"Raillery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he who leans on me for support and comfort,—it is this that must account to your ladyship for those inconsistencies in my manner and spirits which are so frequently the subject of Miss Egerton's raillery." ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... discovers his cards and his companions; the garrulous find listeners; the gossip retails, and imbibes, from a hundred sources, all the current scandal; vanity finds incense—beauty adoration; the young make love, or dance, or in groups give their spirits play in pleasantries, and raillery, and peals of animated laughter; their elders listen to the music, or watch the cards, or in a calmer fashion converse; while all, each according to his own peculiar taste, find whatever pleases their palate best. Whatever ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... began to run, too, in little quick dancing steps, her wincey skirt bellowing out all round her. Their shadows bobbed and darted, swelling and shrinking on the plaster walls. Soon breathless, Mademoiselle sank down on the side of her bed, panting and volleying raillery and broken tinkles of laughter at Miriam standing goosestepping on the strip of matting with an open umbrella held high over her head. Recovering breath, she began to lament.... Miriam had not during the whole evening of dressing up seen the Martins' summer hats.... They were wonderful. Shutting ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... wide awake before, the doctor's raillery so increased his impatience and worry that for a time he paced up and down before the fire. Was he faint-hearted in wooing Ella? Suppose some bold Southerner should forestall him? The thought was ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... father entered; and when I first glanced my eye full upon his, I thought his countenance exhibited evidences of confusion. This immediately reminded me of the unknown hunter, and I asked him if he was not the person I described. His answer was not a positive denial, but a mixture of raillery and surprise that lulled my doubts, enfeebled as they were by the restored calm of his features. I then told him that I had a particular favour to ask of him, which, in consideration of our friendship, I trusted he would not refuse; and that was, to take my duty in the expedition ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... that the whole town was talking of it. And then, as he regained his self-possession, he paid his mother back for her raillery in her own coin. Looking her full in the face he added: "I came to see ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... credit me, it is one which thou canst not penetrate, nor can I as yet even attempt to explain it; since, if I prove mistaken, and mistaken I may easily be, I would be fain to creep into Phalaris's bull, were it standing before me ready heated, rather than be roasted with thy raillery. Do not tax me with want of confidence; for the instant I can throw any light on the matter thou shalt have it; but while I am only blundering about in the dark, I do not choose to call wise folks ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... not at all discomposed by her light-minded raillery. "I should think it would be a very good thing for you to try, Miss Pat," she said sedately. "Clothes go out of fashion so dreadfully soon nowadays and the singing exercises will last ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... to wonder to each other why so great a man stayed in Belfield at all. But he did us no harm, and it is not impossible that he did us good. He laughed freely at our provincialisms, accustomed us to take raillery good-naturedly, disillusionized us in many ways, and showed us always a pattern ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... tone of banter the dinner began; and no doubt in another man's mouth it might have sounded good-humoured enough. There was certainly no word as yet which, it could be definitely said, was meant to wound, but underneath the raillery Thresk was conscious of a rasp, a bitterness just held in check through the presence of a stranger. Not that Thresk was spared his share of it. At the very outset he, the guest whom it was such a rare piece of good fortune for Ballantyne to ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... "What a shame to kill it. It's as bad as eating Whittington's cat or the Dog of Montargis."—"Na—na, it's no so old," says the landlady, "but it eats hard."—"Eats!" I cry, "where do you find that? Very little of that verb with us." So with more raillery, we pay six shillings for our festival and run over to Earraid, shaking the dust of the Argyll Hotel from off ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... position in San Pasqual society, as the leader of an unwarranted attack against a virtuous woman, and her busy brain was already at work, mending her fences. In the interview with Donna she had expected tears and anguish. Instead she had been met with smiles and good-natured raillery; and she had an uncomfortable feeling that her fellow committeewomen were already enraged at her and preparing to turn against her. She drank her lemonade hastily and explained that their visit had been for the purpose of setting at rest certain unpleasant rumors in San Pasqual, wherein Donna's ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... then he threw open the window, leaned out into the night, and in a tone of exultation, and with a total forgetfulness of what was due to the presence of a lady, poured out upon the ambassador a string of the most abominable raillery both in English and Italian, and bade him be gone where he had come from. I believe that nothing so delighted Northmour at that moment as the thought that we must all infallibly perish ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... Dedication of The Fair Captive (1721). "For my own part ... I suffer'd all that Apprehension could inflict, and found I wanted many more Arguments than the little Philosophy I am Mistress of could furnish me with, to enable me to stem that Tide of Raillery, which all of my Sex, unless they are very excellent indeed, must expect, when once they exchange the ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... night," he said, in a tone of raillery. "I was tired, and you said so yourself, you know. But I'm ready to talk now. ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... painted the scene so vividly that the guests laughed with joy over the discomfiture of the sheik. Peggy and Brewster found themselves looking sheepishly at one another now and then in the course of the recital. She purposely had avoided him during the evening, but she had gamely endured the raillery that came from the rest of the party. If she was a bit pale, it was not surprising. Now that it was over the whole affair appalled her more than she could have suspected. When several of the guests of the evening soberly announced that Mohammed ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... in the face and curtly said, in a tone of raillery, that suggested a past that refused to reopen an account for ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... searchingly into Carter's eyes and laughed in faint raillery; he partially understood. His reply was evasive. "It is not every one," he said, "who can gain a throne by marrying a pretty girl." Shrugging his shoulders, he abruptly left his companions and approached the ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... works written in the middle period of his life, at a time of turmoil and danger. These works have magnificent passages which show the power and the harmony of our English speech, but they are marred by other passages of bitter raillery and invective. The most famous of all these works is the noble plea called Areopagitica: [Footnote: From the Areopagus or forum of Athens, the place of public appeal. This was the "Mars Hill" from which St. Paul addressed the Athenians, as recorded ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... excited stuttering silence reigned, a minute. Then in a storm of rude raillery—"That's a hoss on you, George!" "Didn't know you owned one o' them critters, George," "Does she wear the britches, George?" and so forth—my friend Jenks arose, peering, his whiskered mouth so agape that he almost dropped his pipe. ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... Mrs. Clive, for the honour of playing "Polly" in the Beggar's Opera, a play-house feud which at the latter end of 1736 had engaged "the Town" almost as seriously as the earlier rivalry of Faustina and Cuzzoni. This continued raillery of the Cibbers is, as Fielding himself seems to have felt, a "Jest a little overacted;" but there is one scene in the piece of undeniable freshness and humour, to wit, that in which Cock, the famous salesman of the Piazzas—the George Robins of his day—is brought on the stage as Mr. Auctioneer ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... British battalion for two hours and only seven men were killed. The noise was simply deafening, but so little effect had the fire that the men shouted with laughter and held their caps up on the end of their rifles to give the German gunners a bit of encouragement." The same spirit of raillery is spoken of by a Seaforth Highlander, who says one of the Wiltshires stuck out in the trenches a tin can on which was the notice "Business as Usual." As, however, it gave the enemy too good a target he was cheerily asked ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... eye, during this speech, twinkled with humor; he saw clearly that Denis thoroughly understood the raillery of his toast, and that the compliment was well repaid. On this subject he did not wish, however, to proceed further, and his object now was, that the evening should pass off as agreeably ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... and daughters would probably mistake it for a turnip cart, but in the Canadas, it is the means of pleasure, and glowing healthful exercise. An overturn is nothing. It contributes subject matter for conversation at the next house that is visited, when a pleasant raillery often arises on the derangement of dress, which the ladies have sustained, and the more than usual display of graces, which ...
— The United Empire Loyalists - A Chronicle of the Great Migration - Volume 13 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • W. Stewart Wallace
... early summer in England long ago, when he and Daisy had strolled together in an English garden, and she had yielded impulsively to his earnest wooing and had promised to be his wife. He remembered still the little laugh half sweet, half bitter, with which she had surrendered, the soft raillery of her blue eyes that yet had not wholly mocked him, the dainty charm of her submission. She had not loved him. He had known it even then. She had almost told him so. But with a boy's impetuosity he had taken the ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... more fundamental or ideal truth. The fable moves on the plane of the prudential virtues, the parable on the plane of the higher self-forgetting virtues. Because of that difference there is in the parable "no jesting nor raillery at the weakness, the follies, or the crimes of men." All is deeply earnest, befitting its high spiritual point of view. As a rule the parables use for illustration stories of what might actually happen. Two of the most familiar ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... justice?" objected Glover, rising at the spell of her eyes to the raillery. "Shouldn't I have a try at the scenery end of the ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... long for freedom, she was constantly questioning. Octavia's gentle raillery, Octavia's delicious half answers to the "Whys and wheres and whens and whats" had satisfied, but Mademoiselle's abrupt, "I can't tell you—" "It does not concern you—" "Zat is not of consequence—" were teaching ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... paper (No. 26), he makes Pacolet, Bickerstaff's familiar, say, "It was too soon to give my discourse on this subject so serious a turn; you have chiefly to do with that part of mankind which must be led into reflection by degrees, and you must treat this custom with humour and raillery to get an audience, before you come to pronounce ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... that it was still full. Mr. Holcroft (the author of the Road to Ruin) was one of the most violent and fiery-spirited of all that motley crew of persons, who attended the Sunday meetings at Wimbledon. One day he was so enraged by some paradox or raillery of his host, that he indignantly rose from his chair, and said, "Mr. Tooke, you are a scoundrel!" His opponent without manifesting the least emotion, replied, "Mr. Holcroft, when is it that I am to dine with you? shall it be next Thursday?"—"If ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... Then all her raillery vanished in a moment. "He was a great friend of father's, you know, Harvey; and first he asked father, and father said I was too young, and then when I was leaving school in San Francisco to come home he wrote to me and asked me if he could come and ...
— Tessa - 1901 • Louis Becke
... photographed by me, but feebly indicated: for it was just four hundred years ago, the raillery was coarse, she returned every stroke in kind, and though a virtuous woman, said things without winking, which no decent man of our day ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... spirit of gentle raillery was well illustrated by Mrs. Strong in an incident that ran somewhat thus: A certain boastful young person was telling of a funeral where among other gorgeous things ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... he admonished her with affectionate raillery, "you must bring none of your sparks on board! They have a magazine there, and we should ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... reasoners, and the men of profound learning be able to find another subject so calculated in all points whereon to display their abilities? What wonderful productions of wit should we be deprived of from those whose genius, by continual practice, hath been wholly turned upon raillery and invectives against religion, and would therefore never be able to shine or distinguish themselves upon any other subject? We are daily complaining of the great decline of wit among as, and would ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... most original of commentators, he was a commentator pure and simple, and found, but did not supply, his matter. Thus there was no danger of running dry, and as his happiest style was not indignation but good-natured raillery, his increasing prosperity, not chequered, till quite the close of his life, by any serious bodily ailment, put him more and more in the right atmosphere and temper for indulging his genius. Plymley, though very amusing, and, except in the Canning ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... known in her day, and described in the "Tatler" (No. 84) as "the celebrated Madam Bennet." We further learn, from the "Spectator" (No. 266), that she was the Lady B. to whom Wycherley addressed his ironical dedication of "The Plain Dealer," which is considered as a masterpiece of raillery. It is worthy of remark that the fair sex may justly complain of almost every word in the English language designating a woman having, at some time or another, been used as a term of reproach; for we find Mother, Madam, Mistress, and Miss, all denoting women ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... of the ragged, rough-looking veterans who had collected to watch for the arrival of the train. As the shaking, rickety cars passed out of sight, these raw troops walked up to the hotel and there strode up and down, assuming supreme indifference to the storm of raillery which assailed them. Of course my sympathies were with the veterans, and I laughed heartily at their pranks. One of the first to set the ball in motion was a tall, athletic-looking soldier clad in jeans pants, with a faded red stripe adorning one leg only, ragged shoes tied up with ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... overtures; not for her, as maidenly reserve would not permit it. Bramble seemed to be most anxious that such should be the case—indeed, considered it as a matter of course: perhaps Bessy thought so too in her own bosom; and the continual raillery of Bramble did more harm than good, as it appeared to warrant her thinking that it ought to be so. Why it was not I will now ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... suggest to a careful reader the nature and extent of the excisions to which the bulk of the correspondence was subjected. The result was a curious obscuration of some of Arnold's most characteristic traits—such, for example, as his over-flowing gaiety, and his love of what our fathers called Raillery. And, in even more important respects than these, an erroneous impression was created by the suppression of what was thought too personal for publication. Thus I remember to have read, in some one's criticism of the Letters, that Mr. Arnold appeared to have loved his parents, brothers, sisters, and ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... worked with her through all the dark weeks of the smallpox epidemic, and who knew what lay beneath the outer gaiety. She had been buoyant of spirit beside the beds of the sick, and her words were full of raillery and humour, yet there was ever a gentle note behind all; and the priest had seen her eyes shining with tears, as she bent over some stricken sufferer bound ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... frowning, but a half frightened expression had replaced the one of scornful raillery. For he, too, knew that his eccentric brother-in-law was likely to propose any preposterous thing, and then carry it out in spite of all opposition. But to take Patsy to Europe would be like pulling the Major's eye teeth ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... not speak with his usual assurance and raillery. The fact was, the calculations in his shrewd little brain were upset by Sue's disappearance. He felt disturbed, perplexed, ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... me to waive the other condition in the hope of saving you. Oh!" she continued in a tone of bitter raillery, "he has the cunning of hell, of the priests! You are no match for him, Monsieur. Nor I; nor any of us. And"—with a gesture of despair—"he will be my master! He will break me to his will and to his hand! I shall be his! His, body and ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... speaker and the one addressed? Whom does the cicada of the tale symbolize? Whom the singer helped by the cicada? What application is made of the story? What serious meanings and feelings underlie the tone of raillery? What things mark the light and humorous tone of the speaker? Point out the harmony ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... described as a fat square containing two circles—the inordinate cheeks of that ignominious baby. That is the child as Punch in Leech's day preserved him, the latest figure of the then prevailing domestic raillery of the domestic. ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... they, I rather think, who go behind the counters," said George, who had no idea of allowing his uncle to have all the raillery on ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... She felt that she was being ridiculed and treated as though she were an incapable doll. She divined that by his raillery he had been making fun of her, and forthwith her predilection was turned to resentment. Not nurse her husband? Did this brow-beating doctor realize that, as a girl, she had been the constant attendant of her invalid ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... While this gentle raillery was in progress, BELINDA felt somebody tugging at her dress. She looked down, and saw Mr. ARCHIBALD BLINKSOP, a sailor-looking chap who smelt of tar, and well he might, for he had ploughed the tempestuous deep for upwards of six months, as a common ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... the day that this swinish multitude were not to be driven by force. They were to be humoured, borne with very patiently: a courteous though sedate manner impressed them; a very rare flash of raillery did good. Severe or continuous mental application they could not, or would not, bear: heavy demand on the memory, the reason, the attention, they rejected point-blank. Where an English girl of not more ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... to my good-humored raillery was feeble indeed. And it soon died in a look of depression that made him seem even older and more decrepit than was his wont. "The same story, wherever I go," said he sadly. "The business interests refuse to see their ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... the servility of his manner. To save himself he had the habit of leaving his flattery open to the interpretation of raillery. But Corley ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... Colline in a tone of raillery, "what can one be waiting for when one is twenty, when there are stars in the sky and ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... good-by to me?" cried Sholto, finding his words at once in the wholesome atmosphere of raillery which everywhere accompanied that quipsome damosel, ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... to her. The other blushed, protested with smiles, with inaudible words: "How can you imagine such a thing? At my age. A grandmamma!" And at last she grasped her father's arm to escape that friendly raillery. ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... knowledge. That Mr. Pope proposed to marry the heroine of his misadventure afforded a fair mark for raillery, no doubt, but Gay, in common with the run of educated England in 1718, did not aspire to be facetious at Pope's expense. The luxury was too costly. Offend the dwarf in any fashion, and were you the proudest duke at Court or the most inconsiderable rhymester in Petticoat Lane, it made ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... had raged markedly fierce; for M'Adam noticed his son's more frequent presence at home, and commented on the fact in his usual spirit of playful raillery. ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... for Nan's party he brooded over his new relation to his old sweetheart with increasing pleasure. She had begun to tease him with gentle raillery about his tragic exaggeration of the treachery of her betrayal, and laughingly promised to make it all up by introducing him to a group of the richest and most beautiful girls in New York. He could take his choice under her wise guidance. She promised to begin ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... house of bel-Kalfate swam in the glow of candles. A striped awning shut out the night sky, heavy with clouds, and the women, crowding for stolen peeps on the flat roof. A confusion of voices, raillery, laughter, eddied around the arcaded walls, and thin music bound it together with a monotonous count ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... Our chaplain took it from him and had it strapped to his saddle-bag. His purpose was to preserve it for its owner if the time should come that it could be returned. But in the meantime its presence attached to his saddle made him the butt of any amount of raillery from both ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... strain in his whole performance. Every sound is as merry as the laugh of a young child; and one cannot listen to him without fancying that he is indulging in some jocose raillery of his companions. If we suppose him to be making love, we cannot look upon him as very deeply enamored, but rather as highly delighted with his spouse, and overflowing with rapturous admiration. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... men were sober. I offered entertainment and warmth below, but he declined on the ground that Davies would be tempted to cut the tow-rope and make us pass the night on a safe sandbank. Davies took the raillery unmoved. His work done, he took the tiller and sat bareheaded, intent on the launch, the course, the details, and chances of the present. I brought up cigars and we settled ourselves facing him, our backs to the wind and spray. And so we made the rest of ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... I supposed that this kind of sporting wit would be by you more especially accepted of, by you, Sir, that are wont with this sort of jocose raillery (such as, if I mistake not, is neither dull nor impertinent) to be mightily pleased, and in your ordinary converse to approve yourself a Democritus junior: for truly, as you do from a singular vein of wit very ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... flatter," said Sewell, in the spirit of her raillery. "It will be very well for her to go round with flowers; but don't let her," he continued seriously—"don't let her imagine it's more than an innocent amusement. It would be a sort of hideous mockery of the good we ought to do one another if ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... the ha-ha, Lady Angora talked of nothing but the impudence of the Tortoshells, vowing and protesting that nothing on earth should induce her to visit them. But her good-natured husband was more inclined to treat the matter as a joke, and, by dint of persuasion and raillery, before they reached home he had induced Lady Angora to accept the invitation "for this once." A polite answer was, therefore, ...
— Comical People • Unknown
... said genially, "there is no great harm done. Don't you suppose I know what people say of me? You were only repeating the 'general report,' you know." And then he added seriously, as he saw my confusion was but increased by his raillery: ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... did," said Alleyne, "was too small a thing for thanks; and yet, if I may say it without offence, it was too grave and near a matter for mirth and raillery. I had counted on my brother's love, but God has willed that it should be otherwise. It is a joy to me to see you again, lady, and to know that you have reached home in safety, if this be ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Cotta, who is of the Academic school. In the second, Balbus, the disciple of the Porch, gives an account of his own system, and is, in turn, refuted by Cotta in the third. The eloquent extravagance of the Epicurean, the solemn enthusiasm of the Stoic, and the brilliant raillery of the Academic, are contrasted with extreme vivacity and humour;—while the sublimity of the subject itself imparts to the whole composition a grander and more elevated character, and discovers in the author imaginative powers, which, celebrated as he justly ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... Her embodiment of a woman's loveliness, such as, in Portia, should he at once stately and fascinating and inspire at once respect and passion, was felicitous beyond the reach of descriptive phrases." Then, on her appearance in "Much Ado About Nothing:" "She permeates the raillery of Beatrice with an indescribable charm of mischievous sweetness. The silver arrows of her pungent wit have no barb, for evidently she does not mean that they shall really wound. Her appearance and carriage ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... for an audience. "I very much regret, Mr. Page," came the answer, "that you should insist on spelling 'Negro' with two 'g's'." Despite the mock solemnity of this rebuke, perennial good-nature and raillery prevailed between the son of Garrison and his disrespectful but ever sympathetic Southern friend. Indeed, one of Page's earliest performances was to introduce a spirit of laughter and genial cooeperation into a rather solemn and self-satisfied environment. ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... it happened that they made themselves merry over the peculiarities and simplicity of the Swiss in connection with the belief in mesmerism, Lavater's physiognomical system and the like. One of my companions, whose national pride was touched by their raillery, begged me to make some reply, particularly in answer to a young man of superior appearance who sat opposite, and had indulged in ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... resided in my soul rather than in my manner. The contempt with which my profound meditations had inspired me for the manners, maxims and prejudices of the age in which I lived, rendered me proof against the raillery of those by whom they were possessed, and I crushed their little pleasantries with a sentence, as I would have crushed an insect with ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... buying and selling of lands, advancement or ruin of favourites, victories or defeats of strange princes, which is the ordinary subject of ordinary conversation?—Most desire to frequent their superiors, and these men must either suffer their raillery, or must not be suffered to continue in their society; if we converse with them who speak with more address than ourselves, then we repine equally at our own dulness, and envy the acuteness that accomplishes the speaker; or, if we ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... have so great a value and veneration for any who have but even an assenting Amen in the service of religion, that I am afraid but these persons should incur some scandal by this practice; and would therefore have them, without raillery, advise to send the florence and pullets home to their own homes, and not to pretend to live as well as the overseers of ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... to mocking enemies. They can encounter bursts of rage—sometimes by falling on their knees, weeping, groaning, and beating their breasts—sometimes by turning on their adversary, armed and implacable. But they are easily disconcerted by biting raillery; and thus it was with Rodin. He saw that between Adrienne de Cardoville and M. de Montbron, he was about to be placed in what is ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... disturb Herr?" he asked, puffing forth great clouds of smoke. There was a shade of raillery in ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... freedom; it should not be forgotten that nearly every western homestead has its grave in the battlefields of the war which made us one people forever. Making due allowance for that good-natured raillery which is one of the spices of existence, it may be truthfully said that anyone who laughs in earnest at the West calls attention merely to his own shallow conceit. Intelligent people in the East are studying, not ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... deceptive kinds of hypocrites. Mr. Malcolm, as acute as he was intellectually unscrupulous, well understood how to weaken or to ruin a just cause through these supporters. Sometimes he stood afar off, showering the poisoned arrows of raillery and satire. Again he was the plain-spoken friend of the cause and warned its honest supporters against these "fool friends" whom he pretended to regard as its leaders. Again he played the part of a blind enthusiast ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... extravagance of king, court, and nobility had led to excessive expenditures and gross waste. There were no able ministers to manage the affairs of the realm on an economic basis. Add to these evils lack of faith, raillery at decency and virtue, and the poisonous effects of a weak and irresponsible philosophy, and there are represented sufficient evils to make a revolution whenever there is ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... my presence of mind a little, I took the locket out of the bit of paper (the locket indeed! it was as big as a barndoor padlock), and slowly put it into my shirt. "Thank you, Aunt," said I, with admirable raillery. "I shall always value this present for the sake of you, who gave it me; and it will recall to me my uncle, and my thirteen aunts ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Schiedam Schnapps, opened some bottles of Sparkling Catawba, and old Jersey Champagne, of a remote vintage, which I have now quite forgotten. With the flow of these beverages flowed our speech, in jovial words and songs and raillery enough, if not in wit. De Ary, as having by a hair's breadth just escaped with his life, and in virtue of his extraordinary feat in leaping five hundred feet or more through a bank of snow, now that the danger was over, was made the butt of much ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... in the ecclesiastical body to which he belongs. The reviewer, in this case, had in a previous article discussed the question of literary schools in America. Speaking of the origin of the term "Lake School," he pronounced the epithet Lakers "the mere blunder of superficial wit and raillery." But that did not prevent him from creating the absurd title of "Bay writers," which he applied to all the writers about Boston, baptizing them in the profane waters of Massachusetts Bay. "The Church Review" was in the ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... hopes for his education was not the smallest of the disappointments Miss Betty and Miss Kitty endured on his behalf. The quarrel with the lawyer had been made up long ago, and though there was always a touch of raillery in his inquiries after "the young gipsy," he had once said, "If he turns out anything of a genius at school, I might find a place for him in the office, by-and-by." The lawyer was kind-hearted in his own fashion, and on this hint Miss Kitty built up hopes, which ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... flaming beacon to light lost souls the way to purgatory! Again, seeing a flea on the same flaming proboscis, the doughty knight affirmed it was "a black soul burning in hell fire." In this element of mediaval life, this feature of mediaval literature, a terrible belief lay under the gay raillery. Here is betrayed, on a wide scale, that natural reaction of the faculties from excessive oppression to sportive wit, from deep repugnance to superficial jesting, which has often been pointed out by philosophical observers as a striking ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... Henry Jermyn, is described as having a big head and little legs, an affected carriage, and a wit consisting "in expressions learned by rote, which he occasionally employed either in raillery or love." For all that, he being a man of amorous disposition, the number of his intrigues was no less remarkable than the rank of those who shared them. Most notable amongst his conquests was the king's eldest sister, widow of the Prince of Orange—a lady possessing in no small ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... began. After long deliberation, a petition embodying the general sense was written by the Archbishop with his own hand. It was not drawn up with much felicity of style. Indeed, the cumbrous and inelegant structure of the sentences brought on Sancroft some raillery, which he bore with less patience than he showed under much heavier trials. But in substance nothing could be more skilfully framed than this memorable document. All disloyalty, all intolerance, was earnestly ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... any protection here?" The remark was made in a tone of good-humored raillery, but for some reason it ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... And if he has occasion himself to rally their foibles in his poems, he does so openly, and does it with such an implied sympathy and avowal of kindred weakness in himself, that offence was impossible. Above all, he possessed in perfection what Mr Disraeli happily calls "the rare gift of raillery, which flatters the self-love of those whom it seems not to spare." These characteristics are admirably indicated by Persius (I. 116) in speaking of ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... expression now visible in every countenance, no language can portray. Only twenty hours ago, and all was hope and animation; wherever you went, you were enlivened by the sounds of merriment and raillery. The expected attack was mentioned, not only in terms of sanguine hope, but in perfect confidence as to the result. Now gloom and discontent everywhere prevailed. Disappointment, grief, indignation and rage succeeded each other in all bosoms; nay, so were the troops overwhelmed by a sense ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... fulfil the behest of the Deity."[24] Does the man who speaks in this way appear to you to have wished to break the link which connects morality with religion? He separates himself from the established religion; he pursues with his biting raillery shameful objects of worship; his conscience protests. But, while it protests, it attaches itself immediately to a higher and holier idea of that God, of whose perfections the sage of Athens had succeeded in obtaining ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... often with interest. If we were the aggressors in this way, some ironical observation respecting the Kabloonas was frequently the consequence; and no small portion of wit as well as irony was at times mixed with their raillery. ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... oblivious of her guest's blunders and infelicitous remarks, but Miss St. John had a frank, merry way of recognizing them, and yet malice and ridicule were so entirely absent from her words and ways that Graham soon positively enjoyed being laughed at, and much preferred her delicate open raillery, which gave him a chance to defend himself, to a smiling mask that would leave him in uncertainty as to the fitness of his replies. There was a subtle flattery also in this course, for she treated him as one capable ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... Author, to make the most ridiculous part of it still more ridiculous, tells us, that it was written to a Taylor, and by a Taylor's Wife. And even the discerning SPECTATOR has given into this common-place raillery in the Monkey's Letter to her Mistress. He has made the Soul which inhabited Pug's Body, in recounting the humiliating State it had formerly been in, say, that he had been a Taylor, a Shrimp, and a Tom-tit. ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... had its effect while she listened to him, and she sometimes put on the looks and gesture of assent—sometimes even spoke the language of conviction; but this the first call of dissipation would change to ill-timed raillery, or peevish remonstrance, at being limited in delights her birth and fortune entitled her ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... can't very well turn her off as long as she does her work. But you needn't be worried about making me unhappy. If anything, I rather liked it. It showed how much you did care for me." He bent toward her, with a look of bright raillery, for the parting kiss. "Now then: once, twice, three ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... Morning, satirized the paper in other journals who never paid more than two guineas a column. No doubt, having been a newspaper man myself, I discounted the effect of the scare upon the public. I could imagine the delicate raillery of the other papers, if indeed they deigned to notice Lord Cholme's ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... allow to humanity and friendship the same privileges which are undisputably granted to the darker passions of enmity and resentment; such a philosophy is more like a satyr than a true delineation or description of human nature; and may be a good foundation for paradoxical wit and raillery, but is a very bad one for any ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... becoming a subject of raillery for coxcombs, and losing my money to boot, stung me to the quick; but I made a virtue of my indignation, and swore that no man should with impunity either asperse the character of Melinda, or turn my behaviour into ridicule. He replied in a dry manner, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... find to say to raillery which was quite new to him, and so for the sake of both of them as they stood at the gate Miss Nan had to ply an odd one-sided conversation till he found himself at his ease. By-and-by his shyness ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... an amusing instance of that sense of reality with which we are impressed by Shakspeare's characters. He says of Benedick and Beatrice, as if he had known them personally, that the exclusive direction of their pointed raillery against each other "is a proof of a growing inclination." This is not unlikely; and the same inference would lead us to suppose that this mutual inclination had commenced before the opening of the play. The very first words uttered by Beatrice are an inquiry ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... that this peculiar little sister of mine clings to some of her childish beliefs and pleasures in spite of Prue's preaching and my raillery," began Mark, after a refreshing whiff or two. "She is overflowing with love and good will, but being too shy or too proud to offer it to her fellow-creatures, she expends it upon the necessitous inhabitants of earth, air, and ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... Douglas replied to their good-tempered raillery in laughing tones, it was easy to see that his mind was far away. For hours he lay in bed that night without being able to sleep. The picture of the dark-eyed sobbing girl remained with him, and all sorts of longings filled his heart. It seemed as though the Scotch side of his ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... the prince,—in a tone into which, despite his awe of that terrible man, THE FIRST GRAND INQUISITOR OF SPAIN, his libertine spirit involuntarily forced itself, in a half latent raillery,—"sorcery of eyes like those bewitched the wise son of a more pious sire than even ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... younger Aristomachus got into the town with some of the king's forces, and seized upon the government. However, by this exploit he spoiled the scoffs and jests of those that flattered the tyrants, and in their raillery would say that the Achaean general was usually troubled with a looseness when he was to fight a battle, that the sound of a trumpet struck him with a drowsiness and a giddiness, and that, when he had drawn up his army and given the word, he used to ask his lieutenants and ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... know when I've had as much pleasure as this is giving me." And he made a bow that hid its seriousness behind a smile of good-humored raillery. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... black waistcoat. I once asked him to use his interest for a relation of mine; he readily promised—but never attempted to perform. He had a personal antipathy to Pitt and Lord Grenville; and one of the constant subjects of his jokes and raillery was the Grenville pedigree. A Mr. Dallaway, a clergyman, was his private secretary, as earl-marshal; with whom I once dined at the duke's table; a large, heavy-looking man, who, I was told, had written several books; but I presume he ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various
... well taken by Mr. Motley; not indeed without a little bantering talk and raillery upon the excessive care Mr. Linden bestowed on her. But Mr. Middleton, she saw, was not pleased that she disappointed him. Within two or three days Faith had become unmistakeably the centre of attraction to all the gentlemen of the neighbourhood. To walk with her, to talk to ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... of the heart—for this was a serious and most unlooked-for event, and for a while put out of his head all the agitating thoughts of the last few hours. Poor Titmouse had enough to bear—what with the delicate raillery and banter of his refined companions for the rest of the day, find the galling tyranny of Mr. Tag-rag, (who dogged him about all day, setting him about the most menial and troublesome offices he could, and constantly saying mortifying things to him before customers,) and the ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... bitterly cold; we had brought no clothes; my dames and I nothing earthly but a black ANDRIENNE each (whatever that may be), to spare bulk of luggage: strictest incognito was indispensable. The Marwitzes, for giggling, raillery, French airs, and absolute impertinence, were intolerable, in that solitary place. We return to Frankfurt again; have balls and theatres, at least: "of these latter I missed none. One evening, my head-dress got accidentally shoved awry, and exposed my face for a moment; Prince George ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Lawrence had given her his confidence, and she valued it, for with all her ignorance of society she had seen too much of plain human nature to suppose that he was often taken off his guard as he had been by her: and was she going to expose him to Yvonne's lacerating raillery? A thousand times no! "I misunderstood something he said about Val," she continued with scarcely a break, and falling back on one of those explanations that deceive the sceptical by their economy of truth. "It ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... doughty will * To do thy doing lustily, Thou'll find it fain to face thy bout * And strong and fierce in valiancy. It bendeth backwards every brave * Shorn of his battle-bravery. At times imberbe, but full of spunk * To battle with the Paynimry. 'T will show thee liveliness galore * And perfect in its raillery: Zayn al-Mawasif it is like * Complete in charms and courtesy. To her dear arms one night I came * And won meed given lawfully: I passed with her that self-same night * (Best of my nights!) in gladdest glee; And when the morning rose, she rose ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... who lived at Rome, and whose name was Pasquin, amused himself by severe raillery, liberally bestowed on those who passed by his shop; which in time became the lounge of the newsmongers. The tailor had precisely the talents to head a regiment of satirical wits; and had he had time to publish, he would ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... spirit of kindly raillery, Rev. John C. Davidson, of Hallowell, in inviting Dr. Ryerson to take part in a Camp-meeting (and ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... clumsiness. One of them, Harry by name, was something of a scapegrace, and soon acquired quite a power over me. I stood in much fear of his ridicule, and frequently did things for which my conscience reproached me, rather than stand the fire of his raillery. The greatest harm he did me was in firing my imagination with stories of Wall street, of the fortunes that were and could be made in the gold room or on 'Change. He made tolerably clear the modus operandi of speculators, and I secretly resolved that some day I, too, ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... a notorious, scandalous paper called The Courant, full freighted with nonsense, unmanliness, raillery, profaneness, immorality, arrogance, calumnies, lies, contradictions, and what not, all tending to quarrels and divisions, and to debauch and corrupt the mind and manners ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... away a tear or two which would have way, she little imagined what agony her husband was enduring from this letter, which she was supposing must make his heart overflow with pleasure. The letter was half full of reply to Edward's account of Margaret, in his epistle of last June—of raillery about her, of intreaty that Edward would give him such a sister-in-law, and of intimations that nothing could be more apparent than that the whole rich treasure of his heart's love was Margaret's own. Hope's soul sickened as he read, with that deadly sickness which he had believed was past: but ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... which he asks you to take a "cutlet" with him at the "Clarendon," not to go home—are only to be equalled by the admirable tact on the ground—the studiously elegant salute to the adverse party, half a la Napoleon, and half Beau Brummell —the politely offered snuff-box—the coquetting raillery about 10 paces or 12—are certainly the beau ideal of the stoicism which preludes sending your friend out of the ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... characteristic in each recipient. What merriment and comparing of notes! What pleased feigning of indignation! The girls determined to reward him with a Rowland for his Oliver, and Charlotte wrote some rhymes full of fun and raillery which all the girls signed—Emily entering into all this with much spirit and amusement—and finally despatched in mystery ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... about their close dealings with the Indians was much enjoyed. Soon all were on the best of terms, and it was a mutual pleasure, in that lonely place, to meet and interchange the news of the country, as well as to have the flashings of wit and fun and pleasant raillery. ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... hold out for months—half a year, perhaps—drinking lemonade and putting up with their raillery. And then he would begin with ginger-ale; and then it would come to beer; and then to whiskey. He was always devising new plans to control himself; always persuading himself that he had solved the problem. He would not drink in the ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair |
