"Jocular" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... heart-rending look upon the children; and the simplicity and touching sorrow of the young ones, while they clung to their distracted parent, wiping their eyes, and half concealing their faces,—contrasted with the marked insensibility and jocular countenances of the spectators and purchasers,—furnished a striking commentary on the miseries of slavery, and its debasing effects upon the hearts of its abettors. While the woman was in this distressed situation she was asked, 'Can you feed sheep?' Her reply ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... his intention to be mildly jocular, but Mrs. Porter's reply showed him that in jest ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... style, often with much grossness, but with sparkling point. Of these Saturae he wrote no less than 150 books, of which fragments have been preserved amounting to near 600 lines. Menippus of Gadara, the originator of this style of composition, lived about 280 B.C.; he interspersed jocular and commonplace topics with moral maxims and philosophical doctrines, and may have added contemporary pictures, though this ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... husbandry they excel: but in dash and courage they are deficient. The Waiyau, on the contrary, have round apple-shaped heads, as distinguished from the long well-shaped heads of the poor Manganja; they are jocular and merry, given to travelling, and bold in war—these are qualities which serve them well as they are driven from pillar to post through slave wars and internal dissension, but they have not the brains of the Manganja, nor the talent ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... his most happy and resplendent moods that the Archdeacon held jocular conversations with his daughter. These conversations had been, in the past, moments of agony and terror to her, but since that morning when she had suddenly woken to a realisation of the marvellous possibilities in life her terror had left her. There were other ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... required. It was a complex trophy of Moreau's horrible skill,—a bear, tainted with dog and ox, and one of the most elaborately made of all his creatures. It treated Montgomery with a strange tenderness and devotion. Sometimes he would notice it, pat it, call it half-mocking, half-jocular names, and so make it caper with extraordinary delight; sometimes he would ill-treat it, especially after he had been at the whiskey, kicking it, beating it, pelting it with stones or lighted fusees. But whether he treated it well or ill, ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... was only by chance that Doctor Bonamy had detected the imposition. Moreover, the Fathers had immediately required that the incident should be kept secret. What was the use of stirring up a scandal which would only have led to jocular remarks in the newspapers? Whenever any fraudulent miracles of this kind were discovered, the Fathers contented themselves with forcing the guilty parties to go away. Moreover, these feigners were far from numerous, despite all that was related of them in the amusing stories concocted ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... brought to a halt before we went many miles by some deep valley, every one of which was full of water. Intemese continued to plait his basket with all his might, and would not come to our religious service. He seemed to be afraid of our incantations, but was always merry and jocular. ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... family ain't objectionable if you make 'em work," said Mr. Copperhead; "it all depends on that. There's always objections, you know," he said, with a jocular grin, "to pretty girls like that daughter of yours put straight in a young fellow's way. You won't mind my saying it? They neither work themselves nor let others work—that sort. I think we could get on with a deal fewer women, I must allow. There's where Providence is in a mistake. We don't want ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... the ornament of his party." Young was as dauntless as Spencer, and, if anything, a more distinguished looking man. He was without austerity and easy of approach; and, although inclined to reticence, he seemed fond of indulging in jocular remarks and an occasional story; but he was a man of bad temper. He fretted under opposition as much as Clinton, and he easily became vindictive toward opponents. This kept him unpopular even among men of his own faction. Clinton ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... "It's not worth answering, Judge. You ought to treat it with silent contempt." From behind his glasses he winked at the reporter with a jocular, intimate smile. He was adapting himself to what he imagined was his company. "Where did you pick up that ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... sons. The eldest, Stephen, entered the Church and held the living of Salehurst, where he offered, we may hope, an extreme example of the clergy of the age. He was a handsome figure of a man; jovial and jocular; fond of his garden, which produced under his care the finest fruits of the neighbourhood; and like all the family, very choice in horses. He drove tandem; like Jehu, furiously. His saddle horse, ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dragged the fragments on to the platform and were preparing their normal meal. Gunga Dass cooked mine. The almost irresistible impulse to fly at the sand walls until I was wearied laid hold of me afresh, and I had to struggle against it with all my might. Gunga Dass was offensively jocular till I told him that if he addressed another remark of any kind whatever to me I should strangle him where he sat. This silenced him till silence became insupportable, and I bade him ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... of very different qualities in relation to different subjects. Certainly he was at times capable of considerable heaviness of hand,—of the Scotch "wut" which has been so irreverently treated by English critics. His rather elaborate jocular introductions, under the name of Jedediah Cleishbotham, are clearly laborious at times. And even his own letters to his daughter-in-law, which Mr. Lockhart seems to regard as models of tender playfulness and pleasantry, seem to me decidedly elephantine. Not unfrequently, too, his stereotyped ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... to his sister-in-law, who had retreated to a corner on the other side of the room. In a maudlin, jocular ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... tears trickled from her eyes. But just as she was feeling unable to retrace her steps, and unable to remain standing any longer, and quite at a loss what to do, she overheard the sound of jocular language inside, and listening carefully, she discovered that it was, indeed, Pao-y and Pao-ch'ai. Lin Tai-y waxed more wroth. After much thought and cogitation, the incidents of the morning flashed unawares through her memory. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... rail-pile on which myself and others were sitting. It struck between Jim Shaffer and myself. We both naturally squirmed a little at the unpleasant nearness of the malicious little messenger. The affair called forth laughter and jocular exclamations from those around: "How are you Johnnie!" "Hit 'em again!" ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... little things—to wit:— I never missed a train Because I didn't run for it; I never knew it rain That my umbrella wasn't lent,— Or, when in my possession, The sun but wore, to all intent, A jocular expression. ...
— Riley Songs of Home • James Whitcomb Riley
... participated. Though they had an abundance of wit, and a keen perception of the ridiculous, no songs have reached us which are intended to please by their pure absurdity and good-natured foolishness. Archilochus and Hipponax wrote many a jocular song; but the fun of the thing would have been lost, had the sting which they ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... about that. Confession? It'll be judeecial, my young friend," cried the jocular Glenkindie. "And I'm afraid to listen to ye. Think if ye were to make me ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the sauces. Amidst the general merriment Vigee Le Brun suggested that they should dress for the fantastic affair in Greek costume, and arrange the tables and seats after the antique fashion. So the jocular business went apace. It was a merry party of Athenians that sat down to the feast—"Pindar" Le Brun wearing laurels in his ridiculous hair, and a purple mantle round about him; the Marquis de Cubieres tricked out with a guitar as a golden lyre; Vigee Le Brun being chief ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall
... want to obtain a divorce," said the budding barrister, in a jocular tone. "I am afraid we can't manage ...
— Sam's Chance - And How He Improved It • Horatio Alger
... anxiety for the present as well as affection for the past. He remembered his aunt Mary, though he had not seen her for years. His half brothers, Bill and Guy, had changed but little except perhaps to grow lean and rangy. Bill resembled his father, though his aspect was jocular rather than serious. Guy was smaller, wiry, and hard as rock, with snapping eyes in a brown, still face, and he had the bow-legs of a cattleman. Both had married in Arizona. Bill's wife, Kate, was a stout, comely ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... suffered the fate of one tall building at Hollywood and Highland. The grass closed about its base like a false foundation and surged on to new conquests, leaving the monolith bare and forlorn in its new surroundings. At first the weed satisfied itself with jocular and teasing ventures up the smooth sides; then, as though rasped by the skyscraper's quiescence, it forced its way into the narrow space between the steel sash, filling the lower floor and bursting out again in a riot of whirling tendrils. Up the sides it climbed like ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... coffee went down, and the beef-steak followed, Mr. Scrake seemed to relax, and to forget that his hat hung over his head, commemorative of the recent retirement of Mrs. Scrake from this 'wale of tears,' and became quite jocular on the subject of the fair sex, congratulating Kornicker upon his looks; calling him a lucky dog, and telling him that if he were him, he'd 'make up to some charming young woman with a fortune, and be off with her.' He then went into a detail of his own juvenile indiscretions, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... he answered, that he was cutting his name upon it: To which the deponent replied, she could not see what he could mean by putting his name upon a thing of no value, and pulled it out of his hand in a jocular way, but he followed her, and took the hat from her, and she observed that the A. was then cut out in the hat; and after he got it, she saw him cut out the letter D., which he did in a hurry, and which the deponent believed ...
— Trial of Duncan Terig, alias Clerk, and Alexander Bane Macdonald • Sir Walter Scott
... amusing than to see him endeavouring to imitate the careless and jocular tone of the young men of fashion. How awkward was he in the attempt to put on dandy airs when pulling up the corners of his cravat he would say, "Well, Madame, is there anything new to-day? Citizen, what say they of Bonaparte? Your shop appears ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... Mr. Punch begs to say that "the gentleman with knowledge of business" seems to be anxious to act as an alter ego to a serious (not a jocular) firm "capable of giving profits." "GENTLEMAN" does not specify whose profits the serious firm is capable of giving, and thus it may be presumed that the 100,000 francs would form the capital with which the charitable transaction would ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... sanctioned, even in the unphilosophical age of Homer, a treatment of celestial persons that to our modern notions would, at first glance, evince a disrespect for the religion itself. But wherever homage to "dead men" be admitted, we may, even in our own times, find that the most jocular legends are attached to names held in the most reverential awe. And he who has listened to an Irish or an Italian Catholic's familiar stories of some favourite saint, may form an adequate notion of the manner in which a pious Greek could jest upon ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... you have got him, might I ask what you are going to do with him," said the auctioneer in a jocular manner, which the crowd ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... later the dormitory bell sounded, and he could hear the scuffling of feet on the lobby outside, and the clamour of voices as boys hustled one another in front of the boards. Evidently the majority regarded the announcement in a jocular manner; and when a distant shout of laughter came up from the passage below, and down from the landing above, it was clear that Forders did not take the ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... dining-room, "I exactly begin to feel as I did at Dumdum with Miss Cutler." Many sweet little appeals, half tender, half jocular, did Miss Sharp make to him about the dishes at dinner; for by this time she was on a footing of considerable familiarity with the family, and as for the girls, they loved each other like sisters. Young unmarried girls always do, if ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... company was as jolly as numerous, composed of officers going back to join their regiments, ladies from the Marseilles Alcazar Music Hall, strolling-players, a rich Mussulman returning from Mecca, and a very jocular Montenegrin prince, who favoured them with imitations of the low comedians of Paris. Not one of these jokers felt the sea-sickness, and their time was passed in quaffing champagne with the steamer captain, a good fat born Marseillais, who had ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... fidgety. He had put on superior clothes to get up with; and the clerks had whispered to one another that it must be his wedding day, and ought to end in a half-holiday all round, and be chalked thenceforth on the calendar; but instead of being joyful and jocular, like a man who feels a saving Providence over him, the lawyer was as dismal, and unsettled and splenetic, as a prophet on the brink of wedlock. But the very last thing that he ever dreamed of doubting was his power to turn this ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... exceedingly at having escaped death by hanging, even though it might prove to be a respite, rather than a pardon. At such a moment, the young man could have excused a much more offensive intrusion, and the sudden change in his prospects disposed him a little to be jocular; for truth compels us to add that gratitude to God entered but little into his emotions. The escape from death, like his capture, and the other incidents of his cruise, was viewed simply as the result ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... letter itself, which he supposes to have been written in Greek, and afterwards translated by Tiro. But this letter does not read like a translation, and, after all, is not of a nature to shew as a "commendation." It is conceived in too jocular a vein. I have taken it to refer to some inclosure written in Greek which he might use in this way, and the mention of his "own handwriting" to refer to the fact that he would naturally have employed a Greek secretary to write Greek. The diminutive Graeculam I take to be apologetic for the ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... waiting Tim's reappearance through the saloon door. Other volunteer assistants, in hordes, hordes, and laughing as if this awful calamity were a huge joke, had joined Raymond and the Other. Missy was flamingly aware of them, of their laughter, their stares, their jocular comments. ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... stone-arched tunnel, ushered by a lame innkeeper; and Burley, chancing to turn his head and glance back through the shadowy stone passage, caught a glimpse in the outer sunshine of the girl whose dark eyes had inspired him with jocular eloquence as he rode on his mule under the ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... at the very moment when the ox-driver, who was defending it near the hearth, raised it above his head to prevent it from being torn away. Some time before the attack, the women had taken the precaution to put out the fire lest in the struggle somebody should fall in and get burned. The jocular grave-digger, in league with the ox-driver, grasped the trophy and tossed it easily across the andirons. It was done! Nobody might interfere. The grave-digger sprang to the middle of the room and lighted a few wisps of straw, which he placed about the spit under pretense ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... manoeuvre grant to enable Captain Brancker to bring an aeroplane and take part in them. The aeroplane arrived at Aurangabad early in January 1911, and was hastily erected under a tree by the two mechanics, assisted by six willing and jocular privates of the Dublin Fusiliers. It was ready forty-eight hours after detrainment, just in the nick of time. The first flight was made by M. Jullerot and Captain Brancker, the day before the manoeuvres began, in the presence of twelve generals, ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... Cursor, who at that time was dictator, ordered the lictor to get ready his axe; and when the praetor, having discarded all hope of being able to clear himself, seemed utterly stupefied at the order, he commanded the lictor to cut down a shrub close by; and having in this jocular manner reproved him, he let him go: without himself incurring any disrespect by so doing, since all knew him for a man who, by his own unassisted vigour, had brought long and dangerous wars to a happy termination; and had been the only man ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... out of his net, and I jumped into the boat. The fishermen crowded around in a spirit of fun, and when I started to get up sail overwhelmed me with all sorts of jocular advice. They even offered extravagant bets to one another that I would surely catch Demetrios, and two of them, styling themselves the committee of judges, gravely asked permission to come along with me to see how I ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... of humanitarianism, as a religion, is derided by Engels in a semi-jocular, semi-serious manner, for his statement that Feuerbach's ideals can be completely realized on the Bourse, cannot be taken seriously. Engels' clear-sightedness with regard to the ineffectiveness of a purely humanitarian religion is very remarkable, although the forty years' ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels
... to be mildly jocular. Hannah's face did not move. She had just touched her nephew with her cold wasted hand. Now she beckoned to him to sit down at her right. He did so, and then for the first time he could believe ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... understood at least the jocular tenor of his meaning, but no glance in his direction indicated it. She placed the second stone, and then in obedience to Rhodes she looked back the way she had come where the desert growth crisped in the waves of heat. On one side lay the low, cactus-dotted hillocks, and on the other the sage green ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... was a dynamic little fellow, small, wiry, red-headed and freckle-faced, and had been the radio-helio operator of the ill-fated Planetara. He was a perfect match for Venza, for all the millions of miles that separated their native lands. Venza, too was small and slim, her manner as readily jocular as his. ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... be jocular on the doctor's oddities of expression, we beg to say, that notwithstanding these and other eccentricities, the work he has produced is well worthy of perusal, and of finding a place in all ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... yellow, and green, the colours so dear to enthusiastic Irishmen; Murtagh received them with great apparent cordiality, and entered into a long discourse with them, promising them the assistance of himself and order, and received from them a profusion of thanks. After a time Murtagh, observing, in a jocular tone, that consulting was dull work, proposed a game of cards, and the leaders, though somewhat surprised, he went to a closet, and taking out a pack of cards, laid it upon the table; it was a strange dirty pack, and exhibited every mark of having ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... handed to Dorothy was too large and too heavy for a mere missive; and the maid, recalling some jocular promises of Raleigh's, at once suspected that some London gew-gaw lay snug within, and tore off the wrappings with eager fingers. Her hopes were not disappointed, and a dainty pair of silver shoebuckles shone ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... standing in society, but one that called aloud the act of the parties to make it perfect and complete. How he should communicate his intentions to get a favorable reply, he was at a loss to know; he knew not whether to address Esq. Valeer in prose or in poetry, in a jocular or an argumentative manner, or whether he should use moral suasion, legal injunction, or seizure and take by reprisal; if it was to do the latter, he would have no difficulty in deciding in his own ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... there was no tragedy there. This was a comedy of errors. It was as if the devil himself were playing a game with all of them in turn. First with him, then with Ziemianitch, then with those revolutionists. The devil's own game this.... He interrupted his earnest mental soliloquy with a jocular thought at his own expense. "Hallo! I am ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... their ears like an old woman's dream, but still it was an excitement, jocular in the morning, and just, perhaps, a little fearful as night overspread the vast and desolate building, but still, not wholly unpleasant. This little flicker of credulity suddenly, however, blazed up into the full light ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... stone and its moss, whilst the tree was reflected into the stream, and the Brawl went rolling by. There was not much in the letters certainly; in the pink notes scarcely anything—merely a little word or two, half jocular, half sympathetic, such as might be written by any young lady. But oh, you silly Pendennis, if you wanted this one, why did you not speak? Perhaps neither party was in earnest. You were only playing at being in love, and the sportive little ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... tarde y con dao: you come late and in bad shape; a stereotyped sentence, used in semi-jocular greeting to any late comer. Elisa means nothing special by con dao, but Antonio, thinking of his recent encounter with Juana, picks up the phrase, in his aside, Muy bien que se explica; that is, there is a very good reason for his being ...
— Ms vale maa que fuerza • Manuel Tamayo y Baus
... find it difficult to get on without, though," said Waymark, trying to get into the jocular tone he sometimes adopted ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... morning you awake to find that a tag has been prepared, containing the entire medical history of your injury. The stretcher-bearers come in with grins on their faces, your tag is tied to the top button of your pyjamas, jocular appointments are made by the fellows you leave behind—many of whom you know are dying—to meet you in London, and you are carried out. The train is thoroughly equipped with doctors and nurses; the lying cases travel in ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... the day's work, was sitting in front of the apartment house where he lived, but when the cab stopped at the curb he rose and came forward, offering a jocular greeting. "Well, well, Virgil Adams! I always thought you had a sporty streak in you. Travel in your own hired private automobile nowadays, do you? Pamperin' yourself because you're still ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... Ivan's jocular remark had more significance in it than his wife cared to admit, for during the first years of their married life they had seen very little of each other. A few days after the marriage, when according to our notions the honeymoon should be at its ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... form of monthly numbers, each containing two or three essays which sounded as if they might have done duty as themes, a critical article or two, some copies of verses, and winding up with a few pages in fine print, purporting to be editorial, jaunty and jocular for the most part, and opulent in local allusions. It would he unnatural, if these juvenile productions did not often reflect the opinions of favorite instructors and the style of popular authors. A ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the hypothesis. Conceive that Zeus, or Baiame, was originally, not a Father and guardian, but a lewd and tricky ghost of a medicine-man, a dancer of indecent dances, a wooer of other men's wives, a shape-shifter, a burlesque droll, a more jocular bugbear, like Twanyirika. By what means did he come to be accredited later with his loftiest attributes, and with regard for the tribal ethics, which, in practice, he daily broke and despised? Students who argue for the possible priority of the lowest, or, as I call them, mythical ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... of Commerce, in early March, the Ambassador made a few impromptu remarks. The occasion was one of good fellowship and good humour, and Page, under the inspiration of the occasion, indulged in a few half-serious, half-jocular references to the Panama Canal and British-American good-feeling, which, when inaccurately reported, caused a great disturbance in the England-baiting press. "I would not say that we constructed the Panama Canal ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... the President accosted our member of Congress, who had us in charge, and, with a comical twist of his face, made some jocular remark about the length of his breakfast. He then greeted us all round, not waiting for an introduction, but shaking and squeezing everybody's hand with the utmost cordiality, whether the individual's name was ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... A jocular, jibing account. Then Alten gave it up. He had about decided to plead guilty in the Magistrate's Court to disorderly conduct and all the rest of it! That was preferable to being ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... threat. Toady was in deadly earnest, but still the older boy temporized. It would never do to give in to Toady. If he took such a step as that, his leadership was gone forever. "Aw, come off!" he began, in what he meant to be jocular tones. "Quit your fooling and let me up! I've swallowed a ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... was annoyed one evening by the familiarity of a young gentleman, who, though a comparative stranger, was encouraged by Smith's jocular reputation to address him by his surname alone. Hearing the young man say that he was going that evening to see the Archbishop of Canterbury for the first time, the reverend wit interposed, "Pray don't clap him on the back, and ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... the phenomena of the "materialisation" of spirits, some ten years before, and had bent the fierce light of the scientific method upon him. To Olive it appeared that Mr. Burrage and Mr. Gracie had ceased to be jocular; but that did not make them any less cynical. Henry Burrage said to Verena, as she was going, that he hoped she would think seriously of his mother's invitation; and she replied that she didn't know whether she should have much time in the future to give to people who already approved ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... saw wrong-headedly otherwise in the case of Aristide. A weak-minded governess—and in a governess a sense of humour and of novelty is always a sign of a weak mind—played dragon during Aristide's lessons. She appreciated his method, which was colloquial. The colloquial Aristide was jocular. His lessons therefore were a giggling joy from beginning to end. He imparted to his pupils delicious knowledge. En avez-vous des-z-homards? Oh, les sales betes, elles ont du poil aux pattes, which, being translated, is: "Have you any lobsters? Oh, the dirty animals, they have hair ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... morning he went, Unto his daily labour with joy and content; So jocular and jolly he'd whistle and sing, As blithe and as brisk as the birds ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... are of all ages from sixty to fifteen, dressed in all varieties of rough plain clothes, with some ominous exceptions in the shape of a khaki tunic, a service overcoat, etc. Some seemed depressed, some jocular, the boys quite careless. All were lusty and well fed. Close by were their ponies, tiny little rats of things, dead-tired and very thin. Their saddles were mostly very old, with canvas or leather saddle-bags, ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... given the greatest boons to humanity have often been rough in manners, intolerant of infirmities, bitter in their social prejudices, hard in their dealings, and acrid in their tempers; and if they were occasionally jocular, their jokes were too practical to be in high favor with what is ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... answering in the same jocular vein, "I confess I have 'the actor's high ambition.' It is astonishing how my heart beat when Richard cried out, 'Come bustle, ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... dock was recognized by all to be ominous, but some relief from the feeling of foreboding was experienced when Judge Gregorowski after taking his seat was observed to smile several times and to make some jocular remark to one of the officials of the Court. The faces of the officials however damped any hopes that were built upon the ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... kingdom of Ludamar, from whence I might pass by a circuitous route into Bambarra. If I wished to follow this route he would appoint people to conduct me to Jarra, the frontier town of Ludamar. He then inquired very particularly how I had been treated since I had left the Gambia, and asked, in a jocular way, how many slaves I expected to carry home with me on my return. He was about to proceed when a man mounted on a fine Moorish horse, which was covered with sweat and foam, entered the court, and signifying that he had something of importance to communicate, the king immediately took up his sandals, ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... reeled on. The regular pacing of the sentinel ceased and he hailed the approaching quartet in a jocular way. They answered with thick tongues and coarse laughter. Presently they passed out of view of the boys, having come close within the shadow of ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... and tireless steeds, hurrying with the spoils of myriads of acres; its carpeted, curtained, glowing, shining, pictured, sculptured, perfumed homes. The victorious world, so confident and easy and jocular, so beautiful in its own right, so wrapped about in kingly purple—how strangely is it metamorphosed to the eyes of the child of God! Its factories change into brothels; its rents to distress warrants; its railroads to mighty fetters, binding industry in an inextricable net of feudalism; from ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... looked at me while I spoke, and made no answer for a long time. At last she said with a sort of smile, which at the same time was not hilarious or jocular ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... intercourse: Bob, still smarting from his father's banter, was inclined to be stand-offish, as though afraid Laura might take liberties with him after having been made to look so small; Laura, rendered thoroughly unsure to begin with, by the jocular tone of the luncheon-table, had not recovered from the shock of hearing her parentage so bluffly disclosed. And since, at this time, her idea of the art of conversation was to make jerky little remarks which led nowhere, or to put still more jerky questions, Bob ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... the tone of jocular familiarity which he considered confidential—"tell me—the whole thing is just a joke of yours to amuse us all, is it not? You do not really believe that you are a count, any more than I really believe that you are mad, you know. You do not act like a madman, except when you let the police catch ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... smelling of roses; old lacquer boxes, and bits of rich embroidery. I am becoming a Shylock in the way I beat down prices. I shouldn't wonder a bit when I go home and am ruffling it once more in Bond Street if, when told the price of a thing is a guinea, I laugh in a jocular way and say, "Oh! come now, I'll give ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... your partner in the dance of life; for, as Mahomet used to say, in his jocular moods, 'those who will dance must pay the fiddler.' To be tied, forever, for better, for worse, to such a —— as Amina Ghoul, is to be transformed in one's whole nature. It is the transmigration of a soul from amiability to peevishness, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... commonly known by the term jocular and comick, is nothing but a turn of expression, an airy phantom, that must be caught at a particular point. As we lose this point, we lose the jocularity, and find nothing but dulness in its place. A lucky sally, which ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... have been surprised had they known how ripe the great jocular plot really was. "Yes, to-night," Jopp had said to the Peter's party at the corner of Mixen Lane. "As a wind-up to the Royal visit the hit will be all the more pat by reason of ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... contained no news of importance at all. It was written in a jocular strain, affecting to make light of her captivity. She asked whether she might have leave to visit Mrs. Tusher, or to walk beyond the court and the garden wall. She gave news of the peacocks, and a fawn she had there. She bade her mother send her certain gowns and smocks by old Lockwood; she sent ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... therefore, to smile with a patronizing air, and, nodding his head, replied in the same jocular spirit: "Ha! Ha! Ha! You are right; the Prophet is out in his prophecy. You shall not pay him any damages. The faults on both sides are equal, and the injuries balance one another. He has been wounded, your horse has been killed; so you may ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... as shoes and stockings. After sunset every person who passes the governor's house is challenged. "Who goes there?" is the first question; the second is Que gente? (what country?) The sailors amuse themselves by returning jocular answers to these challenges; and the sentinel, irritated by their jeers, sometimes runs after them through part of the town, and when weary of the ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... the whole venture was a mad sort of lark, took it all in jocular mood, and chaffed Marjorie about her desire to go adventuring in the tropics. But Trask knew that he had been much more worried than either himself or Marjorie, and that his sallies were the result of his relief from strain about how things would ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... deal to most people at thirty-five," said Mr. Skratdj, as he walked towards the door. "They would make a remarkable difference to me, I know;" and with a jocular air Mr. Skratdj departed, and Mrs. Skratdj had the rest of the anecdote her ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... cars upon him, and soldiers refreshed by food and coffee are in more receptive mood than when dejected by hunger. Some men in the third car who had heard his eager queries of the commissary sergeant knew for whom those supplies were meant, others did not, and of these latter one jocular and untutored Patlander sang out, "Bully for the leftenint; 'tis he that knows how to look out for number wan." Whereat there came furious shouts of "Shame!" "Shut up!" and inelegant and opprobrious epithets, all at the ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... gradually, and with a kind of jocular moroseness, crept into their intercourse. The exciting thing about it was the silent reservation felt by both: We know how different things could be, so soon as we desired. To-day, for the first time, this game at ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... quite jocular. A man asked one of them how to get rich? The oracle said: "Own all there is between Sicyon and Corinth." Which places ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... no such demand ever made, Kulbash Pasha not only laughed heartily at the mock-thunder of the Englishman, but at the energy with which a small official always opens fire, and in the jocularity of his Turkish nature—for they are jocular, these children of the Koran—he told the whole incident ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... selling of badly built houses. Mechanical religion—a dry, hard church, shut off from the real life of the streets, inhumanly respectable as a top-hat. Mechanical golf and dinner-parties and bridge and conversation. Save with Paul Riesling, mechanical friendships—back-slapping and jocular, never daring to ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... "The Comforts of Life" were written in prison; "The Miseries" (by Jas. Beresford) necessarily in a drawing-room. The works of authors are often in contrast with themselves; melancholy authors are the most jocular, and the most humorous ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... the bunkhouse were several of the Two Diamond men; in a strip of shade from the blacksmith shop were others. Jocular words were hurled at him by some of the men as he drew the saddle from Mustard, for the stray-man's quietness and invariable thoughtfulness had won him a place in the affections of many of the men, and their jocular greetings were evidence ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... body, clumsy with pain, burst into fragile legs with absurdly large feet and funny writhing toes; its little stiff arms made abrupt cruel equal angles with the road. About its stunted loins clung a ponderous and jocular fragment of drapery. On one terribly brittle shoulder the droll lump of its neckless head ridiculously lived. There was in this complete silent doll a gruesome truth of instinct, a success of uncanny poignancy, an unearthly ferocity ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... declined. One night they were speculating upon the causes of this, and Hilary was declaring, in a half jocular, half earnest way, that it must be because a prophet is never a ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... of geyser display. There are very many variations of performance in every respect, I have seen over twenty geysers in almost jocular, and certainly in overwhelmingly ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... be exercised, and as Mr. Bowley was going that very moment—would like nothing better than a walk—they went together, Clara and kind little Bowley—Bowley who had rooms in the Albany, Bowley who wrote letters to the "Times" in a jocular vein about foreign hotels and the Aurora Borealis—Bowley who liked young people and walked down Piccadilly with his right arm resting on the ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... III, iii. 184, note. Of Beckford Walpole says:—'Under a jovial style of good humour he was tyrannic in Jamaica, his native country.' Ib. iv. 156. He came over to England when young and was educated in Westminster School. Stephens's Horne Tooke, ii. 278. Cowper describes 'a jocular altercation that passed when I was once in the gallery [of the House], between Mr. Rigby and the late Alderman Beckford. The latter was a very incorrect speaker, and the former, I imagine, not a ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... however, and the mist, contributed to prevent our suffering much, and I do not know that I felt any great desire for either food or water, until towards the middle of the day. Then we began to converse together, on the subject of dinner, in a jocular way, however, rather than with any very great longings on the subject. While thus employed, Neb ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... as the evening wore on. By the time supper was finished and his pipe alight he became almost jocular, and the coldness of Miss Evans was the only drawback to an ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... know what to do," cried Mrs. Hazleton, with a slight laugh, as if at her own perplexity. "I was never in such a situation in my life;" and then she added, very rapidly and in a jocular tone, as if she were afraid of pausing upon or giving force to any one word, "if my poor father had been alive, he would have settled it all after his own way soon enough. He was a great match-maker you ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... but trying to be jocular) Whut you trying to rush me up so fast?... Look at Will Cody here (Pointing to little man on porch) he been promising to bring his already wife down for two months ... and nair one of ...
— The Mule-Bone: - A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts • Zora Hurston and Langston Hughes
... the smallest degree unfavourable to him, being convinced that he does not merit them." This is the letter of a spirited gentleman. Buckingham evidently sympathized with Thomas Pitt; for he expressed his surprise that the Prime Minister should risk his life against such a man as Tierney. A more jocular tone was taken by the Earl of Mornington, soon to become the Marquis Wellesley. Writing to Pitt from Fort St. George on 8th August 1799 (three months after the capture of Seringapatam), he expressed strong approval of his Irish policy and concluded as follows: "I send you by Henry a pair of pistols ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... bringing me kind words from the Mother house, and a half-jocular hint that Superior General Philippe had me much in his mind. No doubt there had been a time when the idea of becoming a Director would have stirred my pulses. Surely it was gone now. I asked for nothing but to stay beside Edouard, to watch him, and to be near to lend him a helping ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... Jessamine jasmeno. Jest sxerci. Jest sxerco. Jesuit Jezuito. Jesus Jesuo. Jetsam fuko. Jetty digo. Jew Hebreo. Jewel juvelo. Jewel-box juvelujo. Jeweller juvelisto. Jewess Hebreino. Jilt koketulino. Jingle tinti. Job tasketo. Jockey rajdisto. Jocose sxercema. Jocular sxercema. Join kunigi. Join hands manplekti. Join together kunigxi. Join with kunigi. Joiner lignajxisto. Jointly kune. Joint (anatomy) artiko. Joint (carpentering) kunigxo. Joist ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... see which should be foremost. And he gave to each kisses and toys; for he was a kind father. And sitting down to supper, with their beaming faces around him, he thought of the beggar-boy only in connection with the jocular spite he ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Miss Pelham jilted you, Saunders?" He put the question in a jocular way. Its effect on Saunders was startling. His face turned almost purple ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... From one rather jocular sentence in your note I judge you may include some sonnets of your own. I see no possible reason why you should not. You are really now, at your highest, among our best sonnet-writers, and have written two or three sonnets that yield to few or none whatever. I am forced, however, to request ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... cellar. Amid all their vocations and avocations, the Bartletts moved tranquilly in an atmosphere of luxurious leisure. They were never flustered; their employments were a kind of lark, it seemed, never to be referred to except in the most jocular fashion. When Rose had entrusted to the oven a wedding-cake or a pan of jumbles she would repair to the piano for a ten-minute indulgence in Chopin. Similarly indifferent to fate, Nan at intervals in the ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... we passed into the open country was carried on by the three of us in front, as my brother could not join in it owing to his position; and we had just turned towards him with the jocular remark, "How are you getting on down there?" and had received his reply, "All right!" when, with scarcely a moment's warning, we met with an accident which might have killed him and seriously injured ourselves. We suddenly crashed into a heavy waggon drawn by two ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... breast, this miliary eruption, so symptomatic, according to Huxman: and you will assure yourselves, by feeling the subject, of the kind of rugosity this eruption causes. But do not let us sell the skin of the bear before we bring him to the ground," added the prince of science, who was unusually jocular. ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... with a broad smile all over her countenance at her master's jocular allusions to the Charming Josephine, left at once to carry her message to the chamber ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... there was an end of her as far as he was concerned. It was from the boy's silence, too, that she realised the extent of his suffering. Before the inevitable thing had happened, he had done nothing but talk of Audrey, sometimes with melancholy, more often in the jocular strain adopted by self-conscious persons to carry off some ridiculous fatality. Anger following suspense had driven him to think of suicide; but now that it was all over with him, he had no idea of killing himself. ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... will pardon me, royal brother," said Albany, "I think that, though my princely nephew hath started this thought in a jocular manner, there may be something wrought out of it, which might greatly remedy this ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... the dull dispiriting gloom, almost every ray of daylight being shut out by the thick canopy of creepers spreading from tree to tree, I had caught Omar surreptitiously consulting his pocket compass, and saw upon his face a look of anxiety. Yet, on the other hand, Kouaga had become particularly jocular, and the carriers were now singing snatches of songs, joking, and laughing good-humouredly at each other's misfortunes, whereas on our journey from the coast to the river they had generally ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... course, no reply, though I sent a few jocular remarks flying after what must have been the most horrified ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... apogee of Peep O'Day's carnival of weird vagaries of deportment came at the end of two months—two months in which each day the man furnished cumulative and piled-up material for derisive and jocular comment on the part of a very considerable proportion ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... presently fell upon Sheffield. "I defy you," he said, with an attempt to be jocular, "to prove what you have been hinting; it is a great shame. It's so easy to speak against men, to call them injudicious, extravagant, and so on. You are the ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... possible, for Schindler continues: "Oh! I have no doubt you will accomplish that, and I rejoice in anticipation." And, then, as if remembering that his master was an invalid, and that it would not be right to excite him by prolonging the argument, he added, probably in a half-jocular manner: "Your housekeeper must do her part, and first put you into a towering passion." The above extracts show pretty clearly that the poetic basis of his music was a subject which Beethoven took pleasure in discussing with his friends. Beethoven's back ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... For there had passed between them many communications respecting Folking. The extravagances of the son became almost the delight of the father, when the father had become certain of the son's reform. There had been even jocular reference to Davis, and a complete understanding as to the amount of money to be given to the nephew in compensation for the blighted hopes as to ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... the oppressor but the comic, good-natured "It means nothing" was there to be held up to those calling the one repeating it to task. The parody on "Reign, Master Jesus, Reign!" when heard by the Master meant only a good natured jocular appeal to him for plenty of meat and bread, but with the Negro it was a scathing indictment of a Christian earthly master who muzzled those who produced the food. "He Paid Me Seven" is a mock at the white man for failing to practice his own religion but the clown mask ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... decently in deep water on the day of the funeral. His daughter would not grudge him the satisfaction of knowing that no stranger would handle his last command after him. With the fortune he was able to leave her, the value of a 500-ton bark was neither here nor there. All this would be said with a jocular twinkle in his eye: the vigorous old man had too much vitality for the sentimentalism of regret; and a little wistfully withal, because he was at home in life, taking a genuine pleasure in its feelings and its possessions; in the dignity ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... to a man whose grandfather was hanged. Nor should you venture any depreciatory remarks upon men who have risen from the ranks, unless you are tolerably versed in the family-history of those to whom you are talking. You may have heard a man very jocular upon lunatic-asylums, to another who had several brothers and sisters in one. And though in some cases human beings may render themselves disagreeable through a combination of circumstances which really absolves them ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... life; of decent birth and richer than Croesus, but inflamed with a peevish penuriousness which no amount of plain speaking on my part will correct. Never a day passes that she does not permit herself some jocular observation anent my spendthrift habits. The following is an example ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... Constitution to the support of the fugitive slave bill, and of preventing, as far as possible, all noble thought which opposes the establishment of Despotism, now so rapidly encroaching upon our once Free Soil: they hold by this Petty Serjeantry—a menial service not mentioned in any book even of "Jocular Tenures." ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... I went with him to report myself, the officers I saw making more than one jocular allusion to my being so much of a boy, but good-humouredly telling me that I should soon correct that. Then followed my introduction to my company in the artillery, where with my Brandscombe knowledge I was soon able to hold my own, and obtained some little notoriety ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... the peculiar population. One would be tenderly solicitous. "Is your wife pale?" it would inquire. "Is she discouraged, does she drag herself about the house and find fault with everything? Why do you not tell her to try Dr. Lanahan's Life Preservers?" Another would be jocular in tone, slapping you on the back, so to speak. "Don't be a chump!" it would exclaim. "Go and get the Goliath Bunion Cure." "Get a move on you!" would chime in another. "It's easy, if you wear ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... matter of sabbath-keeping was widespread and deep. Jewish influence was felt and acknowledged almost from the time that Syria, of which Judaea was but a petty division, became a Roman province, and a generation had not passed away before we find Horace making jocular allusion to the spread of the recognition of the Jewish sabbath. In his ninth satire he describes himself as being buttonholed by a bore, and, seeing a friend pass by, as begging the latter to pretend business with him and so relieve him of his ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... a half-dozen throats in which some strong but hitherto repressed passion, totally incomprehensible to me, found sudden vent, rose in one simultaneous sound from about that table, and I heard one jocular voice sing out: ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... for no other reason, Sir Gilbert," answered the minister, with a hard laugh, meant to be jocular. "But indeed such affairs cannot be managed in a moment. You will have plenty of time to make a good use of your money, if you should have to wait another ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... woman would now and then make a remark, easily jocular. Another amiable woman—soothing presences, both—would answer. Or he would answer; there would be an interlude of familiar talk, rest, and laughing, and throwing a ball for a scampering puppy. At noon an end to labor. He would remain for lunch, that meal of cheery luxury, ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... a great many jokes made at first, and a general spirit of hilariousness reigned, but it was observed by one of the keener witted ones that, despite his jocular tone, there was an underlying seriousness in Tom's air which might argue that he felt the weight of his responsibility. When the women began to come in, as they did later in the day, he received them with much cordiality, rising ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... where he had laboriously dug through solid walls; the captain of an army leaving the field victor, to find his legions rushing upon him in rout; figure any monstrous overturn in well-laid schemes, and you have but a faint reflex of poor Jack's heart-breaking anguish when this jocular fate stood above him, with the five gaping barrels pointed at his miserable head. Oh, if Dick had only been there! His quick eye and keen activity would have discovered this lurking devil; perhaps, between them, they would have averted the disaster. ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... such things, feeling instinctively that they would not believe him, but to women, especially if they were young and pretty, he was ever ready to talk at length about himself. He was good-looking, and talked well, so women always felt for him affectionate pity. On this occasion also, if jocular at the outset, Yourii relapsed into his usual tone; discoursing at great length about his own life. From his own description he appeared to be a man of extraordinary powers, cramped and crushed by the force of circumstances, misunderstood by his party, ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... extraordinary, the number of persons who are being educated in this country; and yet, at the same time, the tone of the people is less scholarly than one might expect. A lady, a few days since, described to me her daughter as being always "on the go," which I take to be a jocular way of saying that the young lady was very fond of paying visits. Another person, the wife of a United States senator, informed me that if I should go to Washington in January, I should be quite "in the swim." I inquired the meaning of the phrase, but her explanation made it rather ...
— The Point of View • Henry James
... A mere bit of jocular bravado; for, as might be supposed, the deformed wretch could have little hope of deliverance, save by the gallows, to which he had actually been condemned. A creature of indomitable pluck, however, this had not so far frightened him as to hinder jesting—a habit to which ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... at a time before this curious superstition had attained its present jocular popularity among white people, and while I had heard of it before, it had not yet outgrown the charm ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... them a dinner of the three orthodox courses— fish, flesh, and fowl—was only meant in a jocular sense. For the flesh, their stock of charqui is not drawn upon; and as to fowl, the soldier-crane would be a still more unpalatable morsel. So it results in their dining simply upon fish; this not only without ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... his brain dizzy, it loosened his tongue and numbed his lips, but today it left him cool, confident, and sharpened his vision until he felt that he could see through the minds of every one in the room. Captain Lorrimer, for instance, was telling a jocular story to Chick Stewart in the hope that Chick would set them up for every one; and old Lew Perkins was waiting for the treat; and perhaps the sheriff was wondering how he could handle Vic in case of need, or how long it would take to run him down. Not long, decided Gregg, breathing hard; no ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... jocular whipping was inflicted on Saturninus, for presuming to say that his wife, a favorite of the empress, had not been found. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... an old flame of mine," he explained, veiling his emotion with jocular phraseology. "An old flame, did I say? I'm still over head and heels in love with her. But I was too late—she and John had already made their little arrangements. And very soon after John and I became friends, and friends we've remained to this day. Kate ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... ACIS ARRANT, generally known to his jocular intimates as Knave ARRANT, had been living in luxury with his cousin's weak mother, whom he had contrived to marry. To effect this, however, he had been compelled to tear a will into little pieces, and had, at the same time, ruined that peace of his mind which he often gave ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 7, 1891. • Various
... I said to you long ago about making love in a free and easy manner. You will remember that I was then enjoying myself with some jocular reflections which were not intended to be formal advice. Do not forget, either, that the question then was about a mere passing fancy, and not of an ordinary mistress. But the case to-day is very different, you can not find among all the women of Paris, ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... jewels exceeding one hundred thousand pounds; "and the Lady Arabella goes beyond her," says the letter-writer. "All this extreme costs and riches makes us all poor," as he imagined![261] I have been amused in observing grave writers of state-dispatches jocular on any mischance or mortification to which persons are liable whose happiness entirely depends on their dress. Sir Dudley Carleton, our minister at Venice, communicates, as an article worth transmitting, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... and we were friends again. And with such jocular asperities the days passed quickly and agreeably until my nephew arrived with the plans and specifications. Frederick Grinnell was not only my nephew, but an architect of reputation and promise, considering his ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... (in jocular, self-satisfied tone) I am that Amphitryon who has a servant Sosia, which same turns into Mercury on occasion, I being the Amphitryon who lodge in the upper attic (pointing heavenward) and become Jupiter at times, when the humour seizes me. ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... fill the high post of the platonic successor; but he had left the Athenian school to Zenodotus, a pupil of Proclus, and had removed to Alexandria. Salustius the Cynic was a Syrian, who had removed with Isidorus from Athens to Alexandria. He was virtuous in his morals though jocular in his manners, and as ready in his witty attacks upon the speculative opinions of his brother philosophers as upon the vices of the Alexandrians. These learned men, with Damascius and others from Athens, were kindly received by the Persians, who soon afterwards, when they made a treaty ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... jocular announcement, and that evening all the Sunk-haze male population assembled round the stove in the post-office to discuss the matter. When the evening was yet young, a red-faced, red-whiskered man, snow-shoes on his back and ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day |
