"Mockery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Adela locked herself in as with the fear she should be overtaken or invaded, and during a sleepless feverish memorable night she took counsel of her uncompromising spirit. She saw things as they were, in all the indignity of life. The levity, the mockery, the infidelity, the ugliness, lay as plain as a map before her; it was a world of gross practical jokes, a world pour rire; but she cried about it all the same. The morning dawned early, or rather it seemed to her there had been no night, nothing but a sickly creeping day. But by the time she heard ...
— The Marriages • Henry James
... a mockery! Even the lichen, the insect, lives a complete life, while we, with all our reason, so often blunder, fail, and miss that which is essential ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... away his nervousness, but the very sound of his own voice was distressing. It rose in unnatural shivering echoes—a low, hollow mockery of a laugh beating itself against the walls; a ghost of a laugh, Rod thought, and that very thought made him hunch closer to the fire. The young hunter was not superstitious, or at least he was not unnaturally so; but what man or boy is there in this whole wide ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... conflict and achievement towards a higher and yet a higher goal, ever manifesting, yet ever seeking, the infinite that dwells in him. All knowledge and quest and endeavour, nay existence itself, would be a mockery if man had 'no forever.' Scripture corroborates the yearnings of the heart and represents life as a growing good which is to attain to ever higher reaches and fuller realisations in the world to {132} come. It is the unextinguishable faith of man ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... her honey-voiced song," "the crocus and the hyacinth disorderly mixed in the deep grass"—things which the religion of Dionysus loves—Pan joins the company of the Satyrs. Amongst them, they give their names to insolence and mockery, and the finer sorts of malice, to unmeaning and ridiculous fear. But the best spirits have found in them also a certain human pathos, as in displaced beings, coming even nearer to most men, in their very roughness, than the noble and delicate ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... to wrong causes the sadness I may not be able to suppress with uniform heroism. You pained me deeply yesterday, when you advised me to go out a little 'to distract my thoughts.' To distract my thoughts from you, Edmee! What bitter mockery! Do not be cruel, sister; for then you become my haughty betrothed of evil days again . . . and, in spite of myself, I again become the brigand whom you used to hate. . . . Ah, if you knew how unhappy I am! In me there are two men who are incessantly waging a war to the death. ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... nothing to do with it; and it is part of his higher significance that he has really nothing to do with the story, or with any such stories. The boy went like a bullet through the tangle of this tale of crooked politics and crazy mockery and came out on the other side, pursuing his own unspoiled purposes. From the top of the chimney he climbed he had caught sight of a new omnibus, whose color and name he had never known, as a naturalist might see a new bird or a botanist a new flower. ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... see the drops a-dripping!" said Constance in bitter mockery. "Marry, get thee hence—'tis the sole mercy thou canst ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... hear from feminine lips a fatalism so grim as to make all prayer a mockery; and it would seem that the loss of those dear to you, would have insensibly and unavoidably drawn your heart heavenward, in search ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... mistress who told me (with regrets and caresses, which in the circumstances were mere mockery) that I was to ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... a mockery the permission was now. How was he to get home, a distance of more than fifty miles, without a penny in his pocket? Ten minutes before, and freedom was within his grasp, and now it had eluded him and was as hopelessly out of ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... inconvenience and interruption to the trade of Fiume occasioned by these blockades, usually induced the archducal government to institute a pretended investigation into the conduct of the Uzcoques, or at least to promise the Venetians some reparation—a mockery of satisfaction with which the latter, in their then state of decline and weakness, were fain to content themselves. Reckoning upon the terror inspired by the presence of the squadron now employed in the blockade, as well as upon its support, should he require it, the Proveditore ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... then," continued Bianca; while a smile, half of mockery and half of pleasure, writhed her lips into changing outlines, each more bewitchingly pretty than the other, and her eyes were turned away from Quinto to a contemplation of the slender dainty foot peeping out from beneath her dress, as she lay on the sofa; "between ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... my wife broke in, "that wouldn't do. Marriage is marriage; and it puts the husband and wife with each other first; when it doesn't, it's a miserable mockery." ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... Uncle Tobe, dressed in sober black, like a country undertaker, and with his mid-Victorian whiskers all cleansed and combed, would present himself at his post of duty. He would linger in the background, an unobtrusive bystander, until the condemned sinner had gone through the mockery of eating his last breakfast; and, still making himself inconspicuous during the march to the gallows, would trail at the very tail of the line, while the short, straggling procession was winding out through gas-lit murky hallways into the pale dawn-light ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... son, the principal support of their declining years, filled them with a gloom and terror, which death, in its common shape, would not have inspired. This savage pageant on the part, of the Dead Boxer, besides being calculated to daunt the heart of any man who might accept his challenge, was a cruel mockery of the solemnities of death. In this instance it produced such a sensation as never had been felt in that part of the country. An uneasy feeling of wild romance, mingled with apprehension, curiosity, fear, and amazement, all conspired to work upon the imaginations ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... the Prince Hugues, and many others died. The 16th of April was the day on which the Parisians were accustomed to go in solemn procession to the church of St. Germain. The Northmen, knowing this, in mockery filled a wagon with grain and organized a mock procession. The bullocks who drew the chariot suddenly became lame; numbers of other bullocks were attached, but although goaded by spears their united efforts were unable to drag the wagon ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... beyond all dispute the most shameless son of Shaitan that I have ever known to take up a poor girl's time with this play, and then to say: "Is not the jest enough?" Thou wilt go very far in this world.' She gave the dancing-girls' salutation in mockery. ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... real lamentation! But what a suspicion falls on the mourning in whose loquacity we cannot detect one natural tone! As if that last messenger, who strips off all delusions and appearances, should be pursued and affronted with the mockery of our pretence, and we could circumvent the angel of judgment with the sentence of our fond wishes and the affectation of our groundless claims! As if the disembodied, in the light of truth, by which they are surrounded ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... she stands With the prize that is mine in her treacherous hands. The fawn may fly, but the wolf is fleet; The fox creeps sly on Mag's [10] retreat; And a woman's revenge—it is swift and sweet." She turned to her lodge, but a roar of laughter And merry mockery followed after. Little they heeded the words she said, Little they cared for her haughty tread, For maidens and warriors and chieftain knew That her lips were ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... thee: nearer, nearer it. What a mockery hath death made thee! thou look'st sad. In what place art thou? in yon starry gallery? Or in the cursed dungeon?—No? not speak? Pray, sir, resolve me, what religion's best For a man to die in? or is it ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... till the last hour of his existence, is ended for ever; or that the labours of younger brethren so unfinished here, shall never be resumed hereafter, and that all this preparation of years has been a mere abortion, a mockery and delusion! Believe it not! No day of conscientious study for Christ's sake has been spent in vain; no habit of industry or self-denial acquired for Christ's sake has been acquired in vain; nor will the burning zeal to do something ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... with the rage of a misanthropical Timon; and the next, with the bitter sneer of a malignant Iago: and yet, who, amidst all these disguises, leaves on you the impression that he is throughout acting the part, and displaying the spirit, of a demon—a deep current of mockery at man's miseries, and at God's providence, running under all his moods and imitations. We read it once, when recovering from an illness, and shall never forget the withering horror, and the shock of disgust and loathing, which it gave ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... ceremonies—audacious mockery of justice—occupied several hours; and now the condemned prisoners were compelled to march in front of the royal box, and pass those who had by recanting escaped the extreme penalty of the law. Again Antonio Herezuelo looked ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston
... the agony of such moments increased by the recollection that in the same chamber where such bitter grief now reigns, joy and pleasure once dwelt, and that those who shared it can bless us no more! How like a cruel mockery, then, appear the splendour and beauty of all that meets the eye, unchanged as when it was in unison with our feelings, but which now jars so fearfully ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... destroying hand; and if he seem now and then to bestow the bloom of youth, the sap of spring, it is but a brief mockery, to be surely and swiftly followed by the wrinkles of old age, the dry leaves and bare branches of winter. And yet there are places where Time seems to linger lovingly long after youth has departed, and to which he seems loath to bring the evil day. Who ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... steps of life with unerring directness. That would require a gift of prophecy which has been denied to man. For instance, who could have imagined that, not a month after he had received the letter, and turned it into mockery, and put off answering it, and in the end lost it, misfortunes of a gloomy cast should begin to thicken over Frank's career? His case may be briefly stated. His father, a small Morayshire laird with a large family, became recalcitrant and cut off the supplies; he had fitted himself out ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... early in January. By that time Christmas was over and done with. On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, in lieu of the Christmas carols, the cannon had rung its brazen Christmas message across the trenches, making mockery of the words: "On earth peace, good will toward men." On our side of the ocean the fine spirit of charity and graciousness which comes to most of us at Christmastime and keeps Christmas from becoming a thoroughly ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... Cleombrotus, who took refuge at the temple of Apollo at Taenarum and escaped death only at the entreaty of his wife, Leonidas's daughter Chilonis. On his return Agis fled to the temple of Athene Chalcioecus at Sparta, but soon afterwards he was treacherously induced to leave his asylum and, after a mockery of a trial, was strangled in prison, his mother and grandmother sharing the same fate (241). Though too weak and good-natured to cope with the problem which confronted him, Agis was characterized by a sincerity ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... fun," Leslie started loyally in to make up for anything she had said which might seem to savor of mockery or dispraise. "One enjoys being with them, if they aren't our usual sort. They are in good spirits, really good—good spirits with roots to them. And that's such a treat ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... "This is a mockery, prince," she said with vehemence, and meeting his half-mocking glance with one of scorn. "Do you think that I have been blind these last few weeks? ... Your love for me hath changed, if indeed it ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... drop at his sides. He gazed at her and her expression was of wistful mockery—compassionate rather than ironical. Then he looked away down the length of the chapel. In the warm afternoon light, the solid and rich brown of the arcaded stalls on either hand, emphasised the harmonious radiance of the great east window, a ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... a curious legend,[15] widely circulated in the Middle Ages, the men of Rochester did not accord a patient hearing to St. Augustine when he first came thither to preach the Gospel. They, instead, used him rudely, and in mockery threw at him and hung on his dress a lot of fish-tails. In anger the saint prayed to God to avenge him on his persecutors and "the Lord smote them in posteriora to their everlasting ignominy, so that not only on their own but on their successors' persons ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer
... answer a civil question civilly," said the youth; "and will pay fitting respect to your age, if you do not urge my patience with mockery. Since I have been here in France and Flanders, men have called me, in their fantasy, the Varlet with the Velvet Pouch, because of this hawk purse which I carry by my side; but my true name, when ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... society, and the self-sceptical scepticism which arises from that self-ignorance, but also how steadily assured was the foundation of his spiritual life. In the midst of the shifting storms of doubt and trouble, of mockery, contradiction, and assertion on religious matters, he stood unremoved. Whatever men may think of his faith and his certainties, they reveal the strength of his character, the enduring courage of his soul, and the inspiring joyousness that, ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... Glaucilla, the daughter of Glaucus and Circe, and his affection is returned. In consequence, however, of an oracle he feigns indifference towards her, and though heart-sick when alone, meets her with mockery when she pleads her love. Meanwhile Perindus' sister, Olinda, is courted by Glaucilla's brother, Thalander, to whose suit, however, she turns a deaf ear, and at last bids him leave the country. He does so, but soon returns in disguise, resolved ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... countless treasure shone; But prouder, nobler spoils and high, Adorned that mighty pageantry. Reluctantly, with lofty form, Like strong oaks blasted by the storm But not bowed down, the captives came, Their dark brows flushed with grief and shame; And he, their sovereign, king no more, In mockery the purple wore. His the proud step, majestic mien, The lip compressed and look serene That mark a spirit strong and high, A soul that smiles on destiny. As surges breaking on the shore, Or like the distant torrents roar, The shouts of victory rolled afar. And shook the hills, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... to persuade themselves and others that they are all much concerned about the welfare of these working classes, whom they have always trampled under their feet, and on Sundays, richly dressed, they drive in sumptuous carriages to the houses of God built in very mockery of Christianity, and there listen to men, trained to this work of deception, who in white neckties or in brocaded vestments, according to their denomination, preach the love for their neighbor which they all gainsay in their lives. And ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... as those in robust health speak of death, knowing that it exists and is horrible, but seeing it afar off . . . so far off that it arouses no real emotion. The explosion of the shells were accompanying their destructive brutality with a ferocious mockery, grotesquely disfiguring the human body. He saw wounded objects just beginning to recover their vital force who were but rough skeletons of men, frightful caricatures, human rags, saved from the tomb by the audacities of science—trunks ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... married her, she had been seduced and deserted by a young man of good family to whom she had been previously betrothed. And so his new bride came to him, not as other brides come, but unabashed and undismayed, her virtue lost, her modesty gone, her bridal-veil a mockery. Cast off by her previous lover, she brought to her wedding the name without the purity of a maid. She rode in a litter carried by eight slaves. You who were present saw how impudently she made eyes at all the ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... appliances seemed on this occasion to be a mere mockery. The tourmaline was all ready, but up to one o'clock not a trace of the sun could be seen. Shortly after one o'clock, however, we noticed that the day was getting lighter; and, on looking to the north, whence the wind and the snow were coming, we saw, to our inexpressible delight, that ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... and good king. No longer could he play the coward before trivial adversities. He would direct large affairs; he would live big. Never again would he be afraid of death or Breede or policemen or the mockery of his fellows—or women! He might still avoid the latter, but not in terror; only in a dignified dread lest they talk and spoil ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... of her sins is full, The scarlet-vested whore! Thy murderous and lecherous race Have sat too long i' the holy place; The knife shall lop what no drug cures, Nor Heaven permits, nor earth endures, The monstrous mockery more. Behold! I swear it, saith the Lord: Mine elect warrior girds the sword— A nameless man, a miner's son, Shall tame thy pride, thou haughty one, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... lighted wax tapers in their hands. There was much ceremony, but scarcely anything that was imposing; its heartlessness was so apparent, especially in the conduct of some of the assistants, that it seemed a solemn mockery. One in particular, who seemed to pride himself on the manner in which he vociferated 'Amen,' was casting his eyes among the crowd, winking and laughing at various persons, and, from the extravagance of his manners, bawling out most irreverently and closing by laughing, I wondered that ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... statement that, in the case of the other prisoners included in the verdict, "the law should take its course." No one credited this declaration for an instant, and most persons felt that the Crown officials were indulging in an indecent piece of mockery. Amidst this universal incredulity, however—this disdainful and indignant disbelief—the prisoners' solicitor, Mr. Roberts, vigilant and untiring to the last, took the necessary steps to pray arrest of execution pending decision of the serious law points ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... of his arrest, trial, sentence, and lingering death on the cross, is a truth which shines forth from the sacred narrative as his own raiment did on the mount of transfiguration, "white and glistering." Any attempt to describe it would be but mockery. And yet this deep composure of spirit is not that of indifference or of a cold temperament. It is the composure of one in whose bosom burns a steady and intense flame of zeal for the glory of God and good will towards men, by which he is borne forward with untiring energy ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... he thought, "I have never heard him preach, though I know by report that he is popular. I was told once that he seems to be possessed by a very demon of mockery, and that it is this spirit which makes his attraction for the people; but I hope it is something more than that—I hope—" Here interrupting his ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... remain; these prosaic attendants must not raise their voices so high as to deafen the speakers in the presence-chamber; however, in those intervals when the ideal society has retired they deserve to be listened to; their bold raillery, their presumption of mockery, may afford many an insight into the situation and circumstances of ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... hate as the soul's worst foe For the sake of those eyes you forgot all else Her eyes were like open windows Last Day we shall be called to account for every word we utter Laugh at him with friendly mockery, such as hurts no man Maid who gives hope to a suitor though she has no mind to hear May they avoid the rocks on which I have bruised my feet Men folks thought more about me than I deemed convenient No man gains profit by any experience ...
— Quotations From Georg Ebers • David Widger
... lord could boast. He found there not merely the sanctuary, not merely the shrine of all that was holiest in history or in creed, but the epitome of his own life, the handicrafts of his various guilds, as at Rouen, the tale of all his humblest occupations, the mockery of his neighbours' foibles, the lessons of the horror of sin. For before the end of the thirteenth century, the handicraftsmen, associated into such guilds as we have seen in Rouen, had not only won their freedom from ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... asked by a grave Attendant how his Holiness does? Another hears himself addressed to under the Title of Highness or Excellency, who lies under such mean Circumstances of Mortality as are the Disgrace of Human Nature. Titles at such a time look rather like Insults and Mockery ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... a mockery!" ejaculated Gentz, mournfully. "It is malice, for you see I am a poor, despised man, without money, without fame, without rank; a miserable military counsellor, outranked by every private counsellor, and persecuted day by ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... Sogn, and all the folk of the valley were fled to the mountains and forests, taking with them such of their chattels as they might carry. Thereafter the Danish King was minded to take his hosts to Iceland to avenge the mockery of the Icelanders, for it happened that they had ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... Legislature can disfranchise at pleasure, it may soon confine all the votes to a small number of partisans, and establish an aristocracy or an oligarchy; if it may banish at discretion, without hearing or trial, no man can be safe. The name of liberty applied to such a government would be a mockery ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... turned to Evans. "Yes, I go with you. For you, my child!"—He felt for his crucifix and held it over the Carmelite, who had dropped on her knees before him. At the same time, with his left hand, he pointed towards the altar. "For these, the mockery of the Crucified One ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... which will make the construction more obvious, provided we retain both the sense and all the words unaltered; but to drop or alter any word, is to pervert the text under pretence of resolving it, and to make a mockery of parsing. Grammar rightly learned, enables one to understand both the sense and the construction of whatsoever is rightly written; and he who reads what he does not understand, reads to little purpose. With great indignity to the muses, several pretenders ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... trifle stiffly. Was the fellow a tramp? Was he in no better condition of life than himself and his stranded companions, against whom the mockery of the assemblage was slyly but indubitably directed? If so, what was to be gained by claiming friendship with him? It behooved him to go slow. He drew himself up to his full height. "Well, well! ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... Deputy.—"You have given a verdict of NO DAMAGES, which is contrary to law, and which I will not receive; therefore go and reconsider your verdict, for I insist upon your giving some damage." The reader will easily conceive that I did not hear this in silence; I exclaimed, "For shame! what a mockery of justice!" Mr. Deputy threatened; I smiled a look of contempt and defiance. Mr. Deputy turned round to the officer, and peremptorily ordered him to turn the old man out; and he began to follow his instructions, by taking him by the collar. The old gentleman, however, was not to be trifled ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... the sex is bound up with this impulse. Instead of calling them beautiful, there would be more warrant for describing women as the un-aesthetic sex. Neither for music, nor for poetry, nor for fine art, have they really and truly any sense or susceptibility; it is a mere mockery if they make a pretence of it in order to assist their endeavor to please. Hence, as a result of this, they are incapable of taking a purely objective interest in anything; and the reason of it seems ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer
... worse than if a mouse should be forced to take up her lodging in a cat's ear; a little infant that breeds its teeth, should it lie with thee, would cry out, as if thou wert the more unquiet bedfellow." This mockery only brings from her firm spirit the proud assertion, "I am Duchess of Malfy still." Indeed, her mind becomes clearer and calmer as the tortures proceed. At first she had imprecated curses on her brothers, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... an impediment in their speech, an accidental lameness, or the like; he had the mean barbarity to endeavour to aggravate the misfortune by a coarse imitation, which generally turned the whole ridicule upon himself. He once had the impudence to practise his mockery upon a worthy gentlemen in the neighbourhood, who was so unfortunate as to be unable to speak without stuttering. The gentleman happening to pass by Mr. Fribble's door, at which our little monsieur was then ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... the other way; first, the Republican failure to ratify in Delaware; second, the weak plank in the Republican national platform, which was emasculated at the request of the Connecticut delegates until it was an affront to the intelligence of women and a mockery of the Connecticut and Vermont Legislatures; third, the present situation ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... he swallowed it. The only immediate consequence of the accident was that a harmonic stomach-ache was organized upon the interior of Henry Chubb and he experienced a restlessness which he well knew would defy the soothing tendencies of peppermint and make a mockery of paregoric. ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... in the end of January, at a time when any officer would have considered a stall in an English stable luxurious quarters compared to those he possessed, and had nearly forgotten the comforts of a mess-table. It must have read to them rather like a mockery, and yet, as the reader will see, I succeeded in ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... wail, very much higher and wilder than before,—breaks suddenly into a kind of atrocious laughter,—and finally sobs itself out in a plaint like the crying of a little child. The ghastliness of the performance is chiefly—though not entirely—in the goblin mockery of the laughing tones as contrasted with the piteous agony of the wailing ones: an incongruity that makes you think of madness. And I imagine a corresponding incongruity in the soul of the creature. ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... Queen has her Court at Merton, and the city is full of ladies of high degree. Their flounces and their furbelows are everywhere, and daily they congregate in Christ Church meadows and Trinity Grove, to hold revels displeasing to the Heads of Houses, who fear for the youth in their charge, and a mockery to their own hearts, which are anxious enough. Their dresses may be fine, but they themselves are lodged in garrets, and they miss the dainty fare to which they are accustomed. And all the while the wit and learning of the University knows little diminution. It takes, perhaps, a lighter ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How
... of the hastily convoked and Irregular tribunal before which Jesus underwent the mockery of a trial was similar to that of the ancient Sanhedrim. The members sat on a semi-circular divan, the president in the centre, and a scribe at each extremity, who recorded the evidence and the decisions of the court. It may be noted, that while laws had been carefully formulated for the conduct ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton
... official duties. Complaints are made of this interference by Federal authority; but if said amendment and act do not provide for such interference under the circumstances as above stated, then they are without meaning, force, or effect, and the whole scheme of colored enfranchisement is worse than mockery and little better than a crime. Possibly Congress may find it due to truth and justice to ascertain, by means of a committee, whether the alleged wrongs to colored citizens for political purposes are real or the reports thereof were manufactured ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant
... bewildered fashion. In some vague way it seemed to her that her host was making fun of her, there was just a faint suggestion of mockery in his tones. Was there any plot against her on foot, Beatrice wondered. But nobody could possibly know of the diamonds in her pocket; besides, she had received the letter before she had thought of removing those diamonds from the custody of the hotel people. Again, as to the genuineness ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... you shall go, certain sure, and Betty too," said Ben, feeling mean while he proposed what he knew was a hollow mockery. ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... saying that my house was emptied of Nieces, and I was ready to receive you for as long as you would. Indeed, I chiefly flinched at the thought of your taking the trouble to come down only for a Day: which means, less than half a Day: a sort of meeting that seems a mockery in the lives of two men, one of whom I know by Register to be close on Seventy. I do indeed deprecate any one coming down out of his way: but, if he come, I would rather he did so for such time as would ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... mockery here, nor herald's shield, To glitter o'er a bed of clay; But snow-drops and fresh violets yield A ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... troubled by the same scruples. His vanity had been sorely wounded by the Pharaoh: after being denied the position which was, he fancied, his by right, his short stature, his ill-health, and native coarseness had exposed him to the unseemly mockery of the courtiers. Tachos, considering his ability had been over-estimated, applied to him, it is said, the fable of the mountain bringing forth a mouse; to which he had replied, "When opportunity offers, I will prove to him that I am the lion." When Tachos requested him to bring the rebels to order, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... every way at a disadvantage—contrast of costume told in Sibyl's favour, and it was enhanced by the perfection of her self-command—Alma could not maintain the mockery of politeness. ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... to London and see the busy multitudes in Fleet Street and the Strand, and it comes across my mind that they are but the ghosts of the past, haunting the streets that I have seen silent and wretched, going to and fro, phantasms in a dead city, the mockery of life in a galvanised body. And strange, too, it is to stand on Primrose Hill, as I did but a day before writing this last chapter, to see the great province of houses, dim and blue through the haze of the smoke and mist, vanishing at last into the vague lower sky, to see the people walking ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... de Fondege had never been in the service, and it was only in mockery of his somewhat bellicose manners and appearance that some twenty years previously his friends had dubbed him "the General." However, the appellation had clung to him. The nickname had been changed to a title, and now M. de Fondege was known as ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... have been able to grasp something of the effectual case against us. The social prohibition lit by the intense glow of our passion, presented itself as preposterous, irrational, arbitrary, and ugly, a monster fit only for mockery. We might be ruined! Well, there is a phase in every love affair, a sort of heroic hysteria, when death and ruin are agreeable additions to the prospect. It gives the business a gravity, a solemnity. Timid people may hesitate and draw back with a vague instinctive terror ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... in his chamber a human skull was placed, and upon this skull—in ghastly mockery of royalty, in truth, yet doubtless in the conviction that such an exhibition showed the superiority of anointed kings even over death—he ordered his servants to place a golden crown. And thus, during the whole of his long illness, the Antic held his state, while the poor mortal ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... may, if one wishes, hear the voice of only half-serious admonition in the phrase of the basses, which the violins echo as if in mockery:— ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... persons (and these artists) believed in Beethoven at first, but now he is often considered to be the greatest of composers. Perhaps great discoveries, like the works of men of original genius, are certain to be received at first with incredulity and mockery. We will not, therefore, take up a dogmatic position, either about the painting or the preserved meats of the future; but will hope for the best. The ideally best, of course, is that the tale from ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... oblivion, A great-siz'd monster of ingratitudes: These scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'd As fast as they are made, forgot as soon As done: Perseverance, dear my lord, Keeps honour bright: To have done, is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery. Take the instant way; For honour travels in a strait so narrow, Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path; For emulation hath a thousand sons, That one by one pursue: If you give way, Or hedge aside from the direct forthright, Like to an enter'd tide, they all ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... or borrow—not to say steal. Ben Kirby is a great man on the 5th of November. All the savings of a month, the hoarded halfpence, the new farthings, the very luck-penny, go off in fumo on that night. For my part, I like this daylight mockery better. There is no gunpowder—odious gunpowder! no noise but the merry shouts of the small fry, so shrill and happy, and the cawing of the rooks, who are wheeling in large circles overhead, and wondering what is going forward in their territory—seeming ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... mockery returned to the comely dark face. "Me? Oh, I'm only a no-account hobo," he said. "I'll have to ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... "and fate has ordered that we should come together again. We—bah! what mockery it seems to talk of 'we' when I'm ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... when his brother Robert, who was an onlooker, learned who it was that was gaining so much applause, he came and stood close beside him all the time that the game lasted, always now and then putting in a cutting remark by way of mockery. ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... certainly; queer-about the heels of his boots; and very mangy with regard to the poodle collar. His hat was more shiny than was consistent with the hat-manufacturing interest. His bony hands were red and bare, and only one miserable mockery of a glove dangled between his thumb and finger as he swaggered along ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... against low wages. Five haggard, earnest- looking men had presented the workpeople's demands to the assembled mill-owners, and the demands had been rejected. None had been fiercer in opposing the delegates, none more bitter in mockery of their rags and leanness, than the son of old ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... thou art beautiful! heartless as thou art fair! mockery of Passion!' Walter cried, addressing Leonora; 'what evil spirit hath sent thee to torture me ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to the scorpion-like laws which worked such injustice to the poor and which made a mockery of doctrines of equality before the law, the propertied interests endowed themselves, by their control of government, with invaluable exemptions and ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... We do it wrong, being so Maiesticall[6] To offer it the shew of Violence, For it is as the Ayre, invulnerable, And our vaine blowes, malicious Mockery. ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... Kas., was not ill. Most of its citizens did not even think it was ailing, but there were some anxious souls who wondered if the rosy exterior were not the mockery of an internal fever. They called in physicians, and after seven months spent in making their diagnosis, they have prescribed for Lawrence, and the town is alarmed to the point ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... hand rode Edward Randolph, our arch-enemy, that "blasted wretch," as Cotton Mather calls him, who achieved the downfall of our ancient government and was followed with a sensible curse-through life and to his grave. On the other side was Bullivant, scattering jests and mockery as he rode along. Dudley came behind with a downcast look, dreading, as well he might, to meet the indignant gaze of the people, who beheld him, their only countryman by birth, among the oppressors of his native land. The captain of a frigate in the harbor ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Many of us know not the bondage in which we are held. We are held in it all the more really and sadly because we conceit ourselves to be free. Those poor, light-hearted people in the dreadful days of the French Revolution, used to keep up some ghastly mockery of society and cheerfulness in their prisons; and festooned the bars with flowers, and made believe to be carrying on their life freely as they used to do; but for all that, day after day the tumbrils came to the gates, and morning after morning the jailer stood at the door of the dungeons ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... valorous Knight! Heaven guide you!"—and sound sense inspire you! Small marvel that our land's black blight Of want and misery should fire you, Or any man whose heart will mourn More for wrecked lives than broken crockery. This picture is not shaped in scorn, Nor meant in mockery. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 29, 1890 • Various
... upheaval Christophe found some distraction in talking to Friedemann. He judged him, he could not long take pleasure in this vulgar bantering wit: his mockery and perpetual denial became irritating before long and he felt the impotence of it all: but it did soothe his exasperation with the self-sufficient stupidity of the Philistines. While he heartily despised ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... was also true; but that trees and flowers and other natural details should share the same deficiency perplexed my logical soul, and even dismayed it. I stood and stared, then moved about, and stood and stared again. Everywhere was this mockery of a sinister, unfinished aspect. I sought in vain to recover my normal point of view. My mind had found this goblin garden and wandered to and fro in ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... To his first ill addition grave and sore Was to have lost the bird of rapid wing, Which he no better than the mockery bore Put on him by the maid; but deeper sting Than this or that, implants, and pains him more, The thought of having lost the precious ring; Not for its power so much, esteemed above Its worth, as given him by his ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... passed on, taking no notice of the mockery. But when, the next day, it was known that Dieulecresse had committed suicide in the night, the priests did not spare the publication of the fact, with the comment that Saint Frideswide had taken vengeance on her enemy, and that her honour was fully ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... may divine much that you have to know about the soul of Harry Boyce. It was more given to mockery than enthusiasms, apter to criticisms than devotion, not very gentle nor very kind, and so quite satisfied with itself and by itself. To be sure, it was ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... the chief command in the Gallic war, while he was still in Africa at the head of the army there, but he was reinvested with the consulship for five years in succession (650-654)—in a way, which looked like an intentional mockery of the exclusive spirit that the nobility had exhibited in reference to this very man in all its folly and shortsightedness, but was also unparalleled in the annals of the republic, and in fact absolutely ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... sooner on that perjur'd head, With pomp, the votive wreaths are bound, In mockery of truth, Than lovelier grace thy faithless beauties shed; Thou com'st, with new-born conquest crown'd, The care of all our Youth, Their public care;—and murmur'd praises rise Where'er the beams are shot of those ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... lashed into a fury, like unto when the winds of winter sweep over the moaning sea, and break the mast from out the noble ship, scatter her cordage, sever the silver cord of her mariners, and leave her an abandoned wreck, the sport of every yawning wave; and after this the mockery of calm and sunny sky. And I, too, have now the calm, and I may truly call it mockery. 'Tis a calm of awful stillness without a ray of hope—a calm so still, so death-like, leaden, which leaves no room for doubt that I am left alone. ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... like fools, quite inflated with our victory, to try if we could not chase the Austrians out of Dresden. They made a mockery of us from the tops of their mountains. So I have withdrawn, like a bad little boy, to conceal myself, out of spite, in one of the wretchedest villages in Saxony. And here the first thing will be to drive the Circle gentlemen (Reich's army) out of Freyberg into Chemnitz, ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... against the extreme cold that had set in. They wrapped themselves in their few poor quilts, and struggled bravely on into a white, stinging fog of snow. Each morning there were more and more of them to bury. And even the burial was a mockery, for wolves were digging at the graves almost before the last debilitated straggler had left the camping-place. The heavy snows continued, but movement was necessary. Into the white jaws of the beautiful, merciless ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... of half-amused, half-triumphant mockery in her voice. The last bonds that held him snapped suddenly: "Yes!" he cried hoarsely. "Yes, I do. To ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... not, deem thee a deceiving, Illusive mockery of human feeling, A body organized, by fond caress Warmed into seeming tenderness; A mere automaton, on which our love Plays, as on puppets, when their wires we move. No! when that feeling quits thy glazing eye, 'Twill live in some blest world ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... answer. Beta repeated the command. A curious, sneering mockery startled her. Still clad in her loose brown cloak, belted at the waist—for she had thrown herself upon the bed fully clad—she sat up, peering by the light of the fireplace into the half ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... Next to the capital mistake of misconceiving the entire character and result of the Revolution, comes the insolence which treats the public men of France during a whole generation as mere subjects for ribaldry and caricature. From this uniform mockery, Mirabeau and Bonaparte, two of the least worthy of them, are almost alone exempted. This is a blunder in art, as well as a moral and historical offence. Men like Gondorcet, Danton, Hoche, Carnot, not to name a score of other old ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... returned?" asked the Doctor, as about ten o'clock the masters and Mr Loman met for the mockery of supper ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... Stanley tells us that one great benefit traceable to God the Son is the recognition of "humility and poverty, mockery and despising, wretchedness and suffering, as divine." Well, if these things are divine, the sooner we all become devilish the better. Nobody thinks them divine when they happen to himself; on the contrary, he cries out lustily against ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote
... the size of the camp prevents my seeing you all, which I should do if it were smaller and thus possible. It would be a mockery to wish you a "Happy Christmas," I am afraid, but I wish you as happy a one as is possible under the circumstances. I most earnestly wish you a happier New Year. May the New Year bring Peace and restore you to all dear to ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... space of time to marry with his brother and reputed murderer: such an act as, after the vows which she had sworn to her first husband, was enough to make all vows of women suspected, and all virtue to be accounted hypocrisy, wedding contracts to be less than gamesters' oaths, and religion to be a mockery and a mere form of words. He said she had done such a deed, that the heavens blushed at it, and the earth was sick of her because of it. And he shewed her two pictures, the one of the late king, her first husband, and the other of the ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... of Florence without the magnificent patronage and the despotic perfidy of the Medicean family being revived to memory with intense local association,—nor note the ugly mitred and cloaked papal figures, with hands extended, in the mockery of benediction, over the beggars in the piazzas of Romagna, without Ranke's frightful picture of Church abuses reappearing, as if to crown these brazen forms with infamy. There was always a gleam of poetry,—however ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... began to play. Lobster arrived, and high glasses full of glinting green. Audrey ate and drank with gusto, with innocence, with the intensest love of life. And she was the most beautiful and touching sight in the cafe-restaurant. Miss Ingate, grinning, caught her eye with joyous mockery. "We are going it, aren't we, ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... that I can tax or condemn the morigeration or application of learned men to men in fortune. For the answer was good that Diogenes made to one that asked him in mockery, "How it came to pass that philosophers were the followers of rich men, and not rich men of philosophers?" He answered soberly, and yet sharply, "Because the one sort knew what they had need of, and the other did not." And of the like ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... women liked him; so did Geraldine Seagrave. The majority instinctively watched him; so did she. In close acquaintance the man was a disappointment. It seemed as though there ought to be something deeper in him than the lightly humourous mockery with which he seemed to regard his very great talent—a flippancy that veiled always what he said and did and thought until nobody could clearly understand what he really thought about anything; and some people doubted that he thought ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... the effort hurt him. There was a suggestion of unpleasant mockery in Helen's tone. She seemed to be hiding her contempt behind a thin veil of acrid humor. And somehow this revelation in the presence ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... de Silva," said the former, with an air of brutal mockery that was habitual to him, "I rather think you are too loyal a gentleman to dishonour the laws of hospitality by ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... conspicuous part in building up the great fabric of the British Empire. But he was also—as all who were taking part in the ceremony believed in their hearts—a 'man of the world' and 'a man of pleasure.' Do we, then, disbelieve in our own creed, or are we engaged in a solemn mockery? Palmerston had not obeyed the conditions under which alone, as every preacher will tell us, heaven can be hoped for. Patriotism, good nature, and so forth are, as we are told, mere 'filthy rags' of no avail in the sight of heaven. ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... firing of cannon, the huzzaing of the assembling multitude on the announcement in London of the victory of Waterloo, must have seemed a bitter mockery to many a heart, mad with the first sharp agony of bereavement. "The few must suffer that the many may rejoice," say the statesman and the warrior while they plan new conquests. It may be so, but we have at present to do with the ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... it is in order, mademoiselle?" he inquired, and a note of mockery too subtle for her or the Seneschal ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... should he curse her? Had she ever done aught to merit the malediction of an ascetic? Never, never! Only her form, the memory of her, the beautiful phantom of her, the accursed phantom of her! What was she? An illusion creating illusions, a mockery, a dream, a shadow, a vanity, a vexation of spirit! The fault, the sin, was in himself, in his rebellious thought, in his untamed memory. Though mobile as water, intangible as vapor, Thought, nevertheless, may be tamed by the Will, may be harnessed to the chariot of Wisdom—must be!—that ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn |
