"Pleasantry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... laugh from Joyce. He had discovered the good lady's extreme perturbation in regard to Lakalatcha, and had promptly declared for spending a day there with his bride. It was an exceptional opportunity to witness the volcano in its active mood. Each time that Joyce had essayed this teasing pleasantry, which never failed to draw Mrs. Stanleigh's protests, I observed that his wife remained silent. I assumed that she had decided to keep her own counsel in regard to the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... on the occasion rising. I never lost an opportunity to flatter either the person of my visitor, if it should be a lady, or, if it should be a man, the greatness of his country in war. And in case my compliments should miss their aim, I was always ready to cover my retreat with some agreeable pleasantry, which would often earn me the name of an "oddity" or a "droll fellow." In this way, although I was so left-handed a toy-maker, I made out to be rather a successful merchant; and found means to procure many ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to Tommy's pleasantry. They were too amazed and perplexed to give thought to anything but the ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... the counsel for the defence rose. It was the first instance of my seeing the memorable Curran engaged in his profession. I had met him from time to time in general society, and felt the delight which all experienced in his unfailing spirits and brilliant pleasantry. I had hitherto enjoyed him as the wit. I was now to be dazzled, delighted, and overwhelmed by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... letters call for more than one observation; I cannot forbear to make one upon the term which Mr. Cochrane Johnstone employs to describe this transaction—"A HOAX," a mere joke, a matter of pleasantry. Gentlemen, a young, a giddy, an unthinking and careless man, who had no concern in the transaction, and who had never been suspected to have had any, might perhaps, in conversation, make use of that term; but Mr. Cochrane Johnstone is not young, he is not giddy, he is not unthinking, he is not ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... to explain. They never dull your enthusiasm by short phlegmatic or pessimistic replies. And when you are sad they will condone so genuinely with you that you forget your disappointments in the charming pleasantry of their sympathy. But all this continual race for pleasure is destined in the course of time ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... animal which the boys called the nag of the quarter of hour, but solely for pleasantry, you comprehend, because, well understand, she was more fast as that! [Now why that exclamation?—M. T.] And it was custom of to gain of the silver with this beast, notwithstanding she was poussive, cornarde, always taken of asthma, of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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 ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... on a compliment to her superior attainments, but always experienced a decided rebuke. To her friend Colonel L——, who expressed a wish to be such a character as she was, she quickly replied with an air of mingled pleasantry and censure, "Get thee behind me, Satan." To a female friend who said, "If I were only sure at last of being admitted to a place at your feet I should feel happy." "Hush, hush," replied Mrs. Graham, "There is ONE SAVIOUR." Thus she was always careful to give her divine Redeemer ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... hospitable but motley establishment, in an account given by a Mr. Courtenay to Sir James Mackintosh; though it speaks of a time after Reynolds had received the honor of knighthood. "There was something singular," said he, "in the style and economy of Sir Joshua's table that contributed to pleasantry and good humor, a coarse, inelegant plenty, without any regard to order and arrangement. At five o'clock precisely, dinner was served, whether all the invited guests were arrived or not. Sir Joshua was never so fashionably ill-bred as to wait an hour perhaps for two or three persons of rank ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... historian, Gaillard).) There Jean Silvain Bailly, the accomplished scholar,—the aspiring politician. It was one of those petits soupers for which the capital of all social pleasures was so renowned. The conversation, as might be expected, was literary and intellectual, enlivened by graceful pleasantry. Many of the ladies of that ancient and proud noblesse—for the noblesse yet existed, though its hours were already numbered—added to the charm of the society; and theirs were the boldest criticisms, and often ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... multitude of curious analogies, which interested his feelings for human beings, frail like himself, and struggling with temptations from within and from without, which every moment drew a smile from him by some stroke of quaint yet simple pleasantry, and nevertheless left on his mind a sentiment of reverence for God and of sympathy for man, began to produce its effect. In Puritanical circles, from which plays and novels were strictly excluded, ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... road, the country, the old castle of count Julian, and the superstitious belief of the Spaniards of hidden treasures, &c. are described by Pere Labat (Voyages en Espagne et en Italie, tom i. p. 207-217), with his usual pleasantry.] ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... amused readers who knew neither of the personages. A tale of the loves of the Heron, who tried in vain to swallow the Cuttlefish bone, which broke into three pieces when he dropped it, was irresistibly ludicrous. Everybody remembers the sensation which the pleasantry made in the Faubourg Saint-Germain; it was the first of a series of similar articles, and was one of the thousand and one causes which provoked the rigorous press legislation ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... may be got the better of by promising substantial proofs on our side, and by refuting those of the opponent. The second, by giving hopes of being brief, and by having recourse to the means prescribed for making the judge attentive. In the latter case, too, some seasonable pleasantry, or anything witty to freshen the mind will have a good effect. It will not be amiss, likewise, to remove any seeming obstruction. As Cicero says of himself, he is not unaware that some will find it strange that ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... covered his retreat from an untenable position with a sparkling pleasantry. An old witness named ELM having given his evidence with remarkable clearness, although he was more than eighty years of age, Lord Mansfield examined him as to his habitual mode of living, and found he had been ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... he begged for shelter underneath your roof. The poor sufferer in Trinidad who lost his all in the devouring flames will remember your charity to his latest moments. The traveller, as he leaves your port, casts a longing, lingering look behind: your attentions, your hospitality, your pleasantry and mirth are uppermost in his thoughts; your prosperity is close to his heart. Let us now, gentle reader, retire from the busy scenes of man and journey on towards the wilds in quest of the ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... excited the curiosity of several of the sifters, who had recently joined the "company": the parties alluded to were requested to favor them with the recital; and though the request was made with only a half-concealed irony, still it was all in good-natured pleasantry, and was immediately complied with. Old ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... no necessity for carrying a pleasantry into our private life," she said, in a perfectly amiable voice. "Anyway, if Professor Farrago's feelings are to be spared, no sacrifice on the part of a mere girl could be too great," she added, gayly; "I will wear men's clothes if ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... of a successful operator, is a young man of thirty or thereabouts. He does not give the impression of being much of a workman: his professional manner evidently strikes him as being a joke, and is underlain by a thoughtless pleasantry which betrays the young gentleman still unsettled and in search of amusing adventures, behind the newly set-up dentist in search of patients. He is not without gravity of demeanor; but the strained nostrils stamp it as the gravity of the humorist. His eyes are clear, alert, of sceptically moderate ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw
... one of the most delightful of Shakspeare's comedies. It is full of sweetness and pleasantry. It is perhaps too good-natured for comedy. It has little satire, and no spleen. It aims at the ludicrous rather than the ridiculous. It makes us laugh at the follies of mankind, not despise them, and still ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... There were, at the point where the street plunges into the Common, some wooden turnstiles, and these of course were immensely in the way and men were flung about and there was a good deal of coarse pleasantry, and one mild freshman, who had been caught into the crowd by accident, was thrown on to the ground and very nearly ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... Die," but neither of them awoke in the minds of the children the faintest idea of playfulness or jocularity. Perhaps it was difficult to connect the serious men, who occasionally walked beside them and seemed to grow more taciturn and depressed as the day wore on, with this past effusive pleasantry. ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... her heart going out to him, she would say to herself with a mock pleasantry that carried an ache with it, "No, no, Elizabeth-Jane—such dreams are not for you!" She tried to prevent herself from seeing him, and thinking of him; succeeding fairly well in the former attempt, in the latter ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... fortunately filled a hand with which he hoped to pay a part of the war-debt of the South and get a new overcoat in London. Later, however, the United States disavowed this act of Captain Wilkes, and said it was only a bit of pleasantry on his part. ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... had seldom seen his mind greater or more collected. There was frequently a considerable degree of vivacity in his sallies, and they would probably have had a greater share, had not the concern and dejection I could not disguise damped the spirit of pleasantry he seemed ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... made answer "Ah, that rational 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 consuming despair might perhaps have reduced me. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... pleasantry was at its highest, a loud knock was heard at the door. The revelry ceased for a moment. There was the postmaster's boy, bearing a letter with several curious stamps on it. Hanz was overjoyed. He shook the boy's hand, and then scanned over the letter. "God pless mine poor poy, Titus!" he exclaimed. ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... their own clearly defined figures, and waiting only for the night to evade them. The Beasley house seemed a proper place of operation in beating up the field. Ira's cold reception of the suggestion was duly disposed of by the deputy. "I have the RIGHT, ye know," he said, with a grim pleasantry, "to summon ye as my posse to aid and assist me in carrying out the law; but I ain't the man to be rough on my friends, and I reckon it will do jest as well if I 'requisition' your house." The dreadful recollection that the deputy had ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... the second evening with their leaden bier. At a high trot they start; and keep up that pace. For the jibes (brocards) of those Parisians, who stand planted in two rows, all the way to St. Denis, and 'give vent to their pleasantry, the characteristic of the nation,' do not tempt one to slacken. Towards midnight the vaults of St. Denis receive their own; unwept by any eye of all these; if not by poor Loque his neglected Daughter's, whose Nunnery ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... 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
... it was suggested, as a wild pleasantry, by some daring visitor, "Suppose, Hobert, we should send you off one of these days, and have you back after a few weeks, sound and vigorous as a young colt! What should you say ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... contempt, which have fallen in my way, in twice crossing this great continent, I could make a second Joe Miller of one, and a Jane Shore of the other. If this traveller could have understood the Beggars' Opera, the humour of Sam. Foote, or the pleasantry among English sailors, watermen, and the lower order of the people, he would have known, that, though the English nation have not so much vivacity as the French, they are behind-hand with no nation whatever, where true wit and genuine humour are to be displayed. What would he have said, ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... 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 ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... 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 me for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were going on in out-of-the-way places—in angles of the walls and bastions, or behind the gates-between youthful couples about to be separated for a season. Interesting scenes these of pathos and pleasantry—a combination of soft glances and affectionate fervent assurances; alternate embraces (that were apparently received with reluctance, but actually with delight, and proffers of pieces of calico ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... called Skyrocket Jack) was blown up at Spithead, in the Edgar, he was on the carriage of a gun, and when brought to the admiral, all black and wet, he said with pleasantry, "I hope, sir, you will excuse my dirty appearance, for I came out of the ship in so great a hurry, that I had not ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... dell'Uovo, taking pleasure in watching his pencil and listening to his discourse; 'and Giotto,' says Vasari, 'who had ever his repartee and bon-mot ready, held him there, fascinated at once with the magic of his pencil and pleasantry of his tongue.' We are not told the length of his sojourn at Naples, but it must have been for a considerable period, judging from the quantity of works he executed there. He had certainly returned to Florence in 1332." There he was immediately appointed "chief master" ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... He was simply fond of making them appear terrible; even when in London he was more idle than wicked. He gravely suggested at last, as a kind of climax, that he and Pierre should go out on the pad together. This was a mere stroke of pleasantry on his part, because, the most he could loot in that far North were furs and caches of buffalo meat; and a man's capacity and use for them were limited. Even Pierre's especial faculty and art seemed valueless ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... parted, but it was not until I had rejoined my anxious friends with the ambulance that I began to suspect Commandant Cronje of a piece of pleasantry. Major Pollock, it appeared, had interceded on my behalf so effectually that my fate had been decided and my safe return promised long before I had met the Commandant. He afterwards entertained himself by playing upon my anxiety, which, I have ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... a curious method of displaying your pleasantry," retorted Denviers, glancing sternly at the heavy-bearded Russian who had so wantonly insulted us. Rachieff drew a chair to the table, and, sitting down, leant his head upon his ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... attention to the mother-tongue is prescribed, that the young nerves of the letter-writer must tremble when he takes up his pen. Besides, he is told that "he should be extremely reserved on the head of pleasantry," and that "as to sallies of wit, it is still more dangerous to let them fly at random; but he may repeat the smart sayings of others if he will, or relate part of some droll adventure, ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... (Das Liebesleben in der Natur) has recently described love among all organized beings, including man, with a tone of forced pleasantry which spoils the profound knowledge of the author on the zoological and other ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... flimsy and slight—and some slenderness at the knee that made him shamble like a thief! Peter stood with a great brown hand on his shoulder, smiling at me with a frank open mouth and cheeks creased with pleasantry. When he laughed, his body shook mightily, and the motion of his hand made the other stagger. And the Vrouw van der Westhuizen stood there looking, with eyes like pools ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... suppose a woman serious when she told him where to find out a concealed lover? I wanted to discover how far jealousy would carry you, and invented this trick for the purpose," The officer, upon this, was struck with admiration of his wife's pleasantry and his own credulity, which so tickled his fancy that he laughed immoderately, begged pardon for his foolish conduct, and they spent the evening cheerfully together; after which, the husband going to the bath, his wife charitably released the almost dead tailor, and reproving ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... Vincente, with a characteristic pleasantry. 'You take too much upon yourself. All these things are written down for us beforehand. We only add the punctuation—delaying a little ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... thus left alone was confounded for an instant; but, recovering himself with true Indian shrewdness, burst into a loud laugh, and affected to turn off the whole matter as a piece of pleasantry. Mr. Stuart by no means relished such equivocal joking, but it was not his policy to get into a quarrel; so he joined with the best grace he could assume in the merriment of the jocular giant; and, to console the latter for the refusal of the horse, made him a present of twenty charges ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... 