"Mocking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... should be strength remaining to give another cry so frightfully loud; the damned never lowered their key, and the devils kept replying, "behold your welcome for ever and ever." And it almost seemed that the sauciness and bitterness of the devils, in jeering and mocking their victims, were worse to bear than the pain itself. What was worst of all, their conscience was at present utterly aroused, and was tearing them worse than a thousand of the infernal lions. We proceeded farther and farther downward, and the farther we proceeded, the more ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... drink?" rejoined the other, mocking the dignified and determined tone in which the invitation ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... of other men? and that he assumed the form of a servant though he was in form divine? Where would be the sense in my saying to you, "You are like a man, are made in the fashion of a man, and take upon yourself the form of a servant"? You would think I was mocking you, and might appropriately reply: "I am glad you regard me as a man; I was wondering if I were an ox or a wolf. Are you mad or foolish?" Would not that be the natural rejoinder to such a foolish statement? Now, ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... were filled with flowering shrubs and trailing vines, the towering trees hung with the wild, weird drapery of the southern moss, and the mocking birds sang their sweet songs from "early morn 'til dewy eve." These scenes "vibrate in memory" with quivering, throbbing power, and come back like odors exhaled from fading flowers or "music ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... Here was something new! Something still more nonsensical; and the people of Jericho came out on their walls again to flout them, and pass their jokes. When the Israelites had been round twice, they started to go round a third time, then a fourth, then a fifth, then a sixth. The mocking grew more excessive, the ridicule more keen. But, when the circuit of the city was made the seventh time, then, the walls of the city fell down, and the Israelites rushed in over the ruins, and killed all they came across. On whose side was ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... mocking tone. "We want that chief and his boy, whom you are harboring in your camp. According to our Indian companion, they own, or know of the hiding-place of, a fortune in plumes. If the plumes are not to be ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... through her mind, as she darted a look at the four predatory faces that hemmed her in. Tilly's was one of them: the lightly mocking smile sat on it that Laura had come to know so well, since her maladroit handling of Bob. She would kill that smile—and if she had ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... far from dark. In the northern heavens a rosy glow proclaimed the midnight sun. Somewhere in the willows a robin was chirping, and from the wide bosom of the river, like the thin howl of a wolf, came the mocking cry of a loon still pursuing its finny prey. And in his little canvas tent, sitting just inside, so as to catch the smoke of the fire that afforded protection from the mosquitoes, Hubert Stane still watched and waited for the coming of his promised visitor. He was smoking, and from ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... think that Hiawatha had forgotten what mischief they could do. So early on the morrow all the black thieves, crows and blackbirds, jays and ravens, flew down on the field, and with claws and beak began to dig up the buried grain. But the wary Hiawatha had over-heard the birds' mocking laughter and, rising before daybreak, had scattered snares over the fields. Thus it happened that the birds found their claws all entangled in the snares, and Hiawatha, coming out from the hiding-place where ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... Under my coarse exterior my heart no doubt merely felt passing shocks of fear and disgust at the sight of punishments which I myself might have to endure any day at the caprice of my oppressors; especially as John, when he saw me turn pale at these frightful spectacles, had a habit of saying, in a mocking tone: ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... mocking voice with a curious rising and falling infection, "who's here? Another delegate to this congress of ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... glad to see these two farms joined in one? To see me marry Mr. Ham?' Her tremulous eyes questioned his face eagerly. When she began her queries there was in them a flash of mocking mirth; but that had disappeared, and there was now only to be observed ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... wrest from nature that wonderful gem, ever associated with tragedy and romance, mystery and crime, for the possession of which, since history began, men have been ready to give up their lives. Confident of their success, they had risked all on a turn of the wheel, and Fortune, mocking their puny efforts, had first ruined and then degraded them, afterward sending them back home ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... already," said Grace, as Rachel thought the last speech too mocking to be worthy of reply, and went on ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thin, her long black locks Matted with dust—breathlessly breaks she in Upon them—Nala's wife—so beauteous once, So honored. Seeing her, some fled in fear; Some gazed, speechless with wonder; some called out, Mocking the piteous face by words of scorn; But some (my King!) had pity of her woe, And spake her fair, inquiring: "Who art thou? And whence? And in this grove what seekest thou, To come so wild? Thy mien astonisheth. Art of our kind, or art thou something strange, The spirit ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... path at every point; snakes were seen gliding out of their way—a fortunate tendency on the part of most snakes!—and the woods resounded with the singing of the yapu, a bird something like a blackbird, with yellow tips to its wings, and somewhat like the mocking-bird in that it imitated every other bird in the forest. Whether there is jealousy between the yapu and the parrot we have not been able to ascertain, but if birds are like men in their sentiments, we fear it is more than probable. ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... The numeral four hundred was employed, like the Greek "myriad," to express vaguely any extraordinary number. The term may be rendered "the myriad-voiced," and was the common name of the mocking-bird, called by ornithologists Turdus polyglottus, ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton
... wrong, and his right's your right, In season or out of season. Stand up and back it in all men's sight— With that for your only reason! Nine hundred and ninety-nine can't bide The shame or mocking or laughter, But the Thousandth Man will stand by your ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... here, all that one senses dimly behind your sugared and pretentious compositions speaks out frankly. Listening to this mighty scherzo, we know the cynicism that corroded your spirit. We hear it surge and fill the sky. We hear it pour its mocking laughter over grief and longing and pride, over purity and tenderness in those outrageous orchestral arabesques that descend on the themes of the "Faust" and "Marguerite" movements, and whip them into grinning distortions. We hear it deny and stamp and curse, topple the whole ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... hungry funnel of death. She drew back. Presently she peered again, and once more withdrew. She gazed round, and then made another tour of the hill, searching. She returned to the precipice. As she did so she heard a voice. She looked and saw Parpon seated upon a ledge of rock not far below. A mocking laugh floated up to her. But there was trouble in the laugh too—a bitter sickness. She did not notice that. She looked about her. Not far away was a stone, too heavy to carry but perhaps not too heavy ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... wish to say you are," said Belle; "but some of your words sound strangely like scoffing and mocking. I have now one thing to beg, which is, that if you have anything to say against America, you would ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... men. This he had foretold. When man, guilty man, cast Himself upon the willing victim, all the wickedness and vileness and cruelty man is capable of committing was brought out and spent upon the blessed Son of God. The scourging, the buffeting, the mocking, the spitting and the shame connected with it, the shame of the cross, He despised. How that sensitive body must have quivered ...
— The Work Of Christ - Past, Present and Future • A. C. Gaebelein
... behind the curtain and listened. He could hear laughter, ribald, mocking laughter, but low, and plainly not intended ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... you make the petitions your own, and really desire what you ask for, and if you ask in the right spirit. But if you just say the words over without thinking what you are saying, or whom you are speaking to, it is not praying at all. It is mocking God." ...
— A Missionary Twig • Emma L. Burnett
... ear as balsam to the palate; and, though he has not exactly the gift of song, some of his notes are as sweet as those of a linnet—almost flute-like in softness, while others prick and tingle like thistles. He is the mocking-bird of squirrels, pouring forth mixed chatter and song like a perennial fountain; barking like a dog, screaming like a hawk, chirping like a blackbird or a sparrow; while in bluff, audacious noisiness ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... turned on this strange form, as she, in mocking gesture, casts a look of withering scorn on the scene around her, and startles the jovial vassals with the reproachful words "No heir! No heir!" The laughter is hushed, the pipes no longer sound, for the witch with uplifted hand beckons that she had a message to tell—a ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... Caneri, with a mocking laugh; "Death! Surely thou must fancy that I am to be intimidated by the ravings of a woman. No, thou canst not die, even if that were truly thy desire. Thou shalt not die, at least till I think thee ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, "He saved others; himself he cannot save. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, that we may see and believe. He trusteth on God; let him deliver him now, if he desireth him: for he said, ...
— His Last Week - The Story of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus • William E. Barton
... hysterical about the laugh which accompanied her mocking farewell, but she was gone the next instant, and the door ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... with life. I will not here go into the whole of the teaching that I heard—but it was for me all vitiated by one thought. The preacher seemed to desire us to feel that the sad and wasted form of the Redeemer, hanging in his last agony on the cross among the mocking crowd, was conscious at once of his humanity and his Divinity. But the thought is meaningless and inconceivable to me. If he was conscious then of his august origin and destiny, if he knew that, to use a material metaphor enough, he would shortly ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... to Herman's tirade. He knew it was addressed to Allen, and that it deprecated war, and that it was mocking. The fresh face and smiling lips of the young girl seemed to put other affairs very far away. It was such a beautiful thing to sit at table ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... of birds captured in this way, mocking-birds, blue-birds, robins, meadow larks, quail, and plover were the most numerous. They seemed to have more voracious appetites than other varieties, or else they were more unwary, and consequently more easily caught. A change of station, however, put an end to my ornithological ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... and her husband were prosperous, and everything he touched seemed to turn to gold. It may sound irreverent, James, but there was a time during my life in New York when I was discouraged; when it seemed as though heaven were mocking me and my husband in our homely struggle against the forces of evil, and bestowing all its favors on a woman whose example was a menace to American womanhood! Sorry? Why should I be sorry to see justice triumph and shallow iniquity ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... off for the Mayor, and, the news having gone around, the yard was filled with people watching the fun and making a mocking-stock of me. The Colonel saw Sultan off to be groomed and baited, and then, without so much as a look at me, went into the inn and sat down to his interrupted meal. I could see him plainly through the window, and hugely ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... evening lights, and then vanishing far over the waves. The knight scarcely knew what had happened to him. He returned to his chamber buried in thought, and sometimes feeling sure that he had beheld Aslauga, sometimes, again, that some goblin had risen before him with deceitful tricks, mocking in spiteful wise the service which he had vowed to his dead mistress. But henceforth, wherever he roved, over valley or forest or heath, or whether he sailed upon the waves of the sea, the like ...
— Aslauga's Knight • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... These may tend to mitigate the heats of summer, but are very disagreeable in the other seasons. The coldness of the climate is plainly to be perceived in the birch tree, which is here common in the woods; and the want of the mocking bird, the red bird, and a great variety of others, that visit you in the glimmer from South America. The fox squirrel too is scarce, and the gray squirrel almost white. We cannot cultivate the sweet, or tropical potatoe, ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... over. Opposite Steve Brayton's cabin a jet of smoke puffed from the bushes across the river, and a bullet furrowed the road in front of him. That was the shot they had heard at the mill. Somebody was drawing a dead-line, and Rome wheeled his horse at the brink of it. A mocking yell came over the river, and a gray horse flashed past an open space in the bushes. Rome knew the horse and knew the yell; young Jasper was "bantering" him. Nothing maddens the mountaineer like this childish method of ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... responding to his kisses, those intellectual eyes dwelling with tenderness—yes, with tenderness—on his, and his head went round, and he forgot himself for an instant, till indignation boiled up in him again. He caught himself in all sorts of 'shameful' thoughts, as though he were driven on by a devil mocking him. Sometimes he fancied that there was a change taking place in Madame Odintsov too; that there were signs in the expression of her face of something special; that, perhaps ... but at that point he would stamp, or grind his teeth, ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... heads off, a qui mieux mieux. "Those thinkers, those lofty patriots, hein, beau cousin, for whom, it seems, you have an admiration," commented the lady, interrupting her account to sip her cup of cream and chocolate, with a little finger daintily cocked, and shoot a mocking shaft at the young philosopher from the depth of ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... hat and turned to leave as Gerald disappeared. "Pray don't let me detain you from the interesting ceremony, Miss Lane," he said, with his most cynical and mocking voice; "Miss Vernor as high-priestess will be worth a full ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... month by month, years afterward, heard again, spoken with passion. This officer who had come out to France in 1914 and had been fighting ever since by a luck which had spared his life when so many of his comrades had fallen round him, did not speak with passion. He spoke with a bitter, mocking irony. He said that G.H.Q. was a close corporation in the hands of the military clique who had muddled through the South African War, and were now going to muddle through a worse one. They were, he said, intrenched ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... cannot make use of political liberty: "in order to do so he needs two little things—leisure and material means." So it is all only a bourgeois lie. Those who speak of working-class candidates are but mocking the proletariat. "Working-class candidates, transferred to bourgeois conditions of life, and into an atmosphere of completely bourgeois political ideas, ceasing to be actually workers in order to become statesmen, will become ...
— Anarchism and Socialism • George Plechanoff
... Fool now makes love to her in play; but when scornfully repulsed he humbly retires, swearing to the goodness and pureness of his lady-love. Arlequin entering through the window, the two begin to dine merrily, but Taddeo reenters in mocking fright, to announce the arrival of the husband Bajazzo (Canio). The latter however is in terrible earnest, and when he hoarsely exacts the lover's name, the lookers-on, who hitherto have heartily applauded every scene, begin to feel the awful tragedy hidden behind ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... classed with the dodo and the mammoth by the coming discoverer of an escape from the slave and careerist. And so let us resign ourselves to fate. Let us eat of the humble bread of the stoic's consolation in the face of the mocking laughter of the gods, let us admit that Mind in Man has unconsciously but irretrievably willed its own self-annihilation. What remains for us except to beat our breasts and proclaim: So be it, O Lord, ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... and he had to wiggle to get free from it. The lid banged. Instantly every boy had turned in his seat to gaze at him, and he saw that this was the worst place that could have fallen to his lot. In his corner he was trapped, a sea of mocking, curious faces between him ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... My garden spade can heal. A woodland walk, A quest of river grapes, a mocking thrush, A wild rose or rock-loving ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... he continues, "will remind some of you of the famous picture in which Retzsch has depicted Satan playing at chess with man for his soul. Substitute for the mocking fiend in that picture a calm, strong angel, who is playing for love, as we say, and would rather lose than win—and I should accept it as an ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... advancing with a mocking laugh; "Captain Bunker it is. Captain Bunker, formerly of this American barque Excelsior, and now of the Mexican ship La Trinidad. Captain Bunker ez larnt every foot of that passage in an open boat last August, and didn't forget it yesterday in a big ship! Captain Bunker ez has just landed a company ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... picket guard, that night. Brigade guard mount took place in the woods at sunset. Our regimental Band, led by the veteran Joe Greene, played his familiar piece, "The Mocking Bird." Our company was marched in the direction of Leesburg, and posted in the edge of the woods, where picket guard head quarters were established. At about 11 P. M., about one-half of our company relieved a company of the 14th Brooklyn, the balance of the company ...
— History of Company F, 1st Regiment, R.I. Volunteers, during the Spring and Summer of 1861 • Charles H. Clarke
... bed stood. She drew the curtains. I heard her humming to herself as she passed to and fro, saw the flare of a light as it rose beyond. Once or twice she thrust a laughing face between the curtains, held tight together with her hands, as she asked me some question, mocking me, still amused—yet still, as I thought, more enigmatic ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... of fire should issue visibly through the windows of a house, and if any one should ask if there were fire within it, and if another should answer "Yes" to him, one would not well know how to judge which of those might be mocking the most. Not otherwise would the question and the answer pass between me and that man who should ask me if love for my own language is in me, and if I should answer "Yes" to him, after the ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... the country boobies taking off their hats to a common soldier!" they cried, and gathered about the three with mocking laughter ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... effect, that the Minister travell with him, by doctrine, and private instruction to bring him here-to, and specially in the doctrine of repentance, which being neglected, the publick place of repentance is turned in a mocking. ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... rough and mocking laughter, I broke away from them, and took refuge in my wagon, little guessing that all this talk would be brought up against me on ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... sympathies of the people, who began to respond with disapproving murmurs. "Shall it be that the fiery serpent hear laughing tongues while the hands of the Dacotahs are idle? Who are they that dare to revile our sacred sign with mocking eyes ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... killing as they were doing, they would soon be the greatest sufferers, for if the rabbits were all gone there was nothing else that they could get in sufficient numbers to keep them alive. This, which is a fact, rather sobered some of them at first; but they soon resumed their mocking at the poor little rabbit and his story, and, as they were in the majority, the council refused to do ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... flax, tearing fishermen's nets, tying knots in cows' tails, tumbling pots, pans and dishes, in the kitchen, or hiding hats, and throwing stones down the chimneys onto the fireplaces. They even ceased their fun of mocking children, who were calling the cows home, by hiding behind the rocks and shouting to them. Instead of these tricks, they saved their breath to blow the fires into a blast. Everybody wondered where the "kabs" were, ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... intently to the flutes and harps and they will discover quite a different melody beneath—a melody by no means bewitching or soothing, nor inviting us to dreams, sweet forgetfulness, soft couches, and tender embraces, but a shrill and mocking tune that is at times insolently discordant and that strikes us as decidedly modern, realistic, and threatening. As the poet himself expressed it in his dedication to Varnhagen ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... Mocking at religion, the more fanatical had thrown off every vestige of decency and indulged in Bacchanalian worship of a so-called "Goddess of Reason." This was a lewd female from the Paris half-world, flower-chapleted, flimsily draped, prancing in drunken ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... the considerable distance from the Avenue du Bois to the quiet street near the Luxembourg where Adele de Lera lived, and all the way he had felt as if pursued by a mocking demon. ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... with strings To laughter chiefly turned, but some That Fate has practised hard on, dumb, They answer not whoever sings. The ghosts of half-forgotten things Will touch the keys with fingers numb, The little mocking spirits come And thrill ...
— Rhymes a la Mode • Andrew Lang
... really pretty and pleasing in the kiss thus wafted with a slightly mocking laugh by that familiar, good-natured young Prince who, as in some love story of the olden time, was touched by the beautiful bead-worker's mute adoration. Pierina flushed with pleasure, and, losing her head, darted upon Dario's hand and pressed her warm lips ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... some consciousness of the contrast between her and themselves, for they disliked the poor girl more than ever, and were always mocking her, and jesting about her wonderful fitness for being ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... be silent; but the true man will never look as if he did not care. We are not bound to say all we think, but we are bound not even to look what we do not think. The girl who said before a company of mocking companions, 'I believe in Jesus,' bore true witness to her Master, the Truth. David bore witness to God, the Truth, when he said, 'Unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy, for thou renderest to every man ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... hotel, having just breakfasted. They have champagne and seltzer water on the table, and each has a newspaper. PROFESSOR RUBEK is an elderly man of distinguished appearance, wearing a black velvet jacket, and otherwise in light summer attire. MAIA is quite young, with a vivacious expression and lively, mocking eyes, yet with a suggestion of fatigue. She wears an elegant ...
— When We Dead Awaken • Henrik Ibsen
... the dignity of his experience. He might never hope to fathom its meaning while he lived; but he grieved for the wrong he had done it, as if at the instant of the apparition he had offered that majestic, silent figure some grotesque indignity: thrown a pillow at it, or hailed it in tones of mocking offence. He was profoundly and exquisitely ashamed even before he ceased to tell the story for his listeners' idle amusement. When he stopped doing so, and snubbed solicitation with the curt answer that everybody had heard that story, ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... hither.' Accordingly, Pinuccio, dissembling and making a show of being sleepy-eyed, arose at last from beside the host and went back to bed with Adriano. The day come and they being risen, the host fell to laughing and mocking at Pinuccio and his dreams; and so they passed from one jest to another, till the young men, having saddled their rounceys and strapped on their valises and drunken with the host, remounted to horse and rode away to Florence, no less content with the manner ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... a third. Toilers, living without pride or delight or hope, with the stories of Pleasure Cities ringing in their ears, mocking their shameful lives, their privations and hardships. Too poor even for the Euthanasy, the rich man's refuge from life. Dumb, crippled millions, countless millions, all the world about, ignorant of anything but limitations and unsatisfied desires. They are born, they are thwarted ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... angrily against the oven, throwing off on the hot bricks the slippery pieces of dough. On one side of the oven, wood was burning from morning till night, and the red reflection of the flame was trembling on the wall of the workshop as though it were silently mocking us. The huge oven looked like the deformed head of a fairy-tale monster. It looked as though it thrust itself out from underneath the floor, opened its wide mouth full of fire, and breathed on us with heat ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... bridges. Mr. Schwirtz was tireless and extravagant and hearty at the Champs du Pom-Pom. He made Una dance and skate; he had a box for the vaudeville; he gave her caviar canape and lobster a la Rue des Trois Soeurs in the Louis Quinze room; and sparkling Burgundy in the summer garden, where mocking-birds sang in the wavering branches above their table. Una took away an impressionistic picture of ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... dead and cold, whose feet one warm'th— And shaken, ah! by unfamiliar fevers, Shivering with sharpened, icy-cold frost-arrows, By thee pursued, my fancy! Ineffable! Recondite! Sore-frightening! Thou huntsman 'hind the cloud-banks! Now lightning-struck by thee, Thou mocking eye that me in darkness watcheth: —Thus do I lie, Bend myself, twist myself, convulsed With all eternal torture, And smitten By thee, cruellest ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... was educated by himself under a vengolina (a small African finch, which he says sings better than any foreign bird but the American mocking bird), and it imitated its African master so exactly that it was impossible to distinguish the one ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... at home here,' said the old duck waddling off. And so they did, all except the duckling, who was snapped at by everyone when they thought his mother was not looking. Even the turkey-cock, who was so big, never passed him without mocking words, and his brothers and sisters, who would not have noticed any difference unless it had been put into their heads, soon became as rude and ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... and faced them then, dropping her mocking and excited manner, and speaking quite calmly ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... because of their excessively scrupulous conscience in these matters, that the name "Puritan" was given to the Calvinist by his enemy, at first a mocking designation analogous to "Catharus" in the Middle Ages. But the tide set strongly in the Puritan direction. Time and again the Commons tried to initiate legislation to relieve the consciences of the stricter party, but their efforts were blocked by the crown. From ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... present another suggestion; but Maxime, laying aside his usual half-dreamy, mocking manner, said, as if roused by a ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... physique. Charley had looked upon him with the pitying contempt of strong youth for weak youth. He considered that the stranger's hands were soft and effeminate, he disliked his little trimmed moustache, and especially the cool, mocking, appraising glance of his eyes. But as the day, and the night, and the day following wore away, Charley raised his opinion. The slender body possessed unexpected reserve, the long, lean hands plied the tools unweariedly, the sensitive ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... the bank and many birds of brilliant plumage darted from tree to tree. Few of these sang, except the mocking bird, which gave forth an incessant mellow note. But it was a scene of uncommon peace and beauty ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... midst of opprobrium, insults, and hostile demonstrations. For the king's subjects, so far from being charmed by his resolution to marry a woman out of their midst, are scandalized. They riot, sing mocking songs, circulate base slanders, and threaten to mob the royal bride on her way to her first public function. She is herself terribly wrought up, particularly by the curse of her father, who hates the king with the deep hatred of a fanatical Republican. ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... ago, but now there was no sign of him. He did not come at her call. How annoying! If Tige were only there she could have sent him for help. She shouted several times, but the distance was too great for her voice to carry to the fort. The mocking echo of her call came back from the bluff that rose to her left. Betty now began to be alarmed in earnest, and the tears started to roll down her cheeks. The throbbing pain in her ankle, the dread of having to remain out in that lonesome forest after dark, and the fear that ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... openly disobedient; when the people, as the pretender passed through the city streets, no longer shouted aloud expressions of their loyalty, but, with dark looks of doubt and anger, stood silent, or laughed in mocking glee. ...
— The Uncrowned King • Harold Bell Wright
... Nan, her nerves on edge, gave a cry. A man stepped in and closed the door behind him. He was a figure of fashion evolved from cheap models and flashy materials. Tall, quick in his movements, as if he found life a perpetual dance and self-consciously adapted himself to it, with mocking blue eyes, red hair and a long nose bent slightly to one side, he was, in every line and act, vulgar, and yet so arrogantly bent on pleasing that you unconsciously had to acknowledge his intention and refrain from turning your back on ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... not realize that her scoffing disbelief in Mac's avowals, and her gay indifference were the very things that kept him at fever heat. He was not used to being thwarted, and this high-handed little working-girl, with her challenging eyes and mocking laugh, who had never heard of the proprieties, and yet denied him favors, was the first person he had ever known who refused absolutely to let him have his own way. With a boy's impetuous desire he became obsessed by the idea of ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... his subterfuge, her mocking defiance of the sacred formula to which he deferred, awoke in him an unfamiliar and pleasantly piquant sensation. Through it all he was conscious of the inner prick and sting of his disapprobation, as if the swift attraction had passed into a ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... should be afraid, but not as you mean," said the lad. "I should feel that it was doing a mocking, boasting sort of thing toward the dead people who were all lying ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... "The Beast was mocking us," cried the merchant; "he must have pretended to give us all these things, knowing that I could not ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... the yard at home, of the dandelions on the lawn, of his pet pig: things too sacred to repeat here. And he told me that the great event on the Front now is the Autumn glory of the trees. Then he departed, and as he went he broke into deep-throated, Homeric laughter, and I—I understood: he was mocking Death. Even thus does laughter yap at the heels of that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 14, 1917 • Various
... King, should be angry with this poor old fool?' And all the courtiers and counsellors were amazed when they saw the hard lines round his mouth and the frown on his brow grow smooth, and heard the mild but mocking tones in which he answered the ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... the merry noise of it all night, all day, in the house. A little way above the farmstead it comes through marshy ground, which I fear has been the cause of much illness and sorrow to the poor, troubled family. I had a thrill of pain, as it seemed to me that the brook was mocking at all that trouble with all its wild carelessness and loud laughter, as it hurried away down ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... both as daughter and as mistress, and he saw himself reflected in her as in a magic mirror, every passion and every vice. Lucrezia and Caesar were accordingly the best beloved of his heart, and the three composed that diabolical trio which for eleven years occupied the pontifical throne, like a mocking parody of ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Rennell," went on Colonel Stopford. "We're hiding under cover, and I'm counting on you to turn the tables. They even know my office is here. I had a long distance call from Savannah this morning in mocking vein. They advised me to have the White House watched to-night. I warned the President, and we've ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... scanned the rough landscape for sign of another canyon which he knew would spell inevitable doom. The western hills rose closer now though weirdly unreal as they seemed to dance in the sunlight as though mocking him with their nearness at the moment that exhaustion was about to ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... man can well have. From the banter of the man of learning the queen of the dingle sought refuge in a precipitate flight. Almost simultaneously the word-master, albeit with reluctance, decided that it was high time to give over his "mocking and scoffing." When he returned with this resolve to the dingle, Isopel Berners had quitted it, never ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... on his shoulder and turned her dark eyes upon him. Teasing eyes they could be and mocking, yet sweet, too. Ah, sweet and tender through ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin
... faisait voir les choses comme elles sont." I find men victims of illusion in all parts of life. Children, youths, adults, and old men, all are led by one bawble or another. Yoganidra, the goddess of illusion, Proteus, or Momus, or Gylfi's Mocking,—for the Power has many names,—is stronger than the Titans, stronger than Apollo. The toys, to be sure, are various, and are graduated in refinement to the quality of the dupe. The intellectual man requires a fine bait; the sots are easily ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... for example, absurd that Mr. Moses Feldt, who was a Jew, should make her feel like that, but he did. And all the while that she was disagreeable to him, or mocking him behind his back, she was as uncomfortable and "horrid" as possible. While this fact, of course, only served to make her horrider still. At present she adopted the manner of a patience that nothing could quite exhaust; she was polite and formal, relentlessly ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the key click in the lock and found himself in total darkness. From outside came to him the mocking voice of ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... stepped forward with the intention of grasping the figure, but it eluded him, and, with a mocking laugh, melted ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Hector Bracondale is back again, Delaval?" Mrs. Devlyn said. "Do you know why he stayed in Paris so long? I heard—" And she whispered low, so that Theodora only caught the name "Esclarmonde de Chartres" and their modulated mocking laughter. ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... for his scientific discoveries, but because he ridiculed the Dominican and Jesuit guardians of the philosophy of the Middle Ages, and because he seemed to undermine the authority of the Scriptures and of the Church: his boldness, his sarcasms, and his mocking spirit were more offensive than his doctrines. The Church did not persecute Kepler or Pascal. The Athenians may have condemned Xenophanes and Anaxagoras, yet not the other Ionian philosophers, nor the lofty speculations ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... stern you look!" she cried in a mocking voice. "Do you ever think of anything but ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... His well-laid plan had come to naught, so he sat there screaming at the roaring creature beneath him and making mocking grimaces at it. ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... past crowded about my heart when I thought of it. I seemed to see the spectres of our nights of love; they hung over a bottomless, eternal abyss, black as chaos, and from the bottom of that abyss arose a shriek of laughter, sweet but mocking, that ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... and unfeeling letter," you say, sir? Perhaps. But there is often no reserve so deep or so delicate as that which is veiled by a frivolous exterior and a mocking attitude towards sentiment in general. Some sensitive people are so afraid of having their hearts dragged to light that, to escape inquisition, they pretend they do not possess any. Moreover, I know ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... Jacqueminot, Do you think me mad that I kiss you so? If a rose could only its thoughts express, I'd find you mocking, I more than guess; And yet if you vow me a fond old fool, Just think if your own fine pulse was cool When you lay in her ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... only a murderer, but an exceedingly treacherous one, for both Mr. Audubon and Mr. Nuttall speak of his efforts to decoy little birds within his reach by imitating their notes, and he does this so closely that he is called a mocking-bird in some parts of New England. When he utters his usual note and reveals himself, his voice very properly resembles the 'discordant creaking of a sign-board hinge.' A flock of snow-birds or finches may be sporting and feeding in some ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... or mocking," broke in Henderson, half-angrily, "at the very moment when you should be getting ready for the glory of giving the ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... of Mr. Thackeray is most graphic and characteristic. He stirs in me both sorrow and anger. Why should he lead so harassing a life? Why should his mocking tongue so perversely deny the better feelings of ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... in, her long, pale hands bracketed on her narrow hips, her lips disclosing her teeth in a smile so like that nervous muscular recession which passed for a smile on Quarrier's visage that for one moment he recognised it and thought she was mocking him. But she strolled up to him, meeting his eye calmly, and lifted her slim neck, lips passive ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... hide the floating, Falling, rising, face from me; God in heaven! stay the gloating, Mocking singing of ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... Flann, "they are talking about Princess Flame-of-Wine." He did not move, but listened to what was said. All said that the King's daughter was proud. Some said she was beautiful, but others answered that her lips were thin, and her eyes were mocking. No other maidens came for fire. Flann stood before the one that still blazed, and thought and thought. The King's Son asked many if they had knowledge of the Unique Tale, but no one had heard of it. Some told him that there would be merchants and sellers from many parts of the world at the ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum
... behind the long limbs of his leafless shelter. He went at a run shouting with all the power of his lungs. Again and again his prolonged cry went up. And with each effort he waited listening, listening, only to receive the mocking reply of the howling storm. But he persisted. He persisted for the simple human reason that his desire outran his power to serve. And in the end exhaustion forced him ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... cabman struck away to the west, in order to come upon Westminster by the main artery of Regent Street. The great thoroughfare was quiet enough now. Fashion was at rest, but even here, and in its own mocking guise, misery had its haunt. A light laugh broke the silence of the street, and a girl, so young as to be little more than a child, dressed in soiled finery, and reeling with unsteady step on the pavement, came up to the cab window and ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... passion for her had been strengthened by what he was pleased to call her desertion of him. He proposed marriage, and offered to adopt the boy. Mary Wyvis accepted both propositions, and left England with him almost immediately, in order to escape mocking ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... him, both small and great;' and all cried, like the voice of many waters, 'Amen. Allelujah.' Heaven responded from all sides, 'Just and true are thy judgments, thou King of saints.' Then Satan and his angels clapped their hands; and mocking my misery, they thrust ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... the 1,000 that already swing in that capacity to rear of him! And he did manage, in this Campaign, which was the last of his military services, so as to pay off at Paris "above 50,000 pounds of debts; and to build for himself a beautiful Garden Mansion there, which the mocking populations called 'Hanover Pavilion (PAVILION D'HANOVRE);'" a name still sticking to it, I believe. [Barbier, iii. 256, 271.] Of the Richelieu Campaign we are happily delivered from saying almost anything: and the main ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... influence, mesmeric or otherwise—an influence unwelcome, displeasing, but effective—I again glanced round to see if M. Paul was gone. No, there he stood on the same spot, looking still, but with a changed eye; he had penetrated my thought, and read my wish to shun him. The mocking but not ill-humoured gaze was turned to a swarthy frown, and when I bowed, with a view to conciliation, I got only the stiffest and sternest of ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte |
