"Jocular" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as much as I had time to oberve in the first hasty glance. Astonished at his actions, though not at all alarmed—or the first thought that occurred to me as that he was trying to catch a young rabbit—I called out in a half-jocular tone, well, bubby boy, what is it?' He made no reply, but continued that strange murmur of '—Oh-h-h, Pa-a-a, loo-oo-ook,' and took a couple of paces forward, not as though he wished to advance, but more in the style ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... sombrero as he dashed up, and was apparently about to make some jocular remark, but he stopped short at the sight of Peggy's ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... you all this morning?" said Captain Wragge, in his easy jocular way. "And how's the wind? Nor'-west and by west, is it? Very good. Who is ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... the old Cumberland is bank-full an' still a-risin'. The flat boat is softly raisin' an' fallin' on the sobbin' tide. It's then them jocular impulses seizes me, that a-way; an' I stoops an' casts off her one line, an' that flat boat swims silently away on the bosom of the river. The sports inside knows nothin' an' guesses less, an' their gayety swells on ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... a time before this curious superstition had attained its present jocular popularity among white people, and while I had heard of it before, it had not yet outgrown the ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... deal of angry discussion and violent altercation on the subject. In these debates, however, in accordance with my natural disposition, I took no part whatever, except by making some fruitless attempts to abate the resentment of the parties, by thrusting in a jocular remark or so, when anything particularly severe was said. Well, gentlemen, how was I rewarded for this charitable conduct, think ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... South, made through the platforms of that party, that with the strongest predilections for some of its men and its earlier antecedents, I should have felt bound to vote for both Fremont and Lincoln, if I had been in the country. He would generally end the matter by a pleasant and jocular dissent, calling himself a Democrat and me a Republican. But after the rebellion, his friends never knew what he was, except that he was for the Union and the putting down of the rebels. No American could have felt in deeper sympathy with our cause. In that land, where a thousand volunteers ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... dragged the fragments on to the platform and were preparing their normal meal. Gunga Dass cooked mine. The almost irresistible impulse to fly at the sand walls until I was wearied laid hold of me afresh, and I had to struggle against it with all my might. Gunga Dass was offensively jocular till I told him that if he addressed another remark of any kind whatever to me I should strangle him where he sat. This silenced him till silence became insupportable, and ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... as perfect in all its parts as you can make it. Let the subject be sense, expressed in the most plain, intelligible, and elegant manner that you are capable of If in a familiar epistle you should be playful and jocular, guard carefully that your wit be not sharp, so as to, give pain to any person; and before You write a sentence, examine it, even the words which it is composed, that there be nothing vulgar or inelegant ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... otherwise; and the senate, after blustering, had to crawl. They besought him to allow them the honor of appointing him.—what a difference the mere turn of a cycle had made: from Augustus bequeathing the Empire to Tiberius, ablest man to ablest man, and all with senatoral ratification; to the jocular appointment by undisciplined soldiery of a sad old laughingstock to succeed ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... a game called totoloque by the Mexicans, in which they aim with golden balls at certain other objects made of gold. Once, when Cortes and Alvarado were playing against Montezuma and his nephew, the king said in a jocular manner, that he would not allow Tonatiu, for so he called Alvarado on account of his handsomeness, to mark, as if he cheated; on which we all fell a laughing, as we knew Alvarado was rather given to exaggeration. On these occasions, Cortes gave all his winnings among the Mexican ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... be so— but he is very broad, and manly, and as strong as an elephant. He is a pattern captain. Gallant to the lady passengers, chatty with the gentlemen, polite to the unrefined, sedately grave among the officers and crew, and jocular to the children; in short, he is all things to all men—and much of the harmony on board is due to his unconscious influence. He has a handsome face, glittering black eyes, an aquiline nose that commands respect, and a black beard and moustache that ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... of the "Clarion" was being quietly but persistently beset by another sermonizer, less cocksure of text than the Sweet Singer of Policy, but more subtle in influence. This was Miss Esme Elliot. Already, the half-jocular partnership undertaken at the outset of their acquaintance had developed into a real, if somewhat indeterminate connection. Esme found her new acquaintance interesting both for himself and for his career. Her set in general ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... a dram. 'Ay, said Dr. Johnson, fill him drunk again. Do it in the morning, that we may laugh at him all day. It is a poor thing for a fellow to get drunk at night, and sculk to bed, and let his friends have no sport.' Finding him thus jocular, I became quite easy; and when I offered to get up, he very good naturedly said, 'You need be in no such hurry now[708].' I took my host's advice, and drank some brandy, which I found an effectual cure for my head-ach. When I rose, I went into Dr. Johnson's room, and taking up Mrs. M'Kinnon's ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... One jocular French guard had put on a spiked helmet which he was keeping as a trophy, and, so much does the habit make the man, he now looked uncannily like ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... the principle, De mortuis nil, nisi bone 'em!" suggested Miss Hurribattle, with such perfect gravity that neither Miss Prowley nor the clergyman suspected the jocular atrocity that was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... earth. It was not altogether a pleasant occupation, but still, the task had to be accomplished. His Majesty was fond of ferocious practical jokes, and perchance this may have been the origin of the jocular description attached to his name. One day, some of his subjects complained that their hours of labour were ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... repulsed, Stafford appealed to his sister-in-law, who had retreated to a corner on the other side of the room. In a maudlin, jocular ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... work drop on her knee, and the blue eyes raised. It was a pretty picture that he framed for himself as he looked out with a half smile into the blue twilight through the open door of Elsworthy's shop. And it was clearly his duty to call. He grew almost jocular in the ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... in a cool, calm, almost jocular tone, the trapper acted with a degree of rapidity and vigour which showed that he thought the crisis a momentous one. With his fettered hands he plucked the knife from the girdle of the dead Indian and gave it to Larry O'Hale, who at once seized it with his right ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne
... foe, and he always went armed with a pair of deringers. The Thursday night prior to the shooting General Richardson and Col. Jo. C. McKibben, afterwards member of Congress, were at the Blue Wing in company. After midnight Richardson went out for a moment on the sidewalk. A man passed him, made a jocular remark and entered the saloon. Richardson followed him in, and asked of Perkins his name. He had been drinking heavily. McKibben prevailed upon him to start for his home. It was on Minna street, near Fred Woodworth's, just above Jessie street. Jo. ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... of which was full of water. Intemese continued to plait his basket with all his might, and would not come to our religious service. He seemed to be afraid of our incantations, but was always merry and jocular. ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... or three violent quarrels, it was determined at last that all the prisoners (with the exception of Augustus, whom Peters insisted in a jocular manner upon keeping as his clerk) should be set adrift in one of the smallest whaleboats. The mate went down into the cabin to see if Captain Barnard was still living—for, it will be remembered, he was left below when the mutineers came up. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... mediaeval belief has scarcely died away among the Cornish people, I attached no importance to it, but asked in a jocular way for what he ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... for no apparent reason, his eye brightened suddenly. But the source of his inspiration he kept to himself. His manner was jocular as ever as he ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... influenced in her judgment of my character by further-reaching calumnies. I was ambitious, she said, in a half-jesting tone, to be a king or at least president of a republic. I replied in the same semi-jocular tone that I was personally spoilt for a republican; that I had grown up in the royalist traditions of the family and had need of a monarchical institution for my earthly well-being: I thanked God, however, I was not destined to live like a ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... at as another imposture of the same kind. So many and wonderful are the appearances described, that when I first met with the original publication I was strongly impressed with the belief that the narrative was like some of Swift's advertisements, a jocular experiment upon the credulity of the public. But it was certainly published bona fide, and Mr. Hone, on the authority of Mr. Brayfield, has ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... committee of gentlemen who had investigated the phenomena of the "materialisation" of spirits, some ten years before, and had bent the fierce light of the scientific method upon him. To Olive it appeared that Mr. Burrage and Mr. Gracie had ceased to be jocular; but that did not make them any less cynical. Henry Burrage said to Verena, as she was going, that he hoped she would think seriously of his mother's invitation; and she replied that she didn't know whether she should ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... his entrance the President accosted our member of Congress, who had us in charge, and, with a comical twist of his face, made some jocular remark about the length of his breakfast. He then greeted us all round, not waiting for an introduction, but shaking and squeezing everybody's hand with the utmost cordiality, whether the individual's name was announced to him or not. His manner towards us was ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... ailment, in such an extremely artistic manner that it was only by chance that Doctor Bonamy had detected the imposition. Moreover, the Fathers had immediately required that the incident should be kept secret. What was the use of stirring up a scandal which would only have led to jocular remarks in the newspapers? Whenever any fraudulent miracles of this kind were discovered, the Fathers contented themselves with forcing the guilty parties to go away. Moreover, these feigners were far from numerous, despite all that was related ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... o'cook. Those succulent bivalves may help us and the truffles of Perigord, tubers dislodged through mister omnivorous porker, were unsurpassed in cases of nervous debility or viragitis. Though they stink yet they sting. (He wags his head with cackling raillery) Jocular. With my eyeglass in my ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... equality with themselves, each one striving to do me some little kindness or show me some little attention, in place of playing off disagreeable practical jokes upon me. They would not have been midshipmen had they not had a jocular remark or two to make upon the subject, but it was all said in good part. The wind continued to blow hard during the whole of that day, but toward sunset it moderated somewhat, and veered a point or two ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... to be let off. The Prince pleaded for him; but these Poles, who, in order to make themselves understood, spoke Latin— and very bad Latin indeed—would not accept such an excuse, and forcing him to drink, howled furiously 'Bibat et Moriatur! Marege, who was very jocular and yet very choleric; used to tell this story in the same spirit, and made everyone ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... jocular. "Be patient a little while longer. I shall seriously set to work and see what I can find for you by way of ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... possession of it, it had been an alehouse, and much frequented by seamen. The doctor had not removed these benches, as they were convenient, when the weather was fine, for those who waited for medicine or advice; and moreover, being a jocular sociable man, he liked people to sit down there, and would often converse with them. Indeed, this assisted much to bring him into notice, and made him so well known among the humbler classes, that none of them, if they required medicine or advice, ever thought of going to any one but Dr Tadpole: ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... but above the roar of laughter rang out the voice of a Scotchman who was one of our best Bible students: "Gie him brimstone, Sandy!" A few minutes later I ejaculated, "And, bedad, that's for Joel!" In this new spirit and in this jocular way, I pounded the twelve minor prophets into him one after another, while the rafters of the ship rang with the cheers of the crew. By the time I had exhausted the minor prophets, I was much the stronger man of the two. My opponent was wobbling around in pretty bad shape. ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... errors. It was as if the devil himself were playing a game with all of them in turn. First with him, then with Ziemianitch, then with those revolutionists. The devil's own game this.... He interrupted his earnest mental soliloquy with a jocular thought at his own expense. "Hallo! I ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... be open, and you can take your turkey feather fan with you." And then I dropped my half jocular tone and sez ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... had suggested calling for her at her office, and she had abruptly vetoed the suggestion. Paul was too remarkable a young man to escape the notice of her associates; her feelings towards him were too fine to be scratched by jocular allusion. After a time, having failed to meet her in the human torrents of Cheapside and Cannon Street, Paul gave up the search. Jane was lost, absolutely lost—and, with her, Barney Bill. He went on tour again, heavy-hearted. He felt that, in losing these ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... send for Jocular Jimson Jones?" suggested the head and leading spirit of the Improvement Company. "We can offer him one of our cottages, and pay his debts if he has any, if he will live here and give us the benefit of his ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... indrawn breath of life. There are no flowers, blue sky, smiling eyes, and dainty faces—none of the adventitious distractions of the earth. There are no Blue-books. Before the Faculty made their jocular pronouncement I had been filling my head with statistics on pauper lunacy so as to please my constituency, in which the rate has increased alarmingly of late years. Perhaps that is why I found myself their representative in Parliament. I was to father a Bill on the subject ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... says, craning his neck and casting up his eye. Then, turning with a jocular air to the elder lady opposite, "I don't suppose that Marshall & Belden, for instance, have got up to ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... to have entirely changed for the better by the time Scipio came up. His smile was almost amiable, and his manner of speech was comparatively jocular. ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... be foremost. And he gave to each kisses and toys; for he was a kind father. And sitting down to supper, with their beaming faces around him, he thought of the beggar-boy only in connection with the jocular spite he ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... city. The tall houses vanishing in darkness, the unending noise, the sudden and vague figures passing; some with unclean gaze, others in mysterious haste, the courtesans springing from hansoms and entering their restaurant, lurking prostitutes, jocular lads, and alleys suggestive of crime. All and everything that is city fell violently upon his mind, jarring it, and flashing over his brow all the horror of delirium. His pace quickened, and he longed for wings to rise ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... things—to wit:— I never missed a train Because I didn't RUN for it; I never knew it rain That my umbrella wasn't lent,— Or, when in my possession, The sun but wore, to all intent, A jocular expression. ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... you will assure yourselves, by feeling the subject, of the kind of rugosity this eruption causes. But do not let us sell the skin of the bear before we bring him to the ground," added the prince of science, who was unusually jocular. ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... the children as before, and Eva Gonorowsky, who had been the first to guess the jocular lady's meaning, put it ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... the modern woman has her response to that kind of thing refined all out of her." Billy intended his tone to be entirely jocular, but there was a note of anxiety in it that was ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... without hesitation; he took possession of the sacred elbow chair, which time out of mind had been the seat of sovereignty of the illustrious Ramm Rapelye. Nay, he even went so far, in one of his rough, jocular moods, as to slap that mighty burgher on the back, drink his toddy, and wink in his face,—a thing scarcely to be believed. From this time Ramm Rapelye appeared no more at the inn. His example was followed by several of the most eminent customers, who were too rich to tolerate ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... and unpractical sons. The eldest, Stephen, entered the Church and held the living of Salehurst, where he offered, we may hope, an extreme example of the clergy of the age. He was a handsome figure of a man; jovial and jocular; fond of his garden, which produced under his care the finest fruits of the neighbourhood; and like all the family, very choice in horses. He drove tandem; like Jehu, furiously. His saddle horse, Captain (for the names ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... splashing your cuffs and coat-sleeves with an agreeably light tinted mud, you set to work. At first people are a little disgusted at the apparent dirtiness of the employment, and also perhaps rather diffident. The eldest lady says weakly deprecatory things, and the feeblest male is jocular after his wont. But it is remarkable how soon the charm of this delightful occupation seizes hold of you. For really the sensations of moulding this plastic matter into shape are wonderfully and quite ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... perfection of sight and hearing was of wonderful assistance to these two men in their vocation, for the Englishman acted as correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, and the Frenchman, as correspondent of what newspaper, or of what newspapers, he did not say; and when asked, he replied in a jocular manner that he corresponded with "his cousin Madeleine." This Frenchman, however, neath his careless surface, was wonderfully shrewd and sagacious. Even while speaking at random, perhaps the better to hide his ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... old marvels of Neoplatonism. But he draws no conclusion except that spiritualism is retrogressive. His book is wonderfully ill-printed, and, though he had some curious reading, his style was cumbrous, jocular, and verbose. It may, therefore, be worth while, in the light of anthropological research, to show how very closely human nature has ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... solicitous. "Is your wife pale?" it would inquire. "Is she discouraged, does she drag herself about the house and find fault with everything? Why do you not tell her to try Dr. Lanahan's Life Preservers?" Another would be jocular in tone, slapping you on the back, so to speak. "Don't be a chump!" it would exclaim. "Go and get the Goliath Bunion Cure." "Get a move on you!" would chime in another. "It's easy, if you ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... of very different qualities in relation to different subjects. Certainly he was at times capable of considerable heaviness of hand,—of the Scotch "wut" which has been so irreverently treated by English critics. His rather elaborate jocular introductions, under the name of Jedediah Cleishbotham, are clearly laborious at times. And even his own letters to his daughter-in-law, which Mr. Lockhart seems to regard as models of tender playfulness and pleasantry, seem to me decidedly elephantine. ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... you know the terrible smile? [The young fellow whom they call John winked very hard, and made a jocular remark, the sense of which seemed to depend on some double meaning of the word smile. The company was curious ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... marred by much tobacco, and a chafed and tetchy humour toward the hour of five P. M. Having bitterly schooled himself to see men as paragraphs walking, he finds that his most august musings have a habit of stewing themselves down to some ferocious or jocular three-line comment. He may yearn desperately to compose a really thrilling poem that will speak his passionate soul; to churn up from the typewriter some lyric that will rock with blue seas and frantic hearts; ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... and Tom but also upon Mr. Cornelius, who still abode in the Faringfield house, and upon Philip Winwood. To Phil his manner was more than civil; 'twas most conciliating and flattering, in a pleasantly jocular way. ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... little startled, and his lips formed into a whistle of astonishment, which Nettie's resolute little face kept inaudible. "Taken your fancy very much, eh, Miss Nettie?" said the jocular savage, who fancied raillery of one kind or other the proper style of conversation to address to a young lady. Nettie gave that big hero a flashing sudden glance which silenced him. Mr Chatham once more formed ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... light witnessed at a private seance in London, under fairly good test-conditions. Dr. Tyndall was at the time engaged in some special optical investigations, and I asked him to spend five minutes in reading the notes enclosed. Dr. Tyndall's reply, in his laconic, jocular style, was to this effect—"I have spent five minutes as you desired, and it is a long time since I ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett
... men on the front seat, one of whom seemed a farmer, and the other, by his black attire, a professional man, Clarence was finally attracted by a black-mantled, dark-haired, bonnetless woman on the back seat, whose attention seemed to be monopolized by the jocular gallantries of her companions and the two men before her in the middle seat. From her position he could see little more than her dark eyes, which occasionally seemed to meet his frank curiosity in an amused sort of way, but ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... handed to Dorothy was too large and too heavy for a mere missive; and the maid, recalling some jocular promises of Raleigh's, at once suspected that some London gew-gaw lay snug within, and tore off the wrappings with eager fingers. Her hopes were not disappointed, and a dainty pair of silver shoebuckles shone ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... making of the sauces. Amidst the general merriment Vigee Le Brun suggested that they should dress for the fantastic affair in Greek costume, and arrange the tables and seats after the antique fashion. So the jocular business went apace. It was a merry party of Athenians that sat down to the feast—"Pindar" Le Brun wearing laurels in his ridiculous hair, and a purple mantle round about him; the Marquis de Cubieres tricked out with ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall
... in the center of the back wall, and places had been left at his right and left for Ambrose and Simon. He was disposed to be gracious and jocular to-night. ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... siding on account of a bad washout, and the crew, finding itself short of provisions had come up to the section house and had requested Mrs. McDonald to prepare for them a meal. While they were dining, one of the brakemen caused Mrs. McDonald to fall into a dead faint when he in a rough but jocular way remarked to her: "I bet you, Mrs. McDonald, that your Joe and Jim are having the time of their lives down in Minneapolis, as I haven't seen them around the reservation since the night I found them hoboing my train ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... heard, both that he lives, And that he comes laden with riches home. To whom Penelope, discrete, replied. Haste; call him. I would hear, myself, his tale. Meantime, let these, or in the palace gate Sport jocular, or here; their hearts are light, For their possessions are secure; their wine None drinks, or eats their viands, save their own, 640 While my abode, day after day, themselves Haunting, my beeves and sheep and fatted goats Slay for the banquet, and my casks exhaust Extravagant, whence endless ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... the fragments of the French signboards, jocular advertisements of mud baths for trench fever, the hotel this and the maison that. One of my companions pointed to a larger hut which he said our fellows had called the Hotel Cecil. The board was missing now. And no German ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... to give them a dinner of the three orthodox courses— fish, flesh, and fowl—was only meant in a jocular sense. For the flesh, their stock of charqui is not drawn upon; and as to fowl, the soldier-crane would be a still more unpalatable morsel. So it results in their dining simply upon fish; this not only without sauce, but swallowed ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... only to be common, it ought to be universal. It is not likely to be in the present century; but at least, thinking people can consciously adopt an attitude of respect toward love, and consciously abandon as far as possible the attitude of jocular cynicism with which they too often treat it,—an attitude which is reflected so disgustingly in ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... piece of pleasantry. Mr. Stuart by no means relished such equivocal joking, but it was not his policy to get into a quarrel; so he joined with the best grace he could assume in the merriment of the jocular giant; and, to console the latter for the refusal of the horse, made him a present of twenty charges of powder. They parted, according to all outward professions, the best friends in the world; it was evident, however, that nothing but the smallness of his own force, and the martial ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... him. Once Mary would have put this down to mere coquetry but this explanation failed now to satisfy altogether. There was something that lay deeper than that. Some sort of strain between them dating back, she surmised, to the talk her father had referred to down in North Carolina in the jocular assertion that he had told Paula she would have to begin now supporting the family. Had the same topic come up again during his visit ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... must be exercised, and as Mr. Bowley was going that very moment—would like nothing better than a walk—they went together, Clara and kind little Bowley—Bowley who had rooms in the Albany, Bowley who wrote letters to the "Times" in a jocular vein about foreign hotels and the Aurora Borealis—Bowley who liked young people and walked down Piccadilly with his right arm resting on the ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... some of the jocular persons who make weddings more dreadful than they need to be came forward and touched Dick on the arm. "Come along, old fellow," he said; "no skulking, it's too late to draw back. The bridegroom's carriage stops ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... made, Kulbash Pasha not only laughed heartily at the mock-thunder of the Englishman, but at the energy with which a small official always opens fire, and in the jocularity of his Turkish nature—for they are jocular, these children of the Koran—he told the ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... whole rebuke, indeed, consisting in a little laughing, at what is called wanton tricks. Yes, Asmodeus, I admit that your power is very great; though I cannot help reminding you," he added, with a jocular though truly infernal grin, "that you were all but starved, above there, during the last dear years. As for you, my son Belphegor, lousy prince of Sloth, nobody has afforded us more pleasure than yourself, so very great is your authority amongst gentle and simple, even down ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... into amiability. "Is this yer a d—d picnic?" said Uncle Billy, with inward scorn, as he surveyed the sylvan group, the glancing fire-light, and the tethered animals in the foreground. Suddenly an idea mingled with the alcoholic fumes that disturbed his brain. It was apparently of a jocular nature, for he felt impelled to slap his leg again and cram his ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... his lips, but today it left him cool, confident, and sharpened his vision until he felt that he could see through the minds of every one in the room. Captain Lorrimer, for instance, was telling a jocular story to Chick Stewart in the hope that Chick would set them up for every one; and old Lew Perkins was waiting for the treat; and perhaps the sheriff was wondering how he could handle Vic in case of need, or how long it would take to run him down. Not long, decided ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... Much he watched, and little he slept; and used to say that so much time as one slept, one lost; generous to his men-at-arms, but covetous to acquire land, signory, and coin, come how it would, to furnish his enterprises and wars: in courtiers, servants of pleasure, or jocular persons, he ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... you know—just pot luck with us, with your old superintendent, you rascal," he uttered nervously, poking Martin in an attempt at jocular fellowship. ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... made up of snouts, hoofs, bills, claws, and incoherent parts of incoherent creatures; of perpetual skeletons climbing in trees, or appearing behind flower-beds. But there is also—and Holbein's Dance of Death, terrible, jocular, tender, vulgar and poetic, contains it all, this German world—a great tenderness. Tenderness not merely in the heads of women and children, in the fervent embrace of husband and wife and mother and daughter; but in the feeling ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... into an attitude of exaggerated indifference. "It sure is—young feller. Now you hain't been watchin' that there leadin' lady more particularly, have you? I sort o' cal'ate she might have a takin' way with the fellers," and he prodded the tinker with a jocular thumb. ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... letter again, you will probably have discovered what was the meaning of my jocular complaint—"You answer me much too pathetically and seriously." You must have seen by the exact terms of my letter, somewhat loosely worded though it was, that by your answer I meant the manner in which you speak of my conduct towards ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... Emily—fun being the other and leading propensity. He was a capital mimic, an incorrigible banterer, and in any other company than that of the woman he loved, and her family, the merriest and most jocular soul alive. Sometimes when alone with her, and with the "spooniness" which will attach to male courtship before twenty-five, fairly shaken off, he could be a gay, dashing and even a presuming lover. Just now he was unamiable—not to say ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... probably would not have participated. Though they had an abundance of wit, and a keen perception of the ridiculous, no songs have reached us which are intended to please by their pure absurdity and good-natured foolishness. Archilochus and Hipponax wrote many a jocular song; but the fun of the thing would have been lost, had the sting which ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... soon called again, tricked out from head to foot in the latest fashion. She was a little flurried on entering a room full of jocular clerks. Escorted by Massinot, both of them with their eyes fixed on the ground, she reached my office. I closed the door after her. She ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... world but for a line in the Saturday Post or the Courier or maybe an old hint in the General Almanack itself. Perhaps when you become acquainted with the General and the Cornal you will wonder that they are never at any time jocular, and maybe you will think that they are soured at life and that all their kindness is turned to lappered cream. I knew them nearly jocular, I knew them tall, light-footed laddies, running about the pastures there gallivanting with the girls. But that, my dear, ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... nature which common charity now demanded that she should put into relation with a character really fine. Such a frail creature was just an object of pity. This contention on my part had at first of course been jocular; but strange to say it was quite the ground I found myself taking with regard to our young lady after I had begun to know her. I couldn't have said what I felt about her except that she was undefended; from the first of my sitting with her there after dinner, under the stars—that ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... and the beef-steak followed, Mr. Scrake seemed to relax, and to forget that his hat hung over his head, commemorative of the recent retirement of Mrs. Scrake from this 'wale of tears,' and became quite jocular on the subject of the fair sex, congratulating Kornicker upon his looks; calling him a lucky dog, and telling him that if he were him, he'd 'make up to some charming young woman with a fortune, and be off with her.' He then went into a detail ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... him, knew that it was no idle threat. Toady was in deadly earnest, but still the older boy temporized. It would never do to give in to Toady. If he took such a step as that, his leadership was gone forever. "Aw, come off!" he began, in what he meant to be jocular tones. "Quit your fooling and let me up! I've swallowed ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... confident in his agent, came to salute his lord, thinking to do honour for his fief. Thereupon the king said to him, in a jocular manner, that the Spanish ladies were of a passable temperature, and their system a fair one, but that when gentleness was required they substituted frenzy; that he kept fancying each thrill was a sneeze, or a case of violence; in short, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... by day. Though her husband never failed in consideration for her, Augustine could not help trembling as she saw that he kept for the outer world those treasures of wit and grace that he formerly would lay at her feet. She soon began to find sinister meaning in the jocular speeches that are current in the world as to the inconstancy of men. She made no complaints, but ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... lower invaded a higher element. But reverse the hypothesis. Conceive that Zeus, or Baiame, was originally, not a Father and guardian, but a lewd and tricky ghost of a medicine-man, a dancer of indecent dances, a wooer of other men's wives, a shape-shifter, a burlesque droll, a more jocular bugbear, like Twanyirika. By what means did he come to be accredited later with his loftiest attributes, and with regard for the tribal ethics, which, in practice, he daily broke and despised? Students who argue for the possible priority of the lowest, ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... eminence, and, as he conceived the brooding Septimius to have done before him, to betake himself thither when he found the limits of his dwelling too narrow. But he had an advantage which his imaginary hero lacked; he erected a tower as an adjunct to the house, and it was a jocular tradition among his neighbours, in allusion to his attributive tendency to evade rather than hasten the coming guest, that he used to ascend this structure and scan the road ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... an atmosphere of their own, a sort of universal fame and the particular affection of their citizens. One of such streets is the Cannebiere, and the jest: "If Paris had a Cannebiere it would be a little Marseilles" is the jocular expression of municipal pride. I, too, I have been under the spell. For me it has been a street ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... of it falls to you. You have your own way about provisions, and what is more, you always have the pleasant journey into the villages to obtain them. Besides which, you frequently have the distinction of entertaining the company," he went on, in a jocular way. "For instance, I think it was as good as a play to see you yesterday with your rod, trying to catch our breakfast. If I hadn't been on the look-out, you'd have had George by the eye instead of ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... Anderson. In this interview with Mr. Lincoln, I also explained to him my extreme desire to serve in a subordinate capacity, and in no event to be left in a superior command. He promised me this with promptness, making the jocular remark that his chief trouble was to find places for the too many generals who wanted to be at the head of ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... in the House of Commons, grew "jocular upon the cruelties and sufferings almost unparalleled in the world's history," and expressed his belief that the outrages committed by the Turkish troops had been exaggerated, and sneered at the rumor as ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... was certain. And thereupon the two women began to pass tender afternoons together, making numberless endearing little speeches and mingling their kisses with laughter. The same little sport, which the arrival of the plainclothes men had interrupted in the Rue de Laval, was beginning again in a jocular sort of spirit. One fine evening, however, it became serious, and Nana, who had been so disgusted at Laure's, now understood what it meant. She was upset and enraged by it, the more so because Satin disappeared on the morning of the fourth day. No one had seen her go out. She had, ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... station somewhat above that of his equals in navy rank—the Chaplain, Surgeon, and Professor. Moreover, he is frequently to be seen in close conversation with the Commodore, who, in the Neversink, was more than once known to be slightly jocular with our Purser. Upon several occasions, also, he was called into the Commodore's cabin, and remained closeted there for several minutes together. Nor do I remember that there ever happened a cabinet meeting of the ward-room barons, the Lieutenants, in the Commodore's cabin, but the Purser made ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... or three essays which sounded as if they might have done duty as themes, a critical article or two, some copies of verses, and winding up with a few pages in fine print, purporting to be editorial, jaunty and jocular for the most part, and opulent in local allusions. It would he unnatural, if these juvenile productions did not often reflect the opinions of favorite instructors and the style of popular authors. A freshman's first essay is like the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... commence at 8 o'clock. Doors were open at 61/2. Some time previous to that hour, the stairs leading from the street door to the hall were lined with the lads of the village, who amused themselves with making jocular remarks about "the man in the cage there" (meaning Marcus), and "t'other man at the door, whose shirt was out of jail" (meaning Tiffles). Marcus smiled grimly at his assailants through the small pigeon hole; and Tiffles, who felt reckless in the sure view of a failure, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... post of the platonic successor; but he had left the Athenian school to Zenodotus, a pupil of Proclus, and had removed to Alexandria. Salustius the Cynic was a Syrian, who had removed with Isidorus from Athens to Alexandria. He was virtuous in his morals though jocular in his manners, and as ready in his witty attacks upon the speculative opinions of his brother philosophers as upon the vices of the Alexandrians. These learned men, with Damascius and others from Athens, were kindly received by the Persians, who soon afterwards, ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... at Bymouth obtained no further assistance from Sam. For the remainder of their stay there he hardly moved from the ship, preferring to smoke his pipe in peace on board to meeting certain jocular spirits ashore who wanted to buy bootlaces. Conversation with Dick and the boy he declined altogether, and it was not until they had reached Cocklemouth that he deigned to accept a pipe of tobacco ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... woman would now and then make a remark, easily jocular. Another amiable woman—soothing presences, both—would answer. Or he would answer; there would be an interlude of familiar talk, rest, and laughing, and throwing a ball for a scampering puppy. At noon an end to labor. He would remain for lunch, that meal of cheery luxury, immorally ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... present, comport themselves as a host and hostess entertaining a friendly party. In common with every one else, they take a lively interest in our intentions and prospects, and we are bewildered with conflicting advice and suggestions, some real and some jocular. They make us feel at home in the house very speedily, and cause us to forget that we ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... was an unusual person, and he was often the Astronomer Royal. Besides his dignified name he possessed a wrist-watch, and there was never a movement in his mountain of blankets until 7.59 A.M., unless the jocular night-watchman chose to make a heap of them on the floor. To calls like "Breakfast all ready! Porridge on the table getting cold!" seventeen persons in varying stages of wakefulness responded. No one was guilty of an elaborate toilet, ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... Life" were written in prison; "The Miseries" (by Jas. Beresford) necessarily in a drawing-room. The works of authors are often in contrast with themselves; melancholy authors are the most jocular, and the most humorous ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... in one of the home regiments. There lingered on his lips the thrill of a kiss half stolen, half yielded, while in his pockets were a number of telegrams since received, and the usually grave and stern young man was jocular and bantering. The two younger members of the firm were ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... continued in this jocular strain; but at this moment several gentlemen, with whom they had appointed a meeting, came in by different secret ways, ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... independently, being often attached to great households, we find an element of the domestic, or as he is called, court fool, and we find another in their performances being of that primitive character, which appeals chiefly to the perception of the senses. For although the "jocular" part, originally subordinate, had been increased, it took so rude a form that the ludicrous was not always easily distinguished from the humorous. The Fool was a strange mixture of both, varying from a mere idiot and butt to a man of genius, far superior to his masters. He made shrewd ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... began, therefore, to smile with a patronizing air, and, nodding his head, replied in the same jocular spirit: "Ha! Ha! Ha! You are right; the Prophet is out in his prophecy. You shall not pay him any damages. The faults on both sides are equal, and the injuries balance one another. He has been wounded, your horse has been ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... strong, uncurbed nature eagerly seized on learning, both as a delight for himself and a means of giving stability to his government, and so, while he knew he must be docile, he was at the same time imperious. Alcuin knew how to meet him, and at need could be either patiently jocular or grave and reproving. Thus, on one occasion when he had been informed of the great learning of Augustine and Jerome, he impatiently demanded of Alcuin, "Why can I not have twelve clerks such as these?" Twelve Augustines and Jeromes! ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... the door of the bunkhouse were several of the Two Diamond men; in a strip of shade from the blacksmith shop were others. Jocular words were hurled at him by some of the men as he drew the saddle from Mustard, for the stray-man's quietness and invariable thoughtfulness had won him a place in the affections of many of the men, and their jocular ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... upon these matters, thought I to myself; and, getting up, I bowed to the unknown. 'Sir,' said I, 'when I told Jenny that she might lay the table-cloth for two, so that in the event of any acquaintance dropping in he might find a knife and fork ready for him, I was merely jocular, being an entire stranger in these parts, and expecting no one. Fortune, however, it would seem, has been unexpectedly kind to me; I flatter myself, sir, that since you have been in this room I have ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Maidan occurred on the 4th of August, 1904. And then nothing happened until the 4th of August, 1913. There is the curious coincidence of dates, but I do not know whether that is one of those sinister, as if half jocular and altogether merciless proceedings on the part of a cruel Providence that we call a coincidence. Because it may just as well have been the superstitious mind of Florence that forced her to certain acts, as if she had been hypnotized. It ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... police, who refused to interfere. Finally the police called on all the local bill-posters and warned them against exhibiting the Society's placards. Stung by these disgraceful tactics, Mr. Seymour issued a jocular programme of an evening's entertainment at the Society's hall, one profane sentence of which, while it in no way disturbed the peace or serenity of the town, aroused intense indignation in the breasts of the professional guardians ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... If I wished to follow this route, he would appoint people to conduct me to Jarra, the frontier town of Ludamar. He then enquired very particularly how I had been treated since I had left the Gambia, and asked in a jocular way how many slaves I expected to carry home with me on my return. He was about to proceed, when a man mounted on a fine Moorish horse, which was covered with sweat and foam, entered the court, and signifying that he had something ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... odd subject in the first edition of his "British Topography," "An Academic" in the Gentleman's Magazine for August 1772, insinuated that this charge of literary pilfering was only a jocular one; on which Gough, in his second edition, observed that this was not the case, and that "one might point out enough light-fingered antiquaries in the present age, to render such a charge extremely probable against earlier ones." The most extraordinary ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... had been invited by Lord R. to dine after the play,—an arrangement which, from its novelty, delighted Lord Byron exceedingly. The dinner, however, afterwards dwindled into a mere supper, and this change was long a subject of jocular resentment with him.] ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... inconvenience, I was under the necessity of explaining to him, that he might return if he thought proper, but that in that case I would not pay him a single farthing for his past services. The argument ad crumenam, as it has been called by jocular logicians, has weight with the greater part of mankind, and Andrew was in that particular far from affecting any trick of singularity. He "drew in his horns," to use the Bailie's phrase, on the instant, professed no intention whatever ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... a honest hearty laugh, when any thing really calls for it. Beware, however, of the practice of laughing when there is nothing to laugh at. Some people fall into a way of giving the accompaniment of a laugh to almost every thing that they utter, especially if they have any direct intention to be jocular. This habit is disagreeable to most of those who witness it. It proceeds, I believe, generally from a sort of shyness and awkwardness contracted in early youth, and is, as I know from experience, difficult to get rid of. It certainly ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... her way home? But, poor fellow! he had tried to think his way through the difficulty. Every day for a week he had exercised himself in letter—writing: he had practiced every style, from the jocular to the gravely interrogative, and had succeeded pretty well as a stylist, but the point, the point, the bank deposit, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... this appeal, Mr. Punch begs to say that "the gentleman with knowledge of business" seems to be anxious to act as an alter ego to a serious (not a jocular) firm "capable of giving profits." "GENTLEMAN" does not specify whose profits the serious firm is capable of giving, and thus it may be presumed that the 100,000 francs would form the capital with which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... After sunset every person who passes the governor's house is challenged. "Who goes there?" is the first question; the second is Que gente? (what country?) The sailors amuse themselves by returning jocular answers to these challenges; and the sentinel, irritated by their jeers, sometimes runs after them through part of the town, and when weary of the chace returns to ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... important. He was the son of one of the humblest of the peasants living in the vicinity of Moscow. When but thirteen years of age he was taken into the service of a pastry cook to sell pies and cakes about the streets, and he was accustomed to attract customers by singing jocular songs. The tzar chanced to hear him one day, and, diverted by his song and struck by his bright, intelligent appearance, called for the boy, and offered to purchase his whole stock, both ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... The Laird. He realized that Elizabeth was not to be denied, so he thought best to assume a jocular attitude during the discussion. ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... sun had now risen above the tops of the mountains, and shone brightly in the very centre of the valley through which the Toptdal River wound. Not a cloud spotted the sky, and the declining languid motion of the atmosphere gave token of a torrid noon. Entering into jocular conversation with our Anglo-Norwegian friend, who was bustling about the cottage on our behalf, we became so intimate and open-hearted, that R—— begged him to partake of breakfast if he had not eaten ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... laboriously dug through solid walls; the captain of an army leaving the field victor, to find his legions rushing upon him in rout; figure any monstrous overturn in well-laid schemes, and you have but a faint reflex of poor Jack's heart-breaking anguish when this jocular fate stood above him, with the five gaping barrels pointed at his miserable head. Oh, if Dick had only been there! His quick eye and keen activity would have discovered this lurking devil; perhaps, between them, they would have averted the disaster. Where ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... mildly jocular. Hannah's face did not move. She had just touched her nephew with her cold wasted hand. Now she beckoned to him to sit down at her right. He did so, and then for the first time he could believe that Hannah, the old Hannah, was there beside them. For as she slowly studied ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... executed, and he would require their parents to be present and witness the scene. At one time after such an execution he required the wretched father of his victim to come and sup with him at his palace; and while at supper he talked with his guest all the time, in a light, and jocular, and mirthful manner, in order to trifle with and insult the mental anguish of the sufferer. At another time when he had commanded a distinguished senator to be present at the execution of his son, the senator said that he would go, in obedience to the emperor's orders, but humbly asked permission ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... at command smiles for satire, simpers for repartee, sniggers for conundrums, titters for puns, and guffaws for jocular anecdotes. By Mr. T.C.'s system, cues for laughter are rendered unnecessary, as, from a long course of practical experience, the moment of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... for her dislike to tobacco was well known, and she answered in the same jocular tone: "Do you not think that a mattress stuffed with these leaves would be ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... his own happiness and his own standing in society, but one that called aloud the act of the parties to make it perfect and complete. How he should communicate his intentions to get a favorable reply, he was at a loss to know; he knew not whether to address Esq. Valeer in prose or in poetry, in a jocular or an argumentative manner, or whether he should use moral suasion, legal injunction, or seizure and take by reprisal; if it was to do the latter, he would have no difficulty in deciding in his own mind, but his gentlemanly honor was at stake; so he concluded ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... deal of shrewdness. Dick had got his sandy hair; but Richard Mayne the elder had not his son's honest, kindly eyes. Mr. Mayne's were small and twinkling; he had a way of looking at people between his half-closed lids, in a manner half sharp and half jocular. ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... about the monarchic system, about the impossibility of the king, with all his noble intentions, being able to see the world as it is, since everybody approaches him in pleasing costume, struck the final jarring note and destroyed the complete understanding between father and daughter. A half jocular joint letter from the king and his entourage, in which the signatories expressed in exaggerated terms their longing for her presence at court, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... variegated, so like his own harlequin in his 'ghastly vest of white patchwork,' 'the apparition of a dead rainbow'; what is it that gives to a style, which no man can analyse, its 'terseness, its jocular pathos, which makes one feel in laughter?' Those are his own words, not used of himself; but do they not do something to define what can, after ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... and wisest of my ghostly entertainers, sleep refused to come; the din outside had grown to a pandemonium. I lay awake till, at 2.30 a.m., one of them arose and touched the others with a whispered and half-jocular oremus! They retired on tiptoe to the next room, noiselessly closing the door, to prepare themselves for early service. I could hear them splashing vigorously at their ablutions in the icy water, ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... I don't know about that. Confession? It'll be judeecial, my young friend," cried the jocular Glenkindie. "And I'm afraid to listen to ye. Think if ye were to make ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... improves upon Nature," one day Camille said to the girls." If a woman hasn't a good form Madame Corot can supply her such amorous proportions that lovers will straightway fall at her feet." But such jocular remarks were never made to the father— in his presence Camille was subdued and suspiciously respectful. The father had "disciplined" him—but had done ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... Emmy. Great-uncle Thomas and Uncle Tom were persons to be avoided, stout, heavy, bullet-headed, bull-necked, throat-clearing men, loud nose-blowers, loud soup-eaters, who reeked of tobacco when it was my horrid duty to kiss them, and who addressed me in jocular terms when they remembered my existence, of which I was always loth to remind them. With these two horrors, whom she loved, Aunt Emmy lived. She was wrapped up in them. I have actually seen her kiss Uncle Thomas when it was not necessary, when he was asleep; and she admired Uncle Tom ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... practical joker and recognized wag at the Ferry apparently awaited his coming with something of invitation and expectation, but, catching sight of Ruth's haggard face and blazing eyes, became instantly practical, and by no means jocular in his greeting. At the top of the hill, Ruth turned to look once more upon the distant mountain, now again a mere cloud-line on the horizon. In the firm belief that he would never again see the sun rise upon it, he turned aside into a hazel-thicket, and, tearing out ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... houses. Mechanical religion—a dry, hard church, shut off from the real life of the streets, inhumanly respectable as a top-hat. Mechanical golf and dinner-parties and bridge and conversation. Save with Paul Riesling, mechanical friendships—back-slapping and jocular, never daring to ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... will pardon me, royal brother," said Albany, "I think that, though my princely nephew hath started this thought in a jocular manner, there may be something wrought out of it, which might ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... palm of the hand with a twisted handkerchief, instead of a ferula; a jocular punishment among seamen, who sometimes play at cards for wackets, the loser suffering as many strokes as he ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... resolution. He was "much of a man," their Capataz was, they said, too scornful in his temper ever to utter abuse, a tireless taskmaster, and the more to be feared because of his aloofness. And behold! there he was that day, at their head, condescending to make jocular remarks to this man or ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... stone, unconsciously, simply because the style had become customary. One of the most charming little groups of figures in ivory is in the Louvre, the Coronation of the Virgin. The two central figures are flanked by delightful jocular little angels, who have that characteristic close-lipped, cat-like smile, which is a regular feature in all French sculpture of the Gothic type. In a little triptych of the fourteenth century, now in London, there is ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... it is coming, but it does not come; the machine can't draw up what is not to be found in the spring; Providence has made him a light, jesting, paragraph-writing man, and that he will remain to his dying day. When he is jocular he is strong, when he is serious he is like Samson in a wig; any ordinary person is a match for him: a song, an ironical letter, a burlesque ode, an attack in the newspaper upon Nicoll's eye, a smart speech of twenty minutes, full of gross misrepresentations and clever turns, excellent ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... reply, though I sent a few jocular remarks flying after what must have been the most horrified ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... of brass. Marcus Livius distributed among the soldiers fifty-six asses each. Caius Claudius promised the same sum to his absent troops when he returned to the army. It was observed that more verses were written by the soldiery upon Caius Claudius in their jocular style, than upon their own consul; that the horsemen highly extolled Lucius Veturius and Quintus Caecilius, lieutenant-generals, and exhorted the commons to create them consuls for the ensuing year; that the consuls added their authority to the recommendation ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... but rather to describe the man himself, as he moved quietly and unobtrusively among his fellow men. One of his chief characteristics, it has always struck me, was his intense love of excellence in everything with which he had to do. It was a frequent jocular remark of his that "the best of everything was good enough for him." In this—perhaps unknowingly—he followed Lord Bacon's advice, "Jest in earnest," for he, certainly, earnestly carried out in life the desire to do, and to possess, the "best" that could be attained. ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards |