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 ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... Hilary, on whom this pleasantry was not lost. "You've be'n travelling on the lumber ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... disposed for pleasantry, would gladly now have dropt the subject; but Dr Lyster, turning to the Miss Charltons, said, "Young ladies, I call you both to witness if this is not very bad usage: this young woman has connived at my writing a downright falsehood, and all the time took me in to believe it was a truth. ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... curled his lip in scorn, and showed a spirit of defiance, but on the approach of two police officers, whom the court had ordered to arrest him, he submitted himself. We were gratified with the spirit of good humor and pleasantry with which Mr. J. described the astonishment and gaping curiosity which Americans manifest on seeing colored men in offices of authority, particularly on the judicial bench, and their evident embarrassment and uneasiness ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... pleasantry, we erupted pellmell into the drive, all frantic by word or deed to distract the terrier from his purpose. Shrieks, curses, and a copy of La Fontaine's Fables were hurled simultaneously and in vain at our favourite, and it was Berry, to whom the fear of further acquaintance with the emporiums ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... lone women at The Poplars were gifted with a thin vein of music. They gave it expression in psalmody, of course, in which Myrtle, who was a natural singer, was expected to bear her part. This would have been pleasantry if the airs most frequently selected had been cheerful or soothing, and if the favorite hymns had been of a sort to inspire a love for what was lovely in this life, and to give some faint foretaste of the harmonies ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... that she needed a brief interval in which to collect her thoughts and calm a growing nervousness that in spite of her efforts at pleasantry would assert itself in various little ways, evident enough to my observation. A saucepan of water was set upon the hot coals on the hearth, the lemons cut and squeezed into two elegant goblets, upon square lumps of sugar ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... seemed to be reflections of the streaming crimson there. She shook her face to the sky, and affected laughter at the symbol. Her companions clapped hands. Farina's eyes yearned to her once, and then he rose and joined in the pleasantry. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Osmond's pleasantry; I decide nothing," said Madame Merle, but also as in pleasantry. "I believe you've a very good school, but Miss Osmond's friends must remember that she's very naturally meant for ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... quarter of a century ago he followed the lead of Mr. Dyce in assuming that because the author of "Doctor Faustus" and "The Jew of Malta" "was as certainly"—and certainly it is difficult to deny that whether as a mere transcriber or as an original dealer in pleasantry he sometimes was—"one of the least and worst among jesters as he was one of the best and greatest among poets," he could not have had a hand in the admirable comic scenes of "The Taming of the Shrew." For it is now, I should hope, unnecessary ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... words which were to rend his heart in twain. At that moment Dulac entered the room with a packet of letters just arrived from Paris by estafette. Amongst them was one from the young lady's mother, full of sweet pleasantry and graceful mirth, describing the gay doings at the Tuileries, and the delight her daughter had experienced at the idea of being allowed to attend the Duchesse d'Angouleme to the ball about to be given in honor of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... share alike?" continued Rose, ignoring the pleasantry, "big and little—that young inventor with ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... sold directly under the eyes of the King. Madame Campan adds, however, that the King avoided expressing himself on this enthusiasm, which, she says, "without doubt, his sound sense made him blame." But an incident, called "a pleasantry," which has remained quite unknown, goes beyond speech in the way of explaining the secret sentiments of Louis XVI. The Comtesse Diane de Polignac, devoted to Marie Antoinette, shared warmly the "infatuation" with regard to Franklin. The King observed it. But here the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... indeed an extraordinary mode of proceeding for an intelligent and virtuous people, Mr. Blunt; and I must take the liberty of saying that I suspect you of pleasantry. If you wish an answer, I will say, at once by such a process we might get a knave, or a ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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 ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... kitchen—a refreshment-room, where persons who 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
... absolutely still was our order, wasn't it, Mr. Arnold?" she said, with her little pink smile. "And I'm afraid Miss Howe isn't in time to be of much use to us, is she?" It was the bedside pleasantry that expected no reply, ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... so grave and severe in the usual affairs of life, could take on a tone of pleasantry while ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... 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 ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... 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 ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in the reading-room of the British Museum; or that originally he had actually been a bookworm, a sort of mite, spontaneously engendered between the pages of a book, and that the supernatural being who presides over the reading-room had, as a little pleasantry, transformed him into a man so as to enable him to read the books on which ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... to expect the usual entertainment of wit and wisdom from Roy and Pee-wee, and he smiled in his old way when Roy said with a poor attempt at mirth, "Let's finish up the egg powder, we'll all scramble for scrambled eggs." Blythe heard only the pleasantry, but to the others the reminder that it was their last breakfast there ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... facetious wights, with more merriment than discretion, ventured to exhibit themselves before the cortege of Henri, and to exclaim loud enough to reach the ears of royalty, "a la fraise on connoit le veau!" a piece of pleasantry for which ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... politely, and shows us two large books of foolscap size with ruled columns, one of these containing a record of the visitors to the Charity, and the other a list of the recipients thereof. A little pleasantry is caused by one of us entering his name in the wrong book, but this mistake is promptly rectified by the matron, who informs us that we are scarcely objects for relief as "Poor Travellers." She then kindly repeats to us the two legends respecting the origin of the Charity, ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... jocularly remarked to the Commandant, "if I don't, you will be saying that you captured these villains, and, sending them off to Lahore, will secure the reward my men have earned!" The Commandant laughed heartily at this blunt pleasantry, and partly out of good nature, and partly to avoid all blame should the prisoners escape, agreed to the proposal of the diplomatic subadar. During the course of the day the utmost cordiality was maintained, the Sikhs coming out and freely ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... enterprise, and his business house was a rendezvous for all the distressed, and a sort of "intelligence office" for the poor seeking employment. His temper was cheerful and frequently gay; no man more relished pleasantry and mirth in the society of his friends, with whom his manner was free and even at times jovial; but he never himself indulged in personal jests nor familiarities, nor did he permit them from his most intimate associates; to attempt them with him gave him certain ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... his success. It is surely to be regretted that this was the case; and, effective as his sketch of the Custom House is, one feels that Hawthorne stooped in taking his literary revenge on his humble associates by holding them up to personal ridicule. The tone of pleasantry veils ill feeling, which is expressed without cover in a letter he wrote to Bridge a day or two before he left ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... Chicago—where he'd been more or less weaned on gin, and discovered that, unlike his father, he didn't much care for the stuff—and even in Washington, people didn't go around accusing you of drunkenness just because you made some harmless little pleasantry. ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... His chief motive, however, was to demonstrate to his travelling companion the necessity for their parting company; in order, that, by riding forward himself, he might be able to send back succour to his fellow-traveller. He was no little surprised, therefore, to perceive that his pleasantry was taken in actually a serious light; and therefore had determined to desist from ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... you suppose, that when the disciples heard from the lips of their Master the play of words on the name of Peter, there was no smile of appreciation on the bearded faces of those holy men? From any other lips we should have called this pleasantry a— ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... is a name made up of several Greek words, and seems to mean "a son of Croesus, abounding in treasures of gold," in allusion to Croesus, the wealthy king of Lydia. The author indulges in similar pleasantry in the Miles Gloriosus.] ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus
... 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
... heard so much, I said to Davies, "Don't tell him where I come from." "From Scotland," cried Davies roguishly. "Mr. Johnson," said I, "I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it." I am willing to flatter myself that I meant this as a light pleasantry to sooth and conciliate him, and not as a humiliating abasement at the expense of my country. But however that might be, this speech was somewhat unlucky, for with that quickness of wit for which ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... like a bishop, and who surprised the victims of his greed with ghostly counsel. Thus it was a merry party that assembled in the lady's parlour, loyal to the memory of the martyred king, and quick to fling back an offending pleasantry. ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... sublime, inspiring; the Second Part is more soothing and comforting. The First Part has deep and awful shadows mingled with its light, terribly instructive, and like warnings from hell and the grave. The Second Part is more continually and uninterruptedly cheerful, full of good nature and pleasantry, and showing the pilgrimage in lights and shades that are common to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Scotch Reviewers, he had alluded, with provoking pleasantry, to a meeting which had taken place at Chalk Farm some years before, between Mr Jeffrey, the Edinburgh reviewer, and Mr Moore, without recollecting, indeed without having heard, that Mr Moore had explained, through the newspapers, what was alleged to have been ridiculous ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... you, Abijah?" remarked the young man with the air of lordly pleasantry he used to all servants who were not white. Beyond the fine old hall he saw the formal drawing-room and the modern octagonal dining-room at the back ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... doors, where a large party of friends were entertained. Every one laughed at his own pleasantry, without attending to that of his neighbours. Loads of bride-cake were distributed. The young ladies were all busy in passing morsels of it through the wedding ring to dream on, and I myself assisted a fine little boarding-school girl in putting up a quantity for her companions, which I ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... thought darted through her mind. She could scarcely hope to make anything of her mother, for, alack and alas! Mrs. Howland was one of those weak characters who slip away from you even as you try to grasp them. But Martin, with his terrible vulgarity and awful pleasantry, ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... never judges a knight by his outward guise," returned Camilla, with soft pleasantry. She adored ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... expression of such anger and ferocity, that I began to fear some violent outbreak of passion, and made several attempts by signs and gestures, to indicate to Barton the danger of pursuing so thoughtless and imprudent a pleasantry. But he either did not perceive my meaning, or else, felt rather flattered than alarmed, by the effect which his elocution seemed to produce upon Catiline, for he continued to pour out upon him the torrent of his oratory for several minutes ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... deep that they rather resembled groans, appeared to make a violent effort to command herself, answered Bear's questions, and on the arrival of the punch, drank to us, saying, with a serious look and voice, "Son and son's wife, your health!" On this she grew more friendly, and said in a tone of pleasantry, which beseemed her very well, "Lars Anders, I don't think people can say you have bought the calf in the sack. Your wife does not by any means look in bad case, and has a pair of eyes to buy fish with. Little she is, it is true; but 'Little and bold is often more than ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... ceaseless. The boatman sings at the oar, the family at evening worship, the girls at night in the guest-house, sometimes the workman at his toil. No occasion is too small for the poets and musicians; a death, a visit, the day's news, the day's pleasantry, will be set to rhyme and harmony. Even half-grown girls, the occasion arising, fashion words and train choruses of children for its celebration. Song, as with all Pacific islanders, goes hand in hand with the dance, and both shade into the drama. Some of the performances are indecent and ugly, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fashion twenty centuries ago, they must remain so in saecula saeculorum; because to these lofty heights giants had scaled, behold the race of pigmies must get upon stilts and jump at them likewise! and on the canvas, and in the theatre, the French frogs (excuse the pleasantry) were instructed to swell out and roar as much ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... members, took forty years to compile their Dictionary. JOHNSON. Sir, thus it is. This is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman.' With so much ease and pleasantry could he talk of that prodigious labour which he had ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... passed with the greatest freedom, yet with the utmost decency; not a single equivocal word, not one attempt at double-meaning pleasantry; yet this delicacy was not affected, we only performed the parts our hearts dictated; in short, my modesty, some will say my folly, was such that the greatest familiarity that escaped me was once kissing the hand of Mademoiselle Galley; it is true, the attending circumstances ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... around some on Thursday night. That is my night off, and then I will show you some sights that are sights." The young man chuckled as he got his hat and prepared to return to the shop. Brent thanked him in a way that sounded heavy and stilted even to his own ears after the other's light pleasantry. ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... The pleasantry did not apparently disconcert the other, but he looked carefully around as if searching for something before ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... those finite flourishings. The listeners laughed and applauded by turns; and had now fairly pitted them against each other, as the philosopher of hopefulness and of the unhopeful. The contest continued with all that ready wit and philosophy, that mixture of pleasantry and profundity, that extensive knowledge of books and character, with their ready application in argument or illustration, and that perfect ease and good nature which distinguish both of these men. The opponents were so well matched that it was quite clear the contest would never come to an end. ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... hospitality; for though he had heard of company being entertained with a whole hogshead of claret, he was not aware of champagne being ever served in a tub before. The company were too determined to be merry to have their pleasantry put out of tune by so trifling a mishap, and it was generally voted that the joke was worth twice as much as the wine. Nevertheless, Dick could not help casting a reproachful look now and then at Andy, who had to run the gauntlet of many ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... but their pleasantry and humour not contemptible, i. 358; customary among the Romans after a serious ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... not the value of the lamp and the interest that Aladdin had to keep it safe, entered into the pleasantry and commanded a slave to take it and make the exchange. The slave 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 Entertainments • Anonymous
... her face as she spoke, and Quincy smiled to show that he did not misunderstand her pleasantry. As he turned to ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... an excellent pleasantry," he said with a smile of the blandest. "Without doubt, not a very flattering pleasantry—but I know that her denial of me in favour of her cat is but a jesting at which we both may laugh. And we may ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... anxious to return to his desk, but apparently considered that it would be rude to leave without some parting pleasantry. ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... and the water shrouded—and morning found the fog abruptly lifted, and the islands before our eyes. They glittered under a brilliant sun. There came hurried disembarking, a transference (for me, and after breakfast) to a small boat called, by the owner's pleasantry, 'Watch Me' (Compton Mackenzie), and then a fine sail (per motor) to Herm. I said to the skipper that I supposed there must be many dangerous submerged rocks. 'My dear fellow!' exclaimed the skipper, driven to familiarity by my naivete. And ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... realisation of her terrible situation had dawned upon him. A woman among a crowd of rough soldiers! Her brother and protector dying! And all surrounded by hordes of savage enemies who at any moment might kill them! The thought dismissed all pleasantry from his mind. Something must be done, and ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... quay, in a surging crowd of khaki and civilian grey, mingled with the bright hats and dresses of ladies. Then bells began to ring, the siren to bellow mournfully, and the band to play valedictory tunes ("Say au revoir and not goodbye," I thought rather an ominous pleasantry). We two said good-bye, and I squeezed myself up the gangway. Every inch of standing room aboard was already packed, but I got a commanding position by clambering high up, with some others, on to a derrick-boom. The pilot appeared on the bridge, shore-ropes were cast off, "Auld Lang ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... "I fear, with all thy wit and pleasantry, thou art, after all, but one of those capriccios which Nature sometimes indulges in, merely to show how superior is her accustomed order to eccentricities, even accompanied ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... and, though once or twice a tipsy roysterer ventured on some rough pleasantry, I noticed with returning satisfaction that most of the big, bearded miners treated her with chivalrous respect. She was quite friendly with them. They called her by name, and seemed to have a genuine affection for her. There was a protective manliness in the manner of these men that reassured ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... which slipped through their fingers into their own coffers. Becoming sovereigns themselves, they retain these funds for their private emolument. Four principal sources yielded this revenue: royal domains, tolls and imposts, direct levies and a pleasantry called voluntary contributions or benevolences. In addition to these supplies were also the proceeds of fines. Taxation upon sin was, in those rude ages, a considerable branch of the revenue. The old Frisian laws consisted almost entirely of a discriminating ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... to which I have referred, Hamilton's correspondence with Coleridge may be read, as can also the letters to his lady correspondents, among them being Maria Edgeworth, Lady Dunraven, and Lady Campbell. Many of these sheets relate to literary matters, but they are largely intermingled With genial pleasantry, and serve at all events to show the affection and esteem with which he was regarded by all who had the privilege of knowing him. There are also the letters to the sisters whom he adored, letters brimming over with such exalted sentiment, ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... One might imagine Emma, the nut-brown maid, to be Emma Isola, as that was a phrase Lamb was fond of applying to her—assuming the title "The Sisters" to be a pleasantry; but the late Miss Mary Sabilia Novello assured me that the sisters were herself, Emma Aloysia Novello and Clara Anastasia ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... with the Synthetic Philosophy, or indeed with any philosophy of value. Mr. Spencer's warning to his readers seems to quite justify Mr. Bradley's rather caustic comment, "I do not wish to be irreverent, but Mr. Spencer's attitude towards his Unknowable strikes me as a pleasantry, the point of which lies in its unconsciousness. It seems a proposal to take something for God simply and solely because we do not know what the devil it can be." (Note to p. 128 of Appearance ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... dressed more or less after the period in which the play was written; the women were not. I saw no inconsistency. Their talk seemed to open to one the brilliant world in which they lived; every sentence made one older and wiser, every pleasantry enlarged one's horizon. One could experience excess and satiety without the inconvenience of learning what to do with one's hands in a drawing-room! When the characters all spoke at once and I missed some of the phrases they flashed at each other, I was in misery. ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... on a summer evening, had nearly thrown a modest young woman into a swoon of indignation and confusion, by his shameful manner of attacking her with this cry as she harmlessly passed along before me. MR. CARLYLE, some time since, awakened a little pleasantry by writing of his own experience of the Ruffian of the streets. I have seen the Ruffian act in exact accordance with Mr. Carlyle's description, innumerable times, and I never saw ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... triumphant; are exploded in a sharp blast of musketry from the bushes all round, every wounded man made prisoner;—and come no more back to that post." Friedrich himself records this little fact: "slight pleasantry to relieve the reader's mind," says he, in narrating it. [OEuvres, iii. 123.]—Enough of those small matters, while so many ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... day passed without any open violence, and with even some good-humored pleasantry on the part of the great crowd assembled. The draft was conducted openly and fairly, and the names of the conscripts were publicly announced and published by the press of Sunday morning. It appeared that the names of many ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... had the presumption to accept of such a service at the hand of his Sovereign; and hence he, or his privileged fool, Le Glorieux, is in the current habit of distinguishing you by the absurd and ridiculous name of Tete botte, which makes one of the Duke's most ordinary subjects of pleasantry." ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... the comfortable swing of the beginning the first melody is extended in full beauty and significance. All the pleasantry of the rogue is here, and at the end a last fierce burst ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... ships had got on shore. Some of the Cato's sailors appeared in officers uniforms, given to them in the Porpoise; and I was pleased to see that our situation was not thought so bad by the people, as to hinder all pleasantry upon these promotions. Those who had saved great coats or blankets shared with the less fortunate, and we laid down to sleep on the sand in tolerable tranquillity, being much oppressed with fatigue; and except from those of the Cato's men who had been bruised or ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... that that effigy in the German cap—likewise the other effigy of the noisome old man with the long hair, telling indelicate stories to a couple of deformed negresses in a rancid shanty full of wreckage—should be perpetuated. I may seem to speak in pleasantry—it is only a seeming—that German cap, sir, would be found, when I come to die, imprinted on my heart. Enough—my heart is too ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... nae debt, my lord, till ye ken what it 's for," she said, without a tone or inflection to indicate a pleasantry. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... picture of the surface of society, showed manners but not the elementary passions of human nature. As a whole, it leaves an impression of hardness, shallowness, and levity. The polite cynicism of Congreve, the ferocious cynicism of Swift, the malice of Pope, the pleasantry of Addison, the early worldliness of Prior and Gay are seldom relieved by any touch of the ideal. The prose of the time was excellent, but the poetry was merely rhymed prose. The recent Queen Anne revival in architecture, dress, and bric-a-brac, the recrudescence of society verse in Dobson ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... 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, ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... commendable gruffness, considering his contentment at heart, as he hastily retreated to his gondola under the Rialto for needed shelter from the banter which followed him, until some other unwary victim became the centre of the well-meant pleasantry. ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... their offspring to their bosoms, or gazed terror-stricken from an attic-window upon the classical marauders below, as they indulged in a post-mortem examination of a private dwelling, or the rare pleasantry of roasting a policeman. But dared complain, for public excitement waxed high on the subject ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... fascinating power. Some of our crew, of reputed good habits, became so bewitched with gaming that they plundered their companions and returned to their cards and wheels of fortune with a serious and anxious ardor, totally void of pleasantry, that seemed to me ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... land surrounded by ocean; that is to say, she is an island. In the same way, it is sheer gross irrelevancy to speak of Britain as an island, unless indeed the word be understood as a mere modus loquendi arising out of a rather poor geographical pleasantry. Britain, in reality, is a small continent. Near her—a little to the south-east—is situated the large island of Europe. Thus, the enlightened French traveller passing to these shores should commune within himself: "I now cross to the Mainland"; and retracing his steps: ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... powerful logic. "I would sooner lay my head on the scaffold," said this austere man, who, as soon as he touched them, increased immensely the importance of any propositions. "I would sooner lay my head upon the scaffold than admit that, in the mere intention of a stupid pleasantry, Cabrion could be so obstinately exasperated against me; a farce is only played for the gallery. Now, in his last undertaking, this obnoxious creature had no witness; he acted alone and in obscurity, as always; ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... 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 his ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... Scotch, of which I had heard much, I said to Davies, 'Don't tell where I come from.'—'From Scotland,' cried Davies roguishly. 'Mr. Johnson, (said I) I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it[1157].' I am willing to flatter myself that I meant this as light pleasantry to sooth and conciliate him, and not as an humiliating abasement at the expence of my country. But however that might be, this speech was somewhat unlucky; for with that quickness of wit for which he was so remarkable, he seized ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... that only those of dull and gloomy temperament can take exception to what I am going to relate in order to illustrate our Blessed Father's delightful gift of pleasantry in conversation. ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... Mr. Lyon? why, it is so new to me, I scarcely realized that I had any permission," she said, with a little attempt at pleasantry. "But as her aunt—and guardian, as one may say—personally I should have the greatest satisfaction to know that Margaret's destiny was in the hands of one we all esteem and know as ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner |
