"Popinjay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pictures as we painted under the reign of West, and such houses as we built under the reign of Nash, till the English eye required to rest on that which was constrained, dull, and graceless. For the last two score of years it has come to this, that if a man go in handsome attire he is a popinjay and a vain fool; and as it is better to be ugly than to be accounted vain I would not counsel a young friend to leave the beaten track on the strength of his own judgment. But not the less is the beaten track to be condemned, and abandoned, and abolished, if such be in any way possible. ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... popinjay, brought out for my lady's amusement!" said the stranger, smiling; "you make rare sport with your antic tricks, at the fort yonder, I ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... of men whom Sir Walter could not away with, it was the race of schoolmasters, "black cattle" whom he neither trusted nor respected. But he could make or invent exceptions, as in the uncomplaining and kindly usher of the verbose Cleishbotham. Once launched in his legend, with the shooting of the Popinjay, he never falters. The gallant, dauntless, overbearing Bothwell, the dour Burley, the handful of Preachers, representing every current of opinion in the Covenant, the awful figure of Habakkuk Mucklewrath, the charm of goodness in Bessie McLure, are all immortal, deathless as Shakspeare's ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Quincangrogne, because it was a lonely place, far from other habitations. The husband and the wife were thus both in his service, and he had by La Beaupertuys a daughter, who died a nun. This Nicole had a tongue as sharp as a popinjay's, was of stately proportions, furnished with large beautiful cushions of nature, firm to the touch, white as the wings of an angel, and known for the rest to be fertile in peripatetic ways, which brought it to pass that never with her was the same thing encountered twice in ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... state's attorney said that he was wrong, the old man would have called him a popinjay to his face. Abijah's exclamation was not deference to legal knowledge; it was merely quick ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... all sang, as tho' 'twere May; The spearhawk, and the popinjay, {32} It was a joy to hear; The throstle cock made eke his lay, The wood-dove sung upon the spray, With note ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... this level-eyed girl out of the schoolhouse, nor sprinkle the floor with cayenne, as was the usual proceeding of the country bumpkin who failed to admire his teacher. Jake Ransom was not really a bully; he was a shy boy who had been domineered over by a young popinjay of a teacher who had never taught school before and who had himself many lessons to learn in life's school. The boy brought out his slate, spit on its grimy surface and wiped it with his sleeve. One of the buttons on his cuff squeaked as he wiped it across, and the children had something ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... one but an old bachelor heard that compliment it is such a waste," laughed the trapper. "I see you are over ears in love, chief. I know precisely how you feel. I was once in love myself. It did not last long though, for my flame gave my keepsakes to a good for nothing popinjay from down east; one for a string to bind round a broken knapsack, the other to carry home with him for a show. That was enough for me. I just told her I was done ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... habit of looking a person in the eyes, and not directing that cherubic gaze at the waistcoat buttons, or even the necktie, of your in-ter-loc-utor. Now, here we are at the house, and you may go, my interesting popinjay. Bear in mind that my eye is upon you. Adieu! adieu! ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... the little old man in his rocking chair with the patchwork cover, and down sat the little old woman in her rocking chair with the patchwork cover; and after a long consultation of the "Sorrows of Prince Popinjay," and the "Wonderful History of the Princess Lillie Bulero and the Fairy Allinmieyeo," they discovered that the proper way to do was to hold the fairy foxglove in your hand exactly as the clock struck twelve, at noon, ...
— Funny Little Socks - Being the Fourth Book • Sarah. L. Barrow
... alternating, in all ways, between Light and Dark; between joy and sorrow, between rest and toil,—between hope, hope reaching high as Heaven, and fear deep as very Hell. Not vapour Fantasms, Rymer's Foedera at all! Coeur-de-Lion was not a theatrical popinjay with greaves and steel-cap on it, but a man living upon victuals,—not imported by Peel's Tariff. Coeur-de-Lion came palpably athwart this Jocelin at St. Edmundsbury; and had almost peeled the sacred gold 'Feretrum,' or St. Edmund Shrine itself, ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... as to what his course should be, and what was the extent of Mira's misdoing. Just as he said to her, he blamed those who should have been her advisers and protectors far more than he blamed her, and as to this popinjay who had become infatuated with her beauty, though the lieutenant's blood boiled in wrath and indignation, his calmer judgment and his disciplined spirit tempered any and every expression. He had spent long, wakeful, prayerful hours in the ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... answer, "'tis no Treason now to name such a thing. Oliver's dead, and will eat no more bread; and I misliked him much at the end, for it is certain that he betrayed the Good Old Cause, and hankered after an earthly crown. As for this young Popinjay, he will have more need to protect himself than these Kingdoms. And I think that if your father is to live on the King's wages, it had better be on the real King's than ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... over the world—chiefly Italy—without an experience which might be called an adventure. When the Literary Man from London crossed her mind she laughed him to scorn for a prophetic popinjay. She had broken no man's heart, and her own was whole. The tribes of Crim Tartary had exhibited no signs of worry and had left her unmolested. She had furthermore taken rapturous delight in cathedrals, expensive restaurants, and the set pieces of fashionable scenery. Rattenden had not a prophetic ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... standeth at the door, And tirleth at the pin: Now speak and say, my popinjay, If I ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... philosophers are discussing in Rome when spies aren't listening. Pertinax dresses himself like a strutting peacock and pretends that women and money are his only interests, but what the wise ones said yesterday, Pertinax does today; and what they say today, he will do tomorrow. He can look more like a popinjay and act more like a man than ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... villain, liar, rascal, numskull, nincompoop, dunderhead, wiseacre, blockhead, jackass." As single words were not always explosive enough to make a report equal to their feelings, they had recourse to compounds;—"pert and prating popinjay," "hackneyed gutscraper," "maggot of corruption," "toad on a dung-heap," "snivelling sophisticating hound," are a few of the chain-shot which strike our eyes in turning over the yellow faded files. They ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... curst young popinjay, as little officer cubs are like to be, answered flippantly that the colonel had commuted my sentence; that I was to be shot like a soldier, and that far enough afield so the volleying ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... to the kitchen without another word, only muttering to herself prognostications of evil if such a popinjay were admitted into the household. Not that Cuthbert's sober riding suit merited such a criticism, for there was nothing fine about it at all; yet it had been fashionably cut in its day, and still had the nameless air that always clings to a thoroughly well-made garment, ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... elsewhere, "was it written by Theologians: a King rules by divine right. He carries in him an authority from God, or man will never give it him. Can I choose my own King? I can choose my own King Popinjay, and play what farce or tragedy I may with him: but he who is to be my Ruler, whose will is to be higher than my will, was chosen for me in Heaven. Neither except in such Obedience to the Heaven-chosen is Freedom so much ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... has deserted or the ancient houses at whose door he stands. Carnegie was the dullest man living in the matter of sneering, and Kate took an instant dislike to the mincing little man, whom she ever afterwards called the Popinjay, and so handled him with her tongue that his superiority was mightily shaken. But there was good stuff in the advocate, besides some brains, and after a week's living in the Lodge, he forgot to wear ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... detected him in unfair practices. He vowed I lied, and called upon me to prove my words at the sword's point; but in my fury and rage I sprang upon him with my bare hands, and would have wrung his neck—the insolent popinjay—had I been able. As it was, we struggled and swayed together till my greater weight caused him to fall over backwards against one of the tables, and I verily believe his back is broken. I know not whether he is living yet. But as he is not only ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Here's sedition! I never thought that any good would come Of this young popinjay, with his long hair And his great boots, fit only for the Russians Or barbarous Indians, as his ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... their accompaniment of wigs and powdered hair, shone out resplendent. With great difficulty the artist had secured for Monty a costume in white satin and gold brocade, which might once have adorned the person of Louis himself. It made him feel like a popinjay, and it was with infinite relief that he took it off an hour or so after dawn. He knew that things had gone well, that even Mrs. Dan was satisfied; but the whole affair made him heartsick. Behind the compliments lavished upon him ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... with an ague and shook off the deadly influence of the idea. Had he no more grit? he asked himself. Had he come this far only to be beaten? Was this insolent young popinjay to win at last? No! Then he ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... popinjay is an amusing dog—tells a story; sings a song; and saves us the trouble of flattering the Queen. What does she care for old politicians and campfed bears like us? No: Apollodorus is ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... Grainge in the little town of Uxbridge were familiarly known as Bible Grainge and Gridiron Grainge. Many animal surnames are to be referred partly to this source, e.g. Bull, Hart, Lamb, Lyon, Ram, Roebuck, Stagg; Cock, Falcon, Peacock, Raven, Swann, etc., all still common as tavern signs. The popinjay, or parrot, is still occasionally found as Pobgee, Popjoy. These surnames all have, of course, an alternative explanation (ch. xxiii.). Here also ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... fallen victims, sooth their egoism by arrogating the whole agency to themselves, thus giving it a specious appearance of the volitional, and even of the audacious. The average man is an almost incredible popinjay; he can think of himself only as at the centre of situations. All the sordid transactions of his life appear to him, and are depicted in his accounts of them, as feats, successes, proofs of his acumen. He regards it as an almost magical exploit to operate ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... many as are its admirers among the literary freethinkers of the eastern states, it is curious that no one cares twopence to see it in any other than a semi-newspaper shape, and that Reprint and Co. have never thought of reproducing it in all the splendour of its popinjay surtout. In fact, I doubt whether it will long continue in any shape at all. Its crack article is always reprinted in another form; and oracular as its pages are deemed by the clannish provincials of Boston, its general contents seldom go down with the public. The truth is, no one honestly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... the absurd, the Williamesque side of this ludicrous popinjay, Jemal the Great, and it contains not only the obvious seeds of laughter, but the more helpful seeds of hope. He has a strong hand on the very efficient army of Syria, and his visits to Berlin seem perhaps to have turned his head not quite ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... want to be miserable in my home, and in less than ten years see a popinjay like Julliard hovering round my wife and addressing verses to her in the newspapers. I'm too much of a man to stand that. No, I will never make a marriage that ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... Wells, uneasily. "I shall enjoy seeing if that French popinjay keeps all of his fine airs when the ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... with whom you converse so privately, Adele?" he questioned brusquely, "a young popinjay new ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... letter was of such a nature that, when published, it made extremely unpleasant reading. Generals Joubert and Smit, who had been described with admirable truth and candour, were so enraged that they demanded the instant dismissal of the 'conceited young popinjay' who had dared to criticise his masters. The President, however, who had been described as an ignorant, narrow-minded, pig-headed, and irascible old Boer whom—with the others thrown in—the writer ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... smiled at her through the dusk and said, "'Lo, Bill," in a voice that was like a spoken kiss, a certain young woman hated herself for a weak-souled traitor and mentally called Charlie Fox a popinjay, which was merely shifting ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... he said. "I don't care twopence for all the puppies that ever wore red coats, sir. My name is Nicholas Clam, Esq., No. 4, Waterloo Place, Wellington Road, Regent's Park, London; and I can shoot at a popinjay ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... upon a throne, pardye, The ancient throne of Muscovy, Smiling a harlot's smile, And gave—the painted popinjay— The word which no man might gainsay, Tossing his curls ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... is sung to the knell Of a churchyard bell, And a doleful dirge, ding dong, O! It's a song of a popinjay, bravely born, Who turned up his noble nose with scorn At the humble merrymaid, peerly proud, Who loved a lord, and who laughed aloud At the moan of the merryman, moping mum, Whose soul was sad, and whose glance was glum, ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... fancy. He accepted his good fortune with calm composure and refused to have a servant to assist him. But Aunt Em was "all of a flutter," as she said, and it took Dorothy and Jellia Jamb, the housekeeper, and two maids a long time to dress her and do up her hair and get her "rigged like a popinjay," as she quaintly expressed it. She wanted to stop and admire everything that caught her eye, and she sighed continually and declared that such finery was too good for an old country woman, and that she never thought she would have to "put ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... bravest of the brave, though you know a thousand things of which he is utterly ignorant, yet so long as he can tell you one thing which you ought to know, he is master of the situation. He may be the most conceited little popinjay who ever strutted in uniform; no matter; it is more for your interest to learn than for his to teach. Let our volunteer officers, as a body, once resolve to act on this principle, and we shall have such an army as the world never saw. But nothing costs the nation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... passengers jumped into the coach; and in the first I recognised my friend, young Mr Jeeks. If I had had it in my power, I would have left the carriage; for I was in no frame of mind to be pestered by a popinjay. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... down fell somebody: it was a wooden bird, the popinjay used at the shooting-matches at Prastoe. Now he said that there were just as many inhabitants as he had nails in his body; and he was very proud. "Thorwaldsen lived almost next door to me.* Plump! Here ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... "That old Popinjay! He has been my folly, greater than Mexico. He would have gone to Gaeta, or to perdition, long ago, but ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... young, Would dance and play, Like many another Young popinjay; And run to her mother At dusk ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... will; as for that matter, show me the woman who doth not. Now, she hath favoured, doth favour, and will favour, this jack-an-ape,—for what good part about him I know not, save that as one noble lady will love a messan dog, and another a screaming popinjay, and a third a Barbary ape, so doth it please our noble dame to set her affections upon this stray elf of a page, for nought that I can think of, save that she—was the cause of his being saved (the more's the pity) from drowning." And here ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... Milton and Shakspeare I have not neglected to hunt; but unfortunately, I have found nothing to my purpose in Milton, and in all Shakspeare no trace of a bore; except it be that thing, that popinjay, who so pestered Hotspur, that day when he, faint with toil and dry with rage, was leaning on his sword after the battle—all that bald, disjointed talk, to which Hotspur, past his patience, answered neglectingly, he knew not what, and that ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... bridgehood; whereas this one overlooked that part of it, intent on the chieftaincy.—And now, God have mercy on us! there is to be all the round of wars and proscriptions and massacres over again: Roma caput mundi herself piteously decapitate; and with every booby and popinjay rising in turn to kick her about at his pleasure;—and here first comes Mark Anthony to start ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... safeguard of England. King Henry often looked in on these matches, and did honour to the winners. One match there was in especial, on Mothering Sunday, when the champions of each guild shot against one another at such a range that it needed a keen eye to see the popinjay—a stuffed bird at ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... there was Sydney,—all sneers! I could have pinched him. Just as I was coming to the conclusion that I should have to stick a pin into his arm, Paul returned,—and, positively, Sydney was rude to him. I was ashamed, if Mr Atherton was not. As if it was not enough that he should be insulted by a mere popinjay, at the very moment when he had been adding another stone to the fabric of his country's glory,—papa came up. He actually wanted to take me away from Paul. I should have liked to see him do it. Of course I went down with Paul to the carriage, leaving papa to follow if he chose. He ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... and of course I'm glad you don't. You'd be a detestably conceited popinjay if you did. But I do, and in a strictly limited way I'm going to explain it to you for your own good, and as a warning. I can't explain it fully without treason to my own sex. But I'll tell you this ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... manifest—there was not a spot in all Germany where it was possible to get rid of a quid without attracting undue attention. No man likes to be stared at as an outlaw against the recognized decencies of life. One may smoke cigars under a lady's nose, dress like a popinjay, or kiss his bearded friend in most Continental cities, but he must not chew tobacco, because it is considered a barbarous and filthy habit. He may guzzle beer, take snuff, and wear dirty shirts, but if he would avoid reproach ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... yourself, Mr. Popinjay-of-the-world, into the heart of the Lunar Mountains. You are another of them. Out of ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... stirred her spinster heart—they were so gay, so appealing, so un-Sawyer-, un-Riverboro-like. The longer Rebecca lived in the brick house the more her Aunt Jane marveled at the child. What made her so different from everybody else. Could it be that her graceless popinjay of a father, Lorenzo de Medici Randall, had bequeathed her some strange combination of gifts instead of fortune? Her eyes, her brows, the color of her lips, the shape of her face, as well as her ways and words, proclaimed her a changeling in the Sawyer ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the popinjay officer reckoned without his host, for that gentleman had the most indomitable eyes in Arizona. It was not necessary for him to stiffen his will to meet the other's attack. His manner was still lazy, his gaze almost insolent ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... a man only less poverty-stricken than a tramp. He has the illusion of efficiency. He wonders that society generally judges that he is not worth his salt, that on every battlefield Hotspur curses him for a popinjay, that in every company of master workmen met for council he is at most a tolerated guest. The judgment upon him—not my judgment, but the judgment which the days thrust in his face—is this: that when there ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... God, grant me ten years more of life! If I die too soon the cause of true religion is lost in the hands of such boobies! You are as great a fool as Antoine de Navarre! Out of my sight! Leave me; I want a better negotiator than you! You are an ass, a popinjay, a poet! Go and make your elegies and ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... he was conscious that he was surrounded by people who claimed and made good their claims to superiority. What was a lord, let him be ever so rich and have ever so many titles? And yet, even with such a popinjay as Lord Rufford, he himself felt the lordship. When that old farmer at the hunt breakfast had removed himself and his belongings to the other side of the table the Senator, though aware of the justice of his cause, had been keenly alive to the rebuke. He had expressed ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... this author there are many words and phrases used which are now outdated. When they first appear a note of the current meaning is given, for instance "popinjay [parrot]". On the whole this is not confusing except where a word has changed or even reversed its meaning. We do not recommend learning by heart from a sort of vocab list, the words in use in Elizabethan times, unless you are studying that ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... marks of travel), sun-burned visages and stolid manner in marked contrast with the bearing and aspect of the king's gay following. One of the alien troop pulled a red mustachio fiercely and eyed a blithe popinjay of the court with quizzical superiority; the others remained, ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... I grew very melancholy, and so my brother being come in I went forth to Mrs. Holden's, to whom I formerly spoke about a girle to come to me instead of a boy, and the like I did to Mrs. Standing and also to my brother Tom, whom I found at an alehouse in Popinjay ally drinking, and I standing with him at the gate of the ally, Ashwell came by, and so I left Tom and went almost home with her, talking of her going away. I find that she is willing to go, and told her (though behind my back my wife has told her that it was more my desire than ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... milk-and-water popinjay to come courting my Poll. So see you follow Gregory, mistress, and without wait or parley come with him to the Peacock Inn, where I lie to-night. The grays are in fine fettle and thy black mare grows too fat for want of exercise. Thy mother-in-law commands ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... "Grinning old popinjay!" thought Mr. Parkinson; and envied him and internally noted, and with an unholy fervor cursed, the adroitness of intonation and the discreetly modulated gesture with which the colonel gave to every point of his ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... the great beaver hat and bowed low in mocking courtesy. He perceived that this fussy lawyer was not wholly a popinjay, for it required courage to insult a pirate to his face. The reply was therefore ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... priest, the mayor, and the aldermen used to walk in procession to the bonfire, and even deigned to light it; after which the assembly marched thrice round the burning pile. At Aix a nominal king, chosen from among the youth for his skill in shooting at a popinjay, presided over the midsummer festival. He selected his own officers, and escorted by a brilliant train marched to the bonfire, kindled it, and was the first to dance round it. Next day he distributed largesse ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... river Nile. All that the pelican eateth, he plungeth in water with his foot, and when he hath so plunged it in water, he putteth it into his mouth with his own foot, as it were with an hand. Only the pelican and the popinjay among fowls use the ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... stage-struck youth is of a softer and more shallow sort. He seeks, not a chance to test his mettle by hard and useful work, but an easy chance to shine. He craves the regard, not of men, but of women. He is, in brief, a hollow and incompetent creature, a strutter and poseur, a popinjay, ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... retort. "Wy, when I tells yer that some o' them Naval 'Umming-birds, t'other side o' Popinjay, fitted out an ole Blue 'Ammersmith with a pair o' propellers ... Wuss!" He exhaled scornfully and gave a turn ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 24, 1917 • Various
... eject their King, and as the Duke of Lotzen dare not, I presume I'll have to submit to your impertinent intrusion. Pray, let me know your business here—I assume it is business—and get it ended quickly. I will expedite it all I may. Anything, to be rid of you and that popinjay in red beside you." ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... things shortly. Ned, I warn you to beware of him. He has changed greatly since the days when he fought so gallantly under Rochambeau in our great War of Independence. He has become an aristocrat of aristocrats, a popinjay, a silken dandy, like most of the young nobles at this court. He is high in the King's favor and devoted to his cause. Though your friendships and opinions can have no official weight, as you are my private secretary, still 'twere well to be careful, to be as neutral as possible, ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... commander of this vessel, sir. On the high sea, I am in supreme control, and know how to run the Mauretania without advice from a bloody Spanish popinjay! I will turn that letter over to the authorities when we land." The captain ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... Elleen no more,' she said, 'but a mere Flanders popinjay. It has changed my ain self upon me, ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and feel for you too, but bear up; you are no boy now, you know. And I had set my heart on it too; so had our old friend. He wants you to go and see him, Dick, to help him make up his quarterly account, as you used to do. Perhaps she'll tire of this popinjay—and, when she comes to ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... of holies; for on it depends the safety and stability of our institutions. I, for one, gentlemen, am not willing to be thus represented. I claim to understand the interests of the nation better than yonder pauper in your alms-house, than the unbalanced graduate from your asylum and prison, or the popinjay of twenty-one from your seminary of learning, or the traveler on the tow-path of the Erie canal. No wonder that with such voters as Art. 2, Sec. 3 welcomes to the polls, we have these contradictory laws and constitutions. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... when and how to make an end, as being women indeed in whom all kind of curiosity is to be found and seen." Elizabeth's time, like our own, was distinguished by new fashionable colors, among which are mentioned a queer greenish-yellow, a pease-porridge-tawny, a popinjay of blue, a lusty gallant, and the "devil in the hedge." These may be favorites still, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... popinjay!" cried Fred. "Here, Samson! Another of you—a fresh rope and stake. You must be taught, sir, the virtue of humility in ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... own heart, if you like it better; but I hate to hear myself talking about hearts. I don't care for my heart. I'd let it go—with this young popinjay lord or any one else, so that I could read, and talk, and walk, and sleep, and eat, without always feeling that I was wrong here—here—here—" and she pressed her hand vehemently against her side. "What ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... soon as the door was closed. "I have this morning received a communication from your agent containing a cheque for the interest due to me from M. Rochebriant, and a formal notice of your intention to pay off the principal on behalf of that popinjay prodigal. Though we two have not hitherto been the best friends in the world, I thought it fair to a man in your station to come to you direct and say, 'Cher confrere, what swindler has bubbled you? ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a purple path for Spain Up to the throne of Mary; as a child Gathering with friends upon a winter's morn For some mock fight between the hateful prince Philip and Thomas Wyatt, all at once Might see in gorgeous ruffs embastioned Popinjay plumes and slouching hats of Spain, Gay shimmering silks and rich encrusted gems, Gold collars, rare brocades, and sleek trunk-hose The Ambassador and peacock courtiers come Strutting along the white snow-strangled street, A walking plot ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... flowers, grew there; a stone-lined pool, with water-lilies above, gold-fish below, and a cool, sparkling, babbling fountain in the middle. There was an open space round it, with low chairs and tables, and the parrot on her perch. Indeed, Popinjay Parlour was the family title of this delightful abode; but it might almost as well have been called Mother Carey's bower. Here, after an audience with the housekeeper, who was even more overpowering than her Serene Highness, would Caroline retreat to write notes, keep ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... has become a King Popinjay; with his Maurepas Government, gyrating as the weather-cock does, blown about by every wind. Above them they see no God; or they even do not look above, except with astronomical glasses. The Church ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... up and spak the popinjay, That flew aboun her head; "Lady! keep weel your green cleiding ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... Sterling, but now that I know him better I shall no longer expect him to write to me. I wish I could talk to you on the grave questions, graver than all literature, which the trifles of each day open. Our doing seems to be a gaudy screen or popinjay to divert the eye from our nondoing. I wish, too, you could know my friends here. A man named Bronson Alcott is a majestic soul, with whom conversation is possible. He is capable of truth, and gives me the same glad astonishment that he should ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the cuckoo, ever unkind; The popinjay, full of delicacy; The drake, destroyer of his owne kind; The stork, avenger of adultery; The cormorant, hot and full of gluttony The crows and ravens with their voice of care; And the throstle old, ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... birdes snug aloud; And earth her poore estate forgote, In which the winter her had fraught. Ah! ben in May the sunne is bright, And everie thing does take delight: The nightingale then singeth blithe; Then is blissful many a scithe; The goldfinch and the popinjay, They then have many things to say. Hard is his heart that loveth nought In May, when all such ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... any that I had worn hitherto, being made of the finest embroidered cotton and of the glittering feathers of the humming bird. On my head they set wreaths of flowers, and about my neck and wrists emeralds of vast size and value, and a sorry popinjay I looked in this attire, that seemed more suited to a ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... but he was somehow impressed. The remarkable thing was that though he regarded Captain Deverax as a popinjay, he could not help feeling a certain slight satisfaction in the fact that they were in some sort acquaintances.... Mystery of the human heart!... He wished sincerely that he had not, in his conversation with the Captain in the train, talked about previous visits ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... may be put to my account in purgatory, my Martin. You are spoiling a good outlaw. Have your way, only this gay popinjay of a knight must stay until his ransom be paid. We can't afford to lose that. But no harm shall befall him. Beside, we may want him as hostage in case this morning's work bring a hornets' ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... a repetition of the trait shown in his first speech when he sneered at the popinjay-lord for talking in "holiday and lady terms." But not only does Shakespeare repeat well-known traits in Hotspur, he also uses him as a mere mouthpiece again and again, as he used him at the beginning in the ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... ruled with a rod of iron. For the most part it swayed lightly, with a certain moral effect only over the head of the rank and file, but it grew to a crushing beam for the officer who did not with alacrity habitually attend to his every duty, great or small. The do-nothing, the popinjay, the intractable, the self-important, the remonstrant, the I thought, sir—the It is due to my dignity, sir—none of these flourished in the Army of the Valley. The tendencies had been there, of ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... an American. He can handle these chaps in their own way. At any rate, I told Tompkins if his nerve failed him at the last minute to come and notify me. I'll attend to this confounded popinjay!" ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... creature he had ever seen. Yes; she was the golden girl of his dreams. Within his grasp, so to speak, and yet he could not hope to seize her, after all. Was she meant for that popinjay youth with the petulant eye and the sullen jaw? Was he to be the ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... spake the popinjay, Sae wisely counselled he. "Now say it in the proper way: Gae ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... fool to wish it," he answered; "those fine people will only laugh at me, and I know when I see that magnifico and his popinjay friend about Elsie I shall want to wring their conceited necks. But I'll go—oh, it's no use telling lies! You understand just what a fool I am—I came because I feel as if I must ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... Mine, before all the cousins in Muscovy! You call me Prince of Poland, and yourselves My subjects—traitors therefore to this hour, Who let me perish all my youth away Chain'd there among the mountains; till, forsooth, Terrified at your treachery foregone, You spirit me up here, I know not how, Popinjay-like invest me like yourselves, Choke me with scent and music that I loathe, And, worse than all the music and the scent, With false, long-winded, fulsome compliment, That 'Oh, you are my subjects!' and in word Reiterating still obedience, Thwart me in deed at every step I take: When just ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... are such little tags, compared with the pith and marrow of the man himself? Parson Twemlow was no prig, no pedant, and no popinjay, but a sensible, upright, honorable man, whose chief defect was a quick temper. In parish affairs he loved to show his independence of the Hall, and having a stronger will than Admiral Darling, he mostly conquered him. But he knew very well how far to go, and never pressed the supremacy ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... ailments. And was it not quite certain now that she, being owned full cousin to a peer and lord of Scotland (although he was a dead one), must have nought to do with me, a yeoman's son, and bound to be the father of more yeomen? I had been very sorry when first I heard about that poor young popinjay, and would gladly have fought hard for him; but now it struck me that after all he had no right to be there, prowling (as it were) for Lorna, without any invitation: and we farmers love not trespass. Still, if I had seen the thing, I must ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... answered Hugh, "for whom I have a message that he will be glad to hear, and, popinjay, this for yourself; were it not for his presence it is you who should stop upon the road till you were ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... a cabinet or museum here, too, to inspect, and the curious old spectacle of the popinjay to be witnessed, in company with the Grand Duke of Weimar and his son. This kind of shooting was harmless enough, for the object aimed at was a wooden bird on a pole. The riflemen, led by the rifle-king (schutzen-konig), the public ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... gallant, swain, flame, cicisbeo, admirer, suitor, inamorato; dandy, popinjay, dude, fop, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... beautifully affected all his gestures were, and with what a high-bred supercilious drawl he rolled out his behests that a supper should be served at midnight in the pavilion that commanded a view of the Euphrates. And this magnificent, absurd creature—this mouthing, grimacing, attitudinising popinjay, thought Austin, was no other than Mr Bucephalus Buskin, with whom he had chatted on easy terms in a common field only a few days previously! The memory of the umbrella, the tight frock-coat, the bald head, the fat, reddish ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... said you were a popinjay, and father said there was no doubt about your being a jay, and Sue said there didn't seem to be much chance of your poppin', and now you say you aren't a bird ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... so many of his kind—that was only another offence in the eyes of politicians like Mr. Keir Hardie. When the class war came, he would naturally he found shooting down the workmen; but for any other war, an ignorant popinjay!—incompetent even at his own trade, and no match whatever for the scientific ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... nearing fifty; but it was an alarming triumph.... Odd that in that moment he should think of Lady Massulam! His fatal charm was as a razor. Had he been playing with it as a baby might play with a razor?... Popinjay? Coxcomb? Perhaps, Nevertheless, the wench had artistically kissed his hand, and his hand felt ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... excited no little suspicion; and many a burgher who beheld him that day would have given a trifle for a peep beneath the white cambric handkerchief which hung so obtrusively from the pocket of his swallow-tailed coat. But what mainly occasioned a righteous indignation was, that the scoundrelly popinjay, while he cut a fandango here, and a whirligig there, did not seem to have the remotest idea in the world of such a thing as ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... over, a loud shout announced that the competitors were about to step forth for the shooting of the popinjay— the figure of a bird suspended to a pole. When a slender young man, dressed with great simplicity, yet with an air of elegance, his dark-green cloak thrown back over his shoulder, approached ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... and I try to feel so and to see that the 'Philadelphia splinter' is something. Between nothing and that, there is no choice, and we must accept it. With my natural pride of character, it makes me feel intensely bitter to have my rights discussed by popinjay priests and politicians, to have woman's work in church and State decided by striplings of twenty-one, and the press of the country in a broad grin because, forsooth, some American matrons choose to attend a political convention. ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... fool! I can tell you that you will speak before another twenty-four hours, or I'll hang you for a spy if it cost me my command. Major Brennan, take this young popinjay to the ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... bad sort—what's the matter with me, anyhow? Why ain't I good enough for you or any other woman? Suppose I'm not a young whippersnapper with his head full of nonsense and his pockets full of nothing, can the best popinjay of them all do for you what I can? Can any of 'em offer you what I can offer? Let him try to: I'll ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... "Item, a doublet, of black satin of sixteen shillings the yard, with points of three and sixpence the dozen. Item, a pair of hose of popinjay green (they be well called popinjay) of thirty shillings. Item, cross-garters of scarlet—how's that?" quoth Ned, scratching his forehead with a pencil: "I must have forgat the price o' them. Boots o' red Spanish leather, nine shillings. Gloves of Cordova, ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... who, by her blandishment, can detain him in conversation for five minutes. Yet they own they understand less than half of what he says. Vexed with one to whom we were talking, we thought rationally, for permitting herself to be "so pestered by a popinjay,"—"He is so clever," was the reply; "such an odd creature, too. I wish you knew him. He is in such a strange humour to-night. Do you know he tells me he wishes to marry an English girl? See! he is gone into the balcony yonder to look at the moon." To be sure he was. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... mocking again. "They knew that I would not receive him to-day, and so sent him away. He might have known as much himself, but he is an arrant popinjay, and thinks all women wish to look at his fine shape, and hear him flatter them when he is ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Coutlass yelled. "I'm no man's popinjay! Shoot if you dare, and I'll spoil the whole game! Help! ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... on the public, eh? I'm afeard there's mony a man else that throws awa' the gude auld plaid o' Scots Puritanism, an' is unco fain to cover his nakedness wi' ony cast popinjay's feathers he can forgather wi'. Aweel, aweel—a puir priestless age it is, the noo. We'll e'en gang hear him the nicht, Alton, laddie; ye ha' na darkened the kirk door this mony a day—nor ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... heavens and the new earth. There he sowed the grain that is the bread of man, chanting the hymn used at seed-time, calling on the mother earth to make the green herb spring, and on Ukko to send clouds and rain. So the corn sprang, and the golden cuckoo—which in Finland plays the part of the popinjay in Scotch ballads, or of the three golden birds in Greek folksongs—came with his congratulations. In regard to the epithet 'golden,' it may be observed that gold and silver, in the Finnish epic, are lavished on the commonest objects ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... stand even the rattling farewell which Tranchefer takes of his scabbard, brave me in my absence, and affect to make love to my lady par amours! And she, too—methinks Brenhilda allows more license than she is wont to do to yonder chattering popinjay. By the rood! I will spring into the apartment, front them with my personal appearance, and confute yonder braggart in a manner he ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... 'gamin' yonder like an artillery-driver? or is it to a drummer-boy you intrust the caisson of an eight-pounder gun? Dismount, sirrah, and come hither," cried he to me, in a voice that sounded like an order for instant execution. "This popinjay dress of yours must have been the fancy of some worthy shop-keeper of the 'Quai Lepelletier;' it never could belong to any regular corps. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... "Horn of Fortune" sails away to-day. At highest tide she lets her anchor go, And starts for China. Saucy popinjay! Giddy in freshest paint she curtseys low, And beckons to her boats to let her start. Blue is the ocean, with a flashing breeze. The shining waves are quick to take her part. They push and spatter her. Her sails are loose, Her ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... The Popinjay or Popingo (signifying painted bird) is a very favourite and popular diversion in Denmark, and of which it may be interesting to give some account. A society is constituted of various members, called the "King's Shooting Club," who have a code of laws and regulations drawn up ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various
... nothing, only to be let alone; and they would not let him alone. They would haul him away to put a heavy musket in his hand and a heavy knapsack on his back, and drill him, and curse him, and make him into a human target, a live popinjay. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... "Shooting at the Popinjay," "as an ancient game formerly practised with archery, but at this period (1679) with firearms. This was the figure of a bird decked with parti-coloured feathers, so as to resemble a popinjay or parrot. It was suspended to a pole, and served for a mark at which the competitors discharged ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... occurred to Adrian to ask himself another question, namely, how it comes about that eight young women out of ten are endowed with an intelligence or instinct sufficiently keen to enable them to discriminate between an empty-headed popinjay of a man, intoxicated with the fumes of his own vanity, and an honest young fellow of stable character and sterling worth? Not that Adrian was altogether empty-headed, for in some ways he was clever; also beneath all this foam and froth the Dutch strain inherited from his mother had given a ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... fell into another fad, at the time all the rage, invented since the accession of Commodus and made fashionable by the young Emperor. Some popinjay had conceived a whim for travelling by litter instead of in his carriage. It was far less expeditious and far more expensive. But the notion took. All at once every fop in Roman society must needs take his country outings, go to his villa ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... terms He question'd me; amongst the rest, demanded My prisoners in your Majesty's behalf. I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold, Out of my grief and my impatience To be so pester'd with a popinjay, Answer'd neglectingly, I know not what,— He should, or he should not; for't made me mad To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet, And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman Of guns and drums and wounds,—God save the mark!— And telling me the sovereign'st ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... care for that popinjay? How did you get over it? Had you no sensation of horror, when you were required to bow down ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... "See here, Sir Popinjay," said Ludar, coming forward impatiently, and cutting the speech in twain, "the time is gone past for this fooling. If you be a man, you may prove it now. If not, on my soul, you shall go aloft again. Come, you share this watch with me. Put some food into your body, and then keep ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... popinjay That flew abune her head: "Gae let him in that tirls the pin: He cometh ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... and her sister, Mrs. Pygmalion Popinjay, were at the Earl's Court Exhibition on Wednesday. The Countess's crested toucan, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 22, 1914 • Various
... hath berries as red as any Rose, The foresters, the hunters, keep them from the does; Ivy she hath berries as black as any Sloe, There come the owls and eat them as they go; Holly he hath birds, a full fair flock, The nightingale, the popinjay, the gentle laverock; Good Ivy, say to us, what birds hast thou? None but the ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... young of men as good as dead, the talk of cabinets But there was lawn tennis also, which you might play without losing caste "at home," Fitzhugh Williams never used that term but with the one meaning. He would say, for instance, to the little Duchess of Popinjay—or one just as good—having kissed her to make up for having pushed her into her ancestral pond, "Now I am going to the house," meaning Perth House, that Mrs. Williams had taken for the season. But if he had said, "Now I am going home," the little Duchess would have known that he was ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris |
