got any farther with it than ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... conversation at receptions, dinners, ordinary social affairs, is merely chatter made up, of persiflage and repartee. One must be able to furnish it, however, for small talk is conversational "small change," without which it is not easy to "do business." Lacking it, one is like Mark Twain's man with the million dollar check and not change enough to ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... folded in a style Le Gardeur recognized well, inviting him to return to the city. Its language was a mixture of light persiflage and tantalizing coquetry,—she was dying of the dullness of the city! The late ball at the Palace had been a failure, lacking the presence of Le Gardeur! Her house was forlorn without the visits of her dear friend, and she wanted his trusty counsel in ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... himself seated, by a singular chance, next to the very same youth whose ribs he had crushed on the Elevated a few hours before. The young man was in more amiable mood. He grinned. "Don't you flap again and spill me coffee, Mr. Chicken," he said, with delicate persiflage. ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... my brain in vain for some airy nothing with which to answer his nonsense. I never have had the gift of repartee. I can talk well enough about subjects that interest me when I am conversing with some one whom I know well, but the frothy persiflage, the light banter that forms the conversation's stock in trade of so many women, is an ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... "It is useless to waste time in persiflage," he began and then turning to Sam, "There is a place ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... the year 1795 were 'The Partition of the Earth', wherein Zeus takes pity on the portionless poet by giving him a perpetual entree to the celestial court; the mildly humorous 'Deeds of the Philosopher', a bit of persiflage on the art of proving what everybody knows, and also several pieces ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... will become when the railways are completed that are to bind St. John to Quebec, and make Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, and Newfoundland only stepping-stones to Europe, we cannot say. Probably they will become like the rest of the world, and furnish no material for the kindly persiflage ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... here who should know you?' M. de Rosny continued, in a tone almost of persiflage, and with the same change in his voice which had struck me before; but now it was more marked. 'If not, M. de Marsac, I am afraid—But first look round, look round, sir; I would not ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... "But I am," she assured him, pleased and flattered with the centering of their persiflage on herself. She made a gesture toward Lydia, disappearing down the stairs. "I'm as much married as ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... the same side of the table, sat three civilians. On the wall behind was a map of France. What they did all day, I wondered, and how much they were paid for it; for we were the only clients, and the suggestion of the place was one of anecdotage and persiflage rather than toil. They acted with the utmost unanimity. First "Mon Colonel" scrutinised my passport, and then the others, in turn, scrutinised it. What did I want to go to —— for? (The name is suppressed because it is two or three months since the battle was fought ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various
... idea," said the Senior Captain. "I nurse a private grief of my own beneath a camouflage of—of persiflage. I think I shall ask Cuthbert's opinion, as an artist, of a brother artist who himself does perfectly unrecognisable sketches of farm-yards"—he waved a golden-syrup spoon towards the Colonel and the manure-heap—"and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... tell, set himself to ferret out the secret, and forgot all his sorrows for the time, as soon as he found a human being to whom he might do good. But Raphael was inexplicably wayward and unlike himself. All his smooth and shallow persiflage, even his shrewd satiric humour, had vanished. He seemed parched by some inward fever; restless, moody, abrupt, even peevish; and Synesius's curiosity rose with his disappointment, as Raphael went on obstinately declining to consult the very physician before whom he presented ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... graphic pictures of social and domestic life as it is more especially in the ruder districts and in the back settlements, or again sallies of broad humour, exhibiting those characteristics which form in the country itself the subject of mutual persiflage between the citizens of different States. The work will have a wide ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... matrimony and the bonds of government are by no means synonymous," said Dank, and felt rather proud of himself when his companions favoured him with a stare of amazement. The excellent lieutenant was not given to persiflage. He felt that for a moment ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... woman, "and you expect us to go down to certain death there? How ungallant!"—and amid such laughter and persiflage half a dozen ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... Protestant baker and begged me to sever all connection with the Catholic at once. I asked her if she really thought dangerous papist ideas were kneaded in with the bread, but she would not listen to my mild "persiflage," and went away rather ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... to my home, you would be honored by all ... in that case I hope you may grace my bridal couch." And again in the fourth book he relates that he is taking Medea home to be his wife "in accordance with her wishes!" Without persiflage, his attitude may be summed up in these words: "I come to you because I am in danger of my precious life. Help me to get back the Golden Fleece and I promise you that, on condition that I get home safe and sound, I will ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... poor ye have always with you, but Me ye have not always.' Now, Mr. Montague you have always with you, but me you have not always." So we resumed our conversation together, and kept up a brief interchange of persiflage which made us both laugh very much, and in which he showed a very ready use of English language for ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... Lee, you shall not take it!" she laughed richly. Bert thought for a second that this was more than mere persiflage, for the expression on the girl's face was new. Later he reminded himself that they all used curious forms of speech. "I just was too tired to get up this morning," a girl who had actually gotten up would say, or someone would comment upon a late train: "The old train ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris
... while they were breasting the breakers; and afterwards, as in their street attire they were returning on the boardwalk, she chatted brightly with him, revealing a certain cleverness in off-hand persiflage. ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... a day could afford a little persiflage with the cook in the kitchen where he was theoretically repairing the sink. The cook was plain-featured, but any diversion was welcome to speed the hours for which he drew pay. He made a strong impression on the cook, and when he took his departure, she ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... of that!" he gurgled in admiration. "What do you think of that? A-hangin' on all night, alive once in a while, maybe, but the best you could say for him the rest of the time was a hope that he wasn't dead. And now coming at us with the airy persiflage, the first regular breath he's drawed. Fat! It was me he meant to indicate, wasn't it? He was joshin' me! Say, Steve, ain't he the merry little joker? Me—fat! Now that's real funny—I'll leave it to you if ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... parasite, parochial, paroxysm, parsimonious, parturition, patois, patriarchal, patrician, patrimony, peccadillo, pecuniary, pedantic, pellucid, pendulous, penultimate, penurious, peregrination, perfunctory, peripatetic, periphery, persiflage, perspicacious, perspicuity, pertinacious, pharmaceutic, phenomenal, phlegmatic, phraseology, pictorial, piquant, pique, plagiarize, platitudinous, platonic, plebeian, plenipotentiary, plethora, pneumatic, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... until she does," Roxholm answered, and his youthful face was as grave as the hero's own, though if triflers had heard their words, they would have taken their talk for idle persiflage ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... went out and looked at the thermometer. To my surprise I discovered that there were thirty-seven degrees of frost. A little alarmed, I tapped the thing impatiently. "Come, come," I said, "this is not the time for persiflage." However, it insisted on remaining at five degrees below zero. What I should have done about it I cannot say, but at that moment I remembered that it was a Centigrade thermometer with the freezing point in the wrong place. Slightly ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... the most typical American minds. Benjamin Franklin, for example, modelled his style and his sense of the humorous on the papers of the Spectator. He produced humorous fables and apologues, choice little morsels of social and political persiflage, which were perfectly suited, not merely to the taste of London in the so-called golden age of English satire, but to the tone of the wittiest salons of Paris in the age when the old regime went ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... now find much to revise in his essay on "Compromise"); and he finds Socialism ever so much more Utopian since William Morris went into it. Can you imagine a true-born Briton following the flag of Swinburne, or throwing up a barricade with George Meredith? To the last Beaconsfield was suspected of persiflage because he wrote novels and was witty. America makes her authors ministers and envoys, but England insists that brains are a disqualification for practical life. "Authors are so unpractical: we don't want them to act—we only want them to teach us how to ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... seen her in such a mood: gay, witty, brilliant,—full of a restless sparkle and fire; she would not speak an earnest word, nor hear one. She flung about bonmots, and chatted airy persiflage till his heart ached. At another time, in another condition, he would have been delighted, dazzled, at this strange display; ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... seated on benches on either side of the long table improvised from boards and cross-pieces of two-by-fours. There was no tablecloth and the dishes were of agate-ware as formerly. Kate ate hurriedly and in silence, but the usual airy persiflage went on between Bowers ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... limb A hungry fox sat smiling; He saw the raven watching him, And spoke in words beguiling. "J'admire," said he "ton beau plumage," (The which was simply persiflage.) ...
— The Best Nonsense Verses • Various |
