"Pleasantry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Good-naturedly Duret explained he had just arrived from Portugal and that the breakfast was a veritable feast. "And I have just arrived from Paris," he answered, and gave his name, Edouard Manet. He added that he had been so persecuted that he suspected his neighbour of some evil pleasantry. The pair became friends, and went to look at the pictures of Velasquez at the Prado. Fresh from Paris, Manet was still smarting from the attacks made on him after the hanging of his Olympia in the Salon of 1865. Little wonder his nerves were ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... my desire has really scope for its indulgence. Yet I am still distracted by doubts, remembering the pleasantry of her female companions respecting ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... called upon him again the next evening. After some talk on the adventures of the preceding day: "I carried you yesterday," said he to Harley, "to visit the mad; let me introduce you to-night, at supper, to one of the wise: but you must not look for anything of the Socratic pleasantry about him; on the contrary, I warn you to expect the spirit of a Diogenes. That you may be a little prepared for his extraordinary manner, I will let you into some ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... when sober, they were at a double disadvantage when drunk and weaving on their legs. They made no attempt to follow Morgan and revel in his sufferings and peril, but fell back, content to enjoy their pleasantry at ease. ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... "Moderate your pleasantry, madame," commanded the president. "Remember that you are in a grave and perilous situation, and that justice hangs over you like the sword of Damocles. You have already invoked your fate, in calling God to witness that ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... this was a mere masking or mummery," said Craigdallie, "our townsman, Harry of the Wind, did far wrong to cut off a gentleman's hand for such a harmless pleasantry, and the town may be brought to a heavy fine for it, unless we secure the person of ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... returned, fell into fresh difficulties, involved himself inextricably in betting, and went on with a determination to shoot himself if his speculations failed, and so he did. He was very popular, had been extremely handsome in his youth, and was a fellow of infinite pleasantry and good-humour. ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... languages, or raised in the hot-beds of affectation and conceit;" such attention to the mother-tongue is prescribed, that the young nerves of the letter-writer must tremble when he takes up his pen. Besides, he is told that "he should be extremely reserved on the head of pleasantry," and that "as to sallies of wit, it is still more dangerous to let them fly at random; but he may repeat the smart sayings of others if he will, or relate part of some droll adventure, to enliven ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... different Indians for addresses. Some of them were very good also. This is the night of all others, when Indian orators try to be humorous and witty. As a race they do not excel along these lines, but sometimes they get off some very good things. While they began their speeches with some bright pleasantry that brought smiles, and even laughter, there was never anything unbecoming to the place, and all quickly drifted into a strain of thanksgiving to God for his blessings. To listen to their grateful joyous words, one would think they were the most highly ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... seriously. That is a highly speculative proposition. I have found some times that, in a very scientific audience, men who were trained in methods of science, had very little selvage of humor,—little margin for any pleasantry, but this highly speculative suggestion, curiously enough, is not in fact more speculative than would have been the idea twelve years ago that you could hatch an egg, start an egg ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... difference where Reid went, or what he planned; he would have to stay away from that camp. That Mackenzie vowed, meaning it to the last letter. Tim Sullivan would be informed of this latest pleasantry at their first meeting, also, and hear a chapter from Mackenzie's heart on the ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... asked, holding it up. "The very sheets, with precious annotations." "I mean to take your advice;" and she tucked the little bundle under her arm. I congratulated her cordially, and ventured to make of my triumph, as I presumed to call it, a subject of pleasantry. But she was perfectly grave, and turned away from me, as she had presented herself, without a smile; after which I settled down to my quarto again, with the reflection that Mrs. Ambient was a queer woman. My triumph, too, ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... with such an exercise of their understanding. Steps, motions, attitudes, figures, positions, now were substituted to speech; and there resulted from them an expression so natural, images so resembling, a pathos so moving, or a pleasantry so agreeable, that people imagined they heard the actions they saw. The gestures alone supplied the place of the sweetness of the voice, of the energy of speech, and of ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... pleasantry. "Thank you for saying calico, Marian. I was just wondering what to call him and ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... necessity of any labours but those of national undoing. Holding but an inferior and struggling rank in all the manlier provinces of the mind, in science, poetry, and philosophy; he was the prince of scorners. The splenetic pleasantry which stimulates the wearied tastes of high life; the grossness which half concealed captivates the loose, without offence to their feeble decorum; and the easy brilliancy which throws what colours it will on the darker features of its purpose; made Voltaire, ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... less weaned on gin, and discovered that, unlike his father, he didn't much care for the stuff—and even in Washington, people didn't go around accusing you of drunkenness just because you made some harmless little pleasantry. ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... John French 'ere to meet you. But yer'll have to put up with us low fellows for a bit instead, which if yer don't like it, yer can lump it, and if yer won't lump it, where will yer have it?" and he tapped his bayonet invitingly. Needless to say, the speaker's pleasantry was impracticable. But the officer did not know that; he only knew the way they have in Germany. Wherefore the officer relapsed into ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... the usual entertainment of wit and wisdom from Roy and Pee-wee, and he smiled in his old way when Roy said with a poor attempt at mirth, "Let's finish up the egg powder, we'll all scramble for scrambled eggs." Blythe heard only the pleasantry, but to the others the reminder that it was their ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... picture of the surface of society, showed manners but not the elementary passions of human nature. As a whole, it leaves an impression of hardness, shallowness, and levity. The polite cynicism of Congreve, the ferocious cynicism of Swift, the malice of Pope, the pleasantry of Addison, the early worldliness of Prior and Gay are seldom relieved by any touch of the ideal. The prose of the time was excellent, but the poetry was merely rhymed prose. The recent Queen Anne revival in architecture, dress, and bric-a-brac, the recrudescence ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... daresay that you condemn and despise me, for, foolish and conceited as you are, you scarcely know how to distinguish between friend and foe. You think the misfortune that little pleasantry would have brought upon you highly important, whereas, if carried out as intended, it would have saved you from real ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... filled with fear," said Charley, quickly, regretting his attempt at pleasantry, "but they found that they had been only children frightened at shadows. They have slain that which made ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... boyish frolic, and again and again there are clever strokes directed at folly. He has shot certain superstitions through with doubt, and in his manner of dealing with error he has proved to us a thing it were well not to forget: that pleasantry is more efficacious ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... at Exeter College, as young gentlemen are received at college; and nowhere else, I hope, for the credit of Christendom. They showed him a hole in the roof, and called it an "Attic;" grim pleasantry! being a puncture in the modern Athens. They inserted him; told him what hour at the top of the morning he must be in chapel; and left him to find out his other ills. His cases were welcomed like Christians, ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... no occasion for Mr. Finley to indulge in any pleasantry at the expense of his old friend, Simon Kenton, however appropriate it might be at another time. His words were grave, quick and prompt, as were becoming. He hurriedly shook hands with Boone, Kenton and the rangers, to all of whom he was well known and by them held in high esteem. He ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... year 1607 he took the degree of batchelor of arts, and upon the recommendation of the principal of the college, he entered into the service of William Cavendish, baron Hardwicke, soon afterwards earl of Devonshire[2], by whom being much esteemed for his pleasantry and humour, he was appointed tutor to his son lord William Cavendish, several years younger than Hobbs. Soon after our author travelled with this young nobleman thro' France and Italy, where he made ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... indiscreet adoration. It was just like Philip Crewe, this marrying on probabilities; and it was equally like the rest of them to accept the state of affairs as an excellent joke, and regard the result as an exquisite piece of pleasantry. 'Toinette herself was only another careless, unworldly addition to the family circle, and enjoyed her position as thoroughly as the rest did; and as to Tod, what a delicate satire upon responsibilities Tod was, and how tranquilly he comported himself ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the narrative begins, and with a truly astonishing spirit for the writing of a woman in her eightieth year. Her old vivacity is still natural to her; there is nothing forced in the pleasantry ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... beside the Barbican, Plymouth; stopping on the way before every building of exceptional height and asking me quizzically how I would propose to set about climbing it. At the time, in the soreness of my heart, I resented this heavy pleasantry, and to be sure, after the tenth repetition or so, the diversity of the buildings to which he applied it but poorly concealed its sameness. But, in fact, he was doing his best to be kind, and succeeded in a sort; ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the self-satisfaction of a successful operator, is a young man of thirty or thereabouts. He does not give the impression of being much of a workman: his professional manner evidently strikes him as being a joke, and is underlain by a thoughtless pleasantry which betrays the young gentleman still unsettled and in search of amusing adventures, behind the newly set-up dentist in search of patients. He is not without gravity of demeanor; but the strained nostrils stamp it as the gravity of the humorist. His eyes are clear, alert, of sceptically ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw
... were taken ashore under a running fire of pleasantry about their plight, and were told moral stories about people who tried to play jokes on others and got the worst of it themselves, and Sahwah advised them gravely never to go out in a rowboat that wouldn't stand without hitching, ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... excited the curiosity of several of the sifters, who had recently joined the "company": the parties alluded to were requested to favor them with the recital; and though the request was made with only a half-concealed irony, still it was all in good-natured pleasantry, and was immediately complied with. ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... (Wake Robin), Zeal Ash, Mountain, Prudence Ash Tree, Grandeur Aspen Tree, Lamentation Asphodel, My Regrets Follow Auricula, Painting Auricula (Scarlet) Avarice Austurtium, Splendour Azalea, Temperance Bachelor's Buttons, Celibacy Balm, Sympathy Balm (Gentle), Pleasantry Balm of Gilead, Cure Balsam, Yellow, Impatience Barberry, Sharpness of temper Basil, Hatred Bay Berry, Instruction Bay Leaf, I change but in death Bay Tree, Glory Bay Wreath, Reward of merit Bearded Crepis, ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... infuriate him by one of those cold-drawn jests which consist in defending an opinion in which we have no belief, simply to rouse the wrath of a poor man who argues in good faith; a regular journalist's pleasantry. ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... artificial and 'conceited' in the collection—the poet plays somewhat enigmatically on his Christian name of 'Will,' and a similar pun has been doubtfully detected in sonnets cxxxiv. and cxlvii. The groundwork of the pleasantry is the identity in form of the proper name with the common noun 'will.' This word connoted in Elizabethan English a generous variety of conceptions, of most of which it has long since been deprived. Then, ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... There is so much pleasantry and humour, as well as spirit and heroism in this story, as we have it recorded by William de Malmesbury, who represents the menace as thrown out in the King's presence, that I shall make no apology for setting down ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... conjure you, dear sir, by all the ties of friendship, by no means to have one uneasy thought on my account; but to have the same pleasantry of countenance, and unruffled serenity of mind, which (God be praised!) I have in this, and have had in a much severer calamity. Furthermore, I charge you, if you value my friendship as truly as I do yours, not to utter, or even harbour, the ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... Silvain Bailly, the accomplished scholar,—the aspiring politician. It was one of those petits soupers for which the capital of all social pleasures was so renowned. The conversation, as might be expected, was literary and intellectual, enlivened by graceful pleasantry. Many of the ladies of that ancient and proud noblesse—for the noblesse yet existed, though its hours were already numbered—added to the charm of the society; and theirs were the boldest criticisms, and often ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... douceurs fades"—the insipid sweet things—"of the other feminine scribes." Nevertheless, she thought it prudent to reside for a time upon her estate in Brittany. A copy of a letter by St. Evremond was found, written three years before from the Spanish frontier. It was a sarcastic pleasantry at the expense of Mazarin and the Paix des Pyrenees, St. Evremond was a soldier, a wit, and the leader of fashion; Colbert hated him, and magnified a jeu d'esprit into a State-crime. He was exiled, and spent the rest of his long life in England. Of the baser sort, hundreds were turned ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... Rogers. "But unless I'm a Dutchman, it used to be The Gabriel's antimacassar"—and with that Mr. Rogers winked, for he had (as the other knew to his cost) an artless, primitive sense of pleasantry. "A gage d'amour, I'll bet any ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... his death nearly approaching, he several times made his preparations hastily, in order to go and struggle still, and die at a distance from the roof of his old age. The unwearied activity of his mind was never checked for a moment. He carried his gaiety even to genius, and under that pleasantry of his whole life we may perceive a grave power of perseverance and conviction. Such was the character of this great man. The enlightened serenity of his mind concealed the depth of its workings: under the joke and laugh his constancy of purpose was hardly sufficiently recognised. He suffered ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... lively; and as Shakspeare used to put up at the house on his journeys between Stratford and London, Davenant is said to have affected the reputation of being Shakspeare's son. If he really did this, there was a levity, or rather a want of feeling, in the boast, for which social pleasantry, and the spirits which are induced by ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... was a store of traditional jests on the learned professions, law, astrology, medicine —the last especially; and the schools of rhetoric and philosophy were, from their first beginning, the subject of much pleasantry. Any popular reputation, in painting, music, literature, gave material for facetious attack; and so did any bodily defect, even those, it must be added, which we think of now as exciting pity or as to be passed over in silence.[10] Many of these jokes, ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... provinces and fools are always ready to take offence, and to suppose that you are laughing at them: we should never risk a pleasantry, except with well-bred people, and ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... first that it was a bit of pleasantry, and I was about to return it in kind when I saw plainly in his face a ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... an vndeserued dignitie: O that estates, degrees, and offices, Were not deriu'd corruptly, and that cleare honour Were purchast by the merrit of the wearer; How many then should couer that stand bare? How many be commanded that command? How much low pleasantry would then be gleaned From the true seede of honor? And how much honor Pickt from the chaffe and ruine of the times, To be new varnisht: Well, but to my choise. Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserues. I will assume desert; giue ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... charms, and still more so for an extraordinary proof of patriotism. At a time when the public Treasury was exhausted, Mademoiselle Deschamps sent all her plate to the Mint. Louis XIV. boasted of this act of generous devotion to her country. The Duc d'Ayen made it the subject of a pleasantry, which detracted nothing from the merit of the sacrifice—but which is rather too gay for ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... the reputation, in his earlier career, of "taking" such things as unoccupied lands and timber "as he found them," without much reference to their actual owners. Apparently he was acting upon the same principle now, as he reached for the demijohn of whiskey with the ingenuous pleasantry, "Did somebody say whiskey, ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... the Alderman had barely time to recover its composure, ere he was required to answer to this free and somewhat facetious salutation. Uncovering his head, he bowed so ceremoniously as to leave the other no reason to exult in his pleasantry, as he answered— ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... returned from a tour in Western Asia sends to the Drawer the following account of a little bit of pleasantry which took place in the gala town ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... analogies, which interested his feelings for human beings, frail like himself, and struggling with temptations from within and from without, which every moment drew a smile from him by some stroke of quaint yet simple pleasantry, and nevertheless left on his mind a sentiment of reverence for God and of sympathy for man, began to produce its effect. In Puritanical circles, from which plays and novels were strictly excluded, that effect was such as no work of genius, though it were superior to the ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... as a piece of pleasantry, sir. So I think it will pass off much better if you don't allow the students to see that they have ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock
... Wait a few days! Wait, my friend," cried Tric-Trac, eagerly; "and say!—come back here next Monday! There will be a few of us here—a few friends. And keep your mouth shut tight. Here! Wait. Look here, friend, don't let a little pleasantry stand between comrades. Your fagot-knife against my little flute that sings pa-pa!—that leaves ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... this sickly attempt at pleasantry was quite lost upon the scholastic pair. They understood her literally; and Mrs Root began, "My eye-water—" However, leave was taken, and I was left with the lady. She took me on her lap, and a hearty hug we had together. She then rang for Molly. She spoke to the girl kindly, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... addicted to the habit. Snubbing is of various kinds. For instance, there is the snub direct, sharp, and decisive, that knocks the tender, sensitive spirit at once; there is the covert snub, nearly allied to being talked at; the jocose snub, veiling the objectionable form of reproof under an affected pleasantry; and there is also a most unpleasant form of snubbing, frequently used by well-meaning persons to repress forwardness or personal vanity. It is very true that children and young people often exhibit forwardness, vanity, and many other qualities extremely distasteful ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... turn back most certainly would; so Barrington kept on, not increasing his pace, but with his eyes and ears keenly alive. His steady pace exactly brought him into the midst of those who were at the heads of these two crowds, and he was ready to receive and return any salutation or coarse pleasantry which might be offered to him, when he found himself carried in a rush to one side of the street. Between these two crowds there was some quarrel, possibly no more than an hour old, and men and women flew at one another ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... substantial proofs on our side, and by refuting those of the opponent. The second, by giving hopes of being brief, and by having recourse to the means prescribed for making the judge attentive. In the latter case, too, some seasonable pleasantry, or anything witty to freshen the mind will have a good effect. It will not be amiss, likewise, to remove any seeming obstruction. As Cicero says of himself, he is not unaware that some will find it strange ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... note about Roche, replying to Dickens's recommendation of him at his return, has touches of the pleasantry, wit, and kindliness that gave such a wonderful fascination to its writer. "Gore House, 6 July, 1845. MON CHER DICKENS, Nous sommes enchantes de votre retour. Voici, thank God, Devonshire Place ressuscite. Venez luncheoner demain a ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... attempt at pleasantry. "The sea will extinguish the volcano, and there will be an end ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... house, and in every way the highest marks of respect were shown her for her devotion to the cause. Though he expected to join her again shortly, the Prince made her his warmest acknowledgments of thanks in a spirit of pleasantry which covered much tender feeling. They had been under fire together and had shared perils by land and by sea during which time his conduct to her had been perfect, a gentle consideration for her comfort ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... at the pleasantry with which Ralph had tried to soothe his spirits. It struck a painful ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... of birds and healthy children; and his humour was infectious. We were next neighbours and met daily, yet our salutations lasted minutes at a stretch—shaking hands, slapping shoulders, capering like a pair of Merry-Andrews, laughing to split our sides upon some pleasantry that would scarce raise a titter in an infant-school. It might be five in the morning, the toddy-cutters just gone by, the road empty, the shade of the island lying far on the lagoon: and the ebullition cheered me ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... young men before him with an air that left no doubt of his repugnance for a certain sort of pleasantry; but as the group had evidently no offensive intention, their gayety having no insolence about it, he said, with a tolerably gracious air: "Which of you gentlemen is captain? I have a letter for him ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... another cartoon which disturbed the Democracy. It represented John T. Hoffman standing before a screen behind which a gang of thieves was busily rifling the city treasury. The face of Hoffman only was depicted, but the picture's serious note of warning passed for more than a bit of campaign pleasantry. Frank P. Blair, the Democratic candidate for Vice-President, also furnished a text for bitter invective because of his declaration that "there is but one way to restore the government and the Constitution and that is for the President-elect ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... of them have concerning me. They have been informed that I can find stolen goods, and am often applied to on such occasions. I think it would be no hard matter to make them believe me a wizard." This was probably a serious version of his pleasantry with the Dutchman about finding his goods by calculating the age of ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... with a huskiness in his voice that defeated the attempt at pleasantry, "he would be glad to have you for ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... could well afford the treat, his guests, after that well-understood quality in human nature, relished the hospitality more keenly. At the buffet all the plates were piled high. In the smoking-room men took handfuls of the Senator's cigars from the boxes. And the pleasantry connected with Governor Lawrence North's custom in campaigning was frequently heard. It was related of North that he always thriftily passed his cigars by his own hand and counseled the recipient: "Help yourself! Take all ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... worlds, high diplomatic figures, the partisan leaders, the constant stream of agitated rumours about weighty affairs in England and Europe; the keen play of ambition, passions, interests, under easy manners and fugitive pleasantry; gross and sordid aims, as King Hudson was soon to find out, masked by exterior refinement; so much kindness with a free spice of criticism and touches of ill-nature; so much of the governing force of England still ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... delivered this defiance to humanity he shut himself up, without the smallest expectation of its being answered. One day, however, a deaf and seemingly senseless lad from a distant village brought him a belated telegram; and Glengyle, in his acrid pleasantry, gave him a new farthing. At least he thought he had done so, but when he turned over his change he found the new farthing still there and a sovereign gone. The accident offered him vistas of sneering speculation. Either way, the boy would show the greasy greed of the species. ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... lost his life through unwittingly trampling upon the susceptibilities of the people, in the following manner. It appears that the peasantry in the suburbs of Ferrara bore ill-will toward the citizens of that town and called them "asses." This little pleasantry was manifested by the suburbanites in "hee-hawing" at the citizens when fitting opportunity presented itself. Now it happened that Paganini played at a concert, and some of the audience expressed dissatisfaction with the singer, Madame Pallerini, and hissed ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... the Venosta joining therein; and so agreeable did he make himself to her Italian tastes by a sort of bitter-sweet wisdom like that of her native proverbs—comprising much knowledge of mankind on the unflattering side of humanity in that form of pleasantry which has a latent sentiment of pathos—that the Venosta exclaimed, "Surely you must have been brought ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... drapery. Fascination in the sleeves. Defiance, pride, and patriotism in the high collar, tempered by regret in the soft ruche.... She would have been a problem and a poem; while I, in my cheerful reds, my dazzling white, my decisive short skirts, my piquant shoes, my audacious apron, am a conundrum, a pleasantry, an epigram." This would be very pretty on the stage, but a waiting-maid who calls herself an "epigram" passes our imagination under any other circumstances. In fact, Miss Howard seems to us to be altogether on a false tack in this novel,—to have utterly abandoned ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... knew all about the doings of Sand Court. He had often been with them, and delighted them all by talking "Court language," but to-day nobody responded to his pleasantry. Ruth and Marjorie were on the verge of tears, the boys were all angry at Hester, and Hester herself was in one ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... playful manner did he run on, exulting in his own pleasantry, which certainly was not such as might be expected from the authour of The Rambler, but which is here preserved, that my readers may be acquainted even with the slightest occasional characteristicks ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... imagination went—without reference to Delia, any more than she could have done up her hair without a glass. The only action taken by Mr. Dosson on his elder daughter's admonitions was to convert the general issue, as Mr. Flack would have called it, to a theme for daily pleasantry. He was fond, in his intercourse with his children, of some small usual joke, some humorous refrain; and what could have been more in the line of true domestic sport than a little gentle but unintermitted raillery on Francie's conquest? ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... slipped through their fingers into their own coffers. Becoming sovereigns themselves, they retain these funds for their private emolument. Four principal sources yielded this revenue: royal domains, tolls and imposts, direct levies and a pleasantry called voluntary contributions or benevolences. In addition to these supplies were also the proceeds of fines. Taxation upon sin was, in those rude ages, a considerable branch of the revenue. The old Frisian laws consisted almost entirely of a discriminating ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... you that I would not now change places with you—that I would not exchange this halter that you fling about my neck for the stone that you carry in your body. The death to which you may doom me is a light pleasantry by contrast with the death to which your lordship has been doomed by that Great Judge with whose name your ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... with regard to Sir James Scarlett's (Lord Abinger) success in gaining verdicts led to the composition of the following pleasantry, attributed to Lord Campbell. "Whereas Scarlett had contrived a machine, by using which, while he argued, he could make the judges' heads nod with pleasure, Brougham in course of time got hold of it; but not knowing how to manage ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... the stage. I followed them a little way before I gained courage to speak to the man, who seemed to have been sick, and looked more miserable, if there was a choice, than the woman. Then I asked him, superfluously enough (it might have seemed in a ghastly pleasantry, to him) if he was down on his luck. He owned that he was, and in guarantee of his good faith took the shilling I offered him. If his need had apparently been less dire I might have made it a sovereign; but one must not ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... pleasantry. He was struck with the fact that Nicolovius had described exactly the sort of living arrangement that ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... present breathing the air either of Christ Church meadow or Trinity gardens; and if our version of a piece of mere pleasantry, which involves nothing in it beyond a moment's laugh, should be so happy as to satisfy the 'general reader,' we shall affect 'for the nonce,' to know nothing of the objections which more scientific persons, the students of the brilliant Hermann, and acute Reisigius, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... Marcel? Pardieu, who shall blame you? He would be a man of unhealthy humour that could relish such a pleasantry as that of being sentenced to death. But tell me of it. The whole story, Marcel. I have not heard a story worth the listening ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... been set afoot by a pleasantry of Ensign Tyler's, of Massey's dragoons, with a playful allusion to a letter in a feminine hand which Kenneth had let fall, and which Tyler had restored to him. Quip had followed quip until in their jests they transcended all bounds. Livid with ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... thinks to advise us in sorrow, Knows not how little of power his cold words have in relieving Ever a heart from that woe which a sovereign fate has inflicted. Ye are prosperous and glad; how then should a pleasantry wound you? Yet but the lightest touch is a source of pain to the sick man. Nay, concealment itself, if successful, had profited nothing. Better show now what had later increased to a bitterer anguish, And to an inward consuming despair might perhaps have reduced me. Let me go back! ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... these words in a lighter manner, almost amounting to pleasantry, and did not appear to notice that the priest moved uneasily ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... head came back then, and the mass of men, catching sight of the mad, glad light that flared in his eyes, rolled back to give them room. He laughed at Harrigan. He was laughing at himself. They heard and marveled at the pleasantry of his answer. ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... shade of difference between civility and intrusiveness, familiarity and common-place, pleasantry and sharpness, the natural and the rude, gaiety and carelessness; hence the inconveniences of society, and the errors of its members. To define well in conduct these distinctions, is the great art of a man of the world. It is easy to know what to do; the ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... This pleasantry finished the poor geographer. The crew burst out into loud Homeric laughter. Paganel ran about like a madman, seized his head with both hands and tore his hair. He neither knew what he was doing nor what ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... duties,' continued he, 'I believe, if I am rightly informed, there can hardly be said to have been any duties hitherto,' and he gave a sort of half laugh, as though to pass off the accusation in the guise of a pleasantry. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... hunting in the morning of that day. In a room opposite to Landor's lived a young man whom Landor disliked. The two parties exchanged taunts. Finally in a spirit of bravado Landor took his gun and fired a shot through the closed shutters of the enemy. Quite naturally this bit of pleasantry was not appreciated by the owner of the shutters and complaint was lodged. When the investigation was made the president tried to be as lenient as he possibly could, but his conciliatory manner was stubbornly met by the youthful culprit. When rustication was pronounced ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... sorrow. And Gus had already been the source of much weary labour. Four eldest sons had been brought to her feet and been allowed to slip away; and all, as Lady Eardham said, because Gus would "joke" with other young men, while the one man should have received all her pleasantry. Emily was quite of opinion that young Newton should by no means have been allotted to Gus. Lady Eardham, who had played besique with an energy against which Josephine would have mutinied but that some promise was made as to Marshall and Snelgrove, could see from her little table ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... number of evening visitors poured in, and the conversation then became animated, and even gay. Bonaparte was in high spirits. He said to some one, smiling, and pointing to Bernadotte, "You are not aware that the General yonder is a Chouan."—"A Chouan?" repeated Bernadotte, also in a tone of pleasantry. "Ah! General you contradict yourself. Only the other day you taxed me with favouring the violence of the friends of the Republic, and now you accuse me ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... content with this, but went on, with most of the other attendants upon the King, and being intimately versed in court scandal, he directed his lash with telling effect. As a contrast to the malicious pleasantry of the Cap Justice, were the gambols and jests of Robin Goodfellow—a merry imp, who, if he led people into mischief, was always ready to get them out of it. Then there was a dance by Bill Huckler, old Crambo, and Tom o' Bedlam, the half-crazed ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... was a reference to a little pleasantry Mr. Fox had put up on him some time before. His Grace flared, but tried not to show it. He said he had heard I could do something with a horse (I believe he made it up), and Comyn gave oath that I could; and then he offered to bet Comyn that I could not ride this Pollux, who had killed ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Kuylen exploded into laughter. But from Blood the pleasantry elicited no smile. He remained solemn to the point of glumness. His thoughts were on Miss Bishop, who was somewhere here in this very house in which they stood, but whom he had not seen since his arrival. Had she ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... observes, the assertion may be true, and states that Dr. Goldsmith had a brother, whose name he thinks was Charles, and whom he met in public company about thirty years since. In person he resembled the poet, and was a man of some pleasantry, sang a tolerable song, and, like his brother, had a good deal of oddity in his manner. He then resided at Somer's Town, and as the correspondent was informed, had been many years in the West Indies, whence he came to England possessed of a small independence. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various
... as one of their poets, and still less as a writer. They considered him merely as an ingenious fabulist, to whom, at a later period, nearly all fables, that were invented or derived from any other source, were attributed. He was a slave, whose wit and pleasantry procured him his freedom, and who finally perished in Delphi, where the people, exasperated by his sarcastic fables, put him to death on a charge of robbing the temple. No metrical versions of these fables are known to have ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... reminded me afresh that France is a democratic country. I think I re- ceived an admonition to the same effect from the free, familiar way in which the game of whist was going on just behind me. It was attended with a great deal of noisy pleasantry, flavored every now and then with a dash of irritation. There was a young man of whom I made a note; he was such a beautiful specimen of his class. Sometimes he was very facetious, chatter- ing, joking, punning, showing off; ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... comforting. The First Part has deep and awful shadows mingled with its light, terribly instructive, and like warnings from hell and the grave. The Second Part is more continually and uninterruptedly cheerful, full of good nature and pleasantry, and showing the pilgrimage in lights and shades that are ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... then, it may be asked, lies concealed the treasure of all these old stories? Why, in the memory of the people? Go from chapel to chapel, get the good people who attend them into conversation, and if they think they can trust you they will tell you with a mixture of seriousness and pleasantry wonderful stories, from which comparative mythology and history will one day reap ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... flesh, and this set everybody against him. He might say so as much as he pleased; there was no one likely to go and see! One day, in a parlor at Edinburgh, a Scotch gentleman took up the subject in his presence, as it had become the topic of daily pleasantry, and, in reference to the eating of raw flesh, said that the thing was neither possible nor true. Bruce made no reply, but went out and returned a few minutes later with a raw steak, seasoned with pepper and salt, in the ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... attitude and countenance, there breathes something precise and decisive, something alert, wiry, and strong. You can understand, from the look of him, that sense, not so much of humour, as of what is grimmest and driest in pleasantry, which inspired his address before the fight at Camperdown. He had just overtaken the Dutch fleet under Admiral de Winter. "Gentlemen," says he, "you see a severe winter approaching; I have only to advise ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for a moment did they really want her to accept their dare. Why, whoever heard of a girl doing such a thing? The very thought scandalized them deeply. Indeed, they would stop her if they could, but it was utterly beyond their powers of expression to tell her that the dare was a mere joke, a pleasantry that had better be forgotten. Unable to explain this, they wriggled about uncomfortably in the water and hid their growing ...
— The Hickory Limb • Parker Fillmore
... various friends one by one—Wentworth Dilke, Hamilton Reynolds, Bailey and Leigh Hunt—soon arouse him to animated conversation. Keats is shy and ill at ease in women's society: but a "delightful combination of earnestness and pleasantry distinguishes his intercourse with men." He says fine things finely, jokes with ready humour, and at the mention of any oppression or wrong rises "into grave manliness at once, seeming like a tall man." No wonder that his society ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron
... the world's great private investigator." Despite the seriousness of the occasion, Muriel could not refrain from venturing this pleasantry. ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... receive a sum of money to enter in your cash-book, always say to yourself, What side shall I put it on? If your mind suggests on the right, at once say No—because that would be wrong—right being wrong in this case,' and he did use to laugh so over that little pleasantry." ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... Convention, the officers brought to the bar the foolish creatures who had called him the Son of God. His thin pride and prudish self-respect were unutterably affronted, and he quite understood that the ridicule of the mysticism of Theot was an indirect pleasantry upon his own Supreme Being. He flew to the Committee of Public Safety, angrily reproached them for permitting the prosecution, summoned Fouquier-Tinville, and peremptorily ordered him to let the matter drop. In vain did the public prosecutor ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... sufficiently trying? Why, after so much pains and expense have been employed to make the occasion beautiful and impressive, should the "practical joker" take it upon himself to spoil it all by an ill-timed "pleasantry" which is the acme of rudeness and discourtesy? It is a curious character that can enjoy perpetrating what are really outrages ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... at his own pleasantry. To one of his hearers, at least, it seemed to be passing strange that he was so ready to forget such a vital defect in the steering gear as had manifested its ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... honor involved; that Lamon had no agency from him, nor title to speak."[158] (This late suggestion of the point of honor would seem, under the circumstances, to have been made in a spirit of sarcastic pleasantry, like Sir John Falstaff's celebrated discourse on the same subject.) The only substantial result of the conversation, however, was the written assurance of Mr. Seward, to be communicated to the Commissioners, that "the Government will not undertake to supply Fort Sumter ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... had heard much, I said to Davies, "Don't tell where I come from——" "From Scotland!" cried Davies roguishly. "Mr. Johnson," said I, "I do, indeed, come from Scotland, but I cannot help it"—meaning this as light pleasantry to reconciliate him. But with that quickness of wit for which he was so remarkable he seized the expression "come from Scotland," and as if I had said that I had come away from it, or left it, remarked, "That, sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... story of his love and regret with sympathy and apparent understanding. He encouraged him wherever he sought encouragement. He had a pleasantry of happy expression wherever it was needed. In a word he played to the last degree upon a nature as weak as it was ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... I laughed; "he is a fair size, and sits up well in the saddle," a harmless pleasantry which, to judge by his peevish exclamation, ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... however, was to demonstrate to his travelling companion the necessity for their parting company; in order, that, by riding forward himself, he might be able to send back succour to his fellow-traveller. He was no little surprised, therefore, to perceive that his pleasantry was taken in actually a serious light; and therefore had determined to desist from making any ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... diversion, divertissement; reaction, solace; pastime, passetemps[Fr], sport; labor of love; pleasure &c. 827. relaxation; leisure &c. 685. fun, frolic, merriment, jollity; joviality, jovialness[obs3]; heyday; laughter &c. 838; jocosity, jocoseness[obs3]; drollery, buffoonery, tomfoolery; mummery, pleasantry; wit &c. 842; quip, quirk. [verbal expressions of amusement: list] giggle, titter, snigger, snicker, crow, cheer, chuckle, shout; horse laugh, , belly laugh, hearty laugh; guffaw; burst of laughter, fit of laughter, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... and Rose, and how cheerfully they worked! One could hear her singing, and him whistling, at it all day. Yet they seemed to have abundant leisure to exchange a deal of pleasantry and harmless banter. Auguste was a Swiss, and a bigoted Protestant, and never lost an opportunity of holding forth on the superiority of the reformed religion. If he thought the family were out of hearing, he would ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... reader; thus, "Colonel Baden-Powell, when in West Africa, fell in love with a native saying, 'Softly, softly: catchee monkey!' which, when Anglicized, is, 'Don't flurry: patience gains the day!'" I had some difficulty in understanding the meaning of this pleasantry till I supplied the hyphen between the two words, native-saying. When a compound title becomes very common, the two words coalesce, as, ...
— The Importance of the Proof-reader - A Paper read before the Club of Odd Volumes, in Boston, by John Wilson • John Wilson
... returned Aper, at that stroke of raillery. It is not enough for Messala, that the oratory of ancient times engrosses all his admiration; he must have his fling at the moderns. Our talents and our studies are sure to feel the sallies of his pleasantry [a]. I have often heard you, my friend Messala, in the same humour. According to you, the present age has not a single orator to boast of, though your own eloquence, and that of your brother, are sufficient to refute the charge. But you assert roundly, ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... found an outlet in verse. The growth and knowledge of two years of boyhood stood between then and now, forbidding such an outlet: and all day the stream of gloomy tenderness within him had started forth and returned upon itself in dark courses and eddies, wearying him in the end until the pleasantry of the prefect and the painted little boy had drawn from him ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... that I did; but I reckoned you knew your Bible pretty well, and that you were the nearest neighbour of mine that did." There was an attempt at nervous pleasantry in this, perhaps to hide ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... repaired to Bellamy's kitchen—a refreshment-room, where persons who are not Members are admitted on sufferance, as it were—and perceiving two or three gentlemen at supper, who, he was aware, were not Members, and could not, in that place, very well resent his behaviour, he indulged in the pleasantry of sitting with his booted leg on the table at which they were supping! He is generally harmless, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... the brightness of his fancy, and gave a gloomy cast to his whole course of thinking: yet, though grave and awful in his deportment, when he thought it necessary or proper, he frequently indulged himself in pleasantry and sportive sallies. He was prone to superstition, but not to credulity. Though his imagination might incline him to a belief of the marvellous and the mysterious, his vigorous reason examined the evidence with jealousy. He had a loud voice, and a slow deliberate utterance, which no doubt gave some ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... by such men as Dunois, La Hire, Xaintrailles, etc., the latter by the Constable of Scotland, John Stuart—which defeat might well have been enough to subdue every sound of revelry: yet Charles's Court was ringing with music and pleasantry, as if peace ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... champagne bottle, and a chemical testing of the wine. In the very process the volatile and sparkling draught which was to delight the palate has become like ditch water, vapid and dead. What I mean is, that, call it wit or humour, or what you please, there is a school of Scottish pleasantry, amusing and characteristic beyond all other. Don't think of analysing its nature, or the qualities of which it is composed; enjoy its quaint and amusing flow of oddity and fun; as we may, for instance, suppose it to have flowed ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... sure," said he, taking a manner of sleek clerical pleasantry, "though we can so often say 'Christmas is coming,' I suppose that if at some suitable hour to-morrow afternoon I said to you, 'Christmas is going,' you would grant it to be a not inaccurate remark?" ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... seemed never to lose sight of St. Luc. Sometimes he called him to repeat to him some pleasantry, which, whether droll or not, made St. Luc laugh heartily. Sometimes he offered him out of his comfit box sweetmeats and candied fruits, which St. Luc found excellent. If he disappeared for an instant, the king sent for him, and seemed ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... Disregarding Garland's pleasantry, for some time His Excellency sat with his hands clasped behind his head, frowning up from the open patio into the hot, cloudless sky. On the ridge of his tiled roof a foul buzzard blinked at him from red-rimmed eyes, across the yellow wall a lizard ran for shelter, ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... point of starting for Old Point Comfort, and, if she had good weather off Cape Hatteras, would reach Fortress Monroe by Christmas-day, and he suggested that I might make it the occasion of sending a welcome Christmas gift to the President, Mr. Lincoln, who peculiarly enjoyed such pleasantry. I accordingly sat down and wrote on a slip of paper, to be left at the telegraph-office at Fortress Monroe for ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... her, and noticed the cheerful and cordial manner in which she waited upon the sufferers under her care, going from one to another to perform some office of kindness, always with words of genuine sympathy, pleasantry and ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... beau'; but he had the merit or the good fortune to become a doctor of medicine, so that when the crash came he was not empty-handed for the war of life. Charles, at the day-school of Northiam, grew so well acquainted with the rod, that his floggings became matter of pleasantry and reached the ears of Admiral Buckner. Hereupon that tall, rough-voiced, formidable uncle entered with the lad into a covenant: every time that Charles was thrashed he was to pay the Admiral a penny; everyday that he escaped, the process was to be reversed. 'I ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... much in itself, the usual coinage of the society journalist intelligently anticipating events. It pointed with sleek pleasantry to the fact that the Prince of Schnapps-Wasser, returning to his inheritance after long exile, would find greeting awaiting him from a royal house which had apparently been very anxious to make his acquaintance. Then followed an account of the visit and ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... take it for granted that your pop-gun of pleasantry has killed off the six thousand 'strong-minded' women and 'weak-minded' men who signed the petitions to the Legislature for Justice to Woman. And thus having disposed of personalities, will you be pleased to pass on to a ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... design. Having filled his glass, he addressed the company, with a smile on his countenance, saying: 'Ladies and gentlemen, this is the last time I shall drink your health, as a public man. I do it with sincerity, and wishing you all possible happiness.' There was an end of all pleasantry." ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... good humor; stretching out on my sofa he began to chaff me about the appearance of my face which looked, he said, as though I had not slept well. As I was little disposed to indulge in pleasantry I begged ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... call for more than one observation; I cannot forbear to make one upon the term which Mr. Cochrane Johnstone employs to describe this transaction—"A HOAX," a mere joke, a matter of pleasantry. Gentlemen, a young, a giddy, an unthinking and careless man, who had no concern in the transaction, and who had never been suspected to have had any, might perhaps, in conversation, make use of that term; but Mr. Cochrane Johnstone is not young, he is not giddy, he is not unthinking, ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... yourself!" joked Pemberton; as high, rather tense pleasantry would evidently be the right, or the safest, tone ...
— The Pupil • Henry James
... gruffness, considering his contentment at heart, as he hastily retreated to his gondola under the Rialto for needed shelter from the banter which followed him, until some other unwary victim became the centre of the well-meant pleasantry. ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... Church. At first they were a little reserved, and acted as though they imagined we expected them to be very sedate and dignified. For, like some white folks, they imagined the "black-coat" and his wife did not believe in laughter or pleasantry. However, we soon disabused their minds of those erroneous ideas, and before we reached Norway House we were on the best of terms with each other. We knew but little of their language, but some of them had a good idea of ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... get home till nine o'clock at night, so tired that occasionally I fell asleep over my dinner; and my wife, seeing my condition of fatigue, got into the habit of carving our frugal joints, a habit which has become permanent. Thus, when I say, as a bit of pleasantry, that where the lady carves, you learn who is the master of the house, Lady Watkin will retort by mentioning this old story ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... young officers might have felt to renew their pleasantry on the occasion, it was shamed into silence. There was a pure dignity about that little pale face which protected itself. They were quite struck, and Fleda had no reason to complain of want of attention from any of the party. Mr. Evelyn kissed her. Mr. Thorn brought a little table to the ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... not take this pleasantry as one might suppose he would. His own primitive aversion to the strange, deformed child made him weakly sensitive. He recoiled from Falstar's gibe with a sneaking shame he dared not defend ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... swollen, I go to the parlor. I see a little man, ill-dressed and scowling, who rose clumsily, who chewed out some confused words. I look, and I guess who it is,—I try to speak,—I burst into tears. Francueil tries to put us in tune by a pleasantry, and bursts into tears. We could not say anything to each other. Rousseau pressed my hand without addressing me a single word. We tried to dine, to cut short all these sobs. But I could eat nothing. M. de Francueil ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... 'a nice little ordinary boy'. My Mother, stung by this want of appreciation, would proceed so far as to declare that she believed that in future times the F.R.S. would be chiefly known as his son's father! (This is a pleasantry ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... rather strange pleasantry, under the circumstances. But there are certain persons whose existence is so out of parallel with the larger laws in the midst of which it is moving, that life becomes to them as death and death as life.—How am I getting along?—he ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... When the campers are seated there is either silent or audible grace before the meal is eaten. Take plenty of time for the eating of the meal. Forty-five minutes is not too long. Encourage wholesome conversation and good natural pleasantry, but discountenance "rough house" and ungentlemanliness. The announcements for the day are usually given at the breakfast table followed by the reading of a chapter from the Bible ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... of the whole Folger family, because they were devoutly pious, and as "reliable as the sun, or the earth on its axis." They were unpolished and unceremonial, and he liked them all the more for that. He wrote to his sister in a vein of pleasantry, "They are wonderfully shy. But I admire their honest plainness of speech. About a year ago I invited two of them to dine with me; their answer was that they would if they could not do better. I suppose they ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... It's your life, your nature, just as in my nature there is nothing akin to it. That is why I say you are made of different clay from myself; and I am very glad of it," he added with an air of pleasantry which she saw veiled genuine earnestness, "for I wish you the best of everything now ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... and wit and vivacity; that turn for pleasantry which is our national inheritance seems natural to her. . . . But her wit deals only with pleasant frivolities; her ideas are the children of her memory rather than of her imagination. French in everything ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... that only those of dull and gloomy temperament can take exception to what I am going to relate in order to illustrate our Blessed Father's delightful gift of pleasantry in conversation. ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... characteristic of the man. He lived largely in an atmosphere of poetic pleasantry, which served as an alleviation to his cares and as ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... the husband always smiling a cryptic smile. After they had left it was hinted they were not married at all; the oldest hands had been taken in.... One afternoon I met Dolly, the commercial traveler's wife, and she stopped and spoke to me. I remembered what I had heard and ventured on some pleasantry at which she laughed, and on my proposing that we should go for a walk she consented. She had left the commercial traveler, it came out in conversation, and we went on talking and walking, one idea only in my mind now; could ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... he moistened his thin lips, and then gave a little cackling laugh, as if he regarded this as pleasantry. But the demolition of the literary pretensions of his family once begun ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... and Denas, having won her way, was really grateful and disposed to make the evening happy for all. She recollected many a little bit of pleasantry; she mimicked Priscilla to admiration, merrily and without ill-will, and then she took the story paper and read a thrilling account of some great shipwrecks and a poem that seemed to John and Joan's simple minds "the sweetest bit of word music that ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... greet you, but it was not possible. However, please understand that insofar as I am concerned, you were hired and have been drawing your salary from the date that I forwarded railroad fare and traveling expenses. Any face-to-face meeting is no more than a pleasantry, a formal introduction. It must not be considered in any way connected with the thought of a "Final Interview" or the process of ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith |
