"Jocularity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... course in opposition to one whom he had often entertained, and who had always paid his way at the Maypole gallantly, it may be remarked that it was his very penetration and sagacity in this respect, which occasioned him to indulge in those unusual demonstrations of jocularity, just now recorded. For Mr Willet, after carefully balancing father and son in his mental scales, had arrived at the distinct conclusion that the old gentleman was a better sort of a customer than the young one. Throwing his landlord into the same scale, which was already turned ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... eminence[1321] being mentioned, Johnson said, 'Why, Sir, he is a man of good parts, but being originally poor, he has got a love of mean company and low jocularity; a very bad thing, Sir. To laugh is good, as to talk is good. But you ought no more to think it enough if you laugh, than you are to think it enough if you talk. You may laugh in as many ways as you ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... wonderful, the French or the English, in which languages her ladyship wrote indifferently, and upon the blunders of which the critic pounced with delightful mischief. The critic was no other than Pen: he jumped and danced round about his subject with the greatest jocularity and high spirits: he showed up the noble lady's faults with admirable mock gravity and decorum. There was not a word in the article which was not polite and gentlemanlike; and the unfortunate subject of the criticism was scarified and laughed at ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... face, a minois chiffonne, with slightly turned-up nose, large laughing brown eyes, a dazzling set of teeth, and a tempestuously frizzled mop of powdered hair. When I managed to get a side-look at her quietly, without being giggled at or driven half mad by unintelligible incitements to a jocularity I could not feel, it struck me that, if we once found a common term of communication we should become good friends. But for the moment that modus vivendi seemed unattainable. She had not recovered ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... at the Cross-Triangle short of horses?" asked Nick, with an evident attempt at jocularity, alluding to the situation of the two men, ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... was in the church of Mr. Whiting, of Lynn, a somewhat jocose Puritan,—if jocularity in a Puritan is not too anomalous an attribute to have ever existed. We can be sure that there was neither sleeping nor jesting allusion to such an irreverence in Mr. Mather's, Mr. Welde's, or Mr. Cotton's meetings. In many rigidly ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... said Mr. Jobling, with jocularity. He helped himself to bread and butter and began to discuss money and how to spend it. His ideas favored retirement and a nice ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... hand. I'm used to rising early for a canter. I'll take it with a cab horse this time. That will be all the difference." And with this attempt at jocularity, Mr. Evringham shook hands once more and departed, swallowing his ill-humor as best he could. Any instincts of the family man which might once have reigned in him had long since been inhibited. This episode was a cruel invasion upon his ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... an honorable Senator said that he thought it would be as well to drop the matter and accept the Committee's report. He said with some jocularity that the more one agitated this thing, the worse it was for the agitator. He was not able to deny that he believed Senator Dilworthy to be guilty—but what then? Was it such an extraordinary case? For his part, even allowing the Senator to be ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... as thou art pil'd, for a French velvet?] The jest about the pile of a French velvet alludes to the loss of hair in the French disease, a very frequent topick of our authour's jocularity. Lucio finding that the gentleman understands the distemper so well, and mentions it so feelingly, promises to remember to drink his health, but to forget to drink after him. It was the opinion of Shakespeare's time, that the cup of an ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... who knew him intimately, somewhat repellent in manners. Romaine would have been quite unfitted for the work which Grimshaw and Berridge, in spite—or, shall we say, in consequence?—of their boisterous bonhomie and occasionally ill-timed jocularity were able to do. The farmers and working men of Haworth or Everton would assuredly have gone to sleep under his preaching, or stayed away from church altogether. One can scarcely fancy Romaine ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... the map of the Clyde was nothing but a plan for the outset of a fashionable table—the bailie's island of Arran being the roast beef, and the craig of Ailsa the plum-pudding, and Plada a butter- boat. Nobody enjoyed the jocularity of the business more than myself; but I trembled when I thought of the escape that my honour and character had with the lord advocate. I trow, Bailie Booble never set himself so forward ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... said Major Forsyth, with what he flattered himself was a very good assumption of jocularity. It was his idea to treat the matter lightly, as a man of the world naturally would. ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... COMINES the historian, when residing at the court of the Count de Charolois, afterwards Duke of Burgundy, one day returning from hunting, with inconsiderate jocularity sat down before the Count, and ordered the prince to pull off his boots. The Count would not affect greatness, and having executed his commission, in return for the princely amusement, the Count dashed the boot on Comines' nose, which bled; and from that time, he was mortified ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... to correct that levity, and peruse me with a more serious air." He informed Newton at the same time: "Thinking myself in a measure obliged to tickle, if I meant to please, I therefore affected a jocularity I did not feel." He also told Newton: "I am merry that I may decoy people into my company." On the other hand, Cowper did not write John Gilpin which is certainly his masterpiece, in the mood of a man using wit as a decoy. He wrote it because it irresistibly demanded to ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... littleness might be carried; and it would have been too vapid for the toleration of any palate, had it not been so sour. As I sat regardless before this repast, in abstracted grief, I underwent the first of the thousand practical jokes that were hereafter to familiarise me with manual jocularity. My right-hand neighbour, jerking me by the elbow, exclaimed, "Hollo, you sir, there's Jenkins, on the other side of you, cribbing your bread." I turned towards the supposed culprit, and discovered that my informant had fibbed, but the informed against told me to look ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... faces of the two sisters assumed an air of indifference. It was Malignon who made his appearance, dressed with greater care than ever, and having a somewhat serious look. He shook hands; but eschewed his customary jocularity, thus returning, in a ceremonious manner, to this house where for some time he had not shown ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... the middle watch on that eventful night, and just after he had struck four bells, and the wheel had been relieved, he was inexpressibly scandalised by hearing above the howling of the gale loud sounds of singing and jocularity on the forecastle. ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... with his tricks of mimic witchcraft; no Merry Andrew, to stir up the multitude with jests, perhaps a hundred years old, but still effective, by their appeals to the very broadest sources of mirthful sympathy. All such professors of the several branches of jocularity would have been sternly repressed, not only by the rigid discipline of law, but by the general sentiment which give law its vitality. Not the less, however, the great, honest face of the people ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... even Duchess of Wirtemberg, save from courtesy or worldly wisdom. Stafforth, the adventurer, had an ugly sneer on his countenance, and was evidently embarrassed, so took refuge in the frequent attitude of the vulgar when ill at ease—a noisy jocularity. ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... Paris in those days of early August, on a visit to her uncle's cousin and dearest friend, Mme. de Plougastel. And although nothing could now be plainer than the seething unrest that heralded the explosion to come, yet the air of gaiety, indeed of jocularity, prevailing at Court—whither madame and mademoiselle went almost daily—reassured them. M. de Plougastel had come and gone again, back to Coblenz on that secret business that kept him now almost constantly absent from his wife. But whilst with ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... spirits, flow of spirits; glee, high glee, light heart; sunshine of the mind, sunshine of the breast; gaiete de coeur [Fr.], bon naturel [Fr.]. liveliness &c adj.; life, alacrity, vivacity, animation, allegresse^; jocundity, joviality, jollity; levity; jocularity &c (wit) 842. mirth, merriment, hilarity, exhilaration; laughter &c 838; merrymaking &c (amusement) 840; heyday, rejoicing &c 838; marriage bell. nepenthe, Euphrosyne^, sweet forgetfulness. optimism &c (hopefulness) 858; self complacency; hedonics^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... into silence. The unaccountable depression that possessed Philpot deprived him of all his usual jocularity and filled him with melancholy thoughts. He had travelled up and down this hill a great many times before under similar circumstances and he said to himself that if he had half a quid now for every time he had pushed a cart up this road, he wouldn't ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... Brandenburg, where I was dining with the Bulows, and was an addition to my reserves that furnished us with many a jest. As Bulow had to complete the preparations for his concert, I drove out alone with Cosima on the promenade, as before, in a fine carriage. This time all our jocularity died away into silence. We gazed speechless into each other's eyes; an intense longing for an avowal of the truth mastered us and led to a confession—which needed no words—of the boundless unhappiness which oppressed ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... quite done smashing my furniture"—Anstice's jocularity was savage—"perhaps you'll be good enough to clear out. I won't pretend I'm anxious for more of ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... and changes sullenness to petulance, till at last none can bear any longer the presence of the rest. They retire to vent their indignation in safer places, where they are heard with attention; their importance is restored, they recover their good humour, and gladden the night with wit and jocularity. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... attempted blandishment, reproof, jocularity, and the style of the Lord High Warden, and I had almost to pinch the Hawley Boy to make him keep quiet. She grunted at the end of each sentence and, in the end, he went away swearing to himself, quite like a man in a novel. He looked more ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... there was no escape, he consented to be measured, and they brought him back, under guard, until the operation was performed. So much feeling had been raised by the matter, that his foolish friend, to whose jocularity he owed the unpleasant experience, thought best himself to be measured. Accordingly measures were taken, although it was after dark, and a candle had to be used in reading. As our day's work was done, we returned to our room, making ready to go to supper. The ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... "These pleasantries, called Lazzi, are certain actions by which the performer breaks into the scene, to paint to the eye his emotions of panic or jocularity; but as such gestures are foreign to the business going on, the nicety of the art consists in not interrupting the scene, and connecting the Lazzi with it; thus ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... Your mother will like it, of course; and you, as my only child—eh, what did I say?" here he stopped hastily with a blank, frightened look—then repeated, "Yes, you, my only child, will be properly introduced to the world. Why, you will be quite an heiress, my girl," continued he, with an excited jocularity that frightened Olive. "And the world always courts such; who knows but that you may ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... was worn and haggard with sleeplessness and anxiety, but with the mountaineer's dignified reticence he passively ignored the fact, assuming a detached manner of mild jocularity. ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... lives—between the soul and its best affections. And—look you!—this misery passes along the world under the mask of easy indifference, and wears a smiling face, and submits to be rallied by the wit, and assumes itself the air of vulgar jocularity. Oh, this penury that goes well clad, and is warmly housed, and makes a mock of its own anguish—I'd rather die on the wheel, or be starved to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... sir," replied the lieutenant, dropping his unwonted jocularity and relapsing into his matter-of-fact official manner. "I'd better go on the fo'c's'le and join Mr Morgan, the mate of ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... presence. His talk, too, though overflowing with information, had no resemblance to lecturing or solemn discoursing, but, on the contrary, was full of colloquial spirit and pleasantry. He had a certain quiet and grave humour, which ran through most of his conversation, and a vein of temperate jocularity, which gave infinite zest and effect to the condensed and inexhaustible information which formed its main staple and characteristic. There was a little air of affected testiness, and a tone of pretended rebuke and contradiction, with which ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... upon by his fellow-citizens as the manifestation of a pious and humble spirit. But in his own circles of the financial world the taking up of such a thing as the San Tome mine was regarded with respect, indeed, but rather as a subject for discreet jocularity. It was a great man's caprice. In the great Holroyd building (an enormous pile of iron, glass, and blocks of stone at the corner of two streets, cobwebbed aloft by the radiation of telegraph wires) the heads of principal departments exchanged humorous glances, which meant ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... that follows him, was prepared by some introductory dialogue, in which the audience was informed that they were the fool and page of Phrynia, Timandra, or some other courtesan, upon the knowledge of which depends the greater part of the ensuing jocularity. ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... midst of his jocularity a sudden thought seemed to strike Mr. Shackford; his features underwent a swift transformation, and as he grasped the rail in front of him with both hands a malicious cunning writhed and squirmed in ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... jocularity. Gaston Isbel's eyes narrowed to a slit in his furrowed face and he kept them fastened upon Greaves's store. Blue, likewise, had a somber cast of countenance, not, perhaps, any darker nor grimmer than those of his comrades, ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... well over. I could go on practising when I came back to England; and in the meantime——I suppose you would have to take me abroad, Nan: I could not well take you," he said with a grim sort of jocularity, which she could not help seeing was painful to him. "If it did you good, as Burrows thinks it would, I should be quite prepared ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... usual limitations of Hebraism; with Marcus Aurelius as an example of that non-Christian morality and religiosity which also had so strong an attraction for him. There is no trace in either essay of the disquieting and almost dismaying jocularity which was later to invade his discussion of such things: we are still far from Bottles; the three Lord Shaftesburys relieve us by not even threatening to appear. And accordingly the two essays add in no small degree, ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... tend; and alike in Tess and Life's Little Ironies the part played by the "President of the Immortals" is no sublimer—save in the amount of force exerted—than that of a lout who pulls a chair suddenly from under an old woman. Now, by wedding Necessity with uncouth Jocularity, Mr. Hardy may have found an hypothesis that solves for him all the difficulties of life. I am not concerned in this place to deny that it may be the true explanation. I have merely to point out that art and ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... me back my lady, MacPhail," she said; then added, thawing into something like jocularity, "I shouldn't have looked to you to go running away ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... symmetry. At any rate he engaged Lily so long that the sweets were being handed when she caught a phrase on her other side, where Miss Corby, the comic woman of the company, was bantering Jack Stepney on his approaching engagement. Miss Corby's role was jocularity: she always entered the ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... sigh, and rubbed his hands together with that forced jocularity which had made his companion ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... they are," said another student, a stout fellow with a pointed red beard, the ends of which caught the light. Esther's eyes often went to those stubble ends, and she hated him for his loud voice and jocularity. One of the midwives, a woman with a long nose and small grey eyes, seemed to mock her, and Esther hoped that this woman would not come near her. She felt that she could not bear her touch. There was something sinister in her face, and Esther was glad when her favourite, a little blond ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... own dignity, could not always forbear to show it, by playing a little upon his admirer; but he was in no danger of retort; his jests were endured without resistance or resentment. But the sneer of jocularity was not the worst. Steele, whose imprudence of generosity, or vanity of profusion, kept him always incurably necessitous, upon some pressing exigence, in an evil hour, borrowed a hundred pounds of his friend probably without much purpose ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... captains and Wycherly followed the vice-admiral into the after-cabin, where the latter seated himself on a small sofa, while the others took chairs, in respectful attitudes near him, no familiarity or jocularity on the part of a naval superior ever lessening the distance between him and those who hold subordinate commissions—a fact that legislators would do well to remember, when graduating rank in a service. As soon as all were placed, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Henchard, throwing himself into a mood of jocularity. "Up and down! I'm used to it. What's the ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... have to say that it was a mass of the most frightful incendiarism, delivered with an occasional air of jocularity and dry humour that made my flesh creep. Amidst the persistent attacks on property he did not spare other sacred things. He even made an attack on my position, stating (wrongly) the amount of my moderate stipend. Indeed, ...
— The Tables Turned - or, Nupkins Awakened. A Socialist Interlude • William Morris
... disagreeable places and employments? Very true, we answer; and why should not numbers of them be collected in groups by the road-side, in readiness to find in whatever passes there occasions for gross jocularity; practising some impertinence, or uttering some jeering scurrility, at the expense of persons going by; shouting with laughter at the success of the annoyance, or to make it successful; and all this blended with language of profaneness and imprecation, as the very life ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... shaven chin, a weathered complexion, thick brown hair; the penumbra of middle-age had touched his countenance, softening here and there a line which told of temperament in excess. At this moment his manner inclined to a bluff jocularity, due in some measure to the bottle of wine before him, as also was the tinge of colour upon his cheek; he spoke briefly, but listened with smiling interest to his guest's continuous talk. This ran on the subject of ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... self-esteem forbade anything like a retreat without honor, his nervousness did not permit him to move at all, the anger which prickled the surface of his body and mind was held in check only by an instinct of fear as to what he might do if he moved, and so, with dreadful jocularity, he commenced to speak of himself, his personal character, his sobriety and steadiness—of all those safe negations on which many women place reliance he spoke, and also of certain small vices which he magnified ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... each other with visages of sevenfold blankness. They next unanimously directed their gaze towards their preceptor, hoping to detect some symptom of jocularity upon his venerable features. Nothing could be descried thereon but the most imperturbable solemnity, or, if perchance anything like an expression of irony lurked beneath this, it was not such irony as they wished to see. Lastly, they ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... he did not betray the smallest symptom of power either to appreciate or to indulge in jocularity at that moment. But feeling that it was useless to appeal to the former experience of the boatswain, he changed his plan ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... easy; the court will allow you a handsome income. So you must cheer up, in spite of the infliction of a large fortune," added Mr. Newton, with unwonted jocularity. ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... up the wounds of all three of the combatants, who then sat down to share a meal together, indulged in much jocularity about their wounds, and, parting amicably, sought their respective homes. Walther and Hildegunde were next joyously welcomed by their relatives, duly married, and reigned together over Aquitaine for many ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... could have better illustrated the difference of character between John Westlock and Martin Chuzzlewit, than the manner in which each of the young men contemplated Tom Pinch, after the little rupture just described. There was a certain amount of jocularity in the looks of both, no doubt, but there all resemblance ceased. The old pupil could not do enough to show Tom how cordially he felt towards him, and his friendly regard seemed of a graver and more thoughtful kind than before. The new one, on the other hand, had no impulse but to laugh ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... comparison; and in the shadow of a new headstone the old one lay prostrate, with its marvelous inscription illegible by accumulation of leaves and soil. In point of literary merit the new was inferior to the old— was even repulsive in its terse and savage jocularity: ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... in Walpoliana that "this couple of rabbits, the favourites, as they were called, occasioned much jocularity on their first importation." Some of the jocularity was aroused by their appearance. The style of beauty, or what passed for beauty, in each country was markedly different. Hear Lady Mary Wortley Montagu writing from Hanover in December, 1716: "I have now got into the regions ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... Volunteers had successfully landed a cargo of guns that were purchased in Germany. The Volunteers had seized the coastguard stations at Larne and at Donaghadee and Bangor, overawing the police, and there had been much jocularity. It was all done in excellent taste. Had it not been for the death of a coastguard through heart failure, there would have been nothing to ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... to get, I suppose?' said Serjeant Buzfuz, with jocularity. 'Oh, quite enough to get, Sir, as the soldier said ven they ordered him three hundred and fifty ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... that is not reflected somewhere in his music, and hardly a characteristic of his music that one does not find quaintly echoed in some recorded saying or doing of the man. His placid and even vivacity, his sprightliness, his broad jocularity, his economy and shrewd business perception of what could be done with the material to hand, his fertility of device, even his commonplaceness, may all be seen in the symphonies. At rare moments he moves you strongly, very often he is trivial, ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... as it does in ours; but the vowel has a soft pronunciation. The rein-deer are very fond of salt, and the wildest of them will follow a person, who holds some salt in his hand, for miles together. To put salt on a bird's tail, and catch it, may be an English piece of jocularity; but the Norwegian would be puzzled to think why we should attach a joke to such an act; and to prove to an Englishman the inaptitude of the proverb, the Norseman will go forth with his handful of salt, and take, not his covey of sparrows, for his ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... motion of the head. "We think we have a good superintendent; I go further, an excellent superintendent. What I say is: Let's be pleasant! I am not making an unreasonable request!" He ended on a fitting note of jocularity; and, as if by consent, all three withdrew, each to his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... it looks like plenty. What's the equation for it?" Beneath his jocularity, Phil felt a tremendous sinking within him. It looked serious, despite the fact that he did not ...
— The Einstein See-Saw • Miles John Breuer
... baronial hospitality, blending the usual profusion of plantation life with the elegance of a traveled scholar and "picked man of countries." Colonel Byrd was rather an amateur in literature. His History of the Dividing Line is written with a jocularity which rises occasionally into real humor, and which gives to the painful journey through the wilderness the air of a holiday expedition. Similar in tone were his diaries of A Progress to the Mines and A Journey to the Land of Eden in ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... as I look. If you like, I will cut my hair. There is more innocent fun within me than a casual spectator would imagine. You have never seen me frolicsome. Be a good girl — a very good girl — and one day you shall. If you are fond of touch-and-go jocularity — this is the shop ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... of "the road" (to use his own expression), with a few green-room phrases superadded. Now, artists in the theatrical profession are wont to express themselves with some vigor; Gaudissart borrowed sufficient racy green-room talk to blend with his commercial traveler's lively jocularity, and passed for a wit. He was thinking at that moment of selling his license and "going into another line," as he said. He thought of being chairman of a railway company, of becoming a responsible person and an administrator, ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... to smile at her forced jocularity; but the hunted expression saddened his eyes again. To these children, brought up animal-like in the midst of misery and hate, their world revolved round their stomachs, too often empty. But this new trouble—the terror of Flea's going with Lem—had made a man of Flukey, and bread ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... this connection to recall the story which has been told regarding the origin of the word "sirloin." It is said that this steak found such favor with some epicurean king of olden times that he, in a spirit of jocularity and good humor, bestowed upon it the honor of knighthood, to the great delight of his assembled court, and as "Sir Loin" it was thereafter known. It is a pity to spoil so good a story, but the fact ...
— The Community Cook Book • Anonymous
... able to discover whether there was not a slight tinge of underlying jocularity in this remark of Mrs Brand, for she was a strange and incomprehensible mixture of shrewdness and innocence; but no one took much trouble to find out, for she was so lovable that people accepted her just as she was, contented to let any small amount of mystery that seemed to ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... thus thrust upon me; but both my wife and Mrs. M'Vicar were just lifted out of themselves at the thought. After the sermon the Commissioner complimented me on my apostolic earnestness, and Mrs. M'Vicar said I had surprised everybody; but I was fearful there was something of jocularity at the bottom of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... and from amongst them the panic-stricken eyes made a dumb appeal to the griffins and crowns of his dark green hangings, for they were afraid to turn to the King. Henry retained his heavy look of jocularity: he ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... gentlemen of the corps dramatique "at the wing." Otherwise than as a sign of dramatic destitution, the piece called "Behind the Scenes" is highly amusing. Mr. Wild's acting displays that happy medium between jocularity and earnest, which is the perfection of burlesque. Mrs. Selby plays the "leading lady" without the smallest effort, and invites the first tragedian to her treat of oysters and beer with considerable empressement, though supposed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... desperate character, they had no fear of him. He had shown his chivalry. No one could have been more considerate of them, for he absented himself at Peggy's request instantly and without suggestion of jocularity, and when he came in and found them both ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... result of Sir Arthur's ill-timed jocularity in advising his daughter to turn her enthusiasm for humanity to account in reforming some of Colonel Antony's assistants, instancing Gerrard and Charteris as standing in special need of her services. Young ladies were scarce, Honour ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... water, a turkeycock, and bread to eat. Powhatan professed great content with Smith, but desired to see his father, Captain Newport. He inquired also with a merry countenance after the piece of ordnance that Smith had promised to send him, and Smith, with equal jocularity, replied that he had offered the men four demi-culverins, which they found too heavy to carry. This night they quartered with Powhatan, and were liberally feasted, and entertained with singing, dancing, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Palmer; "this sort of—what do you call it? double-dealing about visitors, goes on every where, Madam Beaumont. But how do I know, that when I go away, you may not be as glad to get rid of me as you were to get away from these Duttons?" added he, in a tone of forced jocularity. "How do I know, but that the minute my back is turned, you may not begin to take me to pieces in my turn, and say, 'That old Palmer! he was the most tiresome, humoursome, strange, old-fashioned fellow; I thought we should never have got ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... moment's pause he laughingly said that his friend over the way was too mysterious a personage to have his name announced in so giddy a scene as the present; but that on the morrow he would furnish me with all the information which I could desire. There was, I thought, in his affected jocularity a real awkwardness which appeared to me unaccountable, and consequently increased my curiosity; its gratification, however, I was obliged to defer. At length, wearied with witnessing amusements in which I could not sympathise, I left the room, and did not see ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... mood next morning hurt and repelled her almost as much as his maudlin jocularity of the night before. She would have preferred a brazen levity to this humble confession. "'Twas me boast," he sadly asserted, "that no man ever caught me with me eyes full of sand and me tongue twisted—and now look at me! 'Tis what comes of having nothing to do but trade lies with ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... young, and at Piccadilly Circus, Lucas, in obeying a too suddenly uplifted hand of a policeman, stopped his engine. The situation, horribly humiliating for Lucas and also for George, provided pleasure for half the chauffeurs and drivers in Piccadilly Circus, and was the origin of much jocularity of a kind then fairly new. Lucas cursed the innocent engine, and George leapt down to wield the crank. But the engine, apparently resenting curses, refused to start again. No, it would not start. Lucas leapt down too. "Get out of the way," he muttered ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... Rastignac; but, after all, it is in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, and luxury would be out of place here, where we only aim at the purely patriarchalorama. If you mean to cut a figure in Paris, my young friend," Vautrin continued, with half-paternal jocularity, "you must have three horses, a tilbury for the mornings, and a closed carriage for the evening; you should spend altogether about nine thousand francs on your stables. You would show yourself unworthy of your destiny if you spent no more than three thousand francs with your tailor, ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... obstruction, he did not discover it by word or feature. He went on humming a tune without words as he worked, handing out biscuits and ham to the hungry crew. Jim had eaten his breakfast already, and was smoking a cigarette at his ease. Now and then he addressed somebody in obscene jocularity. ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... am stretching a point of Mohammedan etiquette, even by coming among these industrious damsels in the manner I am doing, but the attention of the men is fully concentrated on the bicycle outside, and the temptation of trying the experiment of a little jocularity, just to see what comes of it, is under the circumstances irresistible. Conscious of venturing where angels fear to tread. I stoop down, and take hold of the peeping little brown big-toe, and addressing the demure maiden ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... we descend into the vale of years, the fewer illusions accompany us: we have little inclination, little time, for jocularity and laughter. Light things are easily detached from us, and we shake off heavier as we can. Instead of levity, we are liable to moroseness: for always near the grave there are more briers than flowers, unless we plant them ourselves, or our ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... accident in the fullness of life, the clothes asserted themselves before all else with a hideous ludicrousness, obliterating even the majesty of death in their helpless yet ironical incongruity. The garments seemed to have never fitted the wearer, but to have been assumed in ghastly jocularity,—a boot half off the swollen foot, a ripped waistcoat thrown over the shoulder, were like the properties of some low comedian. At first the body appeared to be headless; but as Brice cleared away the debris and lifted it, he saw with horror that the head was twisted ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... devil with horns, no doubt," ejaculated Cowdray, sitting down in triumphant jocularity. "It was the devil come ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... the cigarette-case and said with hearty jocularity: "Thank you, Error—thank you. But why didn't you bring it to me, Terebus? Then you'd have earned that kiss I'm ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... minds that the Kingdom was Coming, accompanied by the Day of Jubilee. Philander left his spool-thread and tape, rushed into the street, and by his Long-Tail Blue, sed, "Let me kiss him for his Mother." Then, with patriotic jocularity, he inquired, "How is your High Daddy in the Morning?" to which Pomp of Cudjo's Cave replied, "That poor Old Slave has gone to rest, we ne'er shall see him more! But U.S.G. is the man for me, or Any other Man." ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 3 • Charles Farrar Browne
... their common sense? Mr. George Canning may laugh and joke at the idea of Protestant bailiffs ravishing Catholic ladies, under the 9th clause of the Sunset Bill; but if some better remedy be not applied to the distractions of Ireland than the jocularity of Mr. Canning, they will soon put an end to his pension, and to the pension of those "near and dear relatives," for whose eating, drinking, washing, and clothing, every man in the United Kingdoms now pays his two-pence or three-pence a year. You may call these observations coarse, if you ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... much neglected part of our history, and when referred to in reminiscences are generally referred to as matters for jocularity. They exercised, however, a serious influence on the minds and feelings of the people, as well as their manners; more so than a hundred subjects with which the historian or the novelist ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... was appointed by the parliament lord high admiral during the civil war. He was much courted by the independent clergy, was shrewd, penetrating and active, and exhibited a singular mixture of pious demeanour with a vein of facetiousness and jocularity. With him was sent Dr. Calamy, the most eminent divine of the period of the Commonwealth, to see (says Baxter [224]) that no fraud was committed, or wrong done to the parties accused. It may well be doubted however whether ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... the stupid man from ever hearing the sound of his own voice outside the secluded walls of his own home—or should. It ought also to bar the simply witty man; for what is more jarring than a misplaced wit or an ill-timed jocularity? ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... Louis's attempt at jocularity most ill-timed, but I said nothing. It seemed to me an immense time that he was gone, but he declares that it was not more than a minute and a quarter. Then I heard him laugh ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... They climb into those tightly packed carriages, loaded down with parcels and endless recommendations. Some of the groups are cheerful over their farewells, though the English note of deliberate jocularity is absent. The older people are resigned; in the features of the middle generation, the parents, you may read a certain grimness and hostility to fate; they are the potential mourners. The weeping note predominates among the sisters and children, ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... pitiable to observe the misery the old dotard endured, every time his wife entered our apartment, constantly fidgetting at her elbow, and scrutinizing, suspiciously, every look that passed between her and her guests. His fears served us for a jest, however, and produced a vein of jocularity, that reconciled us to our earthen flooring, upon which some of our party were doomed to ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... evening in the billiard-room, sitting forlornly over whiskey-and-soda. A peculiar throbbing silence and mystery seemed to hang about the house. Stanistreet was depressed and hardly spoke, while Tyson vainly tried to hide his nervousness under a fictitious jocularity. He looked eagerly for the night, by which time he had concluded that all anxiety would be ended. But when ten o'clock came and he found that nothing more nor less than a long night-watch was required ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... carried off Flora de Barral to Bournemouth for the winter months in the quality of reader and companion. She had said to her with kindly jocularity: "We shall have a good time together. I am not a grumpy old woman." But on their return to London she sought Mrs. Fyne at once. She had discovered that Flora was not naturally cheerful. When she made efforts to be it was still worse. The old lady couldn't ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... I suppose," said Mr. Carr, with an attempt at jocularity that did not, however, disguise an irritated suspiciousness. "He really seems to have supplanted ME as he has poor ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... fellow-citizens, and of course I abuse it; that's nature, you know. When I began to pull up I found that tobacco helped me; I smoked and chewed both; now I only chew. Well," he said, dropping the pathetic simplicity with which he had spoken, and turning with a fierce jocularity from the shocked and pitying look in Annie's face to Mrs. Munger, "what do you propose to do? Brother Peck's head seems to be pretty level, ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells |
