"Pleasantry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you, dear sir, by all the ties of friendship, by no means to have one uneasy thought on my account; but to have the same pleasantry of countenance, and unruffled serenity of mind, which (God be praised!) I have in this, and have had in a much severer calamity. Furthermore, I charge you, if you value my friendship as truly as I do yours, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... dead, should appear in the flesh. When he was asked concerning his comrades, he pointed to the sticks he was carrying, and said, "Here is both the one and the other." This he observed with equal truth and pleasantry; for his speech, though most thought it idle, yet departed not from the truth; for it pointed at the weregild of the slain as though it were themselves. Thereon, wishing to bring the company into a gayer mood, he jollied ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... added his Majesty; "there you have talent without artifice, poetry without rhapsody, satire without bitterness, pleasantry that is always apt, great knowledge of the human heart, and perpetual raillery that yet is not devoid of delicacy and compassion. Moliere is a most charming man in every respect; I gave him a few hints for his 'Tartuffe,' and such is his gratitude ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... estates, degrees, and offices, Were not deriu'd corruptly, and that cleare honour Were purchast by the merrit of the wearer; How many then should couer that stand bare? How many be commanded that command? How much low pleasantry would then be gleaned From the true seede of honor? And how much honor Pickt from the chaffe and ruine of the times, To be new varnisht: Well, but to my choise. Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserues. I will assume desert; giue me a key for this, And instantly ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... the stern soldier-like pleasantry of the old Moorish monarch. He ordered a rich silken vest and a scarlet mantle to be given to the alfaqui, and dismissed him with great courtesy. "Tell His Majesty," said he, "that I kiss his hands for the honor he has done me, and regret that my scanty force has not permitted me to ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... aware of the consequences of fasting for agitation's sake, and he nearly crammed Gerald; so that Adrian and Fely laughed, and he excused himself by declaring that he wanted his turkey-cock to gobble and not pipe. For which bit of pleasantry he encountered a glare from Gerald's Hungarian eyes. He was afraid on one side to lose sight of his nephew, on the other he did not feel equal to encounter a scolding from Marilda, so he sent Adrian and Fely down to the Marine Hotel to fetch Franceska, while he stole a ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... from a 'horse-doctor' that he was 'dead as a door-nail, so there was an end,' returned their verdict accordingly, just as he returned to his senses, when an angry altercation and a pitched battle between the body and the coroner winds up the lay with due spirit and pleasantry. ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... grammar-school precedent!) but he used it with a poetic instinct which we cannot parallel, identified himself with it, yet remained always its born and question-less master. He finds the Clown and Fool upon the stage,—he makes them the tools of his pleasantry, his satire, and even his pathos; he finds a fading rustic superstition, and shapes out of it ideal Pucks, Titanias, and Ariels, in whose existence statesmen and scholars believe forever. Always poet, he subjects all to the ends of his art, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... cried Jeffries, laughing the merchant's laugh for a customer's pleasantry. "But I can't help talking about it, Gid, ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... for some time in growing anxiety; but the pleasantry of the night went on as vividly as ever, and some clever tableaux vivants had varied the quadrilles. While the dancers gave way to a well-performed picture of Hector and Andromache from the Iliad, and the hero was in the act of taking the plumed helmet from his brow, with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... Barbara and go free, he would kill himself when they came to take him. But he did not wish to kill himself. He wished to live a long time after, gloating on his memories. He had also on foot a scheme which, starting almost as a pleasantry, had developed in his mind, and was still developing, until its latent possibilities staggered ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... Robin), Zeal Ash, Mountain, Prudence Ash Tree, Grandeur Aspen Tree, Lamentation Asphodel, My Regrets Follow Auricula, Painting Auricula (Scarlet) Avarice Austurtium, Splendour Azalea, Temperance Bachelor's Buttons, Celibacy Balm, Sympathy Balm (Gentle), Pleasantry Balm of Gilead, Cure Balsam, Yellow, Impatience Barberry, Sharpness of temper Basil, Hatred Bay Berry, Instruction Bay Leaf, I change but in death Bay Tree, Glory Bay Wreath, Reward of merit Bearded Crepis, Protection Beech Tree, Prosperity Bee Orchis, ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... was then alone, and engaged in fixing his gun lock. Hearing a noise in the yard, for which he was unable to account, he slipped to the door, to ascertain from whence it proceeded. The Indians were immediately round it, and there was no chance for his escape. Walking out with an air of the utmost pleasantry, he held forth his hand to the one nearest him, and asked them all to walk in. While in the house he affected great cheerfulness, and by his tale [182] won their confidence and friendship. He told them ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... King and the Prince; Falstaff's behaviour in the field, his mode of raising recruits, his patronage of Justice Shallow, which afterwards takes such an unfortunate turn:—all this forms a series of characteristic scenes of the most original description, full of pleasantry, and replete with nice and ingenious observation, such as could only find a place in a historical play ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... treated them with such disdain that whenever their noise disturbed his sleep he sent orders to them to keep silence. In his familiar conversations with the chiefs he plainly told them that he would one day crucify them all. Doubtless they laughed heartily at this pleasantry, as they deemed it, but they were to find it a grim ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... just what he said, John," she begged, making no attempt to carry the pleasantry farther, though its possibilities still seemed to flicker about her lip; and Amherst proceeded to recount his talk ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... get nawthing to my denner." Of course this was but a manner of speaking, and he had never hanged a man for being a Radical in his life; the law, of which he was the faithful minister, directing otherwise. And of course these growls were in the nature of pleasantry, but it was of a recondite sort; and uttered as they were in his resounding voice, and commented on by that expression which they called in the Parliament House "Hermiston's hanging face" - they struck mere dismay into the wife. She sat before ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... you for another hour; but I never heard such monstrous sentiments, I must protest—I must, as a calumniated, misrepresented man. Confess you meant it as a kind of reductio ad absurdum—a satire on Mrs. Farrinder?" He spoke in a tone of the freest pleasantry, with ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... time, had recovered, in some measure, from their alarm; and, beginning to regard the whole matter as a well-contrived pleasantry, set up a loud shout of laughter at the predicament of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... with the rest. But the unsparing satirist was not content with this, but went on, with most of the other attendants upon the King, and being intimately versed in court scandal, he directed his lash with telling effect. As a contrast to the malicious pleasantry of the Cap Justice, were the gambols and jests of Robin Goodfellow—a merry imp, who, if he led people into mischief, was always ready to get them out of it. Then there was a dance by Bill Huckler, old Crambo, and Tom o' Bedlam, the half-crazed ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... ladies looked at each other for a moment or two with meaning glances; then Mrs. Talbot remarked, in a quiet way, but with a little pleasantry in her voice, as if she were not right clear in regard to her young ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... heartless pleasantry he would deliver with a sweeping wink at Henry and his four girls; but Mrs. Flower would see nothing to laugh at, for humour was ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... Austria might not only fail to respect the wish in a matter of common concern of its more powerful ally, but that it might act in disregard of Germany's wish. This strains human credulity to the breaking point. Did the German Secretary of State keep a straight face when he uttered this sardonic pleasantry? It may be the duty of a diplomat to lie on occasion, but is it ever necessary to utter such a stupid falsehood? The German Secretary of State sardonically added in the same conversation that he was not sure that the effort for peace had not hastened the declaration ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... the Ship at Sea, and the Mariner's Grave, by Mr. John Malcolm, only make us regret that we have not room for either in our columns; Mary Queen of Scots, by H.G. Bell, Esq., is one of the most interesting historical ballads we have lately met with; the Epistle from Abbotsford, is a piece of pleasantry, which would have formed an excellent pendent to Sir Walter's Study, in our last; Zadig and Astarte, by Delta, are in the writer's most plaintive strain; the recollections of our happiest years, are harmoniously told in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 340, Supplementary Number (1828) • Various
... taste for conversation, and the princesses a good-humoured love for it, that doubles the regret of such an annihilation of all nature and all pleasantry. But what will not prejudice and education inculcate? They have been brought up to annex silence to respect and decorum: to talk, therefore, unbid, or to differ from any given opinion even when called upon, are regarded as high improprieties, if ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... heard Brother Gherard Naeldwijc say in pleasantry that in those times on fast days they would sometimes divide one fig into four or six portions that so the great quantity of the bread they consumed might be seasoned by those fragments. On a time also there ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis
... are not Members are admitted on sufferance, as it were—and perceiving two or three gentlemen at supper, who, he was aware, were not Members, and could not, in that place, very well resent his behaviour, he indulged in the pleasantry of sitting with his booted leg on the table at which they were supping! He is generally harmless, though, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... pleasantry, madame," commanded the president. "Remember that you are in a grave and perilous situation, and that justice hangs over you like the sword of Damocles. You have already invoked your fate, in calling God to ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... at his own pleasantry. His companion joined in the laugh, but without mirth. Poker—he could think of nothing but poker. The money-lender insinuatingly pushed the whisky bottle closer to the senile rancher. Almost unconsciously the old man ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... every one on both sides, and spoke or smiled to nearly all. He stopped once or twice in his way, and was surrounded by a circle with whom, as I could judge from their laughter, he exchanged some pleasantry of the hour. When at length he arrived at the seat which had been reserved for him, he threw himself upon it with the easy look of comfort of a man who had reached home—gave nod to Windham, held out a finger to Grey, warmly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... nor can they ever build upon certain ground; they are never certain that God is gracious. Thus their doctrine unintermittingly leads to nothing but misery of soul and, finally, to despair. For God's Law is not a matter of pleasantry; it ceaselessly accuses consciences outside of Christ, as Paul says, Rom. 4, 15: The Law worketh wrath. Thus it will happen that if consciences feel the judgment of God, they have no certain comfort and will ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... so that his features fell into the lines that hunger draws. But Juanita looked at him with grave eyes and did not answer to his pleasantry. ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... under this stinging pleasantry—whether from a good conscience affronted or from a bad one made worse; but he otherwise showed a bold front, only bending his eyes a moment on his watch. "As he's to come to you himself—and I don't know why the mischief he doesn't ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... the president, with mock gravity, "I consider the whole affair, however ridiculous, most immoral and reprehensible. What, shall a crack-shot make a target of an elder? Never! Let us seek more appropriate butts for our barrels! You may perhaps look upon the whole as a piece of pleasantry but let me tell you that you ran a narrow chance of being indicted for a breach of the peace! And remember, that even shooting a deer may not prove so dear a shot as bringing ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... a hollow laugh, and at the same time with a glance challenged Sam's approval for his desperate pleasantry. ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was another side to Villiers' temperament. It was piercing and acute in an altogether different sense—a side of forbidding pleasantry and fierce raillery. No longer was it the paradoxical mystifications of Poe, but a scoffing that had in it the lugubrious and savage comedy which Swift possessed. A series of sketches, les Demoiselles de Bienfilatre, l'Affichage celeste, la Machine a gloire, and le Plus beau diner ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... brethren daily, for the most part, at John Durie's table. The group contained the very flower and chivalry of the Church. At their meals they discussed the incidents of the day's sittings, and their conversation was enlivened with many a pleasantry—it was always Melville's 'form' at table to 'interlase' discourse on serious subjects with 'merry interludes.' When the company rose from table they held lengthened devotional exercises: in the reading of Scripture ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... appropriate to woman, beneath her chatty flow of small talk. That she was comparatively a new-comer accounted partially for this impression, but it was mainly due to the fact that she still reverted after her sallies of pleasantry to ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... their left hands and naked swords in their right, the youthful gallants fell in; some in front, others to the rear of the carriage, while Raoul and I, unable to oppose this ludicrous whim, walked on either side. Marie, who did not favour D'Arcy's pleasantry, sat so far back that her face could not be observed, but her aunt entered into the fun, and laughed merrily when the torchbearers, catching some luckless wight, forced him to bow humbly before the carriage and to ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... and biography. Notwithstanding his remarkable frankness and all his oddities, his manners were engaging and polished: his conversation was original, energetic, and lively; he would often indulge in sallies of pleasantry to amuse the Empress, and as he was an excellent mimic, he would take off the uncouth manners and accents of some of the soldiers to the life. He had a dislike to writing, always asserting that a pen was an unfit implement for a soldier. His dispatches were laconic, ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... ear; and sometimes a grave, frequently jocose style is necessary, supporting the character one while of the orator and [at another] of the poet, now and then that of a graceful rallier that curbs the force of his pleasantry and weakens it on purpose. For ridicule often decides matters of importance more effectually and in a better manner, than severity. Those poets by whom the ancient comedy was written, stood upon this [foundation], and in this are they worthy of imitation: whom neither the smooth-faced ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... operated in the usually elegant costume of two young English officers,—for such they were,—might have been expected to afford scope to the pleasantry of their companions, and to call forth those sallies which the intimacy of friendship and the freemasonry of the profession would have fully justified. But the events that had occurred in such rapid succession, since the preceding ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... morning cheerfulness of birds and healthy children; and his humour was infectious. We were next neighbours and met daily, yet our salutations lasted minutes at a stretch—shaking hands, slapping shoulders, capering like a pair of Merry-Andrews, laughing to split our sides upon some pleasantry that would scarce raise a titter in an infant school. It might be five in the morning, the toddy-cutters just gone by, the road empty, the shade of the island lying far on the lagoon: and the ebullition cheered ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not the value of this lamp, and the interest that Aladdin, not to mention herself, had to keep it safe, entered into the pleasantry, and commanded a eunuch to take it and make the exchange. The eunuch obeyed, went out of the hall, and no sooner got to the palace gates than he saw the African magician, called to him, and showing him the old lamp, said: "Give me ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... Orleans to Louis XVI.? By all accounts, the despotism of China is the very sink of indecencies, whether in pictures or books. Still more, what can we think of a writer who says, that "the ancients have not left us one piece of pleasantry that is excellent, unless one may except the Banquet of Xenophon and the Dialogues of Lucian?" What! has he forgotten Aristophanes? Has he forgotten Plautus! No—but their pleasantry is not excellent to his taste; and ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... out Don Juan, disgusted with this ill-timed pleasantry, "a proof that there has been a forced entry into the chamber is this broken glass of the window, of which you see some pieces still lying ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... out his snuff-box with a shrug and a smile; taking it no doubt for an awkward piece of English pleasantry, which politeness required him to be charmed with. My uncle went on gravely, however, and related the whole circumstance. The Marquis heard him through with profound attention, holding his snuff-box unopened in his hand. When the story was finished he tapped ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... overthrow of Andros. The pastor, Samuel Willard, was son of the gallant veteran who had rescued the beleaguered people of Brookfield in King Philip's war. Amusing passages occurred between him and Sir Edmund, who relished the pleasantry of keeping minister and congregation waiting an hour or two in the street on Sundays before yielding to them the use of their meeting-house. More kindly memories of the unpopular governor are associated with the building of the first King's Chapel on the spot where its ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... taken in another new boarder that day, a tall, slim man, possibly thirty years of age. He was introduced as Mr. Wakefield Smith, and he did all he could to make himself popular. Jerry felt that a good bit of his pleasantry was forced, but as there was no use in finding fault, he became ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... affair affords rather a favourable impression of the mildness of that government, which could inspire sufficient confidence to hazard such a stroke of pleasantry. It reached Mal Maison with great speed, but is said to have occasioned no other sensation there, than a little merriment. Carnot's bold negative was a little talked of, but as it was solitary, ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... mistake than to suppose that fairies, champions, distressed damsels, and by consequence ogres, have ceased to exist. It may not be OGREABLE to them (pardon the horrible pleasantry, but as I am writing in the solitude of my chamber, I am grinding my teeth—yelling, roaring, and cursing—brandishing my scissors and paper-cutter, and as it were, have become an ogre). I say there is no greater mistake than to suppose that ogres have ceased to exist. ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... epidemics introduced by the whites; and many tribes have been exterminated by the effects of the 'firewater' and the vicious habits brought in by more civilised men. The Red man is usually proud and reserved; serious, if not gloomy, in his views of life; comparatively indifferent to wit or pleasantry; vain of personal endowments; brave and fond of war, yet extremely cautious and taking no needless risks; fond of gambling and drinking; seemingly indifferent to pain; kind and hospitable to strangers, yet revengeful and cruel, ...
— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike
... actor at the Theatre Francais is Fleury. He is an actor completely fitted for the French style of comedy. He gives you the idea of a perfect gentleman, with much wit and liveliness, and consummate confidence and self-possession; who delivers himself with inimitable archness and pleasantry, but without the least exaggeration or buffoonery; who has too high an opinion of himself and his powers, to descend to broad jokes or allusions belonging to the lower kinds of humour. Those who have an accurate recollection of the admirable acting of Irish Johnstone, in the ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... not seriously impair the strength and beauty of his Christian manhood. It rather served to bring them into fuller relief, and even to render more striking those bright natural traits—the sportive humor, the ready mother wit, the facetious pleasantry, the keen sense of the ridiculous, and the wondrous story-telling gift—which made him a most delightful companion to young and old, to the wise and the unlettered alike. It served, moreover, to impart peculiar tenderness to his pastoral intercourse, especially with ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... nature—roused a faculty of discernment and also the malice latent in her girlish heart, in which her suitors were about to encounter a formidable adversary. It is a fact that when a young woman's heart is chilled her head becomes clear; she observes with great rapidity of judgment, and with a tinge of pleasantry which Shakespeare's Beatrice so admirably represents in "Much Ado about Nothing." Modeste was seized with a deep disgust for men, now that the most distinguished among them had betrayed her hopes. ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... challenge their attention,—for a while, at least,—as beggars, and nuisances? They always try to get off as cheaply as they can; and the cheapest of all things they can give a literary man—pardon the forlorn pleasantry!—is the FUNNY-bone. That is all very well so far as it goes, but satisfies no man, and makes a good many angry, as I told you on a ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... decent 'sponsible man to gi' ye a word of advice. Set ye doon again—set ye doon. And don't tak' the arm-chair. Hech! hech! yer husband will be coming, ye know, and he's sure to want it!" With that seasonable pleasantry the venerable Bishopriggs ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... five years Aristotle's philosophy. In the year 1607 he took the degree of batchelor of arts, and upon the recommendation of the principal of the college, he entered into the service of William Cavendish, baron Hardwicke, soon afterwards earl of Devonshire[2], by whom being much esteemed for his pleasantry and humour, he was appointed tutor to his son lord William Cavendish, several years younger than Hobbs. Soon after our author travelled with this young nobleman thro' France and Italy, where he made himself master of the different languages of the countries thro' which he travelled; ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... would he have been less "the noble and the unrivalled,"—he would have taken his glass too much, have joked the next morning on the event, and the gentle Evelina would have made him a cup of tea; but that which would have been a matter of pleasantry in the husband would have been matter of damnation in a lover. But to return ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... peculiar vein of pleasantry a notion may be formed from an anecdote which one of his intimate associates, a juror of the revolutionary tribunal, has related. A courtesan who bore a conspicuous part in the orgies of Clichy implored Barere to ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... but he was there long enough to acquire something more than the mere rudiments of the English language and literature. In after years he always spoke with pleasure of his residence at this school, and never wearied of talking of it. He used to relate with much pleasantry an anecdote of a young half-breed who was a student in the establishment. The half-breed, whose name was William, was one day ordered by his tutor's son to saddle a horse. He declined to obey the order, upon the ground that he was a gentleman's son, and that to saddle a horse was not compatible ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... doubted it.... "Why didn't ye get the schoolmaster to take 'ee to Christminster wi' un, and make a scholar of 'ee," she continued, in frowning pleasantry. "I'm sure he couldn't ha' took a better one. The boy is crazy for books, that he is. It runs in our family rather. His cousin Sue is just the same—so I've heard; but I have not seen the child for years, though she was born in this place, within ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... he, passing it off with that old stock pleasantry of the range, which covered anything and everything that a man didn't ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... not a bad pleasantry," she began, with her back to the door. "Mademoiselle is a great lady, and I have always known that; she is an artist; she has soul—so have I. What you could not force from me, neither you nor any man, I will ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... legs, take a pair of clouted brogues[15] in her hand, and off to the Castle! Here she gives herself out to be a soutar[16] in the employ of James More, and gets admitted to his cell, the lieutenant (who seems to have been full of pleasantry) making sport among his soldiers of the soutar's great-coat. Presently they hear disputation and the sound of blows inside. Out flies the cobbler, his coat flying, the flaps of his hat beat about his face, and the lieutenant and his soldiers ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... roused the proprietors from their beds, and made them unbar the doors of their magazines and expose their wares. Sometimes they were met by curses, but oftener by interest and some concern in their needs, and the interview was invariably concluded by a drink. It was three o'clock before this pleasantry was given over, and with a small waterproof bag of india-rubber strapped on his shoulders Dick returned to the hotel. But here he was waylaid by Beauty,—Beauty opulent in charms, affluent in dress, persuasive in speech, and Spanish in accent! In vain she repeated ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... of address, which was used by the "ship's gentleman" in the cant of the ward-room, as a pleasantry of an old shipmate, for the two had long sailed together in other vessels, at once announced to Harry that he saw the very chaplain for whose presence he had been so anxiously wishing. The "reverend and dear sir" smiled ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... not a friend perhaps in all this world that will give thee a macaroon.' In saying this, I pulled out a paper of 'em, which I had just bought, and gave him one;—and, at this moment that I am telling it, my heart smites me that there was more of pleasantry in the conceit of seeing how an ass would eat a macaroon than of benevolence in giving him one, which presided ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... man who thinks to advise us in sorrow, Knows not how little of power his cold words have in relieving Ever a heart from that woe which a sovereign fate has inflicted. Ye are prosperous and glad; how then should a pleasantry wound you? Yet but the lightest touch is a source of pain to the sick man. Nay, concealment itself, if successful, had profited nothing. Better show now what had later increased to a bitterer anguish, And to an inward ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... that he had made a fatal mistake, and that it was too late to correct it. He saw that Jim was dangerously excited, and that it would not do to excite him further. He therefore rose, and with feigned pleasantry, said he should be very glad to row to ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... some shadow of what he was to be. For with all his beauty, power, breeding, urbanity and mirth, there was in those days something soulless in our friend. He would astonish us by sallies, witty, innocent and inhumane; and by a misapplied Johnsonian pleasantry, demolish honest sentiment. I can still see and hear him, as he went his way along the lamplit streets, LA CI DAREM LA MANO on his lips, a noble figure of a youth, but following vanity and incredulous of good; and sure enough, somewhere ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... know what he should do if he lost her. Though so long in this country, he had all the simplicity and childlike lightheartedness which belong to the Old World's people. He laughed at the smallest pleasantry, and showed his great white English teeth; he took a joke without retorting by an impertinence; he had a very limited curiosity about all that was going on; he had small store of information; he lived chiefly in his horses, it seemed to me. His quiet animal nature acted as a pleasing ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... to pleasantry. Journeying east on one occasion, attended by two of his aids, he asked some young ladies at a hotel where he breakfasted, how they liked the appearance of his young men! One of them promptly replied, 'We cannot judge of the STARS in the ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... touching Act of delicate Feeling not unmixed with Pleasantry, achieved and performed ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... grinned Dan, as he walked on up the street. But the pleasantry made inadequate appeal. Every one was getting more out of the season than he was. Once he drew a dollar from his pocket and started back. But no. What was a dollar to him? He knew where there were more. That wasn't it. He put the money in ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... his personal attractions in youth, it is not to be wondered at that we should find the name of Reginald Rookwood recorded in the scandalous chronicles of the day, as belonging to a cavalier of infinite address and discretion, matchless wit, and marvellous pleasantry; and eminent beyond his peers for his successes with some of the most distinguished beauties who ornamented that brilliant ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... complexity, and of course one observation always to be made about him, one reminder always to be gratefully welcomed, is that we are dealing after all with one of the youngest quantities of art and character taken together that ever arrived at an irresistible appeal. His irony, his liberty, his pleasantry, his paradox, and what I have called his perversity, are all nothing if not young; and I may as well say at once for him that I find in the imagination of their turning in time, dreadful time, to something more balanced and harmonised, a difficulty ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... some vast wilderness', would have been satisfied with this?" Without waiting for a reply, the next remark is: "We are looking for summer accommodations; don't you think we could find board cheap here?" The prosaic one, ignoring such an attempt at pleasantry, replies, "Five dollars per thousand feet, I ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... heard her; he saw nothing but Martie, and only rarely moved his eyes from her, or spoke to any one else. He glowed at her lightest word, laughed at her mildest pleasantry; he frequently asked her family if she ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... comedy, and farce or grotesque. The spectators grew pleased with such an exercise of their understanding. Steps, motions, attitudes, figures, positions, now were substituted to speech; and there resulted from them an expression so natural, images so resembling, a pathos so moving, or a pleasantry so agreeable, that people imagined they heard the actions they saw. The gestures alone supplied the place of the sweetness of the voice, of the energy of speech, and ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... For drollery, knowledge of the world, various satire, general utility, united with great vivacity of composition, Gil Blas is unrivalled: but, as a merely agreeable book, the Memoirs of Grammont perhaps deserve that character more than any which was ever written: it is pleasantry throughout, pleasantry of the best sort, unforced, graceful, and engaging. Some French critic has justly observed, that, if any book were to be selected as affording the truest specimen of perfect French gaiety, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... with two legs our friend is speaking, without doubt," said the vicar of St Ewold's, with an attempt at grim pleasantry. ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... can't tell whether there's any town there till you're on the ground; and then, if you don't like it, there's no way of gettin' back to the States." He turned round upon Bartley and opened his mouth wide, to imply that this was pleasantry. ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... cannot be accused, like the present minister of his country, of any partiality to the English; if the mortifying truth must be told, he has no love of us at all; to which humour, so long as he delivers himself of it with any wit or pleasantry, he is heartily welcome. Our first extract will be thought, perhaps, to taste of this humour; but we quote it for the absurd proof it affords of the manner in which we English have overflooded some ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... was accordingly carried into execution on the following Monday. Whilst the queen and her party, totally ignorant of the contrivance, were receiving the compliments I had intended them, their good humor and pleasantry were infinitely heightened by the jest I proposed to pass upon the king, in sending him a piece of paper only, carefully wrapped up in some cloth of their own manufacture, accompanied by a message; importing, that as I was then in the act of distributing favors ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... himself up, without the smallest expectation of its being answered. One day, however, a deaf and seemingly senseless lad from a distant village brought him a belated telegram; and Glengyle, in his acrid pleasantry, gave him a new farthing. At least he thought he had done so, but when he turned over his change he found the new farthing still there and a sovereign gone. The accident offered him vistas of sneering speculation. Either way, ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... dangers which threatened the royalist leaders during this stormy period of modern history, he was wont to say in jest, "I am one of the men who gave themselves to be killed on the steps of the throne." And the pleasantry had some truth in it, as spoken by a man left for dead at the bloody battle of Les Quatre Chemins. Though ruined by confiscation, the staunch Vendeen steadily refused the lucrative posts offered to him by the Emperor Napoleon. Immovable in his aristocratic faith, he had ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... tell, Mr. Grant,—while handsome young men like yourself are at large." Mrs. LeCord laughed heartily, as much as to say that her remark must be regarded only as a little pleasantry. "But you will think I am a gossipy old body," she continued briskly. "I really came to discuss certain financial matters. Since Mr. LeCord's death I have taken charge of all the family business affairs with, if I may confess it, some ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... novel is by its character-drawing and its pathos, I doubt if it would have captivated the world without its humor. This is of the old-fashioned kind, the large humor of Scott, and again of Cervantes, not verbal pleasantry, not the felicities of Lamb, but the humor of character in action, of situations elaborated with great freedom, and with what may be called a hilarious conception. This quality is never wanting in the book, either ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... characteristic note, in reference to this passage, appears, in Mr. Gifford's hand-writing, on the copy of the above letter:—"It is a pity that Lord B. was ignorant of Jonson. The old poet has a Satire on the Court Pucelle that would have supplied him with some pleasantry ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... further conversation followed. Girasole evidently was perfectly familiar with the road. The idea of brigands appeared to strike him as some exquisite piece of pleasantry. He looked as though it was only his respect for the company which prevented him from laughing outright. They had taken the trouble to summon him for that! And, besides, as the Count suggested, even if a brigand did appear, there would ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... presented his hoofs to the poor with the remark that it would help to keep sole and body together, also turned out to have no foundation whatever in fact, but was set afloat by an English wag who was passionately fond of a bit of pleasantry, don't ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... everywhere in search of him on whom they wished to wreak their vengeance. A bandit named Teutgaud, notorious in those times for his robberies, assaults, and murders of travellers, had thrown himself headlong into the cause of the commune. The bishop, who knew him, had by way of pleasantry and on account of his evil mien given him the nickname of Isengrin. This was the name which was given in the fables of the day to the wolf, and which corresponded to that of Master Reynard. Teutgaud and his men penetrated ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the Cemetery of San Michele, Piero the gondolier and Giovanna improve us with a little solemn pleasantry. ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... ideas of pleasantry, Louis," replied Carrados genially. "But I dare say you are right and perhaps there is still time to atone." In the fewest possible words he outlined the course of his investigations. "And now you know all that is to be known ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... leeway of this pleasantry he bowed and retired. Nelson turned with determined politeness to the lady. He was sorry that she had come, she looking to him a very fine lady indeed, with her black silk gown, her shining black ornaments, ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... a lively, bright young fellow, and Drummle being the exact opposite, the latter was always disposed to resent him as a direct personal affront. He now retorted in a coarse, lumpish way, and Startop tried to turn the discussion aside with some small pleasantry that made us all laugh. Resenting this little success more than anything, Drummle, without any threat or warning, pulled his hands out of his pockets, dropped his round shoulders, swore, took up a large glass, and would have flung it at his adversary's ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... upon my honour, that she shall be safe and inviolate; and I hope you don't doubt me, notwithstanding any airs she may have given herself, upon my jocular pleasantry to her, and perhaps a little innocent romping with her, so usual with young folks of the two sexes, when they have been long acquainted, and grown up together; for pride ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... and sufficiently opulent to relieve him from the necessity of any labours but those of national undoing. Holding but an inferior and struggling rank in all the manlier provinces of the mind, in science, poetry, and philosophy; he was the prince of scorners. The splenetic pleasantry which stimulates the wearied tastes of high life; the grossness which half concealed captivates the loose, without offence to their feeble decorum; and the easy brilliancy which throws what colours it will on the darker features of its purpose; made Voltaire, the ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... I can't!" cried Yourii, almost angry now. "Perhaps I'll join you later." Such rough pleasantry on Ivanoff's part was not at ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... this pleasantry. "Thank you for saying calico, Marian. I was just wondering what to call him ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... in the ancient eyrie of his precipitous city, whom Browning tells us are not counted "till there is a rush of wings, and lo! they are flown," "What was so taking in him, and how is one to analyse that dazzling surface of pleasantry, that changeful, shining humour, wit, wisdom, recklessness, beneath which beat the most kind and tolerant of hearts?" asks Andrew Lang. But not only through the magnetism of his personal presence did he attract even strangers, but through his pen has he held in thrall all ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... Richie Moniplies going behind the arras to get an opportunity of teasing Heriot, was a pleasantry such as James might be supposed to approve of. It was customary for those who knew his humour to contrive jests of this kind for his amusement. The celebrated Archie Armstrong, and another jester called Drummond, mounted on other people's backs, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... every way the highest marks of respect were shown her for her devotion to the cause. Though he expected to join her again shortly, the Prince made her his warmest acknowledgments of thanks in a spirit of pleasantry which covered much tender feeling. They had been under fire together and had shared perils by land and by sea during which time his conduct to her had been perfect, a gentle consideration for her comfort combined with the ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... own pleasantry. To one of his hearers, at least, it seemed to be passing strange that he was so ready to forget such a vital defect in the steering gear as had manifested its existence a few ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... easily detected, and Brewster adds to his account of Wargentin's phantom moon, that 'the deception was discovered by turning the telescope about its axis.' As Admiral Smyth well remarks, to endeavour to explain away in this manner the observations made by Cassini and Short 'must be a mere pleasantry, for it is impossible such accurate observers could have been deceived by so gross a neglect.' Smyth, by the way, was a believer in the moon of Venus. 'The contested satellite is perhaps extremely minute,' ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... that account also did they tolerate your unbelief, because it was a pleasantry and a by-path for the people. Thus doth the master give free scope to his slaves, and ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... had passed, Simon found himself established in the new character of Lame Gulch Professor. So, at least, Enoch called him, and it was not displeasing to the subject of Enoch's pleasantry to know that others had adopted the suggestion and bestowed upon him that honorable title. His little class numbered fifteen or twenty children of assorted ages and dispositions, who came, lured by rumors of pleasant things, and ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... disadvantage," he observed, "that I cannot complain of M. le Comte's making me the subject of pleasantry. Under other circumstances I might raise different emotions in him. Perhaps I ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... though excessively fat, was of diminutive stature, and by her cheerful pleasantry she beguiled in some degree the wearisomeness of the long evening hours, and banished that ennui, which the disagreeableness of their situation had partially induced, simply by her endeavours to do so. For not content with paying them formal visits in the day time, she ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... their destiny by catch-words. The armies are full of pleasant and pious folk. But they have yielded to the only enemy that matters—the enemy within. They have sinned against passion and truth, and vain will be their strife after virtue. As the years pass, they are censured. Their pleasantry and their piety show cracks, their wit becomes cynicism, their unselfishness hypocrisy; they feel and produce discomfort wherever they go. They have sinned against Eros and against Pallas Athene, and not by any heavenly intervention, ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... door, 'if any of you has a stick, just leave it in my porch for a keepsake.' With shouts of laughter the shillelaghs came flying over the heads of the people in front till the porch was filled. The pleasantry gave Howe a stock of fuel, and sent away the mob ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... excitement and tight boots; and, at length, being prevailed upon to remove the obnoxious understandings, they were passed round the table to be admired, and eventually returned to their owner, filled with half-and-half, cigar-ashes, broken pipes, bread-crusts, and gin-and-water. This was a jocular pleasantry, which only the hilarious mind of a medical student could ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 13, 1841 • Various
... phrases strange, and dialect decreed By Reason never to have pass'd the Tweed, With words, which Nature meant each other's foe, Forced to compound whether they will or no; With such materials, let them, if they will, To prove at once their pleasantry and skill, 140 Build up a bard to war 'gainst Common Sense, By way of compliment to Providence; Let them, with Armstrong[336], taking leave of Sense, Read musty lectures on Benevolence, Or con the pages of his gaping ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... the wine. In the very process the volatile and sparkling draught which was to delight the palate has become like ditch water, vapid and dead. What I mean is, that, call it wit or humour, or what you please, there is a school of Scottish pleasantry, amusing and characteristic beyond all other. Don't think of analysing its nature, or the qualities of which it is composed; enjoy its quaint and amusing flow of oddity and fun; as we may, for instance, suppose it to have flowed on that eventful night so joyously described ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... palefaces were filled with fear," said Charley, quickly, regretting his attempt at pleasantry, "but they found that they had been only children frightened at shadows. They have slain that which made the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... out square myself," she said, by way of farewell pleasantry; "but there are times when I ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... as in the text. There was only one variation afterwards made on my suggestion, which was changing hoary in the third line to smiling, both to avoid a sameness with the epithet in the first line, and to describe the hermit in his pleasantry. He was then very well pleased that I ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... "A truce to pleasantry, sir; don't make me regret that I have shown myself more generous than you. I might have killed you just now had I wished. I could have put my pistol to your breast and fired, or said to you, 'Surrender at discretion!' as you so lately said ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE |
