"Satirical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... finish her sail in peace; and he had to remind her of it more than once. Her scattered resources for argumentation sprang up from various suggestions, such as the flight of yachts, mention of the shooting season, sight of a royal palace; and adopted a continually heightened satirical form, oddly intermixed with an undisguised affectionate friendliness. Apparently she thought it possible to worry him out of his adhesion to the wrong side in politics. She certainly had no conception of the nature of his political views, for one or two extreme propositions ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... young girl herself, meanwhile, bending demurely over her task with the bereft foot tucked up like a bird's under her skirt. The master, reserving reproof of this and other enormities until later, contented himself with commanding the slipper to be brought to him, when he took it to her with the satirical remark in Spanish that the schoolroom was not a dressing room—Camara para vestirse. To his surprise, however, she smilingly held out the tiny stockinged foot with a singular combination of the spoiled child and the coquettish senorita, and remained with it extended ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... This satirical song was composed to commemorate General Cope's defeat at Preston Pans, in 1745, when he ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... his satirical description of Sir Hudibras, ascribes to his hero more practical philosophy than he appears to have intended, and more, certainly, than is found in ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... Gewandhaus, where there were three hundred and fifty people, orchestra, chorus, punch, pastry, Meeresstille Psalm, Bach's Triple Concerto, choruses from St. Paul, Fantasia on Lucia, the Erl King, the Devil and his Grandmother, the latter probably a mild satirical reference to Liszt's stormy and often incoherent playing. It is also pleasant to find how cordially Mendelssohn received Berlioz there, as told in the "Memoirs" of the latter, spending ungrudgingly long days ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... yes," said Breckon, grasping a situation of which he had heard something, chiefly satirical. "Of course. And is your father—is ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... well as the industries, helped him to go to Florence from Cincinnati, where he had begun by modeling wax figures for a local museum. James H. Beard came from Painesville to Cincinnati, and won there his first success as a portrait painter. He was later to reveal the peculiar satirical gift for expressing human character in animals, for which his brother William H. Beard is perhaps even more famed. Among later artists, either born or bred in Cincinnati, Frank Dengler in sculpture, and Mr. Frank Duvaneck in painting, have shown extraordinary ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... centuries have built about the throne and its occupants. But his dearest hopes are frustrated by the forces of malice, and dull conservatism, and invincible stupidity; the burden proves too heavy for him, the fight too unequal, and he takes his own life in a moment of despair. The terrible satirical power of certain scenes in this play would be difficult to match were our choice to range through the whole literature of Revolt. Its production brought upon the author a storm of furious denunciation. He ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... thing, Thad, I assure you I don't," he said. "I'll send it to Leon with a little satirical note, telling him that while I thank him very much for leaving me his torch, I have always made it a rule not to accept presents from those who were not my intimate friends; and that, therefore, I'm returning it with the hope that in the future ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... the aspect of being written in a hostile—sometimes even in a mocking spirit. That aspect is untrue, nor am I answerable for it: the things of which I had to speak could not be shortly described but in terms which might sound satirical; for all error, if frankly shown, is precisely most ridiculous when it is most dangerous, and I have written no word which is not chosen as the exactest for its occasion, whether it move sigh or smile. In my earlier days I wrote ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... Enderby was not in the same house, Mr Enderby having a bed at his mother's house still, though that house was already preparing for the reception of himself, its new tenant, Mrs Rowland leaned forward with her most satirical air, and begged to assure Miss Grey that she had been misinformed—that what she had just ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... stubbornly fortifying his position. To the last she speaks from a temperament lyrical, sanguine, imaginative, optimistic and sympathetic; he from a temperament dramatic, melancholy, observing, cynical, and satirical. She insists upon natural goodness; he, upon innate depravity. She urges her faith in social regeneration; he vents his splenetic contempt for the mob. Through all the successive shocks of disillusioning experience, she expects the renovation of humanity by some ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... arquebuse, in case he should be attacked by the twins. The final blow he received occurred on the 19th of September. He had gone downstairs to the great entrance- hall, feeling sure that there, at any rate, he would be quite unmolested, and was amusing himself by making satirical remarks on the large Saroni photographs of the United States Minister and his wife, which had now taken the place of the Canterville family pictures. He was simply but neatly clad in a long shroud, spotted with ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... live among 'em All: and, if I cou'd paint, cou'd return you their Faces. I admire, in it, the noble Simplicity, Force, Aptness, and Truth, of so many modest, oeconomical, moral, prudential, religious, satirical, and cautionary, Lessons; which are introduc'd with such seasonable Dexterity, and with so polish'd and exquisite a Delicacy, of Expression and Sentiment, that I am only apprehensive, for the Interests of Virtue, lest some of the finest, ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... 'Tocsin.' Foremost stood an article headed, 'The Bursting of a Soap Bubble.' It was a satirical review of the history of New Wanley, signed by Comrade Roodhouse. He read in one place: 'Undertakings of this kind, even if pursued with genuine enthusiasm, are worse than useless; they are positively pernicious. They are half measures, and can only ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... modern times songs have been by no means without influence on public affairs; and we may therefore infer that, in a society where printing was unknown and where books were rare, a pathetic or humorous party-ballad must have produced effects such as we can but faintly conceive. It is certain that satirical poems were common at Rome from a very early period. The rustics, who lived at a distance from the seat of government, and took little part in the strife of factions, gave vent to their petty local animosities in coarse Fescennine verse. ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to make inquiries of the girl regarding her mistress's disposition, but a certain evasive, almost satirical expression in her eyes prevented it. He was sure the maid was trying to avoid any sort of ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... the accused submitted; but the phrase is scarcely accurate. Verplanck took his own way of obtaining redress, and annoyed Clinton with satirical attacks for several years afterward. Some of these appeared in a newspaper called the Corrector, but those which attracted the most attention, were the pamphlets styled Letters of Abimelech Coody, Ladies' Shoemaker, the first of which ...
— A Discourse on the Life, Character and Writings of Gulian Crommelin - Verplanck • William Cullen Bryant
... satirical salutation of Ahenobarbus. "How excellently well met. Heus! Phaon, bring your boatmen, quick! Not ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... what would you have us do? asks many a one, with a tone of impatience, almost of reproach; and then, if you mention some one thing, some two things, twenty things that might be done, turns round with a satirical tehee, and "These are your remedies!" The state of mind indicated by such question, and such rejoinder, is ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... 'bound' in ii. 9, and the 'conflict with Satan' in vi. 42, ii. 47, seem too vague to be used as proof. Still Volkmar too declares it to be 'notorious' that Celsus was acquainted with the fourth Gospel, alleging i. 67 (as above), ii. 31 (an allusion to the Logos), ii. 36 (a satirical allusion to the issue of blood and water), which passages really seem on the whole to justify the assertion, though not ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... first painter to the king, had employed this slander in order to oppose her election to the Academy; he was the leading spirit of a cabal against her, as soon became known; for he was the victim soon afterwards of a satirical jingle that went the round ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall
... fascination of the book is indisputable, and it is due to a variety of causes besides its mere exhibition of the worldly side of life. Among these, the perfect intellectual honesty of the writer, the sad or satirical sincerity with which he gives in his evidence against human nature, is the most prominent. With all his lightness of manner, he is essentially a witness under oath, and testifies only to what he is confident ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... drowned out the man's words. Jimmie Dale placed a fifty-cent piece and a tip beside it on his dinner check, pushed back his chair, and rose from the table. There was a half-tolerantly satirical, half-angry glint in his dark, steady eyes. It was not only the police who yelped at his heels, but every man, woman, and child in the city. The man had not voiced his own sentiments—he had voiced the sentiments of New York! And it was quite on the cards that if he, Jimmie Dale, were ever caught ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... that the weather had been very bad for the last few days. After a month and a half of sunshine the rain had suddenly begun to fall. I took this as my topic. It was raining at the time. I wrote a satirical poem, full ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... me, by my old friend Betteredge, at the time of my departure from England, is (as I think) a little overdrawn. He has, in his own quaint way, interpreted seriously one of his young mistress's many satirical references to my foreign education; and has persuaded himself that he actually saw those French, German, and Italian sides to my character, which my lively cousin only professed to discover in jest, and which never had any real existence, except in our good Betteredge's ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... hermit's life; but the real hermit of the Middle Ages did not always live a very lonely or ascetic life. He was supported by the alms of the charitable and did no work, but lived an idle life, endured no hardships, and escaped not the scoffs of the satirical. Piers Ploughman tells us of workmen—"webbers and tailors, and carters' knaves, and clerks without grace, who liked not long labour and light wages; and seeing that lazy fellows in friars' clothing had fat cheeks, forsook their toil and turned ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... Goodness knows we ordinary folk get enough of that nowadays at the hands of these clever young satiricals; and most of us have enough common honesty to appreciate our tormentors. It is that, just for a time, I was troubled with a genuine doubt whether Mr. A. NEIL LYONS was not becoming too satirical to be sincere, and allowing his gift for facetiousness to betray him. The device of inventing a simple-minded young enthusiast, and making him ask perpetual questions to the undoing of all those who accept blindly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... contribution to the anti-slavery cause was the Biglow Papers, a series of satirical poems in the Yankee dialect, aimed at the politicians who were responsible for the Mexican War, a war undertaken, as he believed, in the interests of the Southern slaveholders. Hitherto the Abolitionists had been regarded with contempt by the conservative, complacent advocates of peace and "compromise," ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... grudge. But, Master Pasquin dying, it happened, that, in improving the street, this broken statue, which lay half imbedded in the ground, serving as a stepping-stone for passengers, was taken up and set at the side of the shop. Making use of this good chance, satirical people began to say that Master Pasquin had come back. The custom soon arose of attaching to the statue bits of writing; and as it had been allowed to the tailor to say everything, so by means of the statue any one might publish what he would not have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... effect, ever to become influential by permanent inspiration. In their highest moods, and amid their noblest hours of triumph, they were "of the earth earthy." Party; personality; crushing rejoinders, or satirical attacks; a felicitous exposure of inconsistency, or a triumphant self-vindication; brilliant repartees, and logical gladiatorship,—such are among the prominent characteristics which caused parliamentary debates in Burke's day to be so animating and interesting to those who heard, or perused ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... said: "They worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator." Of their idols Persius, who was a Roman satirical poet, born A.D. ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 8, August, 1880 • Various
... for looking satirical when the man of Words spake, and so attentive to the man of Truth,—that is, ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... those words!' cried Louis, throwing himself back in his chair and looking at the ceiling in satirical enjoyment. 'A woman who at two-and-twenty married for convenience, at thirty talks of not marrying without love; the rule of inverse, that is, in which more requires less, and less requires more. As your only brother, older than yourself, ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... was evidently well known to his contemporaries, for Addison, who disliked and despised bibliomaniacs, gives a satirical account of him, under the name of 'Tom Folio,' in No. 158 of The Tatler. Hearne, who was greatly indebted to Rawlinson for assistance in his antiquarian labours, warmly defends his friend:—'Some gave out,' he writes, 'and ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... over the man's round face as he continued his list. "Next, I have three of the 'artiste' class, and here I am not so successful, though to be sure I pick them up for almost nothing. There is Erastus Prouty, who does the satirical 'society' articles and collects fashionable gossip for the Saturday Review, a sniggering, sneering chap, with a single eye-glass and immense self-conceit. He called me a cad in his paper once, but I am above personal feeling, and do not cut the man off from his income. ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... married this year, by the end of it he was becoming well known. The articles, in the Speaker especially, were attracting attention and Greybeards at Play had a considerable success. This, the first of Gilbert's books to be published, is a curiosity. It is made up of three incredibly witty satirical poems—"The Oneness of the Philosopher with Nature," "The Dangers Attending Altruism on the High Seas" and "The Disastrous Spread of Aestheticism in All Classes." The illustrations drawn by himself ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... made her share the part of hostess with Lady Constance and Lady Katharine Somerville, and she had been closely associated with their intimates, the daughters of these men of great names. Of course there had been plenty of girlish chatter and merry trifling, perhaps some sharp satirical criticism, and the revelations she had heard had been a good deal of the domestic comedy of political and aristocratic life; but throughout there had been a view of conscientious goodness, for the young girls who gave a tone to the rest had been carefully brought up, and ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... also by Voltaire, a half bombastic, half satirical account of Henry IV's wars to gain the crown of France. This poem also contains some very fine and justly famous passages, but is too long and too artificial, as a whole, to please ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... He was accomplished enough to fit his boys for the University, and the atmosphere of the household was that of culture, good breeding, and healthy fun. Mrs. Austen was a clever woman, full of epigram and humor in conversation, and rather famous in her own coterie for improvised verses and satirical hits at her friends. The elder daughter, Cassandra, adored by Jane, who was three years her junior, seems to have had a rare balance and common-sense which exercised great influence over the more brilliant younger sister. Their mother declared that ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... own particular set of chambers, including a boudoir and sleeping apartment. On the tables of the sitting-room were most of the popular papers and periodicals that he knew, not only English, but from Paris, Italy, and America. Satirical prints, though they did not unduly preponderate, were not wanting. Besides these there were books from a London circulating library, paper-covered light literature in French and choice Italian, and the latest monthly reviews; while between the two windows stood the ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... fascinating sketch "Die Romantische Schule," or to Theophile Gautier's almost equally fascinating and far more sympathetic "Histoire du Romantisme." If we can imagine a composite personality of Byron and De Quincey, putting on record his half affectionate and half satirical reminiscences of the contemporary literary movement, we might have something nearly equivalent. For Byron, like Heine, was a repentant romanticist, with "radical notions under his cap," and a critical theory at odds with his practice; while De Quincey was an ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... A satirical friend who has seen the proofs of this little volume says it should be entitled "Jokes Old and New''; but I find that he seldom acknowledges that a joke is new, and I hope, therefore, my readers will transpose the adjectives, and accept the old jokes for ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... chill the heart more deeply than the death of love. It lasts also; many a human being has carried the marks of it for life; and surely duration of effect is proof of power. We are serious in making these declarations, strange as they may seem to a satirical age. What we have said is strictly true, notwithstanding the mockery of those who have never loved, or the incredulity of those who, having loved, have never lost. But probably only the ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... than ignoble peace with the anarchic mob supreme." Of course this may be highly amusing, but— The fact is that, with a disappointment the greater from having genial memories of a former book of his, I have to confess myself one of the dullards for whom Mr. PICKTHALL'S satirical darts fall apparently ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 17, 1920 • Various
... lost or found. He was especially strong in announcing the loss of reticules, usually the property of elderly maiden ladies. The unction with which he detailed the several contents, when fully confided to him, would have seemed satirical in another person, but on his part was pure conscientiousness. He would not let so much as a thimble, or a piece of wax, or a portable tooth, or any amiable vanity in the way of tonsorial device, escape him. I have heard Mr. Newman spoken of as "that horrid ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... who was secretary to the German Embassy that traveled in Turkey in 1633-36, tells of the great diversions made in Persian coffee houses "by their poets and historians, who are seated in a high chair from whence they make speeches and tell satirical stories, playing in the meantime with a little stick and using the same gestures as our jugglers and legerdemain men ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... are sure you are trying in the right way," sneered a voice from the neighbouring radish-bed (the red and white turnip variety were always satirical). "But if the long, slim, orange-roots, striking deep into the earth, are your idea of perfection, I advise you to begin life over again. Dear me! I wish you had consulted us before. Why, we stopped going down long ago, and ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... with the name of the nobleman, whom he had affronted, and an English mastiff with his leg lifted up, in the attitude of making water in his shoe. He had been even so presumptuous as to explain the device with satirical inscriptions in the French language, which, when Jolter perused, his hair stood on end with affright. The very turnkey was confounded and overawed by the boldness of his behaviour, which he had never seen matched by any inhabitant of that place; and actually joined his friend in persuading ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... this Semyonov added, beyond question, his personal weight. He had from the first declared Trenchard "a ridiculous figure." Whilst the others were unfailingly kind, hospitable and even indulgent to Trenchard, Semyonov was openly satirical, making no attempt to hide his sarcastic irony. I do not know how much Trenchard's engagement to Marie Ivanovna had to do with this, but I know that "my Englishman" could not to his misfortune have had a more practical, more efficient figure against ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... school desks with benches, and in one place was suspended a ragged and dirty card announcing that paper and envelopes could be purchased downstairs. An enormous basket full of waste-paper, and a small stove, occupied two corners; ink blotches, satirical designs, and much scribbling in pen and pencil served for mural adornment. From the adjacent lavatory came sounds of splashing and spluttering, and the busy street far below ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... Tasso was then prosecuting his studies. The first sketch of it is still preserved in a manuscript, dated 1563, in the Vatican Library, and printed at Venice in 1722. Unfortunately, while thus engaged, he was brought into collision with the civil authorities, in consequence of some satirical attacks on the University, which were falsely attributed to him. The charge was refuted, but not until his papers had been seized and himself imprisoned. This disgusted him with Bologna, and he returned to Padua in 1564. There ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... glimpses of the landscape, and discussing in whispers whether it was dangerous to stand near a window, and whether brass stair-rods could attract lightning. Agatha, as serious and friendly with a single companion as she was mischievous and satirical before a larger audience, enjoyed the scene quietly. The lightning did not terrify her, for she knew little of the value of life, and fancied much concerning the heroism of being indifferent to it. The tremors which the more startling flashes ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... the beggars sometimes display in asking for alms is often humoristic and satirical. Many a woman on the cold side of thirty is wheedled out of a baiocco by being addressed as Signorina. Many a half-suppressed exclamation of admiration, or a prefix of Bella, softens the hearts of those to whom compliments on their beauty come rarely. The other day, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... versatility," says Louis Ehlert. "No work of Chopin's portrays his inner organization so faithfully and completely. Much is embryonic. It is as though he turned the leaves of his fancy without completely reading any page. Still, one finds in them the thundering power of the Scherzi, the half satirical, half coquettish elegance of the Mazurkas, and the southern, luxuriously fragrant breath of the Nocturnes. Often it is as though they were small falling stars dissolved into tones ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... his radiant aspect—so unlike the gentle or satirical detachment which made his ordinary manner—with a darkening eye, as though annoyed ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... satirical note in his question seemed to provoke a certain defiance in her manner as she turned a little sideways towards him. She moved her fan slowly backwards and forwards, her head was thrown back, her manner was almost belligerent. He took up the challenge. ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the island, after the bout and the rest of the passengers in her had all gone to the bottom. Now, I had, from my childhood, a particular prejudice against sailing in a boat, although Dick Darcy, a satirical and heathenish old bachelor, who never went to Mass, used often to tell me, with a grin which I was never able rightly to understand, that I might have no prejudice against sailing, "because," Dick would say, "take my word for it, you'll never die by drowning." At all events, I thought to myself, ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... sixteen hundred election notices painted, in red and black about the walls of Pompeii, and we find So-and-So recommended by such-and-such a trade as being a "good man," or "an honest young man," or a person who will "keep an eye on the public purse." It is amusing to note that, in satirical parody of such appeals as "the fruitsellers recommend So-and-So," we find that "the petty thieves recommend So-and-So," or we get the opinion of "the sleepers one and all." Special objects connected with these and other associations were the provision of "widows' funds," and of proper burial ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... nest about one's ears. take blame, stand corrected; have to answer for. Adj. disapproving &c v.; scandalized. disparaging, condemnatory, damnatory^, denunciatory, reproachful, abusive, objurgatory^, clamorous, vituperative; defamatory &c 934. satirical, sarcastic, sardonic, cynical, dry, sharp, cutting, biting, severe, withering, trenchant, hard upon; censorious, critical, captious, carping, hypercritical; fastidious &c 868; sparing of praise, grudging praise. disapproved, chid &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... of his joke too—a kind of supersubtly satirical Cambridgy banter that was not to my taste at all; for I am no Cantab, and the wit of the London Stock Exchange is subtle enough for me. His father did not joke. Indeed he was full of useful information, and only too fond ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... Pleasant Valley, N.Y. Satirical humorist and descriptive writer. The Dutchman's Fireside. Assisted Irving ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... at Nugent Dubourg—opened her lips to speak—and, thinking better of it, turned her watery eyes on her husband, appealing to him to take the matter up. Mr. Finch made another attempt to assert his dignity—a ponderously satirical attempt, this time. ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... resuscitation of the Greek epigrams, ironical and tender, satirical and sympathetic, as casual experiments in unrelated themes would scarcely make the same appeal that an epic rendition of modern life would do, and as ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... SQUIB. A small satirical or political temporary jeu d'esprit, which, like the firework of that denomination, sparkles, ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... is an answer to the following anonymous letter, sent to Mr. Walpole by Miss Hannah More, ridiculing the prevailing adoption of French idioms into the English language. There is not in this satirical epistle one French word nor ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... said, Do you repent?—Of what? said I.—Nay, I can't tell, replied she; but, to be sure, he has had a taste of your satirical flings, or he would not be so angry. O! continued she, and held up her hand, thou hast a spirit!—But I hope it will now be brought down.—I hope ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... took a third into such close companionship, and Hester's little head had been slightly turned by the fact. Her better judgment and her better nature had been rather blinded by the fascinations of this tall, graceful, satirical Dora. She had been weak enough to agree with Dora with her lips when in her heart of hearts she knew she was all wrong. By nature Hester was an honorable girl, with many fine traits in her character—by nature Dora was small and mean and ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... type; and finally a ptarmigan, which is of the same race of birds as the grouse, but feeds high up towards the summits of the Scotch mountains. Then some cheese, and a bottle of Chambertin. It was a very pleasant dinner, and my companions were both very agreeable men; both taking a shrewd, satirical, yet not ill-natured, view of life and people, and as for Mr. Douglas Jerrold, he often reminded me of E—— C———, in the richer veins of the latter, both by his face and expression, and by a tincture of something at once wise and ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... one evening to the Vatican to see a play, which astonished the young German more than any thing he had yet seen at the papal court. It was the Mandragola which was represented. The noble Machiavel had composed this licentious and satirical piece, in order to lay before the eyes of the court of Rome a striking picture of the boundless corruption of the clergy, and to prove that to be the sole cause of the dissolute lives of the laity. But he deceived himself in his honourable design: the Mandragola was applauded, ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... humour is in the main kindly, he does not spare the French colonial administration of the time. His treatment of the subject is acidly satirical. It may be said that Daudet seems to know little about firearms, less about lions and nothing about camels, but he is not striving for verisimilitude. After all, the adventures of James Bond do not mirror the reality of international espionage, nor do the exploits ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... him. And just now he was away on important business. "I reckon he's got back," said the man dryly. "I didn't know he had a lock-box at the post-office, but I can give you his other address. He lives at the Presidio, at Washerwoman's Bay." He stopped and looked with a satirical smile at Uncle Billy. But the latter, familiar with Californian mining-camp nomenclature, saw nothing strange in it, and merely repeated his ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... living, however, some streets asunder. I saw them nearly every day. Like everybody else, I found Mr. Hawthorne very taciturn. His few words were, however, very telling. When I talked French, he told me it was capital: 'It came down like a sledge-hammer.' His little satirical remarks were such as these: It was March and I took a bunch of violets to Rosa; notched white paper was wound around them, and Mr. Hawthorne said, 'They have on ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... women sat politely bored, expectant, trifling with their napkins, yawning, muttering nothings about the weather or their neighbours. The frozen commonplaceness of the scene was made for me still more oppressive by Signora dell' Acqua. She was evidently satirical, and could not be happy unless continually laughing at or with somebody. 'What a stick the woman will think me!' I kept saying to myself. 'How shall I ever invent jokes in this strange land? I cannot even flirt with her in Venetian! And here I have condemned myself—and her too, poor thing—to ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... individuality of her character. Now, at three-and-twenty, she was one of the most remarkable girls in England, one of the best-known girls in London. Her independence, both of thought and of action, her extended knowledge, her frankness of speech, her slightly satirical wit, her frequent and vehement enthusiasms for the most varied pursuits and pleasures, were much commented on, much admired by some, much disapproved of by others. She had many friends among women and more friends ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... some very entertaining verses, was an intimate friend of Pope. On account of some supposed satirical allusions his opera 'Polly' was refused a license, and when his friends, the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry (see l. 260) solicited subscriptions for it in the palace, they were driven from the court. ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... (bowing). Perhaps I see more in her, Marquis. Your wife is really a charming woman, so full of esprit, and so satirical too; she talks continually of you ...
— Vera - or, The Nihilists • Oscar Wilde
... lecturing in Scotland that he heard a little boy read one of his ballads. It was a satirical ballad, and somehow Thackeray did not like to hear it from the little boy's lips. Turning away he said to himself, "Pray God I may be able some day to write something good for children. That will be ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... to thus slander an honest female who has only her vartue to protect her." Then raising her voice as though to attract the attention of some one within the house, she shouted, in satirical language, "It's little me husband cares about me, or he'd niver stand by and see me treated thus, and I niver making the least complaint in the world. It's mighty fine husbands there is in the world now, and it's little use they are to us ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... Hoveden and Ralph de Diceto pursued their historical work under the influence of the court. Still more striking is the universality of the intellectual inquisitiveness of Walter Map. On the one hand, in his De Nugis Curialium he chattered over the manners of his contemporaries, and in his satirical poems scourged the greed and vices of the clergy, whilst on the other hand he took a principal part in spreading a knowledge of the legend of the high-souled King Arthur and of the quest of the Holy Grail. Giraldus ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... all, madame," said the princess, with a triumphant air, "in good time. You were in rather too great a hurry just now, to show yourself so proud and satirical. Well! I accompanied the commissary in his search; we came to the summer-house; I leave you to imagine the stupor and astonishment of the magistrate, on seeing three creatures dressed up like actresses. At my request, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... seriousness of adversity, have both been considered as dispositions favourable to love, while satirical writers have attributed the propensity to the relaxing effect of idleness, what chance then had Maria of escaping, when pity, sorrow, and solitude all conspired to soften her mind, and nourish romantic wishes, and, from a ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... lightest stroke, and in the most natural manner, yet his lash cuts the flesh, and leaves an intolerable smart. All that could be said in answer was, that his representations were lies. They were conscious exaggerations, no doubt, as all satirical representations are. This is of their very nature. But the extent to which they told, and the bitterness of the feeling which they excited at the time, and have continued to excite amongst the Jesuits and their friends, show how much truth there was in them. Nothing can be more pitiful ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... his office he is said to be a 'full solemn man'; eloquent, amorous, witty and satirical; young, handsome and rich; he is a complete rogue, with constitutional gaiety enough to make him a master of all ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... between perfumes and leather. The smell of gain is good from any thing whatever. No one asks you how you get money, but have it you must." The poet Persius paints this passion for gold, displayed in the customs of the day, in a strain at once lofty and mournful, bitter and satirical: [Footnote: Satire ii.]— ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... the house at eight o'clock, the porter gave him the satirical cards suggested by Bixiou. Nevertheless, he went to the ministry, where he found Sebastien waiting near the door to entreat him not to enter any of the bureaus, because an infamous caricature of him was making the ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... A satirical smile hovered round the girl's lips. Her face was altogether lovely now, and no lily ever rose more gracefully from its stem than did her small head from her slender form. "She meant to be kind, but she was ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... this satirical "Proeme" must be given, and this in connection with the language of these eclogues: "That principally, courteous reader, whereof I would have thee to be advertised (seeing I depart from the vulgar usage) is touching the language of my shepherds; which is soothly ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... worry. We've trained them differently," said Oliver, and though his tone was slightly satirical, the satire was directed at ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... slow a day. The minutes lagged unaccountably, the hours crawled forward at the most snail-like pace, and his impatience at this was tempered to a satirical amusement by the fact that the entire world of his friends seemed banded together in a conspiracy to engage his society for that ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... satirical views of literature at this moment; recounted the incredible sums paid in one year by the great booksellers for puffing. Hence it comes that no newspaper is trusted now, no books are bought, and the booksellers are on ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... types, at the second they betray themselves for what they are really—cock-shies set up by the new comedy of Greece that every "classical" satirist in Rome or France or England has had his shot at since. One wonders whether Ben Jonson, for all his satirical intention, had as much observation—as much of an eye for contemporary types—as Shakespeare's rustics and roysterers prove him to have had. It follows that all but one or two of his plays, when they are put on the stage to-day are apt to come to one with a sense of remoteness and other-worldliness ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... pervade either. It is less for what they do in this way, than for what they prevent, that our gratitude is due to the nobility. However, even the positive services of the nobility are greater in this field than a democrat is aware of. Are not all our satirical novels, &c., daily describing it as the infirmity of English society, that so much stress is laid upon aristocratic connexions? Be it so: but do not run away from your own doctrine, O democrat! as soon as the consequences become startling. One of these ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... a tremendous row the night afore, a drinkin and a singin, and wanting to fight Tom the postboy: which I'm thinking he'd have had the worst of it," the man added, with a grin. "Have you carried up your master's 'ot water to shave with?" he added, in a very satirical manner, to Mr. Foker's domestic, who here came down the yard bearing his master's clothes, most beautifully brushed and arranged. "Show Mr. Pendennis up to 'un," and Pen followed the man at last to the apartment, where, in the midst of an immense ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the clergy as well as against their ignorance and credulity were echoed by most of the great scholars and humanists of the time. The patriotic knight and vagabond scholar, Ulrich von Hutten (1488-1523), contributed to a clever series of satirical "Letters of Obscure Men," which were read widely, and which poked fun at the lack of learning among the monks and the ease with which the ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... verging towards sixty; she is the person. A living elderly Daughter of the Great Elector himself; half-sister to the late King, half-aunt to Friedrich Wilhelm; widow now of her third husband: a singular phenomenon to look upon, for a moment, through Wilhelmina's satirical spectacles. One of her three husbands, "Christian Ernst of Baireuth" (Margraf there, while the present Line was but expectant), had been a kind of Welsh-Uncle to the Prince now Bridegroom; so that she has a double right to be here. "She had found the secret of totally ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... cross thy cunning. I make my vow to sun and moon, I will not see a proper lad so misleard as to run the country with an old knave like Simmie and his brother. [Footnote: Two quaestionarii, or begging friars, whose accoutrements and roguery make the subject of an old Scottish satirical poem] Away with thee!" he added, rising in wrath, and speaking so fast as to give no opportunity of answer, being probably determined to terrify the elder guest into an abrupt flight—"Away with thee, with thy clouted coat, scrip, and scallop-shell, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... roused the ire of the Puritans. In Mr. Alfred Maskell's incomparable book on Ivories, he translates a satirical verse by Guy de Coquille, concerning these objectionable pastoral staves (which were often made of ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... which he had procured for Jean Jacques in Paris.[364] (5) Hume resorted to various small artifices for preventing Rousseau from making friends, for procuring opportunities of opening Rousseau's letters, and the like.[365] (6) A violent satirical letter against Rousseau appeared in the English newspapers, with allusions which could only have been supplied by Hume. (7) On the first night after their departure from Paris, Rousseau, who occupied the same ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... The Choregia, or duty of furnishing the chorus for the plays—tragic, comic, and satirical—of remunerating the leader of the singers and musicians—of maintaining the latter while trained—of supplying the dresses, the golden crowns and masks, and, indeed, the general decorations and equipments of the theatre. He on whom ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... be satirical, my dear,' the doctor answered blandly; he was in too good a humour to pursue the opening further. 'But no matter. Well, I'll tell you, then; it's young ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... whose motto we have already quoted, may be here referred to. He issued a large number of books, the most notable, perhaps, being "Le Roman de la Rose," 1513. He was succeeded by his son Philippe in 1514, one of whose most noticeable publications was "Le Blazon des Hrtiques" (asatirical piece attributed to Pierre Gringoire), the figure or effigy at the head is signed with the monogram of G.Tory. The five Marks of father and son differed only in minor details, and the above example of Philippe will sufficiently indicate the character of the others. Philippe ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... Extravagantly satirical as he was at times, John had always an indefinable drollery about him that made him agreeable company to his friends, at least; and such an admiring friend he had constantly at hand in the person of Bert Haines. ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... lose sight of the associated refinements or beauties. This school is apt, more or less, to catch at faults or strangenesses; and, associating its powers of observation with wit or malice, produces the wild, gay, or satirical grotesque in early sculpture, and in modern times, our ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... thought him "an incubus on the party," "the political millstone of the west," and he attributed the occasional loss of Ontario and neighbouring counties "to his deleterious management." The austerity and haughtiness of his manner naturally lessened his popularity, just as his caustic pen and satirical tongue made him bitter enemies; but his strong will and imperious manner were no more offensive than Clinton's. Like Clinton, too, Spencer was ill at ease in a harness; he resented being lined up by a party boss. But, at the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... same, the satirical rhyme, which an old chronicler put into the mouths of many a despairing patient, in later days, may have been true also of ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... little occasion to worry herself; for all special manifestations of Leonard's devotion ceased. Whether it were that Tom with his grave satirical manner contrived to render the house disagreeable to both brother and sister, or whether Leonard's boyish bashfulness had taken alarm, and his admiration expended itself in the battle for her charms, there was no knowing. All that was certain ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... costume all the time, and if she springs to her meals from a horizontal bar. Of course she rocks the baby to sleep on the trapeze." And Van Twiller went on making comical domestic tableaux of Mademoiselle Zabriski, like the clever, satirical dog he was, ...
— Mademoiselle Olympe Zabriski • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Beginning with a long dialogue between Reason and the Lover, he was equally anxious to display his freedom of criticism and his universality of knowledge, both scientific and anecdotical. His vein was pre-eminently satirical and abundantly allusive; and among the chief objects of his satire are the two favourite themes of medieval satire in general, religious hypocrisy (personified in "Faux-Semblant," who has been described as one of the ancestors of "Tartuffe"), and the foibles of women. To the ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... that on hearing the story of "Mademoiselle," as Cicely was called in the Embassy, he had twirled the waxed ends of his moustaches into a satirical twist, and observed, "That is well found, and may ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the present edition. The poem is a curtailed translation from the French "Roman de la Rose" — commenced by Guillaume de Lorris, who died in 1260, after contributing 4070 verses, and completed, in the last quarter of the thirteenth century, by Jean de Meun, who added some 18,000 verses. It is a satirical allegory, in which the vices of courts, the corruptions of the clergy, the disorders and inequalities of society in general, are unsparingly attacked, and the most revolutionary doctrines are advanced; ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... methinks, would have been a good figure for a lampoon, had the edge of it consisted of the most satirical parts of the work; but as it is in the original, I take it to have been nothing else but the poesy of an axe which was consecrated to Minerva, and was thought to be the same that Epeus made use of in the building of the Trojan horse; which is a hint I ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison |
