"Facetious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... looking at him with a fierceness that overpowered his discretion, was bursting out with, "Sir, you are an—-impudent fellow," but checking himself when he got half way, concluded with, "a very facetious gentleman!" ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... though at first nothing was talked of by his captors, and nothing anticipated by himself, but his ignominious execution, or at the least, prolonged and squalid incarceration, nevertheless, these threats and prospects evaporated, and by his facetious scorn for scorn, under the extremest sufferings, he finally wrung repentant usage from his foes; and in the end, being liberated from his irons, and walking the quarter-deck where before he had been thrust into ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... wombat and a hairy-nosed wombat. They don't come out much in daylight, and they had been here some time before they found themselves both out for an airing together. "Halloa," reflected the hairy-nosed wombat, "here is my neighbour. I'll chaff him!" and he straightway set to work to invent some facetious observation. In an hour or so an idea struck him, and, advancing to the partition bars, he said to the common wombat, "Here, I say—you're common!" and laughed uproariously. The common wombat felt the sting of the remark and ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... of reporting. Even in papers of the highest character an over-indulgence in headlines is coming into vogue, while the reporter is allowed too often to treat the unimportant and most personal events in a picturesque or facetious way without regard to truthfulness. On a lecture trip West last winter, a reporter of one of the most respectable and influential papers in the country asked if I was going to attack anybody in my speech, or say anything that would "stir ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt
... and to'gallant stu'ns'ls!" he bellowed, in a tone that put that of poor Mr Bitpin completely into the shade; his voice sounding as if the wild bull which that gentleman had apparently imitated, according to the facetious Larkyns, had since been under the instruction of Signor Lablache or some other distinguished bass singer and had learnt to mellow his roar into a deeper tone. No sooner, too, had the hands jumped into the rigging and the studdingsail halliards and tacks been cast off by ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... introduction to the Laureate, which was accorded. But the epistle, instead of describing Mr. L——— as an artist, merely designated him "an honest bonnet-maker," who had a penchant for lionizing, and who desired to be introduced to Dr. Southey in "the way of business." With this vexatiously facetious and laconic scrawl, poor Mr. L. made his way to the Lakes, and in due time was ushered into the Parnassian presence of the author of "Thalaba." The address of one of Southey's celebrity might well perplex a "man ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 405, December 19, 1829 • Various
... who's here!" cried the facetious journalist. "Tamburlaine the Great, and none other! What brings ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... to observe one gentleman attired as a Greek warrior, catch a light-whiskered brigand on the nose (he was in the very act of tossing up a bouquet to a young lady in a first-floor window) with a precision that was much applauded by the bystanders. As this victorious Greek was exchanging a facetious remark with a stout gentleman in a doorway— one-half black and one-half white, as if he had been peeled up the middle—who had offered him his congratulations on this achievement, he received an orange from a housetop, full on his left ear, and was much surprised, not to say discomfited. ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... we have recited at the close of the last chapter took place, another, which as a faithful historian we are bound to detail, was proceeding between the redoubtable Crackenfudge and our facetious friend, Dandy Dulcimer. Crackenfudge in following the stranger to the metropolis by the 'Flash of Lightning', in order to watch his movements, was utterly ignorant that Lucy had been that gentleman's fellow-traveller in the Fly. A strong opposition, ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... the facetious Dashboard, "Miss X. goes to the Charity Ball to-morrow night. The tickets are but a trifle to an opulent Californian, and a man of your evident means, and the object a worthy one. You will, no doubt, easily ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... these soporific parts are so many scenes of serious artfully interwoven, in order to contrast and set off the rest; and this is the true meaning of a late facetious writer, who told the public that whenever he was dull they might be assured there was a design ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... devils—my facetious devil—and he made me laugh. "By all means," said he, "let us get together a few eager poets, and establish a Society for the Propagation of Lunacy. Let us break down these conventions and confound the eyes of the fat and greasy citizens, and win freedom for our souls at any price. Let ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... during the journey. The other gentlemen having lost nothing by the various failures, discussed matters with philosophy and praiseworthy decorum. Sometimes, indeed, "the third person" grew slightly facetious and jocose when he represented to himself what he termed "the queer cut" that some old friend would display on presenting his cheque for payment at the rickety counter of Messrs —— & Co.; but no deeper expression of feeling escaped one of those who ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... to Mangonah, the beautifully situated dwelling of R. W. Nash, Esq., barrister at law, the most active-minded and public-spirited man in the colony. After a short delay, to laugh at one of our friend's last coined and most facetious anecdotes, and also to visit his botanical garden, we rattled off again to Guildford; a scattered hamlet that was made acquainted with our approach by loud strains from the editor's bugle. Here, however, we paused not, but proceeded along ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... completely a lapse of the pen (from the great similarity of the two words, and the total absence of error from the former pages of the literary leviathan) that I should have passed it over as in the text, had I not perceived in the Edinburgh Review much facetious exultation on all such detections, particularly a recent one, where words and syllables are subjects of disquisition and transposition; and the above-mentioned parallel passage in my own case irresistibly propelled ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... Bumsteadville. Christmas Eve all over the world, but especially where the English language is spoken. No sooner does the first facetious star wink upon this Eve, than all the English-speaking millions of this Boston-crowned earth begin casting off their hatreds, meannesses, uncharities, and Carlyleisms, as a garment, and, in a beautiful spirit of no objections to anybody, proceed to think what can be done for the poor in the way of ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... facetious, and a great deal more obstreperous, was fine rattling, rattleheaded Plumer. He was descended,—not in a right line, reader, (for his lineal pretensions, like his personal, favoured a little of the sinister bend) from ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... unto the proofs of the Answer in the Bible; which they shall distinctly read unto us, and show what they prove. This also shall supply a fresh matter for prayer." Again he tells of his table talk: "Tho' I will have my table talk facetious as well as instructive ... yett I will have the Exercise continually intermixed. I will set before them some sentence of the Bible, and make some useful Remarks upon it." Other people's children he taught as occasion offered; even when "on the Road in the Woods," he wrote on another day, ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... a courtly education; and, as his person was well-made and gracefull, so he took care to sett it off by all the ornaments and luxury of dress. He was of a sweet temper, and good-natured. His witt lively and sparkeling, and his humour pleasant and facetious. He loved books, and acquired the languages with great facility, whereby he cultivated and enriched his understanding with all manner of learning, but especially the belles lettres; add to this, a natural elegancy of expression, and ane inexhaustible fancy, which, on all occasions, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... when your sun of reason sets, The night succeeds; and all your schemes Of glory vanish with your dreams. Ah! where is now the supple train, That danced attendance on the Dean? Say, where are those facetious folks, Who shook with laughter at his jokes, And with attentive rapture hung, On wisdom, dropping from his tongue; Who look'd with high disdainful pride On all the busy world beside, And rated his productions more Than treasures of Peruvian ore? Good ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... wouldn't like to get that man Obermuller hopping mad at me, and Nancy Olden's no coward, either. But the way he gritted his teeth at that note and the devil in his eyes when he lifted them from it, made me wonder how I'd ever dared be facetious with him. ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... are either kill or cure in their action," the old doctor said, giving Charley a facetious poke. "Your marriage was one of them, young man. I thought it was Kill—it turns out ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... that is grasping his staff (which, from that difficulty of feeling themselves at home which poor men experience at a feast, he has never parted with since he came into the room), and is enjoying with a relish that seems to fit all the capacities of his soul the slender joke, which that facetious wag his neighbor is practising upon the gouty gentleman, whose eyes the effort to suppress pain has made as round as rings—does it shock the "dignity of human nature" to look at that man, and to sympathize with him in the seldom-heard joke which has unbent his careworn, ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... entirely Butler's humour about Homer, a very different thing. Its impudence did not mitigate the aggravation, but made it more acute. If he had picked out a fairy-tale, rather than two glorious poems—Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Bears, Rumpelstiltskin, for example—he could have been as facetious as he pleased. But that would not suit him. There would have been no darts to fling. Butler was a banderillero. All right; but then don't complain that the Miss Harrisons, Darwins, and others shake off your darts and go about their business, which, oddly enough, is not to gore and ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... duties? Official work here was not the stiff, hopeless drudgery that it was in Moscow. Here there was some interest in official life. A chance meeting, a service rendered, a happy phrase, a knack of facetious mimicry, and a man's career might be made in a trice. So it had been with Bryantsev, whom Stepan Arkadyevitch had met the previous day, and who was one of the highest functionaries in government now. There was some interest in official work ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... as the "new British battle-cry" is another source of amusement. Whenever artillery or rifle fire sweeps over their trenches some facetious Tommy is sure to shout, "Are we downhearted?" and is met with a resounding "No!" and laughter all along ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... seene his [i.e. Shakespeare's] demeanour no lesse civill than he [is] exelent in the qualitie he professes, besides divers of worship have reported his uprightnes of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing that ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... worthy of respect, the bread which is before thee or myself? Without awaiting a reply, he made, it is said, a well-understood signal with his hand; and the unintending offender was beheaded on the spot." I may add that the hero of the story is said to have been the celebrated "Daftardar" whose facetious cruelties have still a wide ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... Jove, admirable! [GELAIA LAUGHS.] Look, thy page takes it too. By Phoebus, my sweet facetious rascal, I could eat water-gruel with thee a month for ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... to be facetious," said Mr. Wenham with dignity; for, while he was as credulous as could be wished, on the subject of American superiority, he was not quite as blind as the votaries of the Anglo-American school, who usually yield the control of all their faculties and common ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... the wrong side. They never have 'three sheets in the wind,' even when they do get 'half seas over.' They don't 'throw a man overboard,' even when the man is one of those unfortunates who is apt to get 'on his beam ends.' The facetious 'don't speak to the man at the wheel' and the cautious 'you'd better not sail so close to the wind' have no exact equivalents for the Slav or ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... A facetious gourmand suggests that the old story of "lighting a candle to the devil," or as it has been corrupted, "holding a candle to the devil," probably arose from the adage of "GOD sends meat, and the devil sends cooks,"—and was an offering to his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... worthy successor of Giotto in the Florentine school, was Buffalmacco, whose name has been immortalized by Boccaccio in his Decameron, as a man of most facetious character. He executed many works in fresco and distemper, but they have mostly perished. He chiefly excelled in Crucifixions and Ascensions. He was born, according to Vasari, in 1262, and died ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... them familiarly. The elder buck rejoiced in the sonorous title of "Minne-tronk-ske-wan," but divers convictions for insobriety under the Indian Liquor Act, and the facetious tongue of Yorke, had contorted this into the somewhat opprobrious nickname of "Many Drunks." His companion ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... had just a second to pop the basin under the table, and to whisk the towel violently from under his chin, drying that feature with merciless violence; when the officious Judy Carrol, Grand Chamberlain in Jerome's absence, with the facetious grin of a good-natured lady about to make two people happy, introduced the bewitching Magnolia, and her meek ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... garden, and take his first dip into the Muirtown Advertiser. It was a full and satisfying paper, with its agricultural advertisements, its roups, reported with an accuracy of detail that condescended on a solitary stirk, its local intelligence, its facetious anecdotes. Through this familiar country the good man found his own way at a rate which allowed him to complete the survey in six days. Foreign telegrams, however, and political intelligence, as well as the turmoil of the great cities, were strange to him, and here he greatly valued ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... bred contempt, and the wits grew facetious at the expense of the Mystery. Jokes on the subject appeared even ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... little more pressing, yielded. He said a few sentences, supposed to be Howard teaching, in a rather soft voice, with what seemed to Howard a horribly affected and priggish emphasis. But the matter displeased him still more. It was facetious, almost jocose; and there was a jerky attempt at academic humour in it, which seemed to him particularly nauseous, as of a well-informed and quite superior person condescending to the mildest of witticisms, ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Captain). Yes, dear; you don't want to die in here, do you? (explanatorily) "die in"—dine—you'll excuse me, but the ocean always makes me feel so facetious. Captain, dear, if you'll pardon a common sailor like myself for making the suggestion, I beg to call upon you for a song. (The Captain obligingly bellows "The Stormy Nore—The Jolly old Nore," to the general satisfaction). Ah, they didn't know what ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 13, 1892 • Various
... or very insensible, who cannot profit by her valuable instructions. The hour which brought to me the humiliating conviction, that I was a person of no consequence; that the world could go on very well without me; that my merry companions would not be one jot less facetious, though I was absent from their jovial parties, was after all not the most miserable of ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... mode of sparring called the klimax, where both parties "faced the music" without warding blows at all. We scarcely think the ancients were up to "countering," as it is understood now; but they fully appreciated the facetious practice of falling backwards to avoid a blow, and letting the adversary waste his strength on the air. The deceased Mr. Sullivan would hardly recognize his favorite dodge under its classic name of hyptiasmos, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... wits. To ride down the main-tack of a two-decked ship, in a gale of wind, or what fell little short of a real gale, was not to be undertaken with twenty men, the extent of Daly's command; and he had recourse to the assistance of his enemies. A good natured, facetious Irishman, himself, with a smattering of French, he soon got forty or fifty of the prisoners in a sufficient humour to lend their aid, and the sail was set, though not without great risk of its splitting. From this moment, la Victoire was better off, as respected ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... don't think those two last ones would do," she said, "because it is not to be a facetious book. But your first one is rather a good title," she added, looking at Irais and drawing out her note-book. "I think I'll ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... the weather was still cold, Flushing trousers, which did not near reach to his ankles, and a waistcoat of fur—of beaver, I believe, or of wild cat. He had a very long face, and lantern jaws. His nose was in proportion, and it curled down in a way which gave it a most facetious expression; while a very bright small pair of eyes had also a sort of constant laugh in them, though the rest of his features looked as if they could never smile. His complexion had a very leathery look, and his figure was ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... because it was one which Professor Brierly disliked. He never did it himself and Jimmy had heard him reprove Matthews for doing it. The newspaper man caught Matthews' glance. Jack was going to make a facetious remark, when the old man murmured as ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... to but one sleep, which often obliged him to rise at one or two of the clock in the morning, and sometimes sooner; and grew so habitual, that it continued with him almost till his last illness. And so lively and chearful was his temper, that he would be very facetious and entertaining to his friends in the evening, even when it was perceived that with difficulty he kept his eyes open; and then seemed to go to rest with no other purpose than the refreshing and enabling him with more vigour and chearfulness to sing ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Leigh Hunt, as we observed in a former number, aspires to be the hierophant. Our readers will recollect the pleasant recipes for harmonious and sublime poetry which he gave us in his preface to Rimini, and the still more facetious instances of his harmony and sublimity in the verses themselves; and they will recollect above all the contempt of Pope, Johnson, and such like poetasters and pseudo-critics, which so forcibly contrasted itself with Mr. Leigh Hunt's ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... of facetious clergymen, it is inevitable to think of Bishop Wilberforce; but his humour was of an entirely different quality from that of Sydney Smith. To begin with, it is unquotable. It must, I think, have struck every ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... sire, are as insolent as they would like to be thought facetious; but whomever they may be, if your majesty prefers to listen to them, I have nothing further to say. In such a case, that which we have fixed to take place to-morrow must be ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to Batavia Edwards narrowly escaped a second shipwreck. The Rembang was dismasted on a lee shore in a cyclone, and, but for the exertions of the English seamen, would assuredly have been stranded, the Dutch sailors, who, says the facetious Hamilton, "would fight the devil should he appear to them in any other shape but that of thunder and lightning," having taken to their hammocks. At Samarang, as already related, Edwards found the tender, which ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... awkward moment when we left the boat and entered our travelling-carriage; for I need scarcely say that both the boatmen and the grinning vetturino took me for the bridegroom whose place I temporarily occupied, and they were pleased to be facetious in a manner which was very embarrassing to me, but which I could not very well check. Moreover, I felt compelled so far to sustain my assumed character as to be specially generous in the manner of a buona mano to those four jolly watermen, and for the first few miles of our ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... it coffee here!" answered the equally facetious barman, whose satellites were distributing hot and cold drinks with a degree of speed that could only be the fruit ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... quite unconscious of the operation, as Richards adroitly diverted his attention from it by giving him one of his facetious pokes in the ribs, which nearly bent him double, and drew a roar of laughter from every ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... Chain in England. The picture was always a little exaggerated, and some of its touches are now out of date; yet as a picture of manners it still has a value. It narrates the joys and sorrows of a young girl of good family who leaves her country home in order to live with an aunt in Berlin, a facetious but highly civilised aunt who uses a large quantity of water at her morning toilet. All the stages of this toilet are minutely described, and all the mistakes the poor countrified Backfisch makes the first morning. She actually ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... little of his son. In the childish maladies with which the boy was troubled, he would make daily inquiries and daily pay him a visit, entering the sick-room with a facetious and appalling countenance, letting off a few perfunctory jests, and going again swiftly, to the patient's relief. Once, a court holiday falling opportunely, my lord had his carriage, and drove the child himself to Hermiston, ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... like the Descent into the Maelstrom, and his long sea tale, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, 1838, he displayed a realistic inventiveness almost equal to Swift's or De Foe's. He was not without a mocking irony, but he had no constructive humor, and his attempts at the facetious were ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... so that, by the way, you have got the start of me in that important article by two or three years at least,—at nineteen I left the University of Cambridge, where I was an absolute pedant; when I talked my best, I quoted Horace; when I aimed at being facetious, I quoted Martial; and when I had a mind to be a fine gentleman, I talked Ovid. I was convinced that none but the ancients had common sense; that the classics contained everything that was either necessary, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... wight who inadvertently upsets the salt; each grain that is overthrown will bring to him a day of sorrow. If thirteen persons sit at table, one of them will die within the year; and all of them will be unhappy. Of all evil omens, this is the worst. The facetious Dr. Kitchener used to observe that there was one case in which he believed that it was really unlucky for thirteen persons to sit down to dinner, and that was when there was only dinner enough for twelve. Unfortunately for their peace of mind, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... narrator's fancies wide. So we shall leave our lion to go on roaring it out into the ears of his colored admirers to his heart's satisfaction, till he is empty and they are full. At last, after blowing and puffing for nearly an hour in the popular ear, the windy story, tapering off with a little facetious gas designed for the ladies, found its way to an end, and dismissing his audience with a majestic wave of his war-cap, Big Black Burl came down ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... enjoying the fun. No wheeled vehicles were to be seen: even the milkmen sleighed their commodity from door to door. "If we had a brace of grand-dukes and a bomb or two, we could fancy ourselves in Russia," said the facetious hotel-porter. He asserted that it was well for the country when abundant snow came down early in the year. It seems that Grantown is apt to suffer from drought in a hot summer following on a rainless spring. A copious fall of snow early in the year is retained in the mountains, and ensures ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... only sake Those doughty knights such dangers undertake, 40 When they with happy gales are gone away, With your propitious presence grace our play; And with a sigh their empty seats survey: Then think, on that bare bench my servant sat; I see him ogle still, and hear him chat; Selling facetious bargains, and propounding That witty recreation, call'd dumfounding. Their loss with patience we will try to bear; And would do more, to see you often here; That our dead stage, revived by your fair eyes, 50 Under ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... carefully studied the Tuscan dialect, if not visited Florence itself; and the consequence was, that his greater genius so obscured the popularity of his predecessor, that a remarkable process, unique in the history of letters, appears to have been thought necessary to restore its perusal. The facetious Berni, a Tuscan wit full of genius, without omitting any particulars of consequence, or adding a single story except of himself, re-cast the whole poem of Boiardo, altering the diction of almost every stanza, and supplying introductions ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... have seen me was when I sat down to Harry Miller's lecture. He was a facetious dog, this Harry Miller. He had a gallant way of skirting the indecent, which in my case produced physical nausea, and he could be sentimental and even melodramatic about grisettes and starving genius. I found he had enjoyed the benefit ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was wealthy, and the sight of his prosperous complacency made the impecunious young doctor long to do him some bodily injury. And all the while Rosalie laughed and chatted as though every one in the world was as happy as herself. She went into fits of merriment over young Blackburn's facetious remarks, for, as they walked through the crowds, that gentleman was making presumably witty comments upon all he saw, from Piper Angus down, and Gilbert wondered drearily if even he, himself, thought ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... chatty, intelligent, and portly personage—shows visitors over the rooms and picture-galleries. There is a superb collection of pictures by the Old Masters, about which Dickens had always something facetious to say to his friends. They illustrate the schools of Venice, Florence, Rome, Netherlands, Spain, France, and England, and were formed mainly by purchases from the Orleans Gallery, and the Vetturi Gallery ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... me feel strangely ill at ease; for, even if it had not been inspired by good-will towards me, I could never have brought myself to understand that it might be something very different from real goodness. It bore so little resemblance to the facetious braggadocio of the Mauprats, that it seemed to me like an entirely new language, which I understood but could ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... comic, comical, amusing, droll, laughable, farcical, witty, jocular, jocose, ludicrous, burlesque, facetious, risible, absurd, waggish, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... said the other, who was Barwood himself, with a smile such as heralds the facetious, "you will hardly condescend to receive our ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... and a suppliant's tongue, To win her coy regard: adieu, for him, The dull engagements of the bustling world! Adieu the sick impertinence of praise! And hope, and action! for with her alone, By streams and shades, to steal these sighing hours, Is all he asks, and all that fate can give! Thee too, facetious Momion, wandering here, Thee, dreaded censor, oft have I beheld 180 Bewilder'd unawares: alas! too long Flush'd with thy comic triumphs and the spoils Of sly derision! till on every side Hurling thy random ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... joining in the laugh that followed Jack's facetious remark. "The joke's on me, all right! If I hadn't painted that figure 'three' in the name, we would have been on our way to England by this time! Oh, well," the boy added, "we'll get to England before long, ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... Magazine, investigating the antiquities of their county, occasionally confuting a deist, exerting a sound judgment in cultivating their glebes or improving the breed of cattle, and respected both by squire and farmers. The 'Squarson,' in Sydney Smith's facetious phrase, was the ideal clergyman. The purely sacerdotal qualities, good or bad, were at a minimum. Crabbe, himself a type of the class, has left admirable portraits of his fellows. Profound veneration for his noble patrons and hearty dislike for intrusive dissenters were combined in his own ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... These facetious passages were, of course, confined to the society in which the masters moved, and we boys knew them only by hearsay. But what we saw with our own eyes was that the only human being who ever dared to "cheek" Mr. Sticktoright, or ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... the way climbing up the hill, stood stirring the fire with a long pole, and making reckless and facetious remarks the while, which, uttered in the midst of that unearthly scene, struck me ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... best men, so no man had ever wickednesse to avow himselfe to be his enimy. He was a man very well bredd, and of excellent partes, and a gracefull speaker upon any subjecte, havinge a good proportion of learninge, and a ready witt to apply it, and inlarge upon it, of a pleasant and facetious humour and a disposition affable, generous, and magnificent; he was master of a greate fortune from his auncestors, and had a greate addition by his wife (another daughter and heyre of the Earle of Shrewsbury) which he injoyed duringe his life, ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... out, on that same day—nay, only a few hours before, and at the fair above mentioned—had these 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 they ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Navy George E. Badger, of North Carolina, was selected. He had been graduated from Yale College, but had never held other than local offices. His sailor-like figure and facetious physiognomy were very appropriate for the position, and he soon became a decided favorite at the Washington "messes," where he was always ready to contribute freely from his fund ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... resembled the gleaming rays which shine in the gay haunts of pleasure; but there were tapers instead of wax candles, and the chanting of prayers for the dead replaced the murmur of the ball-room. In the streets, instead of the facetious transparencies which indicate the costumers, there swung at intervals huge lanterns of a blood-red color, with these words in black letters: "Assistance for those attacked with the cholera." The true places for revelry, during the night, were the churchyards; they ran riot—they, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... always calls them merry, facetious, good, or excellent, before he begins, in order to bespeak the attention of the hearers, but never gives himself concern in the progress or conclusion of them, to make good what he promises in his preface. Indeed he ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... and beard in fury at the use of the facetious word. He loathed levity of any kind and the one kind he could not endure was the quip ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... being made a wood and water station of the new railroad, it was only a new sort of grime and rawness. P. Dusenheimer, standing in the door of his uninviting groggery, when the trains stopped for water; never received from the traveling public any patronage except facetious remarks upon his personal appearance. Perhaps a thousand times he had heard the remark, "Ilium fuit," followed in most instances by a hail to himself as "AEneas," with the inquiry "Where is old Anchises?" At first he had replied, "Dere ain't no such man;" but ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... cultivation of the body. Indeed, the necessary dependence of the sanity of the one on the good keeping of the other, was one of his favourite theories, and one which, this day, he was supporting with pleasant and facetious reasoning. His Lordship was delighted with his new friend, and still more delighted with his new friend's theory. The Marquess himself was, indeed, quite of the same opinion as Mr. Grey; for he never ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... to batter the city. The assailants, on the other hand, carried on their operations with so little energy and so little vigilance that a constant communication was kept up between the Jacobites within the citadel and the Jacobites without. Strange stories were told of the polite and facetious messages which passed between the besieged and the besiegers. On one occasion Gordon sent to inform the magistrates that he was going to fire a salute on account of some news which he had received from ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... "cheeked" my uncle, I was pleased to find. "What are you old Poking in for at THIS time—Gubbitt?" she said when he appeared, and she still looked with a practised eye for the facetious side of things. When she saw me behind him, she gave a little cry and stood up radiant. ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... inscriptions, either scratched or painted, were witticisms or exclamations from facetious passers-by. One ran thus: "Oppius the porter is a robber, a rogue!" Sometimes there were amorous declarations: "Augea loves Arabienus." Upon a wall in the Street of Mercury, an ivy leaf, forming a heart, contained ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... facetious, Davie, really quite entertaining. But what am I to do with sixty-four ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... for once has led us into a facetious alley. One might indeed keep in this key, and write an agreeable little Utopia, that like the holy families of the mediaeval artists (or Michael Angelo's Last Judgement) should compliment one's friends in various degrees. Or ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... effects. The heroine usually lives in the country with her father, and the lover, a plundered heir, is re-established in his rights and triumphs over his rivals. There are always a mendicant philosopher, a morose nobleman, pure young girls, facetious retainers, and interminable dialogues, stupid prudishness, and ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... referred to: "In the reign of George II, the see of York falling vacant, His Majesty being at a loss for a fit person to appoint to the exalted situation, asked the opinion of the Rev. Dr. Mountain, who had raised himself by his remarkable facetious temper to the See of Durham. The Dr. wittily replied. 'Hadst thou faith, thou wouldst say to this mountain (at the same time laying his hand on his breast) be removed and cast into the sea (see).' His Majesty laughed heartily, and forthwith ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... 'You are facetious, noble Piso. But that last hint is too good to be thrown away. Truly, you are a man of the world, whose distinction I suppose is, that he has eyes in the hind part of his head, as well as before. But what blame can be mine for such dealing? I am driven; ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... singular blending of the facetious with the horrible in this sanguinary scene. Before the battle, the Protestant preachers, in earnest sermons, had compared Henry with David at the head of the Lord's chosen people. In the midst of the bloody fray, when the field was covered with the dying ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... Sitting at the opposite end of the room to his patron, he saw the wry faces which were turned away at every sip. Elias, quite beside himself with adulation, and intoxicated already by the success of his facetious sallies, drank and drank again ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... answered Fanny, "is, that people collect at a beautiful spot, and bring pies and chickens and all sorts of things to eat, and spread them out on a table-cloth on the grass; and sit round it on the ground, and talk merrily, and laugh; and that some facetious old gentleman makes a funny speech; and songs are sung; and that here in Scotland there is a bag-piper; and that people get up and dance, and the young ladies have their sketch-books, and when tired of dancing make sketches and ramble about among the rocks. ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... became so beside himself as to forget the figure—a mishap rendered none the clearer by a wag's performing la pastorale, when he ought to have done trenise, and moreover, not have done it in such a facetious manner, as to render it a matter of doubt if he himself could have recognized it; the audacity being accompanied by a certain amount of shyness, that had to be hidden, altogether sadly deranging our amiable youth's comprehension, he being led by his partner, instead of leading her—to ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... facetious, sir," the teller replied. His lip curled; he turned away, tilting his ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... on the front page stiffened her to scandalized attention. Straight across the tops of two columns it ran, a facetious caption: ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Hipponicus, you ask a solemn question; there is a serious and also a facetious explanation of both these names; the serious explanation is not to be had from me, but there is no objection to your hearing the facetious one; for the Gods too love a joke. Dionusos is simply didous ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... eyes, to the delight of the spectators. The Guildhall giants, as Mr. Fairholt has shown, with his usual honest industry, are mentioned by many of our early poets, dramatists, and writers, as Shirley, facetious Bishop Corbet, George Wither, and Ned Ward. In Hone's time City children visiting Guildhall used to be told that every day when the giants heard the clock strike twelve they came down to dinner. Mr. Fairholt, in his "Gog and Magog" (1859), has shown by many examples how professional giants ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... your pleasure?" asked Granger, in a would-be facetious tone. "Going, Dent?" For the younger man had risen to his feet and was preparing to ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... he, "that our facetious guest is making game of us to revenge himself for our refusal ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... gathered round Richard, and one of them, the lady Tansi, who had taken a great liking to Isabella, and who was the liveliest and most facetious lady of the court, said to him, "What is all this, sir? Why these arms? Did you, perchance, imagine that you were coming here to fight your enemies? Believe me, you have none but friends here, unless it be the lady ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... and was abandoned where it lay. The masts had been taken down so as to allow it to pass under the overhanging vegetation, and, consequently, had it been permitted to make its appearance on the river, there would have been nothing in its looks to suggest the facetious name, "Phantom of the River," first applied to it ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... which was crowded with wagons, ambulances and artillery. Groups of men mingled with these, and crowded upon the sidewalks. When she passed the light of a window the men stared at her, and some few presumed upon her homely garb so far as to venture upon facetious and complimentary remarks, aimed at ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... and the Schism in the Society of Friends. Pecuniary difficulties. Death of his Wife. Death of his son Isaac. Journey to Maryland, and Testimony against Slavery. His marriage with Hannah Attmore. Removes to New-York. Matthew Carey's facetious Letter of Introduction. Anecdotes of his visit to England and Ireland. Anecdote of the Diseased Horse. Visit to William Penn's Grave. The Storm at Sea. Profane Language rebuked. The Clergyman and his Books. His Book-store in New-York. The Mob in Pearl-Street. Judge Chinn's ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... standing round him with napkins in their hands. On a chair near him was placed his coat, on which was to be seen a new shoulder-knot, his hat with a new lace, and the famous sword which had furnished Ravanne with the facetious comparison to ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... faithful and sincere friend,' says Hearne, 'very charitable to the poor (notwithstanding the narrowness of his fortune), free and open in his discourse and conversation (which he always managed without the least personal reflection), courteous and affable to all people, facetious upon all proper occasions, and ever ready to give his counsel and advice, and extremely communicative of his great knowledge.'[37] Although a man of retiring habits and much personal humility, he was bold as a lion when occasion demanded, and never hesitated ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... wasteful," I said. "Lord DEVONPORT wouldn't like that—Lord DEVONPORT wouldn't;" this being the kind of facetious thing we are all saying just now, and something facetious being in this particular house always, for some reason ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various
... against the play,—the dubiousness of the entire invention, the impossibility of such a devil as Franz, the insipidity of Amalia and the old Count Moor, the faults of the diction and the barbarism of the action,—is here set forth with remorseless severity. The review closes with the facetious comment which appears at the head of this chapter. Not quite so caustic is the notice of the 'Anthology', but it contains a significant 'admonition to our young poets' to the effect that 'extravagance ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... headquarters, which Mr. Stuffer could undoubtedly prove it had been, for his tales were the most convincing arguments that the hostelry had been named by a whimsical fate not too dignified to stoop to punning. There were times when the hungry boarders thought the name facetious, but they conceded it to be quite exact in a descriptive sense, if its brick and mortar were intended to honor monumentally the tales of the host. His first name, August, was not an adjective of limitation as to ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... complexity of mind and soul that the plays reveal. The notices of his talk and character are few and unenlightening, and testify to a certain easy brilliance of wit, but no more. Before he is thirty he is spoken of as both "upright" and "facetious"—a singular combination. ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... observing writer, in a keenly analytical if somewhat facetious article, gave it as his opinion that the coming Australians will be as follows:—"They will not be so entirely agricultural as the Americans were; they will be horsemen, not gig-drivers. Descended from adventurers, not from Puritans, and eager, as ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... weight and power than the merely physical. This peculiarity impresses us in the portraits of such men as Daniel Webster and others of the old jurists. The manner of the man was easy, good-natured, perhaps a little facetious, but these qualities were worn rather as garments than exhibited as characteristics. He could afford them, not because he had fewer difficulties to overcome or battles to fight than another, but because his strength was so sufficient ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... followers, and talk with them in their own way; and dislike the advice of Plato, that men should always speak in a magisterial tone to their servants, whether men or women, without being sometimes facetious and familiar; for besides the reasons I have given, 'tis inhuman and unjust to set so great a value upon this pitiful prerogative of fortune, and the polities wherein less disparity is permitted ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... Gregory Nazianzen is facetious, ingenious, and argumentative, (Orat. iii. p. 101, 102, &c.) He ridicules the folly of such vain imitation; and amuses himself with inquiring, what lessons, moral or theological, could be extracted from ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... humourists, is essential to this kind of humour, and here again Cervantes has suffered at the hands of his interpreters. Nothing, unless indeed the coarse buffoonery of Phillips, could be more out of place in an attempt to represent Cervantes, than a flippant, would-be facetious style, like that of Motteux's version for example, or the sprightly, jaunty air, French translators sometimes adopt. It is the grave matter-of-factness of the narrative, and the apparent unconsciousness of the author that he is saying ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... they really meant; that they said this only to get possession of their commodities. They replied to me: "You have spoken the truth. They are women, and want to make war only upon our beavers." They went on talking still farther in a facetious mood, and in regard to the manner and order of going ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... increase his revenues. Declaring that Don Juan must inevitably be canonized, he appointed his monastery for the ceremony of the apotheosis. The monastery, he said, should henceforth be called "San Juan de Lucas." At these words the head made a facetious grimace. ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... most wonderful escape, though it is related with a vein of humour which takes off all apprehension from the reader; to whom it must, undoubtedly, appear little less whimsical and facetious than John Gilpin's celebrated race: while, to balance the advantage of Cowper's admirable fiction, it has the ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... intoxicated romance. The characters had the same adventurous irresponsibility, and exhibit the same irrelevancies and futilities. The Young Man with the Cream Cakes might well have sprung from the same brain as the facetious Barmecide, and young Scrymgeour sits helpless before his destiny as sat that other young man while the inexorable Barber sang the song and danced the dance of Zantout. Indeed Destiny in these books resembles nothing so much as a Barber with forefinger and thumb nipping his victims by the ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... minutes, he was in fits of laughter over Blake's description of the conversation between himself and the coachman who had driven the Glo'ster day-mail by which he had come up; in which conversation, nevertheless, when Tom came to think it over, and try to repeat it afterwards, the most facetious parts seemed to be the "sez he's" and the "sez I's" with which Jehu larded his stories; so he gave up the attempt, wondering what he could have found in it to ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... purpose of whetting your genius, but of working off the effects of wine. And, indeed, you employ a master to teach you jokes, a man appointed by your own vote and that of your boon companions; a rhetorician, whom you have allowed to say what ever he pleased against you, a thoroughly facetious gentleman; but there are plenty of materials for speaking against you and against your friends. But just see now what a difference there is between you and your grandfather. He used with great deliberation ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... is facetious about the destruction of the roe by insects, and says, "because an aquatic insect will devour a minnow's egg, which is not as large as a pin's head, we have no right to infer that it will devour that of a Salmon, which is as large as a pea; it would be just as reasonable to suppose ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... Miss Ashby. This is by no means a facetious occasion, please understand. I do not lightly tolerate the infringement of my rules, as you will learn to your cost. If, as you state, you are ignorant of the contents of this letter you may now read it aloud in my presence. Perhaps ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... followed the judge found Amzi disposed to be facetious over the reports that other failures were likely to follow the embarrassment of ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... a facetious fellow; though his merriment might not be well adapted to cheer his prisoner. He whistled, he sang, he screamed, he stamped, to get rid of the ennui of travelling with so silent a companion. He told stories of his own prowess; libeled M. Gilet, who had got him beaten on ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... them all into the bargain. I longed to play the part of a magician. With that idea, when I left the house of the ridiculous antiquarian, I proceeded to the public library, where, with the assistance of a dictionary, I wrote the following specimen of facetious erudition: ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... generally observed to love to reside in empty pockets, so the gentleman whose ingenuity we have above remarked, as soon as he had parted with his money, began to grow wonderfully facetious. He made frequent allusions to Adam and Eve, and said many excellent things on figs and fig-leaves; which perhaps gave more offence to Joseph than to ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... evenings bristled with them. Mrs. Kettering was easily drawn into these disagreements and took a leading part in no few of them. Simon and Mark, however, would remain impassive, the first reading his paper and uttering now and again a facetious, mild protest, the second smoking his eternal pipe in unyielding taciturnity. Mrs. Kettering likewise annoyed her daughters by constantly talking to Morgan in their presence of the difficulty ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... as far as the first Tchuktchi settlement, where I hoped to procure assistance and transport from the natives. And at first I believed in my driver, for he was a cheery, genial little fellow, so invariably facetious that I often suspected his concealment of a reserve stock of vodka. And although Mikouline's casual methods concerning time and distance were occasionally disquieting, he was a past master in the art of driving dogs, which is not always an easy one. The rudiments of the craft are soon ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... squire, or some one else, would have attempted a facetious reply to Mr. Watson; but just then a tall, gaunt, grey-haired, grizzly-bearded man stepped upon the piazza, and saluted the little gathering with an awkward wave of the hand. The not unkindly expression of his face was curiously heightened ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... he said, with a simper; "I come bringing a precious balsam which cures all sorts of ills, and heals the troubles both of body and mind. For what is better than to have a pleasant companion to sing and tell merry tales, songs and facetious histories?" ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... turnpike roads and have comfortable inns ready for his Excellency at the end of the day's march?—'There's some sort of inns, I suppose,' says Mr. Danvers, 'not so comfortable as we have in England: we can't expect that.'—'No, you can't expect that,' says Mr. Franklin, who seems a very shrewd and facetious person. He drinks his water, and seems to laugh at the Englishmen, though I doubt whether it is fair for a water-drinker to sit by and spy out the weaknesses of ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... though perhaps unacquainted with all the parties, is directed by a phantom to lay the facts before a magistrate. In this respect we must certainly allow that ghosts have, as we are informed by the facetious Captain Grose, forms ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... utter some other words of entreaty, but the prince, stamping imperiously, cried out, "Assez, milord: je m'ennuye a la preche; I am not come to London to go to the sermon." And he complained afterwards to Castlewood, that "le petit jaune, le noir colonel, le Marquis Misanthrope" (by which facetious names his royal highness was pleased to designate Colonel Esmond), "fatigued him with his ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and looked puzzled. There was something in the earnestness of her manner which made a facetious compliment seem grossly inappropriate, and in the moment no other ...
— A Good-For-Nothing - 1876 • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... course of these preliminaries it became necessary to restrain Nickerson—not yet wholly recovered from a recent incursion into the store of Corean champagne. It presented itself to his consideration as facetious to indulge (when speaking to the Russians) in strange and elaborate distortions ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... to brand this new affair as the most puzzling mystery that had yet confronted them, but he checked the utterance wisely enough as entirely too facetious for the occasion. ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield
... allowable, if Apollo himself had come in with his harp ready to desire the god to forbear till the argument was out? These men, having such a pleasant way of discoursing, used these arts and insinuating methods, and graced their entertainment's by such facetious raillery. But shall we, being mixed with tradesmen and merchants, and some (as it now and then happens) ignorants and rustics, banish out of our entertainments this ravishing delight, or fly the musicians, as if they were Sirens, as soon as we see them ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... just as the drover, who was defending it near the hearth, raised it above his head to prevent its being snatched from him. Some time before the assault, the matrons had taken care to put out the fire, fearing that some one might fall in and be burned while they were struggling close beside it. The facetious grave-digger, in concert with the drover, possessed himself of the trophy without difficulty, therefore, and threw it across the fire-dogs. It was done! No one was allowed to touch it after that. He leaped into the ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... spiritual manner in which the Rev. Mr. Worden entered a building that had been consecrated to the services of the Deity. I know not how to describe it; but it proved how completely he had been drilled in the decencies of his profession. Off came his hat, of course; and his manner, however facetious and easy it may have been the moment before, changed on the instant to gravity and decorum. Not so with Jason. He entered St. Peter's, Albany, with exactly the same indifferent and cynical air with which he had seemed to regard everything but money, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... with mirth, as if I had said a yet more facetious thing. "'Tis a simple question—'Hath the Prince of Plassenburg a Princess, and is she not oft—ahoo!' Boris, prod me with thy lance-shaft hard, to keep me from doing myself an ill turn ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... common, a protecting twin on either side of Mrs. Dangerfield; and Captain Baster, in the strong facetious vein, enlivened the walk with his delightful humor. The gallant officer was the very climax of the florid, a stout, high-colored, black-eyed, glossy-haired young man of twenty-eight, with a large tip-tilted nose, neatly rounded off in a little knob forever shiny. The son of the ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... expectations, and very amusing qualifications. Horace is a strange composition of all the good-natured whimsicalities of human nature, happily blended together without any very conspicuous counteracting foible. Facetious, lively, and poetical, the cream of every thing that is agreeable, society cannot be dull if Horace lends his presence. His imitations of Anacreon, and the soft bard of Erin, have on many occasions puzzled the cognoscenti of Eton. Like Moore too, he both composes and performs his own songs. The ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... low in humble wise and bid ye same drink hearty. So then ben merrisome discourse and passing plaisaunt cheere, And Arthure's tales of hippogriffs ben mervaillous to heare; But stranger far than any tale told of those knyghts of old Ben those facetious narratives ye Western straunger told. He told them of a country many leagues beyond ye sea Where evereche forraine nuisance but ye Chinese man ben free, And whiles he span his monstrous yarns, ye ladies of ye court Did deem ye listening ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field |
