"Popinjay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it may be put to my account in purgatory, my Martin. You are spoiling a good outlaw. Have your way, only this gay popinjay of a knight must stay until his ransom be paid. We can't afford to lose that. But no harm shall befall him. Beside, we may want him as hostage in case this morning's work bring a ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... were over, a loud shout announced that the competitors were about to step forth for the shooting of the popinjay— the figure of a bird suspended to a pole. When a slender young man, dressed with great simplicity, yet with an air of elegance, his dark-green cloak thrown back over his shoulder, approached the station with his ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... and her sister, Mrs. Pygmalion Popinjay, were at the Earl's Court Exhibition on Wednesday. The Countess's crested toucan, Willy, was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 22, 1914 • Various
... Wells, uneasily. "I shall enjoy seeing if that French popinjay keeps all of his fine airs when the hour for stern ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... town of Uxbridge were familiarly known as Bible Grainge and Gridiron Grainge. Many animal surnames are to be referred partly to this source, e.g. Bull, Hart, Lamb, Lyon, Ram, Roebuck, Stagg; Cock, Falcon, Peacock, Raven, Swann, etc., all still common as tavern signs. The popinjay, or parrot, is still occasionally found as Pobgee, Popjoy. These surnames all have, of course, an alternative explanation (ch. xxiii.). Here also usually belong ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... on which grander figures are to be drawn, and deeper fates forthshadowed. The judgments between the faith and chivalry of Scotland at Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge owe little of their interest in the mind of a sensible reader to the fact that the captain of the Popinjay is carried a prisoner to one battle, and returns a prisoner from the other: and Scott himself, while he watches the white sail that bears Queen Mary for the last time from her native land, very nearly forgets to finish his novel, or to tell us—and ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... chuckled. "Oh, yes, he shall have Christian burial in the family vaults. Lucky job for me the hound died, or the game would have been all up. As it is, that fool—that popinjay, almost guessed. Well, deny everything and demand proof, that's my line. After all, it's the very risks and chances that make ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... somebody: it was a wooden bird, the popinjay used at the shooting-matches at Prastoe. Now he said that there were just as many inhabitants as he had nails in his body; and he was very proud. "Thorwaldsen lived almost next door to me.* ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... Quincangrogne, because it was a lonely place, far from other habitations. The husband and the wife were thus both in his service, and he had by La Beaupertuys a daughter, who died a nun. This Nicole had a tongue as sharp as a popinjay's, was of stately proportions, furnished with large beautiful cushions of nature, firm to the touch, white as the wings of an angel, and known for the rest to be fertile in peripatetic ways, which brought it to pass that never with her was the same thing encountered twice in love, so deeply ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... poetry, and she is happy who, by her blandishment, can detain him in conversation for five minutes. Yet they own they understand less than half of what he says. Vexed with one to whom we were talking, we thought rationally, for permitting herself to be "so pestered by a popinjay,"—"He is so clever," was the reply; "such an odd creature, too. I wish you knew him. He is in such a strange humour to-night. Do you know he tells me he wishes to marry an English girl? See! he is gone into the balcony ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... said you were a popinjay, and father said there was no doubt about your being a jay, and Sue said there didn't seem to be much chance of your poppin', and now you say you aren't ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... stone-lined pool, with water-lilies above, gold-fish below, and a cool, sparkling, babbling fountain in the middle. There was an open space round it, with low chairs and tables, and the parrot on her perch. Indeed, Popinjay Parlour was the family title of this delightful abode; but it might almost as well have been called Mother Carey's bower. Here, after an audience with the housekeeper, who was even more overpowering than her Serene Highness, would Caroline ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he quarrelled with his correspondent; and the letter was of such a nature that, when published, it made extremely unpleasant reading. Generals Joubert and Smit, who had been described with admirable truth and candour, were so enraged that they demanded the instant dismissal of the 'conceited young popinjay' who had dared to criticise his masters. The President, however, who had been described as an ignorant, narrow-minded, pig-headed, and irascible old Boer whom—with the others thrown in—the writer ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... triumph for a man nearing fifty; but it was an alarming triumph.... Odd that in that moment he should think of Lady Massulam! His fatal charm was as a razor. Had he been playing with it as a baby might play with a razor?... Popinjay? Coxcomb? Perhaps, Nevertheless, the wench had artistically kissed his hand, and his hand felt self-complacent, even ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... would say," replied Richard; "elegant in a lady's chamber, if you will. Oh, ay, Conrade of Montserrat—who knows not the popinjay? Politic and versatile, he will change you his purposes as often as the trimmings of his doublet, and you shall never be able to guess the hue of his inmost vestments from their outward colours. A man-at-arms? Ay, a fine figure ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... became manifest—there was not a spot in all Germany where it was possible to get rid of a quid without attracting undue attention. No man likes to be stared at as an outlaw against the recognized decencies of life. One may smoke cigars under a lady's nose, dress like a popinjay, or kiss his bearded friend in most Continental cities, but he must not chew tobacco, because it is considered a barbarous and filthy habit. He may guzzle beer, take snuff, and wear dirty shirts, but if he would avoid reproach as an unclean ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... jack-of-all-trades, he is a man only less poverty-stricken than a tramp. He has the illusion of efficiency. He wonders that society generally judges that he is not worth his salt, that on every battlefield Hotspur curses him for a popinjay, that in every company of master workmen met for council he is at most a tolerated guest. The judgment upon him—not my judgment, but the judgment which the days thrust in his face—is this: that when there is important work to be done he cannot do it. He is full of versatility. He knows the ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... to sing, O! [SHE] Sing me your song, O! [HE] It is sung to the knell Of a churchyard bell, And a doleful dirge, ding dong, O! It's a song of a popinjay, bravely born, Who turned up his noble nose with scorn At the humble merrymaid, peerly proud, Who loved that lord, and who laughed aloud At the moan of the merryman, moping mum, Whose soul was sad, whose glance was glum, ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... Grace," answered Hugh, "for whom I have a message that he will be glad to hear, and, popinjay, this for yourself; were it not for his presence it is you who should stop upon the road ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... no boy now, you know. And I had set my heart on it too; so had our old friend. He wants you to go and see him, Dick, to help him make up his quarterly account, as you used to do. Perhaps she'll tire of this popinjay—and, when ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... to have a servant to assist him. But Aunt Em was "all of a flutter," as she said, and it took Dorothy and Jellia Jamb, the housekeeper, and two maids a long time to dress her and do up her hair and get her "rigged like a popinjay," as she quaintly expressed it. She wanted to stop and admire everything that caught her eye, and she sighed continually and declared that such finery was too good for an old country woman, and that she never thought she would have to "put on airs" ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... glad(e), that they show in singing That in (t)heir hearts is such liking,[13] That they mote [14] sing(en) and be light. Then doth the nightingale her might To make noise and sing(en) blithe, Then is bussful many sithe,[15] The calandra [16] and the popinjay.[17] Then young(e) folk entend(en)[18] aye For to be gay and amorous, The time is then so favorous.[19] Hard is the heart that loveth nought, In May when all this mirth is wrought: When he may on these branches hear The small(e) bird(e)s ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... "That old Popinjay! He has been my folly, greater than Mexico. He would have gone to Gaeta, or to perdition, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... are not so common as in Maerchen, but still are very general, and cause no surprise to their human listeners. The omniscient popinjay, who "up and spoke" in the Border minstrelsy, is of the same family of birds as those that, according to Talvj, pervade Servian song; as the [Greek: tria poulakia] which introduce the story in the Romaic ballads; as the wise birds whose speech is still understood by exceptionally gifted Zulus; ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... the most part it swayed lightly, with a certain moral effect only over the head of the rank and file, but it grew to a crushing beam for the officer who did not with alacrity habitually attend to his every duty, great or small. The do-nothing, the popinjay, the intractable, the self-important, the remonstrant, the I thought, sir—the It is due to my dignity, sir—none of these flourished in the Army of the Valley. The tendencies had been there, of course; they came up like the ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... "If you say to an American, 'This is a fine morning,' he is likely to reply, 'It is an elegant morning,' or perhaps oftener by using simply the word elegant. This is not a pleasing use of the word." This is not American English, Professor, but popinjay English. ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... Tompkins is an American. He can handle these chaps in their own way. At any rate, I told Tompkins if his nerve failed him at the last minute to come and notify me. I'll attend to this confounded popinjay!" ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds |
