"Mocking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... laughed to herself within the tent on hearing this amazing prediction; for she said, "After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?" The child was born, however, and was called Isaac, "the laugher," in remembrance of Sarah's mocking laugh.* There is a remarkable resemblance between his life and that of his father.** Like Abraham he dwelt near Hebron,*** and departing thence wandered with his household round the wells of Beersheba. Like him he was threatened with ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... to sing, O! [SHE] Sing me your song, O! [HE] It is sung to the moon By a love-lorn loon, Who fled from the mocking throng, O! It's the song of a merryman, moping mum, Whose soul was sad, whose glance was glum, Who sipped no sup, and who craved no crumb, As he sighed for the love of a ladye. Heighdy! heighdy! Misery me - lackadaydee! He sipped no sup, and he craved no crumb, As he sighed ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... repeated the question more loudly. "With my hand—my hand," whispered a thousand mocking ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... sun. His bare shoulders and arms were scorched and blistered. His ankles were fettered, his wrists were bound with a rope of palm fibre, an iron collar was locked about his neck, to which a chain was attached, and this chain one of the soldiers held. He stood and smiled at the mocking crowd about him and seemed ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... the Mocking Bird," which it repeated very creditably indeed, dropping but two notes on the third verse. This it made up for, I am bound to admit, by throwing in some original variations in ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... they adorn with the title of science,—all this filled me with fright, for I felt the doubt and despair into which contact with it would inevitably have plunged me, if, by a special favor, the tone and mimetics, alike self-sufficient and mocking, of these free-thinkers, as they are now styled, had not, from the first, inspired me with aversion for them and a salutary hatred of ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... said for her. Domestic virtue, in the face of such mocking heresy, is exceptionally ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... free from it. The lid banged. Instantly every boy had turned in his seat to gaze at him, and he saw that this was the worst place that could have fallen to his lot. In his corner he was trapped, a sea of mocking, curious faces between ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... no weakness for Laurent in the mocking and libertine sense that one gives to this word in love. It was by an act of her will, after nights of sorrowful meditation, that she said to him—"I wish what thou wishest, because we have come to that point where the fault to be committed is the inevitable reparation of a ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... spoke there arose, close to us, clear and painfully audible, a low, mocking laugh. It was not akin to mirth. There was no gladness in its tone. It betokened enmity, triumph, scorn. The dying woman heard it, and cowered beneath its influence. An expression of agonizing fear passed over her countenance. Some minutes elapsed before she could ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... filled him with the mysterious longing of the cry itself. It was the mate-song of the beast of prey, sending up its message to the stars—crying out to all the wilderness for a response to its loneliness. Night birds twittered about him. A loon laughed in its mocking joy. An owl hooted down at him from the black top of a tall spruce. From out of starvation and death the wilderness had awakened. Its sounds spoke to him still of grief, of the suffering that would never know end; and yet there trembled in them a note of happiness and of content. Beside ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... kept on calling just the same and a hideous echo from somewhere threw our words back at us in a broken, mocking answer. That was all. We were paralyzed with fear that Sahwah had wandered into the swamp or had fallen over the precipice in the dark into the lake. We turned the lights of the car on the swamp for a ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... Heliobas surveyed him sadly as he spoke. "Nay! ... pray rather that they may find THEE!" He looked long and steadfastly at Alwyn's countenance, on which there was just then the faint glimmer of a rather mocking smile,—and as he looked, his own face darkened suddenly into an expression of vague trouble and uneasiness—and a strange quiver passed visibly through him from head ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... of honor opposite the window, amidst Claudes, Poussins and Wouvermans, whose less brilliant hues were killed by the vivid coloring of the modern artist. The bright face looked out of that tangled glitter of golden hair, in which the Pre-Raphaelites delight, with a mocking smile, as Robert paused for a moment to glance at the well-remembered picture. Two or three moments afterward he had passed through my lady's boudoir and dressing-room and stood upon the threshold of Sir Michael's room. The baronet lay in a quiet sleep, his arm laying outside the ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... dropped his mocking tone. "We want that chief and his boy, whom you are harboring in your camp. According to our Indian companion, they own, or know of the hiding-place of, a fortune in plumes. If the plumes are not to be easily reached, we can ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... its greenish feathers and watched him curiously. The faint cries of the gulls overhead seemed borne downward with a note of mocking derision. Charles Turold stepped back from the door with an uneasy look at the cormorant, as though fearing to detect in its unreflecting beadiness of glance some humanly cynical enjoyment at his loss of self-control. The wave of feeling ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... aching heart is breaking, My burning brain is reeling, My very soul is riven, I feel myself forsaken. And phantom forms of horror, And shapeless dreams of terror. And mocking tones of laughter, About me seem to gather; And death, and hell, and darkness ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... wanted to just now." She put both hands over her mouth, with a mocking little grimace that the Entablature of Truth would not ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... They had grown to be great friends these two; and seemed to have arrived at some understanding. Certainly, Graeme's manner to her was not that he bore to other women. His half-quizzical, somewhat superior air of mocking devotion gave place to a simple, earnest, almost tender, respect, very new to him, ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... greatly aroused, Clemence felt that it would be beneath her to ask any more questions. She replied with an affectation of mocking indifference: ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... potatoes, ha, ha!" Aye, that potato-bread spirit is something which is more to dread than to mock at. I fear that more than I do even von Hindenburg's strategy, efficient as it may be. That is the spirit in which a country should meet a great emergency, and instead of mocking at it we ought to emulate it. I believe we are just as imbued with the spirit as Germany is, but we want it evoked. [Cheers.] The average Briton is too shy to be a hero until he is asked. The British temper is one of never wasting heroism on needless display, but there is ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... wicked. Her nose was long and straight, almost sharp-pointed; her face too thin to be a perfect oval. Her eyes were wide open, and so full of power to show feeling that they seemed constantly alive with changing and mocking lights and shadows. If she had been stouter the excellent shape of her body, now almost too thick in the waist, would have been emphasised. Happiness and comfort, a decrease in physical as in mental restlessness, would have made her more than ordinarily beautiful. As it was she drew the ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... most vex and worry him, Dull, modeless Man, whose spark Long (beside Woman's) burning dim, Has now gone down in dark? Ha! He'd kick up the greatest shine (If he could kick) at—CRINOLINE. Were he recalled to breath, I'll have one last man-mocking spree By donning hooped skirts. Victory! This takes all sting ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 11, 1893 • Various
... precipice, and in the stone, Hari was ever present, and his devotee was safe in that presence: how finally when the father, challenging the omnipresence of the Deity, pointed to the stone pillar and said in mocking language: "Is your Hari also in the pillar?" "Hari, Hari," cried the boy, and the pillar burst asunder, and the mighty form came forth and slew the Daitya that doubted, in order that he might learn the omnipresence of the Supreme. A story? facts, not fiction; truth, ...
— Avataras • Annie Besant
... vent to a cold, sneering laugh, and, in a tone of mocking commiseration, she said: "Poor baron! It is no doubt in the hope of forgetting your sorrows that you spend all your time—when you are not gambling—with a woman named Lia d'Argeles. She's rather pretty. I have seen her several ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... darkness fell around, a mocking bird was nigh, Inviting pleasant, soothing dreams with his sweet lullaby; And sometimes came the yellow dog to brag around all night That nary 'coon could wollop him in a stand-up barrel fight; We simply smiled and let him howl, for all Mizzourians know That ary 'coon can beat ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... of the Fifth, the curse came upon Ham (Gen 9:25-27). And Ishmael dishonouring his father in mocking Isaac was cast out, as we read (Gen 21:9,10). The sons-in-law of Lot for slighting their father perish in the overthrow of Sodom ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... distance—hills, and trees, and rocks, and lakes, and streams of pure water; but as we advanced they vanished, and a few barren mounds and loose stones alone were found, while the supposed water was altogether a mocking deception. To the right hand and to the left, the same inhospitable desert seemed to stretch out far away; and we had already advanced so deeply into it, that the officers probably supposed that there ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... with empty hands did Perseus step forward. He shouted out: "I have brought something to you at last, O king—a present to you and your mocking friends. But you, O my mother, and you, O my friends, avert your faces from what I have brought." Saying this Perseus drew out the Gorgon's head. Holding it by the snaky locks he stood before the company. His mother and his ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... was as impertinent as ever, laughing, and chuckling to itself among the hollows, and whispering scandalously in the shadows. It seemed to Anthea that it was laughing at her,—mocking, and taunting her with—the future. And now, amid the laughter, were sobs, and tearful murmurs, and now, again, it seemed to be the prophetic ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... command of Lord Percy stayed an actual stampede. But it could not stay the retreat nor avert defeat. Lord Percy, who had marched out with his bands playing "Yankee Doodle," in mockery of the Americans, had to retreat in his turn with no mocking music, carrying with him the remnant of the invaders of Concord. He {175} and his force did not get within touch of Boston and the protection of the guns of the fleet a moment too soon. Had a large body of insurgents, who came hurrying in to help their ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... The king beholdinge, in glorious and reioysing wise, his gaye and beautifull armie: loked towards Hannibal, and said: "How saiest thou Hannibal? thinkest thou that these thinges be not ynough and sufficient to match with the Romaynes?" Hannibal mocking and deluding the cowardnes and weakenes of his souldiours, clad in those precious and costlie furnitures, saide. "All these thinges be ynough and ynough againe for the Romaines, although they were the most couetous men of the world." The king vnderstoode Hannibal, that he had meant of the ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... up like a man, and look'd the thing that he meant; Jenny, the viper, made me a mocking courtesy and went. And I said, 'Let us part: in a hundred years it'll all be the same, You cannot love me at all, if you love not my ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... to Arcady? Sir Poet, with the rusty coat, Quit mocking of the song-bird's note. How have you heart for any tune, You with the wayworn russet shoon? Your scrip, a-swinging by your side, Gapes with a gaunt mouth hungry-wide. I'll brim it well with pieces red, If you will tell ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... out from behind the long limbs of his leafless shelter. He went at a run shouting with all the power of his lungs. Again and again his prolonged cry went up. And with each effort he waited listening, listening, only to receive the mocking reply of the howling storm. But he persisted. He persisted for the simple human reason that his desire outran his power to serve. And in the end exhaustion forced him to abandon ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... quit them. He secretly consulted the oracle of Isis of Buto to know what he might expect from the gods, and she replied that the means of revenge would reach him from the sea, on the day when brazen soldiers should issue from its waters. He thought at first that the priests were mocking him, but shortly afterwards Ionian and Carian pirates, clad in their coats of mail, landed not far from his abode. The messenger who brought tidings of their advent had never before seen a soldier fully armed, and reported that brazen men had issued from the waves and were pillaging ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... the throng, but the still small voice that speaketh in the penetralia of the spirit is mute; and what else can be the result, but, in place of the song of lark, or linnet, or nightingale, at the best a concert of mocking-birds, at the worst an oratorio ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... pilgrimage called life; and that in the bitter journey which this one took across the dread spaces between Here and There, he had repented of his sins, because they, and they only, went with him in mocking company; the good having gone first to plead where evil is a debtor and hath a prison. And the woman came and stood beside Trafford, and whispered, "At first—and at the last—he ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... preserve through years the poetry of the first passionate illusion. That can alone render wedlock the seal that confirms affection, and not the mocking ceremonial that consecrates ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... beware of the dehumanizing influence of caste. It will cause your great race to be warped, to be narrow. Oratory will decay in your midst; poetry will disappear or dwell in mediocrity, taking on a mocking sound and a metallic ring; art will become formal, lacking in spirit; huge soulless machines will grow up that will crush the life out of humanity; conditions will become fixed and there will be no way for those who are down to rise. Hope will depart from the bosoms of the masses. ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... word of the loud-spoken conversation. Her eyes were fixed in fascination upon the dark, sharp-featured face so close to the fair, beautiful one. She suddenly recalled a picture she had once seen called "The Evil Genius," in which a dark, mocking face peered over the shoulder of a young man who sat at a table as though in deep thought. This girl's vivid face bore a slight resemblance to that of the Evil Genius, and it was not until the end of Marjorie's ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... the eyes, he filled up the shrunken features, he perceived the real flesh beneath the flabby skin, the real mouth through the grimaces that deformed it. Those were the eyes and mouth of the other, and especially his keen, alert, mocking expression, so ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... be in vain to describe the manner in which Mr. Darrell vented this or similar remarks of mocking irony or sarcastic spleen. It was not bitter nor sneering, but in his usual mellifluous level tone ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Epicureans, the materialist, whose maxim was: enjoy the present for there is no God, and no to-morrow, speaks despairingly of that drop of bitterness, which rises in the fountain of Delight and brings torture, even amid the roses of the feast. It is with mocking irony that Dante places Epicurus in the furnace-tombs of his Inferno amid those heresiarchs who denied the immortality of the soul. Hafiz was an Epicurean without the atheism or the despair of Epicurus. The roses ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... into the hall and stood there with a mocking laugh. I moved to make a rush toward them, but Kennedy ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... horror at an ungloved hand, are yet not afraid of soiling its whiteness by boxing your wife's ears. Because I did not observe the form of sending a servant to ask you to come to my room, you receive me as you did, and repulse me with mocking words!" ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... Berlin course in a mocking way. There was an unserved jail sentence hanging over Bismarck's head at Goettingen; and with sham seriousness, as though he were going to turn over a new leaf, Otto humbly set up that, to be strictly honest with the professors, to jail Otto ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... beholding the carriage of the men, to say unto them, What will ye buy? But they, looking gravely upon him, answered, "We buy the truth" (Psa. 23:23).[144] At that there was an occasion taken to despise the men the more: some mocking, some taunting, some speaking reproachfully, and some calling upon others to smite them. At last things came to a hubbub, and great stir in the fair, insomuch that all order was confounded. Now was word presently brought to the great one of the fair, who quickly came down, and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... my sister wear the dress of an adolescent, mocking the False Faces, when the three fires are not yet kindled?" ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... laden with straying particles of fear, distrust and memories, swept between the two, as the girl's voice, biting in its coldness, searing great scars upon the Arab's raging, storming, totally hidden pride, let fall slowly, cruelly, light-spoken, mocking words of French. ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... inordinate pride. The extraordinary felicity of the means taken to place all these things in the most ridiculous light has never been questioned. The doggerel metre, never heavy or coarse, but framed as to be the very voice of mocking laughter, the astounding similes and disparates, the rhymes which seem to chuckle and to sneer of themselves, the wonderful learning with which the abuse of learning is rebuked, the subtlety with which subtle casuistry is set at ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... then off it went with a skim that took it twenty, thirty, or forty yards. Next time the boat neared, instead of the skim it would begin to dance as if in mockery, bobbing down whenever Dick reached over with his hook, and always keeping out of his reach, just as if a mocking spirit directed all its movements and delighted in tantalising them. Again, after a long run over the deep water, it would be quite still, and the punt would be sent forward so cautiously that the capture seemed to be a moral certainty; but so sure as Dick crept to the ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... in every part where I landed, fires had been made, and the woods of Cape Clinton were then burning; the natives had also been upon Entrance Island, which implied them to have canoes, although none were seen. There are kangaroos in the woods; hawks, and the bald-headed mocking bird of Port Jackson are common; and ducks, sea-pies, and gulls frequent the shoals at low water. Fish were more abundant here than in any port before visited; those taken in the seine at the watering beach were principally mullet, but sharks and flying ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... spoke there was a mocking in his voice and his face and in his whole huge body, which made the sword of Hallblithe uneasy in his scabbard; but he refrained his wrath, and said: "Big man, the longer I look, the less I can think how we are to come up on to yonder island; for ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... cards, cards, nothing but cards from "rosy morn to dewy eve" at the town of Cheltenham. Whist, with the sun shining upon their sovereigns, one would think a sovereign remedy for their waste of the blessed day—ecarte, whilst the blue sky is mocking the blue countenances of your thirty pound losers in as many seconds. Is it not marvellous? Fathers, husbands, men who profess to belong to the Church. By Jupiter! instead of founding the new university they ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... not going to learn manners of you; mamma pays Miss Craven to teach me that, so good-bye;" and the child, with a mocking courtesy towards her sister, runs out ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... sisters born in the purple. Mona was a beauty, who earned her own living as a teacher, and had the little virtues of the profession well marked; truly a daughter of the gods, tall for a woman, with a mocking face all sparkle and bloom, small eyes that flashed like gems, a sharp tongue, and a head of silken hair, now known as the Titian red, but at that time despised by all except artists and herself. She was a witch, an enchantress, who thought no man as good as ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... noticed that every time he planted a knife in the board, she uttered a laugh, so low as scarcely to be heard, but which was very significant when one heard it, for it was a hard and very mocking laugh, but I had always attributed that sort of reply to an artifice which the occasion required. It was intended, I thought, to accentuate the danger she incurred and the contempt that she felt for it, thanks to the sureness ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... long silence followed these words, during which time the two friends looked at each other in a mocking way. ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... said, with a mocking smile, raising his head and looking intently into the pale face of the girl; "the brave Irish! So ardent for liberty themselves, such loud-mouthed clamourers to the world for justice to their country—yet how they sell themselves for a paltry wage ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... (they obliged her always to say madam), "you are only mocking me; it is not my fortune to ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... slant descends the sheeted rain; Sharp lightnings rend in twain the sable gloom, While, cannon-like, the unchained thunders boom! On this wild tumult of the angry skies No ear discerns a woman's thrilling cries; Yet, ere its sullen echoes die away In caverns where the mocking spirits play, Faint, but rejoicing, on a couch of skins, A new-made ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... bank opposite. A solitary bird, astir beyond its bedtime, hovered against the sky, cheeping to unseen brood below. Some swift-vanishing creature—wolf or coyote—ran along the edge of the distant bank for a fearful, curious glimpse of the persistent invasion of its venerable privacy. The sun, like a mocking challenge, was painting with flaming hand its tremendous but fleeting colour-picture on the northwest sky, where clouds unseen by day hung ever ready for the evening-hour brush ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... she, Miss Emily Braid, had been personally, before the world, defied by a rag doll. Her temper, whose control had never been her strongest quality, at the vision of the dirty, obstinate child before her, at the thought of the dancing, mocking gardens behind her, ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... marked by any act or thought on his part which was reconcilable with generosity, humanity or honor. He was a tyrant and the instrument of tyranny, hating human freedom for its own sake, greedy to handle unrighteous spoils, mocking the sufferings he wrought, triumphing in the injustice he perpetrated; foul in his private life as he was wicked in his public career. A far more intelligent man than Berkeley, of Virginia, he can, therefore, plead less excuse than he for the evil and misery ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... clear-running branch. On the right a bay-tree bending over the stream mingled the heavy odor of its flowers with the delicate perfume of a yellow jessamine vine that had overrun a clump of saplings on the left. From a neighboring tree a silver-throated mocking-bird poured out a flood of riotous melody. A group of minnows; startled by the splashing of the mule's feet, darted away into the shadow of the thicket, their quick passage leaving the amber water ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... "Thank'ee, But we cannot stand the Yankee O'er our scars and fissures poring, In our very vitals boring, In our sacred caverns prying, All our secret problems trying,— Digging, blasting, with dynamit Mocking all our thunders! Damn it! Other lands may be more civil, Bust our lava crust ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... held out were powerful, but he prayed that were they ten times more so he might have grace to resist them. He doubted also very much whether the wily priest was not mocking him. He knew full well from the accounts he had heard in France of the treachery of which the emissaries of Rome were guilty, and he would not place any confidence in the most specious promises any of them might have made to him. He therefore ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... Ainsworth elaborately explains, "a mocking by grimaces, mows, a flout, a frump, a gibe, a scoff, a banter;" and Sannio is "a fool in a play." The Italians change the S into Z, for they say Zmyrna and Zambuco, for Smyrna and Sambuco; and thus they turned Sannio into Zanno, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... of the diseases which I had considered impossible to my organization; to observe the hours, which had hitherto been invisible, like rear forces pushing me to the front; to watch the crippled moments, which had always flown past me like mocking-birds; to know to the full the absence of movement in life; to feel deficiency of purpose like paralysis stiffen me; to have no hope of anything better, and not to know what worse might be before ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... of his suit-case and reckoned the number of miles it had traveled with him. He spun his watch about on the table, and listened to its rapid mocking speech, "Friends, ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... 20 Affection sees new lustre light the eye, And feels her vanish'd joys again are nigh. The Pacos[A], and Vicunnas[B] sport around, And the meek Lamas[C], burden'd, press the ground. Amid the vocal groves, the feather'd throng 25 Pour to the list'ning breeze their native song; The mocking-bird her varying note essays, The vain macaw his glitt'ring plume displays. While spring's warm ray the mild suffusion sheds, The plaintive humming-bird his pinion spreads; 30 His wings their colours to the sun unfold, The vivid scarlet, and the blazing gold; He sees the flower which ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams
... predestinate men to eternal death, without their own evil deserving, or any forethought of it,—that before any man had a being, God should have been in his counsel fitting so many to destruction. Is it not a strange mocking of the creatures, to punish them for that sin and corruption, unto which by his eternal counsel they were fore-ordained? This is even that which Paul objects to himself, "Is there unrighteousness with God?" Is it not unrighteousness to hate Esau before he deserves ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... Emperors know, Forty-eight States that are empires in might, But ruled by the will of one people tonight, Nerved as one body, with net-works of steel, Merging their strength in the one Commonweal, Brooking no poverty, mocking at Mars, Building their cities to talk with the stars. Thriving, increasing by myriads again Till even in numbers old Europe may wane. How shall a son of the England they fought Fail to declare the full pride ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... to boisterous gaiety. On we rolled, pitching and tossing, mid darkness and tempest, until, through the broken window, a sorry illumination of oil-lamps showed us one side of a colonnaded street. "Bologna! Bologna!" cried my companions, mocking at this feeble reminiscence of their fat northern town. The next moment we pulled up, our bruised bodies colliding vigorously for the last time; ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... say is true, I had better not let myself like any body." Then, laughing up in his face, she added: "By-the-way, I wonder if you are safe. You see you have made me so skeptical that I shall begin by suspecting my tutor. No, don't speak," she went on, in a half-earnest, half-mocking manner, and put her hand before his mouth. "The case is hopeless, as far as you are concerned. The warning has come too late. I love you as I thought I should never love any ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... plates and crystal goblets; but they are never thus favoured unless they have done an extraordinary number of evil deeds since the last period of meeting. After the feast they begin dancing, but such as have no relish for any more exercise in that way amuse themselves by mocking the holy sacrament of baptism. For this purpose the toads are again called and sprinkled with filthy water, the Devil making the sign of the cross, and the witches calling out [oath omitted]. When the ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... dog beside the threshold lies, Mocking sleep with half-shut eyes— With head crouched down upon his feet, Till strangers pass his sunny seat— Then quick he pricks his ears to hark And bustles up to growl and bark; While boys in fear stop short their song, And sneak in startled speed along; And beggar, creeping like a snail, To make ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... note of the vibrating signal, had his eyes opened. His hand flew to his holster, and the mocking laugh of the detective followed the discovery that his revolver ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... which style Miss Arrowpoint admires most," was a thought that glanced through Gwendolen's mind, while her eyes and lips gathered rather a mocking expression. But she would not indulge her sense of amusement by watching, as if she were curious, and she gave all her animation to those immediately around her, determined not to care whether Mr. Grandcourt came near ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... a 'meeseerable creature'!" insisted the little girl, mocking her, her brown eyes flashing. "She danced for me, and I will give it to her—I ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... tone so light and jesting, as it would be difficult for those not versed in his character to conceive that he could ever bring himself, while under the influence of a passion so sincere, to assume. But such is ever the wantonness of the mocking spirit, from which nothing,—not even love,—remains sacred; and which, at last, for want of other food, turns upon himself. The same horror, too, of hypocrisy that led Lord Byron to exaggerate his own errors, led him also to ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... never been seen in the countryside. It was to be "full of little turrets and the finest of fancy porches and a regular sight of bulging windows." One day that Martin Cosgrave heard a neighbour speaking about the "bulging windows" he laughed a half-bitter, half-mocking laugh. ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... did send to speak with me, and told me very civilly that she did not desire, nor hoped I did, that anything should pass between us but what was civill, though there was not the neighbourliness between her and my wife that was fit to be, and so complained of my maid's mocking of her; when she called "Nan" to her maid within her own house, my maid Jane in the garden overheard her, and mocked her, and some other such like things she told me, and of my wife's speaking unhandsomely of ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... other machines, that made all our machines look pathetic and ridiculous, was the Economic Machine. There were days when I heard it or seemed to hear it—this Economic Machine closing in around my life, around all our lives like the last hoarse mocking laugh ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... said, "He followed the enemy, and I did not see him again." She inquired of the gardener where his boy was, but he smiled, and said, "He has just come home on his three-legged horse, and the others have been mocking him, and crying, "Here comes our hobblety jig back again!" They asked, too, "Under what hedge hast thou been lying sleeping all the time?" He, however, said, "I did the best of all, and it would have gone badly without me." And then ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... carelessly, and I wondered how the gentlemen felt who were kneeling there—and the hymn was so magnificent, Meredith. I think if you were there with your present feelings, you would be afraid to stay. It would seem like mocking God to come to answer all those solemn questions, and not mean what you said. I think it ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... on the streets, and silver mistletoe; The surging, jeweled, ragged crowds forever come and go. And here a silken woman laughs, and there a beggar asks— And, oh, the faces, tense of lip, like mad and mocking masks. Who thinks of Bethlehem today, and one lone winter night? Who knows that in a manger-bed there ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... quite agree in this, but I can't approve of any trafficking with persons disaffected to the government. Gone! what, did any man say that Pollock was here?" And the earl shuffled in his chair beneath Claverhouse's mocking eyes. ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... her eyes on him again, and with her mocking smile, "It certainly ought to be easy for me to make her ...
— The American • Henry James
... bore hearing after hearing with a cold placidity. His frigidly haughty dignity, his mocking smile, the mute shrug of his shoulders, caused Monsieur Jausion frequent annoyance. But there were times when, carried away by impatience, he interrupted the judge outright, and attacked, boldly and eloquently, the frail yet indestructible ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... moment, as he heard the amazing announcement of his ward, Mr. Dardus stood staring at him in silence, and then broke into a mocking laugh. ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... her? What are her thoughts, her emotions, her secret self? What is her veritable existence beyond the night circle of the banquet lights, far from the illusion formed around her by the mist of wine? Is she always as mischievous as she seems while her voice ripples out with mocking sweetness the words ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... away, at random, through squalid, ugly streets, where the first electric-lights were just beginning to flare; where children swarmed in the close heat, wallowing along the gutters, dodging teams and cars, as they essayed to play, setting off a few premature firecrackers and mocking the police—all in all, leading the ugly, unnatural, destructive life of all children of ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... amuse the bluish-gray monstrosity. "May I introduce myself?" he asked with a mocking note in his metallic voice. "I am Arlok of Xoran. I am an explorer of Space, and more particularly an Opener of Gates. My home is upon Xoran, which is one of the eleven major planets that circle about the giant blue-white sun that your astronomers call Rigel. I am here to open ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... involuntarily, but it was a very friendly smile, and her voice had lost its mocking ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... man, what hero, Clio sweet, On harp or flute wilt thou proclaim? What god shall echo's voice repeat In mocking game To Helicon's sequester'd shade, Or Pindus, or on Haemus chill, Where once the hurrying woods obey'd The minstrel's will, Who, by his mother's gift of song, Held the fleet stream, the rapid breeze, And ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... o' being a man of eminent godliness," answered the sergeant in a mocking tone; "and is even credited with having started ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... in the hot blue ring Through all my points I swing— Swing and return to shift the sun anew. Blind in my well-known sky I hear the stars go by, Mocking the prow that can not hold ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... is slender, and the well-cut nostrils are separated by a sweet little pink partition—an imperious, mocking nose, with a tip too sensitive ever to grow fat or red. Sweetheart, if this won't find a husband for a dowerless maiden, I'm a donkey. The ears are daintily curled, a pearl hanging from either lobe would show yellow. The neck is ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... been wrong all his life. God knows what he prayed; but with such strange folk it is not incredible to suppose that their prayers are all upside down. Very likely a lunatic would pray before killing a man. When I last saw poor Joe he was with my brother. My brother was mocking him." ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... with grief, Diffusing fragrance round them, of strong waters, And waving many a snowy handkerchief; Then glowed the prince of highwayman and thief! His soul was touched with a seraphic gleam— That woman could be false was but a mocking dream. ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... heard it rise and swell, Tolled by the iron steamer's bell; Told by the mocking voice of Fate, Rung through her heart, "too ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey
... of effacing of the shame wrought there by the presence of the ark. The false gods had triumphed, as their worshippers thought, and Saul's death was Jehovah's defeat. That apparent victory of the idols and the mocking exultation over the bloody trophy and dinted armour are, to the historian, not the least bitter consequences ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... that is the spell of it; Mocking, baulking, that is the hell of it; But I'll shoulder my pack in the morning, boys, And I'm going because I must; For it's so-long to all When you answer the ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... was talking to the prof there. But it's great sport to see how musical you can make a thing sound. Words. Like Shenandoah. Gol-lee! Isn't that a wonderful word? Makes you see old white mansion, and mocking birds—— Wonder if a fellow could be a big engineer, you know, build bridges and so on, and still talk about, oh, beautiful things? What d' ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... lethargy of half sleep, and sprung to his feet, at the very moment a gleaming sword was pointed at his throat. "Ha, villain! at thy murderous work again!" he exclaimed, and another moment beheld him closed in deadly conflict with his mysterious foe. A deep and terrible oath, and then a mocking laugh, escaped his adversary; and something in those sounds, nerved Stanley's arms with resistless power: he was sure he could not be mistaken, and he fought, not with the unguarded desire of one eager to obtain satisfaction for personal injury—but he was calm, cool, collected, as threefold ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... something which perplexed and alarmed him. Her long lithe figure was half crouching, half clinging to the horse's back, her loosened hair flying over her shoulders, her dark eyes gleaming with an odd nymph-like mischief. Her white teeth flashed as she recognized him, but her laugh was still mocking and uncanny. He took ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... voice of Aun' Sheba, the wailing of Sissy, and the groans and unearthly sounds to which Uncle Sheba was giving utterance. The adjacent fire was so far subdued that only a red glow in the sky above marked the spot. The stars shone in calm, mocking serenity on the wide scene of human distress and fear. "Alas," he thought, "what atoms we are; and what an atom is this earth itself! It would seem that faith is the simplest, yet mightiest effort of the mind at such a time," and he paused till Aun' ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... Bobolink Bullfinch Cock Canary Crow Cuckoo Eagle Falcon Goose Hawk Humming-bird Lark Mocking-bird Nightingale Owl ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... pulse thrummed through his palpitating veins a rhythmic, mocking accompaniment to ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... Denis' sisters, sang as they rode; and if there was not song already on the track, it came from behind every flowering hedge—from the crown of the cocoa-nut tree—from the window of the cottage. The sweet wild note of the mocking-bird was awakened in its turn; and from the depths of the tangled woods, where it might defy the human eye and hand, it sent forth its strain, shrill as the thrush, more various than the nightingale, and sweeter than the canary. But for the bird, the Spanish ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... to their waiting wives, to their glad children, and to the girls they loved—they went back to the fields, the shops, and mines. They had not been demoralized. They had been ennobled. They were as honest in peace as they had been brave in war. Mocking at poverty, laughing at reverses, they made a friend of toil. They said: "We saved the Nation's life, and what is life without honor?" They-worked and wrought with all of labor's royal sons that every pledge the ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... river which had caused this trouble that he must face, and forgetting the luxury of its coolness, cursed it venomously. Little waves washed up on the pebbly bank, and glinted in the sun while they whispered mocking things to him. Happy Jack gave over swearing at the river, and turned his wrath upon Stranger—Stranger, hurtling along somewhere through the breaks, with all Happy's clothes tied firmly to the saddle. Happy Jack sighed lugubriously when he remembered how firmly. A fleeting hope that, if he followed ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... little else. Its forms were a surprise, so varied and so beautiful. I had supposed that field-ice was made up of flat cakes,—and cake of all kinds is among the flattest things I know! But here if was, simulating all shapes, even those of animated creatures, with the art of a mocking bird,—and simulating all in a material pure as amber, though more varied in color. One saw about him cliffs, basaltic columns, frozen down, arabesques, fretted traceries, sculptured urns, arches supporting broad tables or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... was worse than the baby at home, and the two thereupon started a mocking caterwaul on their own account, in which not a few of their nearest and dearest ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... delight the ear. The Mexican parrots are the most voluble to be found this side of southern Africa. It seems that there are conventional rules relating to bird-fancying here; the middle and lower classes make pets of the parrot tribe, while the more pretentious people prefer mocking-birds, canaries, and the favorite little clarin. Boys walk about the streets of the national capital with a species of small paroquet for sale, trained to run all over the owner's arms, neck, and fingers, showing no inclination ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... she, in a light mocking tone, "that I felt every stroke of your knife on that bark? Oh, you do not know how deep you cut! It seems that my life is infused into that tree, and that it is henceforth ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... first mover (of a measure), readily suffering his colleague to take the first lead in a matter of so much importance, claimed to himself his share of the consular duty in executing the plan. Then the tribunes, mocking these declarations as empty, went on inquiring "by what means the consuls would lead out the army, as no one would allow them to hold a levy?" "But," says Quintius, "we have no occasion for a levy; since at the time Publius Valerius ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... bodes nearing ill.— It may be only vapour, of the heat Of too much joy engendered; sudden fear That the fair gladness is too good to live: The wider prospect from the steep hill's crest, The deeper to the vale the cliff goes down; But how will she receive it? Will she think I have been mocking her? How could I help it? Her illness and my danger! But, indeed, So strong was I in truth, I never thought Her doubts might prove a hindrance in the way. My love did make her so a part of me, I never dreamed she might judge otherwise, Until our ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... to arise, amused themselves, with characteristic levity, by theatrical representations of the contest upon the stage. The passions of the two parties were roused; the Jews and Pagans, of whom the town was full, exasperated things by their mocking derision. The dissension spread: the whole country became convulsed. In the hot climate of Africa, theological controversy soon ripened into political disturbance. In all Egypt there was not a Christian man, and not a woman, who did not proceed to settle ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... above in clouds do sit, Mocking our poor apish wit, That so lamely with such state Their high glory imitate. No ill can be felt but pain, And that ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... shone in upon the floor, but it brought nothing of cheer to the deserted building. It seemed like a mocking attempt to make the place look pleasant, an attempt that served to show its dreary desolation all ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... I dreamt of obscene things. I awoke with their images hovering by my bedside, looking at me with sneering eyes, mocking me with lewd gestures. 'Your honour and the honour of the Herediths—Where is it?' they kept repeating: 'Sold by the wanton you have made your wife. What is honour to the lust of the flesh? There is nothing so strong in the world.' But as I watched ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... properly shaped, as all other people were, but hunchbacked, and crooked-limbed, with huge lolling head and mane of black hair. The little Dwarf frowned, and the monster frowned also. He laughed, and it laughed with him, and held its hands to its sides, just as he himself was doing. He made it a mocking bow, and it returned him a low reverence. He went towards it, and it came to meet him, copying each step that he made, and stopping when he stopped himself. He shouted with amusement, and ran forward, and reached out his hand, and the hand of the monster touched his, ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... Devil's "If."—Note the later taunting use of that diabolical if as the Christ hung upon the cross. The rulers of the Jews, mocking the crucified Jesus in His agony said, "Let him save himself if he be the Christ." And the soldier, reading the inscription at the head of the cross derided the dying God, saying: "If thou be the king of the ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... Elliot. "That's just what one would always like—only unfortunately it's not possible." "Not possible?" said Helen. "Everything's possible. Who knows what mayn't happen before night-fall?" she continued, mocking the poor lady's timidity, who depended implicitly upon one thing following another that the mere glimpse of a world where dinner could be disregarded, or the table moved one inch from its accustomed place, filled her with fears for her ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... women,—more or less,— Have minds o' the self-same metal, mould, and form!— Doth not the infant love to sport and laugh, And tie a kettle to a puppy's tail?— Doth not the dimpled girl her 'kerchief don (Mocking her elder) mantilla wise—then speed To mass and noontide visits; where are bandied Smooth gossip-words of sugared compliment? But when at budding womanhood arrived, She casts aside all childish games, nor thinks Of aught save some gay paranymph—who, caught In love's stout meshes, flutters ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... excellent school, if any schools are really excellent for young ladies; but there was, nevertheless, something in her style of thought hardly suitable to the softness of girlhood. She could speak of sacred things with a mocking spirit, the mockery of philosophy rather than of youth; she had little or no enthusiasm, though there was passion enough deep seated in her bosom; she suffered from no transcendentalism; she saw nothing through a halo of poetic inspiration: among ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... English Nation being in some difficulty as to Kings, the English Nation clutched up the readiest that came to hand; "Here is our King!" said they,—again under mistake, still under their old mistake. And, what was singular, they then avenged themselves by mocking, calumniating, by angrily speaking, writing and laughing at the poor mistaken King so clutched!—It is high time the English were candidly asking themselves, with very great seriousness indeed, WHAT it was they had done, in the sight of God ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... button—I merely made remarks and then returned to town in a railroad train which runs conveniently near. After gaining civilization I made my way through several parades or it may have been the same one to the reviewing stand. My progress was marked by mocking remarks by the police who asked of each other to get on to my coat and on several occasions I was mistaken by a crowd of some thousand people for the P——e of W——s, and tumultuously cheered. At last I found an inspector of police on horseback, who agreed to get me to the ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... of bitterness over. Opposite Steve Brayton's cabin a jet of smoke puffed from the bushes across the river, and a bullet furrowed the road in front of him. That was the shot they had heard at the mill. Somebody was drawing a dead-line, and Rome wheeled his horse at the brink of it. A mocking yell came over the river, and a gray horse flashed past an open space in the bushes. Rome knew the horse and knew the yell; young Jasper was "bantering" him. Nothing maddens the mountaineer like this childish method of insult; and telling of it, Rome sat in a corner, and ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... mocking world, too fast The doubting fiend o'ertakes our youth: Better be cheated to the last, Than lose the blessed hope of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 211, November 12, 1853 • Various
... Two Arrows, as he dodged around the hopeless side he came to. Away around, and the same mocking smoothness made his heart sink, while the fierce growl of the huge wild beast behind him ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... the spell of her voice. Ballads had never been sung before with the charm and feeling she put into them; and after ending with "Douglas, Douglas," she responded to my importunity with "Ben Bolt," and then dashed into a sparkling thing of Chopin's, played it brilliantly and rose, laughingly mocking my applause. ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... of Gigha laughed a mocking laugh, and catching Alpin by the wrist he threw him backward. Duncan Graham broke his fall and tore the weapon ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... ready to do much to serve you. I would gladly help you, see you through any difficulty by the way, but I'm afraid I must draw the line at active partnership," I answered a little lamely under her mocking eyes. Once more, as suddenly as before, she ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... issue visibly through the windows of a house, and if any one should ask if there were fire within it, and if another should answer "Yes" to him, one would not well know how to judge which of those might be mocking the most. Not otherwise would the question and the answer pass between me and that man who should ask me if love for my own language is in me, and if I should answer "Yes" to him, after ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... whose echoes recoil upon me, I have not once had the least idea who or what I am, But that before all my insolent poems the real me still stands untouched, untold, altogether unreached, Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows, With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written or shall write, Striking me with insults, till I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... Christie, laughing; but she looked grave in a moment. "That shows how little you know of me, if indeed you are not mocking me ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... which seems to me less the result of early training and habit, than of some particular construction of ear and throat favorable for receiving and repeating mere sounds; a musical organization and mimetic faculty; a sort of mocking-bird specialty, which I have known possessed in great perfection by persons with whom it was in no way connected with the study, but only with the use of the languages they spoke with such idiomatic ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... lessons from the mocking-birds," replied Black Snake, "and has learned many tunes; she sings now for the ears of the sunny Eagle, whose wings are too feeble to fly. His last flight will be short (pointing to the cataract); he will not need his wings, and the Gentle Fawn will soon learn to sing to Black Snake. ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... yielding to his solicitations, she smiles, and opens her arms for him. But he, foolishly, stops to reproach her for holding him off so long. He shakes his head, rolls his eyes, and lo! when he gets ready to grasp her at last, she eludes him again, with a mocking laugh. ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... nodis, alas vobis adfuturas putatis quibus ad caelum pergere atque ad sidera volare possitis," etc.). It had become so popular that the comedy by Querolus, written in Gaul during the first years of the fifth century, alluded to it in a mocking way, in connection with the planets (V, 38): "Mortales vero addere animas sive inferis nullus labor sive superis." It was still taught, at least in part, by the Priscillianists (Aug., De haeres., 70; Priscillianus, ed. Schepss., ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... words. She felt herself stiffening slowly, while the living room almost faded from her sight. Perhaps, in that instant, some additional new circuit had closed in her mind, or some additional new channel had opened, for TT's purpose in tricking her into contact with the reckless, mocking beings outside ...
— Novice • James H. Schmitz
... know not how, but a great strength came to me, an unnatural strength. My heart grew cold, but my hands and arms felt like steel. His bitter, mocking words seemed to dry up all the milk of human kindness in my nature. At that moment I ceased to be a man. I was simply an instrument of vengeance. His words gave me a great joy on the one hand, for I knew he would not have told ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... peace before the tribunal of reason. There remains, then, no other means of settling the question than to convince the parties, who refute each other with such conclusiveness and ability, that they are disputing about nothing, and that a transcendental illusion has been mocking them with visions of reality where there is none. The mode of adjusting a dispute which cannot be decided upon its own merits, we shall now proceed to lay ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... door behind him, when he opened it again, and put in his head, and with his hard, mocking laugh, demanded, "Qu'est-ce que c'est qu'un 'Boss'?" And as he walked down the hall, I could ...
— In Madeira Place - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... Again a strange, mocking catcall sounded from somewhere. There was a sort of jeer about it that aroused Miss ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... a mocking voice. She had got as far as the door, and had overheard Nora's words. She now glanced at her mother, as much as to say, "I told you so," ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... surrounding gloom faintly lightened as with a misty dawn, and then was dark again; or drowsy, far-off cries and confused noises seemed to grow out of the silence, and, when they had attracted the weary ear, sank away as in a mocking dream, and showed themselves unreal. Nebulous gatherings in the fog seemed to indicate stationary objects that, even as one gazed, moved away; the recurring lap and ripple on the shingle sometimes took upon itself the semblance of faint articulate ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... spirit all popular applause was always abhorrent, and nothing amused him more at the end of a successful case than to hand over the actual exposure to some orthodox official, and to listen with a mocking smile to the general chorus of misplaced congratulation. It was indeed this attitude upon the part of my friend and certainly not any lack of interesting material which has caused me of late years to lay very few of my records before the public. My participation in some if his adventures ...
— The Adventure of the Devil's Foot • Arthur Conan Doyle
... manner, joined in the general chattering and screaming, which, like ocean breakers, became louder and madder around the mighty goddess, until she, bursting with impatience, suddenly cried, in a tone of the most agonized Titanic pain, "Silence! Silence! I hear the voice of the beloved Prometheus. Mocking cunning and brute force are chaining the Innocent One to the rock of martyrdom, and all your prattling and quarreling will not allay his wounds or break his fetters!" So cried the goddess, and rivulets of tears sprang from her eyes; the entire assembly howled as if in the agonies of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... huge content; By rocky lairs where the pig-eyed bears peered at our tiny tent. Through the black canyon's angry foam we hurled to dreamy bars, And round in a ring the dog-nosed peaks bayed to the mocking stars. Spring and summer and autumn went; the sky had a tallow gleam, Yet North and ever North we pressed to the ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... then indeed might every man curse God for his existence bestowed upon him—as I would, but dare not do. Yet why can I not believe?—Alas! why should God accept an unrepentant heart? Am I not a hypocrite, mocking him by a guilty pretension to his power, and leading the dark into thicker darkness? Then these hands—blood!—broken vows!—ha! ha! ha! Well, go—let misery have its laugh, like the light that breaks from ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... the Count rising, "Drink me the contents of this flagon at a draught, and your citizens are free; else at noon they swing," and with a mocking smile on his lips he was about to stride out of the room, when the priest ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... marriage, at which she snapped her white fingers with a grimace—and the more she flouted me, the more fascinated I grew. In that rapturous hour when her insolent eyes softened to sentiment, when her mocking mouth melted to a kiss, I was in Paradise. My ecstasy was so supreme that I forgot to ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... from the district without having repaid Kostanzhoglo at all! Truly a splendid idea! Yet it is only fair to say that the idea was not one of Chichikov's own conception. Rather, it had presented itself—mocking, laughing, and winking—unbidden. Yet the impudent, the wanton thing! Who is the procreator of suddenly born ideas of the kind? The thought that he was now a real, an actual, proprietor instead of a fictitious—that he was now a proprietor of real land, real rights of timber and pasture, and real ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol |
