"Pleasantry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she needed a brief interval in which to collect her thoughts and calm a growing nervousness that in spite of her efforts at pleasantry would assert itself in various little ways, evident enough to my observation. A saucepan of water was set upon the hot coals on the hearth, the lemons cut and squeezed into two elegant goblets, upon square lumps of sugar that eagerly took up the keen ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... the world's great private investigator." Despite the seriousness of the occasion, Muriel could not refrain from venturing this pleasantry. ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... Disregarding Garland's pleasantry, for some time His Excellency sat with his hands clasped behind his head, frowning up from the open patio into the hot, cloudless sky. On the ridge of his tiled roof a foul buzzard blinked at him from red-rimmed eyes, across the yellow wall a lizard ran ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... taken at once. He resolved to disengage the lady from her vow, and sat down to write the words which were to rend his heart in twain. At that moment Dulac entered the room with a packet of letters just arrived from Paris by estafette. Amongst them was one from the young lady's mother, full of sweet pleasantry and graceful mirth, describing the gay doings at the Tuileries, and the delight her daughter had experienced at the idea of being allowed to attend the Duchesse d'Angouleme to the ball about to be given in honor ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... repeated with a titter between scorn and hysterics. 'His mind, indeed! Henri, is this an idiotic pleasantry, or are you mad? His mind! ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sight of the towers of the city where he had begun his ministry; and then he solemnly affirmed that he believed God would once more allow him to proclaim His word there. Even then he maintained unshaken faith in God, and at times indulged in sallies of pleasantry against his popish custodiers; but he would have been more than human if the iron had not entered into his soul, and if traces of the sternness thence arising had not long been visible ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... blankly at the speaker just a moment, half incredulous, half resentful, then at last he realized that it was no pleasantry on the part of his visitor and, for once ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... novel is by its character-drawing and its pathos, I doubt if it would have captivated the world without its humor. This is of the old-fashioned kind, the large humor of Scott, and again of Cervantes, not verbal pleasantry, not the felicities of Lamb, but the humor of character in action, of situations elaborated with great freedom, and with what may be called a hilarious conception. This quality is never wanting in the book, either for the reader's entertainment by ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... healthy flush on his cheek, and his sprightly manner, brought the remark from both of us that we had never seen the general look so well. I have sometimes thought him decidedly the handsomest man I ever saw; and when in a lively mood, so full of pleasantry, so agreeable to all with whom he associated, I could hardly realize that he was the same Washington whose dignity ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... the company of Colonel Howard so soon?" said Katherine, advancing to her guardian, with an air of blandishment and pleasantry. "I know that he too soon forgets the hasty language of our little disputes, to part in anger, if, indeed, he will even quit us till he has ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... constitutional melancholy, the clouds of which darkened the brightness of his fancy, and gave a gloomy cast to his whole course of thinking: yet, though grave and awful in his deportment, when he thought it necessary or proper, he frequently indulged himself in pleasantry and sportive sallies. He was prone to superstition, but not to credulity. Though his imagination might incline him to a belief of the marvellous and the mysterious, his vigorous reason examined the evidence with jealousy. He had a loud voice, and a slow ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... not respond to the mild pleasantry. "Yes. I had to get the baker's boy to take a message, because I am not very well to-day, and Caroline declined to call round on her ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... Morot laughed at this pleasantry, while the old man against whom it was directed bowed his ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... passed with so much pleasantry that the general and his secretary became the admiration of all on board. Not a man, from the commander down to the humblest "ordinary," but was eager to pay them homage, minister to their comfort, or afford them amusement. They were thus happily pursuing their voyage ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... Winnie S. accepted this pleasantry with a grunt. "I 'most wish I was a duck," he declared, savagely. "Then I could set in three inches of ice-water and like it, maybe. Now what's the matter with you?" This last a roar to the horse, whose splashy progress along ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Morgan" was the first thought of every one who wished to inaugurate a charitable enterprise, and his business house was a rendezvous for all the distressed, and a sort of "intelligence office" for the poor seeking employment. His temper was cheerful and frequently gay; no man more relished pleasantry and mirth in the society of his friends, with whom his manner was free and even at times jovial; but he never himself indulged in personal jests nor familiarities, nor did he permit them from his most intimate associates; to attempt them with him gave him certain and ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... tongue-tied. If Hilda were joking, what answer could be made to such a pleasantry in such a situation? And if she were speaking the truth, if the bailiffs really were in possession...! His life seemed to him once again astoundingly romantic. He had loved this woman, conquered her. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... "though when I was a young feller and first went to sea, it wasn't considered no pleasantry to spit on a nice clean deck. You might cut that out, Gib. ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... too? How delightful!' will be forced to murmur, 'How sweet the clover smelt on your lawn as we came up the drive. What a perfectly entrancing golf-ball.' If I must go to the trouble and expense of keeping up a private pleasaunce I want everybody to see the pleasantry ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various
... likewise observe, that in all political writings there is something that grates upon the mind of the most candid reader, in opinions which are not conformable to his own way of thinking; and that the harshness of reasoning is not a little softned and smoothed by the infusions of mirth and pleasantry. ...
— Essay upon Wit • Sir Richard Blackmore
... after the period in which the play was written; the women were not. I saw no inconsistency. Their talk seemed to open to one the brilliant world in which they lived; every sentence made one older and wiser, every pleasantry enlarged one's horizon. One could experience excess and satiety without the inconvenience of learning what to do with one's hands in a drawing-room! When the characters all spoke at once and I missed some of the phrases they flashed at each other, I was in misery. ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... from Raoul's ready leash rewarded the felicity of this application, and sent the fool howling off to seek a more favourable audience, for his pleasantry. At the same time Raoul pressed up to Damian, and with an earnestness very different from his usual dry causticity of manner, begged him for God's sake not to make himself the general spectacle, by standing there as if the devil sat on the ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... West India pineapple, (which is said to be the finest fruit in the world, and to represent every exquisite flavour that is known), determined that it should be called the pyne-apple; and by either of these names it is talked of when pleasantry and conversation bring the remembrance of it to ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... her superior attainments, but always experienced a decided rebuke. To her friend Colonel L——, who expressed a wish to be such a character as she was, she quickly replied with an air of mingled pleasantry and censure, "Get thee behind me, Satan." To a female friend who said, "If I were only sure at last of being admitted to a place at your feet I should feel happy." "Hush, hush," replied Mrs. Graham, "There is ONE SAVIOUR." Thus she was always ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... solved partly by the care and elegance of his dress, and partly by the training given him by his mother, a Radziwill. His courage amounted to daring, but his mind was not more than was needed for the ephemeral talk and pleasantry of Parisian conversation. And yet it would have been difficult to find among the young men of fashion in Paris a single one who was his superior. Young men talk a great deal too much in these days of horses, money, taxes, deputies; ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac
... where to find out a concealed lover? I wanted to discover how far jealousy would carry you, and invented this trick for the purpose," The officer, upon this, was struck with admiration of his wife's pleasantry and his own credulity, which so tickled his fancy that he laughed immoderately, begged pardon for his foolish conduct, and they spent the evening cheerfully together; after which, the husband going to the bath, his wife charitably released the almost dead tailor, and reproving him for his impertinence, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... romances from the time of the Regent of Orleans to Louis XVI.? By all accounts, the despotism of China is the very sink of indecencies, whether in pictures or books. Still more, what can we think of a writer who says, that "the ancients have not left us one piece of pleasantry that is excellent, unless one may except the Banquet of Xenophon and the Dialogues of Lucian?" What! has he forgotten Aristophanes? Has he forgotten Plautus! No—but their pleasantry is not excellent to his taste; and he tacitly agrees with Horace in censuring the "coarse ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... well-informed in history and biography. Notwithstanding his remarkable frankness and all his oddities, his manners were engaging and polished: his conversation was original, energetic, and lively; he would often indulge in sallies of pleasantry to amuse the Empress, and as he was an excellent mimic, he would take off the uncouth manners and accents of some of the soldiers to the life. He had a dislike to writing, always asserting that a pen was an unfit implement for a soldier. His ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... pleasant dinner with the favourite, though she told me that, not having seen the duke, she could not tell me how he would take my pleasantry, which her mother resented very much. This mother of hers, a woman of the lowest birth, had become very proud since her daughter was a prince's mistress, and thought my relationship a blot on their escutcheon. She had the impudence ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... had the morning cheerfulness of birds and healthy children; and his humour was infectious. We were next neighbours and met daily, yet our salutations lasted minutes at a stretch—shaking hands, slapping shoulders, capering like a pair of Merry-Andrews, laughing to split our sides upon some pleasantry that would scarce raise a titter in an infant-school. It might be five in the morning, the toddy-cutters just gone by, the road empty, the shade of the island lying far on the lagoon: and the ebullition ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... wit and manly sense combin'd, Where, Congreve, shall I find thy parallel? For charming ease, who equals polish'd Vanbrugh? Where shall we see such graceful pleasantry As Farquhar's muse with lavish bounty scatters? But yet, ye great triumvirate—I fear To call you back to earth, for ye debas'd With vile impurities the comic muse, And made her delicate mouth pronounce such things As would disgust a Wilmot in full blood, Or shock an Atheist roaring o'er ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... not a friend perhaps in all this world that will give thee a macaroon.' In saying this, I pulled out a paper of 'em, which I had just bought, and gave him one;—and, at this moment that I am telling it, my heart smites me that there was more of pleasantry in the conceit of seeing how an ass would eat a macaroon than of benevolence in giving him one, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... down the table and met it. Perhaps Madeline's own eyelids fluttered a little as she saw the sudden stricture in the face that received her message, and the grimace with which it uttered, pallid with apprehension, its response to a pleasantry of General Worsley's. She was not consummate in her self-control, but she was able at all events to send the glance travelling prettily on with a casual smile for an intervening friend, and bring it back to her ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... than she could have done up her hair without a glass. The only action taken by Mr. Dosson on his elder daughter's admonitions was to convert the general issue, as Mr. Flack would have called it, to a theme for daily pleasantry. He was fond, in his intercourse with his children, of some small usual joke, some humorous refrain; and what could have been more in the line of true domestic sport than a little gentle but unintermitted raillery on Francie's conquest? ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... jest of Richie Moniplies going behind the arras to get an opportunity of teasing Heriot, was a pleasantry such as James might be supposed to approve of. It was customary for those who knew his humour to contrive jests of this kind for his amusement. The celebrated Archie Armstrong, and another jester called Drummond, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... bolt upright, as I will if I can," said old Mr. Palmer, entering into the pleasantry of the young people as readily as if he had been the youngest man in the company. As he looked round, his good countenance beamed with ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... knowledge of the class whatever, "except," with arch humor, "as presented on the stage, where, as everybody who had seen them there knew, they were harmless enough, goodness knows!" And the airy chorus lady shrugged her shoulders and smiled at her own bit of pleasantry. "But for the matter of that, I still think something ought to be done, and what other means can we find for restoring the lost innocent?" and Miss Norma tossed her frizzled blonde head, quite enjoying, if the truth be told, ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... must be twenty-one years of age, have kept twelve terms, and have been for five, or three years, at least, a member of the society. The keeping of terms includes dining a certain number of times in the hall, and hence the pleasantry of eating the way to the bar; the preparatory studies being now private. Of the great business of refection, the engraving herewith shows the most dignified scene—the Benchers' Dinner; the benchers, or "antients," ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... our Church. At first they were a little reserved, and acted as though they imagined we expected them to be very sedate and dignified. For, like some white folks, they imagined the "black-coat" and his wife did not believe in laughter or pleasantry. However, we soon disabused their minds of those erroneous ideas, and before we reached Norway House we were on the best of terms with each other. We knew but little of their language, but some of them had a good ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... unmask, friend, even though we only wear our disguises in pleasantry. Tarry here, and at my return I will conduct thee ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... third Timothy in his monotonous family, and in order to differentiate himself he inscribed on the sign over his shop door, "Timothy Winn, 3d," and was ever after called "Three-Penny Winn." That he enjoyed the pleasantry, and clung to his sign, goes to show that he was a person who would ripen on further acquaintance, were further acquaintance now practicable. His next-door neighbor, Mr. Leonard Serat, who kept a modest tailoring establishment, also tantalizes us a little with a dim intimation ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... quickly, with a desperate but sickly attempt at pleasantry, "that you had gone in for Florence again; she's worth all your 'lost sheep of ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... being missed by Similitude, and by Affinity to take one thing for another. This is a Way of proceeding quite contrary to Metaphor and Allusion; wherein for the most Part lies that Entertainment and Pleasantry of Wit, which strikes so lively on the Fancy, and therefore is acceptable to all People, because its Beauty appears at first Sight, and there is required no Labour of Thoughts to examine what ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... C. Lamb. One might imagine Emma, the nut-brown maid, to be Emma Isola, as that was a phrase Lamb was fond of applying to her—assuming the title "The Sisters" to be a pleasantry; but the late Miss Mary Sabilia Novello assured me that the sisters were herself, Emma Aloysia Novello and Clara ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... gay. Bonaparte was in high spirits. He said to some one, smiling, and pointing to Bernadotte, "You are not aware that the General yonder is a Chouan."—"A Chouan?" repeated Bernadotte, also in a tone of pleasantry. "Ah! General you contradict yourself. Only the other day you taxed me with favouring the violence of the friends of the Republic, and now you accuse me of ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... say, she is an island. In the same way, it is sheer gross irrelevancy to speak of Britain as an island, unless indeed the word be understood as a mere modus loquendi arising out of a rather poor geographical pleasantry. Britain, in reality, is a small continent. Near her—a little to the south-east—is situated the large island of Europe. Thus, the enlightened French traveller passing to these shores should commune within himself: "I now cross to the ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... concerned at this accident, could not help laughing at the lady's pleasantry. Madam, said he, thinking of something else besides what perplexed him, there is nothing in what you fancy; this is my common dinner, and no exraordinary preparations, I assure you. He could not prevail on himself to sit at a table which was not prepared for him; he ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... was accordingly carried into execution on the following Monday. Whilst the queen and her party, totally ignorant of the contrivance, were receiving the compliments I had intended them, their good humor and pleasantry were infinitely heightened by the jest I proposed to pass upon the king, in sending him a piece of paper only, carefully wrapped up in some cloth of their own manufacture, accompanied by a message; importing, that as I was then in the act of distributing ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... a good deal mistaken; and the present Chancellor is not a bad illustration of the grounds of the prevailing error. When we happen to see an individual whose countenance is "all tranquillity and smiles;" who is full of good-humour and pleasantry; whose manners are gentle and conciliating; who is uniformly temperate in his expressions, and punctual and just in his every-day dealings; we are apt to conclude from so fair ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... their cups, and it was very amusing to those who knew Mr. Lawrence as one of the cleanest and most estimable of our citizens to hear Littler refer to him as "my drunken friend, Rheuna." All of which, of course, was only a little pleasantry which I repeat for the benefit of those who attended that convention, and knew ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... Point Comfort, and, if she had good weather off Cape Hatteras, would reach Fortress Monroe by Christmas-day, and he suggested that I might make it the occasion of sending a welcome Christmas gift to the President, Mr. Lincoln, who peculiarly enjoyed such pleasantry. I accordingly sat down and wrote on a slip of paper, to be left at the telegraph-office at Fortress Monroe ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... evening of the 8th of September, the Russians blew up their magazines, fired the buildings, and evacuated the town. So fell Sebastopol, after a siege of three hundred and forty-five days. It has been considered by the English a bit of very choice pleasantry to allude to our oft-recurring statement, that "the decisive blow had been struck," and that "the backbone of the Rebellion was broken." It may not be impertinent to remind them, that the report, first ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... city, and cooeperated with the victors, and booty of indescribable value fell into their hands. As Sobieski took possession of the abandoned camp, stored with all the wealth and luxuries of the East, he wrote, in a tone of pleasantry to his wife, ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... mirth about the little supper, which harmonised exactly with this tone of feeling, and at length the two gentlemen took their leave. There was one circumstance in the leave-taking which occasioned a vast deal of smiling and pleasantry, and that was, that Mr Frank Cheeryble offered his hand to Kate twice over, quite forgetting that he had bade her adieu already. This was held by the elder Mr Cheeryble to be a convincing proof that he was thinking of his German flame, and the jest occasioned immense laughter. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... great, sulky and hulking boy—to take my harmless pleasantry so uncouthly? And how is this?" says she, stamping her foot. "May I not laugh a little at my lover if I choose? I will have you know, Euan, that I do what pleases me with mine own, and am not to sit in dread of your displeasure if I have a mind ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... Jacinto, took them off the Trent, just as Mr. Mason had drawn and fortunately filled a hand with which he hoped to pay a part of the war-debt of the South and get a new overcoat in London. Later, however, the United States disavowed this act of Captain Wilkes, and said it was only a bit of pleasantry on his part. ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... head came back then, and the mass of men, catching sight of the mad, glad light that flared in his eyes, rolled back to give them room. He laughed at Harrigan. He was laughing at himself. They heard and marveled at the pleasantry of ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... and awful shadows mingled with its light, terribly instructive, and like warnings from hell and the grave. The Second Part is more continually and uninterruptedly cheerful, full of good nature and pleasantry, and showing the pilgrimage in lights and shades that are ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... with so serious an air that Father Griffen hastily placed upon the table the glass which he was raising to his lips, and regarded the chevalier with as much astonishment as distrust. Until then he had really believed the matter to be only a pleasantry or idle boast. "Are you sincere in this resolve? This ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... was received with favor, though rather as a pleasantry than as a serious matter; and, after the faithful had all marched by the mizzen-mast, the subject was again ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... their privilege to use that little Pliocene pleasantry about the boy who is not strong enough to work being educated for a preacher. We are apt to overlook the fact, however, that the boy not strong enough to work is often the only one who desires an education—all of this according to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... mode of conduct exposes her; or how exceedingly cold and hollow that ceremony must be, which is not the language of a warm heart. She does not reflect how insipid those smiles are, which indicate no internal pleasantry; nor how awkward those graces, which spring not from habits of good-nature and benevolence. Thus, pertness succeeds to delicacy, assurance to modesty, and all the vagaries of a listless to the sensibilities of ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... for the Pope; about the other man having said something against the Pope's morals. They always do that, you know. They put it on the Pope because Bellegarde was once in the Zouaves. But it was about HER morals—SHE was the Pope!" Lord Deepmere pursued, directing an eye illumined by this pleasantry toward Mademoiselle Nioche, who was bending gracefully over her lap-dog, apparently absorbed in conversation with it. "I dare say you think it rather odd that I should—a—keep up the acquaintance," the young man resumed. ...
— The American • Henry James
... frequently asked my father," he writes, "why he did not use the name of Macgregor; his replies were significant, and give a picture of the man: 'It isn't a good Methodist name. You can use it, but it will do you no good.' Yet the old gentleman, by way of pleasantry, used to announce himself to friends ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Cline, at once recognised the case as one of the utmost gravity, though they did not say as much to the patient. On Thursday, the 14th of November, he was tapped and greatly relieved. He said he was not appalled by the operation, and during its progress he did not lay aside his usual good-humoured pleasantry. He was soon out again, but only for a few days, and a fortnight after another tapping was necessary. Again he went out to dinners and parties, which must have been most imprudent at his age and in his state. But he does not seem to have acted contrary to medical advice. He was very ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... seemed, young Frost made no reply to this pleasantry; for already he was impatient to be gone. Although the room was intensely cold and uncomfortable, still his guest lingered, standing before the massive cabinet, exclaiming upon the exquisiteness of the workmanship, and every now and ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... chair I sat for hours beside her, told her of my love which would remain forever the same; I reminded her of her pledges of constancy, reviving instances of our past lives, even bringing to my mind bright bits of pleasantry which had been habitual to ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... come out square myself," she said, by way of farewell pleasantry; "but there are times ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... Reviewers, he had alluded, with provoking pleasantry, to a meeting which had taken place at Chalk Farm some years before, between Mr Jeffrey, the Edinburgh reviewer, and Mr Moore, without recollecting, indeed without having heard, that Mr Moore had explained, through the newspapers, what was alleged to have been ridiculous ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... Patch's grandson, Bloeckman took this as a form of pleasantry. After fifteen minutes filled with estimable brilliancies, Gloria appeared, fresh in starched yellow, bringing atmosphere and an increase ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... way, in twice crossing this great continent, I could make a second Joe Miller of one, and a Jane Shore of the other. If this traveller could have understood the Beggars' Opera, the humour of Sam. Foote, or the pleasantry among English sailors, watermen, and the lower order of the people, he would have known, that, though the English nation have not so much vivacity as the French, they are behind-hand with no nation whatever, where true wit and genuine humour are to be displayed. ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... years old. Had nothing to care for but an old mother; didn't know what he should do, if he lost her. Though so long in this country, he had all the simplicity and childlike light-heartedness which belong to the Old World's people. He laughed at the smallest pleasantry, and showed his great white English teeth; he took a joke without retorting by an impertinence; he had a very limited curiosity about all that was going on; he had small store of information; he lived chiefly in his horses, it seemed to me. His ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... also. This is the night of all others, when Indian orators try to be humorous and witty. As a race they do not excel along these lines, but sometimes they get off some very good things. While they began their speeches with some bright pleasantry that brought smiles, and even laughter, there was never anything unbecoming to the place, and all quickly drifted into a strain of thanksgiving to God for his blessings. To listen to their grateful ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... boy's story of his love and regret with sympathy and apparent understanding. He encouraged him wherever he sought encouragement. He had a pleasantry of happy expression wherever it was needed. In a word he played to the last degree upon a nature as weak as it ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... down?" said Mr. Ward, but he meant it as a pleasantry. Mr. Willard Nash was not often turned down, even at this early age. He was ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... rose with the arrival of each trunk, and we were pleased or not as we found it soaked or dry. We applauded and admired the greater sufferers among us: a lady who opened a dripping box was felt to have perpetrated a pleasantry; and a Brazilian gentleman, whose luggage dropped to pieces and was scattered in the flood about the diligence, was looked upon as a very subtile humorist. Our own contribution to these witty passages was the epigrammatic display of a reeking trunk full of the ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... she said. "I have always, from my childhood, heard this talk that Germany must grow, must get to the sea. I thought it was just talk—a pleasantry!" ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... take this pleasantry as one might suppose he would. His own primitive aversion to the strange, deformed child made him weakly sensitive. He recoiled from Falstar's gibe with a sneaking shame he dared not defend by a ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... ashore under a running fire of pleasantry about their plight, and were told moral stories about people who tried to play jokes on others and got the worst of it themselves, and Sahwah advised them gravely never to go out in a rowboat that wouldn't stand without hitching, and so on and so forth until the poor Hares did ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... 'chaffing' these grotesque beings, who usually reply with some gross, outrageous insolence. At the best they utter impertinences which, issuing from a big and barbarous mouth in a peculiar patois, pass for pleasantry amongst those who are not over-nice about the quality of that article. The tone of voice is peculiar; it is pitched in the usual savage key, modified by the twang of the chapel and by the cantilene of the Yankee—originally Puritan Lancashire. ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... palefaces were filled with fear," said Charley, quickly, regretting his attempt at pleasantry, "but they found that they had been only children frightened at shadows. They have slain that which made the noises full ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... to gallivanting, like the rest," he observed with coarse pleasantry. "I'd thought you were a staid and sober-minded woman for your years, but it seems that you are of a bunch with ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... delivered this defiance to humanity he shut himself up, without the smallest expectation of its being answered. One day, however, a deaf and seemingly senseless lad from a distant village brought him a belated telegram; and Glengyle, in his acrid pleasantry, gave him a new farthing. At least he thought he had done so, but when he turned over his change he found the new farthing still there and a sovereign gone. The accident offered him vistas of sneering speculation. Either way, the boy would show the greasy ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... armies are full of pleasant and pious folk. But they have yielded to the only enemy that matters—the enemy within. They have sinned against passion and truth, and vain will be their strife after virtue. As the years pass, they are censured. Their pleasantry and their piety show cracks, their wit becomes cynicism, their unselfishness hypocrisy; they feel and produce discomfort wherever they go. They have sinned against Eros and against Pallas Athene, and not by any heavenly intervention, ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... had been indulging in some clumsy pleasantry, amusing herself one day by inscribing in the sale-book, alongside of the dabs and skate and mackerel sold by auction, the names of some of the best-known ladies and gentlemen of the Court. This bestowal of piscine names upon high dignitaries, these entries of the ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... continued he, 'I believe, if I am rightly informed, there can hardly be said to have been any duties hitherto,' and he gave a sort of half laugh, as though to pass off the accusation in the guise of a pleasantry. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... best grace and sensibility of womanhood. As intelligent as the strongest, she is at the same time as feminine as the weakest of her sex: she talks like a poet and a philosopher, yet, strange to say, she talks, for all the world, just like a woman. She is as full of pleasantry, too, and as merry "within the limit of becoming mirth," as she is womanly and wise; and, which is more, her arch sportiveness always relishes as the free outcome of perfect moral health. Nothing indeed can be more fitting and well-placed than her demeanour, now bracing her ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... Athenians has been sketched by Plutarch[29] with considerable minuteness, and his representations have been permitted, until of late years, to pass unchallenged. He has described them as at once passionate and placable, easily moved to anger, and as easily appeased; fond of pleasantry and repartee, and heartily enjoying a laugh; pleased to hear themselves praised, and yet not annoyed by criticism and censure; naturally generous towards those who were poor and in humble circumstances, and humane even towards their enemies; jealous of their liberties, and keeping ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... think proper to call them commands, Mr Graham, I conclude you intend to obey them," said Mrs Marshal, with a forced smile and an attempt at pleasantry. ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... and at the fair above mentioned—had these facetious wights, with more merriment than discretion, ventured to exhibit themselves before the cortege of Henri, and to exclaim loud enough to reach the ears of royalty, "a la fraise on connoit le veau!" a piece of pleasantry for which they subsequently ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... seldom seen his mind greater or more collected. There was frequently a considerable degree of vivacity in his sallies, and they would probably have had a greater share, had not the concern and dejection I could not disguise damped the spirit of pleasantry he seemed not ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... some shadow of what he was to be. For with all his beauty, power, breeding, urbanity and mirth, there was in those days something soulless in our friend. He would astonish us by sallies, witty, innocent and inhumane; and by a misapplied Johnsonian pleasantry, demolish honest sentiment. I can still see and hear him, as he went his way along the lamplit streets, LA CI DAREM LA MANO on his lips, a noble figure of a youth, but following vanity and incredulous ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and at the signal the others came forward. Ivan presented each in turn, applying to each a German name that had been agreed upon during the night's travel. Nicolas expressed his pleasure at seeing them and after a few words of pleasantry, said: ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... actually starting— they'd receive a wire by noon. They didn't receive it, but by his theory the portent was only the stronger. It had moreover its grave as well as its gay side, since Granger's paradox and pleasantry were only the method most open to him of conveying what he felt. He literally heard the knell sound, and in expressing this to Miss Wenham with the conversational freedom that seemed best to pay his ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... immediate neighbourhood laughed noiselessly, in a bounden-duty kind of way, at their superior's pleasantry, and Laura, feeling as though she had been hit, crossed to the other table. Miss Chapman, the head governess, was neither so hard-looking nor so brilliant as Miss Day. She even eyed Laura somewhat uneasily, ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... to the door. Farewells and good wishes were intermingled, the joyous laugh at some pleasantry or sally of wit made the house and yard alive for some time, the pastors had arranged their exchanges for several months to come, visits and excursions were planned and agreed upon, till one by one the vehicles departed, leaving the parsonage silent, while its occupants sat down to rest a ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... heartily at his pleasantry. He was a French-Canadian half-breed and spoke with a strong foreign accent. Ambrose joined in ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... the sifters, who had recently joined the "company": the parties alluded to were requested to favor them with the recital; and though the request was made with only a half-concealed irony, still it was all in good-natured pleasantry, and was immediately complied ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... Beauty!" The emotion was general but Lord Nelville did not yet share it, and though he had observed in his own mind that in order to judge of such a ceremony we must lay aside the reserve of the English and the pleasantry of the French, he did not share heartily in the fete till at ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... the apparently ridiculous appearance, and it is only the abnormally gifted child or grown-up person who discovers this by instinct. It takes a lifetime to arrive at the position described in Sterne's words: "I would not have let fallen an unseasonable pleasantry in the venerable presence of misery to be entitled to all the with ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... particularly like about the book is the picture that it gives of sardonic pleasantry and intellectual and sophisticated virtuosity going quietly on side by side with all the splendours and barbarities of absolute autocracy and summary jurisdiction. It throws a new or unaccustomed ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... laughed; "he is a fair size, and sits up well in the saddle," a harmless pleasantry which, to judge by his peevish exclamation, ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... set Fortune at defiance"; he speaks also of "the buoyancy of his spirits and the inward light of his mind"; and adds,—"There is nothing gloomy or bitter in his ordinary talk, but, rather, a wild, rough, boyish pleasantry, much more like Nature ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... civility we parted, but it was not until I had rejoined my anxious friends with the ambulance that I began to suspect Commandant Cronje of a piece of pleasantry. Major Pollock, it appeared, had interceded on my behalf so effectually that my fate had been decided and my safe return promised long before I had met the Commandant. He afterwards entertained himself by playing upon my anxiety, which, I have ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... palaces, and men and women bearing famous names; worlds within worlds, high diplomatic figures, the partisan leaders, the constant stream of agitated rumours about weighty affairs in England and Europe; the keen play of ambition, passions, interests, under easy manners and fugitive pleasantry; gross and sordid aims, as King Hudson was soon to find out, masked by exterior refinement; so much kindness with a free spice of criticism and touches of ill-nature; so much of the governing force ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... from the famous Silbermann."(6) Through the whole book runs a humour not often found elsewhere in Mickiewicz; the reports of the debates in Jankiel's tavern and in Dobrzyn hamlet are masterly in their blending of kindly pleasantry with photographic fidelity to truth. The poet sees the ludicrous side of the Warden, the Chamberlain, the Seneschal, and the other Don Quixotes who fill his pages, and yet he loves them with the most tender ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... Oxford undergraduates, with whom parity of standing threw me into collision at my first outset, knew anything at all of English literature. The Spectator seemed to me the only English book of a classical rank which they had read; and even this less for its inimitable delicacy, humor, and refined pleasantry in dealing with manners and characters, than for its insipid and meagre essays, ethical or critical. This was no fault of theirs: they had been sent to the book chiefly as a subject for Latin translations, or of other exercises; and, in such a view, the vague generalities of superficial morality ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... boys,' said he once to a mob that had gathered at his door, 'if any of you has a stick, just leave it in my porch for a keepsake.' With shouts of laughter the shillelaghs came flying over the heads of the people in front till the porch was filled. The pleasantry gave Howe a stock of fuel, and sent away the mob disarmed and ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... them, were obliged to laugh with the rest. But the unsparing satirist was not content with this, but went on, with most of the other attendants upon the King, and being intimately versed in court scandal, he directed his lash with telling effect. As a contrast to the malicious pleasantry of the Cap Justice, were the gambols and jests of Robin Goodfellow—a merry imp, who, if he led people into mischief, was always ready to get them out of it. Then there was a dance by Bill Huckler, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... of pleasantry at the expense of my poor steed; which, not content with attacking his physical, extended to his moral qualities. An old gentleman near me observing, 'that I ought not to have mounted him at all, seeing he was so damned groggy;' to which I ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... spoke out Don Juan, disgusted with this ill-timed pleasantry, "a proof that there has been a forced entry into the chamber is this broken glass of the window, of which you see some pieces still lying ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... pleasure in watching his pencil and listening to his discourse; 'and Giotto,' says Vasari, 'who had ever his repartee and bon-mot ready, held him there, fascinated at once with the magic of his pencil and pleasantry of his tongue.' We are not told the length of his sojourn at Naples, but it must have been for a considerable period, judging from the quantity of works he executed there. He had certainly returned to Florence ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... own pleasantry. Frances looked at Nola with brows lifted inquiringly, as if waiting her verification. Then the grave young lady settled back in her saddle and laughed merrily, reaching across and touching her friend's arm ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... said Frances, laughing with great pleasantry; and, taking the hand of her sister affectionately within both of her own, she added, with a ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... pleased with such an exercise of their understanding. Steps, motions, attitudes, figures, positions, now were substituted to speech; and there resulted from them an expression so natural, images so resembling, a pathos so moving, or a pleasantry so agreeable, that people imagined they heard the actions they saw. The gestures alone supplied the place of the sweetness of the voice, of the energy of speech, and of the ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... colloquial eminence, and each of them thought the other alone worthy to be her peer. Openly therefore when they met, they combated for precedence of admiration, with placid though high-strained intellectual exertion on the one side, and an exuberant pleasantry or classical allusion or quotation on the other; without the ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... for some time, for it was like waking out of a dream when Gervex and Mademoiselle D'Avary got up to go, and, seeing how interested I was, he laughed, saying to Mademoiselle D'Avary that it would be kind to leave me with my new friend. His pleasantry jarred, and though I should like to have remained, I followed them into the street, where the moon was shining over the Luxembourg Gardens. And as I have said before, I dearly love to walk by a perambulator in which Love is wheeling a pair of lovers: but it is sad to find oneself alone ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... as we took our places at table, he addressed me with a twinkle: "We are just what you would call two bob."[42] He offered me port, I remember, as the proper milk of youth; spoke of "twenty-shilling notes"; and throughout the meal was full of old-world pleasantry and quaintness, like an ancient boy on a holiday. But what I recall chiefly was his confession that he had never read Othello to an end.[43] Shakespeare was his continual study. He loved nothing better than to display his knowledge and memory by adducing parallel passages from Shakespeare, ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the world and all that it inhabits, were concentrated in Charles Fox, William Pitt, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and the circle of men of pleasantry, loose lives, and vivacious temperaments, who, with whatever diminishing lustre, revolved ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... teething, uncle, as sure as you're not; either that, or he's got a hot potato in his poor little mouzey-wouzey;' and poor O'Flaherty smiled a great silent moist smile at the well-bred pleasantry. The major, who did not choose to hear Mag's banter, made a formal, but rather smiling salute. The lieutenant returned it, and down came the unlucky mortar and a china plate, on which Puddock had mingled the ingredients, with ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... at court; I shall at least see that he is presented to the queen at once. I wonder if he dances; I suppose not. He has probably been too busy cutting and thrusting." And she laughed again at her own pleasantry. ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... steps towards the door; then turning back and hesitating, like one who would make an impertinent pleasantry if he dared, he asked what he was to do with the wench Mysie Happer whom the Southron knight had ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... the sad seared face, I weary of seeing thee, And thy draggled cloak, and thy hobbling pace, And thy too-forced pleasantry! ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... followed the doctor's pleasantry, but no smile appeared upon his countenance; for though uttering quaint and often very good, but oftener very bitter, things, he never moved a muscle of his face, while others were shaking their sides at his sallies. He was, in more ways than one, a remarkable man. A massive ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... am convinced this is only a little pleasantry on your part, or perhaps a mere trial whether I am possessed of the spirit and determination of a De Benyon, I shall, of course, please you by not complying with ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... she was hobnobbing with the General, and that she was in possession of one of the five keys of the house in the Eglisottes quarter; and as he was as jealous as an Andalusian, and felt a horror for that kind of pleasantry, he swore that he would make his rival pay a hundred fold for the trick which he had ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... This superficially heartless pleasantry he would deliver with a sweeping wink at Henry and his four girls; but Mrs. Flower would see nothing to laugh at, for humour was ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... Angelo, from telling of his own Young days and early fortunes good and ill, Was with remembrance smitten, as it chanced, Of some old grief 'twas grief to think upon. And so he changed his theme o' the sudden, donned A shadowy mask of laboured pleasantry, And said: "My wife, sir, hath a pretty gift Of singing and of luting: it may be If you should let your tongue turn mendicant— Not for itself but for its needy kin, Your ears—she might be got to give an alms For those twin brethren." Whereupon the guest Unto his hostess turned and smiling said: ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... the occasion rising. I never lost an opportunity to flatter either the person of my visitor, if it should be a lady, or, if it should be a man, the greatness of his country in war. And in case my compliments should miss their aim, I was always ready to cover my retreat with some agreeable pleasantry, which would often earn me the name of an 'oddity' or a 'droll fellow.' In this way, although I was so left-handed a toy-maker, I made out to be rather a successful merchant; and found means to procure many little delicacies and ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Don't inconvenience yourself!"—and this pleasantry amused them so much that they kept repeating it twenty times a day for ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... Bellamy's kitchen—a refreshment-room, where persons who are not Members are admitted on sufferance, as it were—and perceiving two or three gentlemen at supper, who, he was aware, were not Members, and could not, in that place, very well resent his behaviour, he indulged in the pleasantry of sitting with his booted leg on the table at which they were supping! He is generally ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Sabas' little pleasantry arrived in the form of the imposing and preposterous commission, the collector smiled. He had not expected such prompt and overwhelming response to his recommendation. He despatched a muchacho at once to ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... Academy, which consists of forty members, took forty years to compile their Dictionary. JOHNSON. Sir, thus it is. This is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman.' With so much ease and pleasantry could he talk of that prodigious labour which he had undertaken ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... the United States, 1849, 203 ff., who bring into relief the difference between "money as the subject" and "money as the instrument of trade," was not wholly unfounded. Ad. Mueller exaggerates a correct thought, and causes it to degenerate into a species of mystic pleasantry, when he calls every individual in the state and every commodity that possesses value, in exchange ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... festival a thing of beauty. Song is almost ceaseless. The boatman sings at the oar, the family at evening worship, the girls at night in the guest-house, sometimes the workman at his toil. No occasion is too small for the poets and musicians; a death, a visit, the day's news, the day's pleasantry, will be set to rhyme and harmony. Even half-grown girls, the occasion arising, fashion words and train choruses of children for its celebration. Song, as with all Pacific islanders, goes hand in hand with the dance, and both shade into the drama. Some of the performances ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... giddy air displays itself in many secondary ways. A certain sort of laboured pleasantry has already been recognised, and may perhaps have been remarked in these papers, as a sort peculiar to that climate. People utter their judgments with a cannonade of syllables; a big word is as good as a meal ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... therefore the interval between Sunday and Tuesday evening, did not pass without some mixture of cheerfulness. On Monday, Dr. Fordyce forbad the child's having the breast, and we therefore procured puppies to draw off the milk. This occasioned some pleasantry of Mary with me and the other attendants. Nothing could exceed the equanimity, the patience and affectionateness of the poor sufferer. I intreated her to recover; I dwelt with trembling fondness on every favourable circumstance; and, as far it was possible in so dreadful ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... it is. It's your life, your nature, just as in my nature there is nothing akin to it. That is why I say you are made of different clay from myself; and I am very glad of it," he added with an air of pleasantry which she saw veiled genuine earnestness, "for I wish you the best ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... some years of service, he was presented to a living sufficient to support him; but he often found it necessary to purchase his preferment by a species of Simony, which furnished an inexhaustible subject of pleasantry to three or four generations of scoffers. With his cure he was expected to take a wife. The wife had ordinarily been in the patron's service; and it was well if she was not suspected of standing too high in the patron's favor. Indeed the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... talking so much about him, that one day he asked, "Wife, how is it we cannot help talking of Mr. Charless?—what is there about him that impresses us so? It is not really what he says, but the way he says it. It is his humor, his benevolence of manner, his inimitable pleasantry, etc." ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... flowers of rhetoric, no eloquent passages; he is not a wit, a humorist or a clown; yet, so great a vein of pleasantry and good nature pervades what he says, gliding over a deep current of practical argument, he keeps his hearers in a smiling good mood with their mouths open ready to swallow all he says. His sense of the ludicrous is very ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... the youth with a lip that betrayed by its tremulous motion the interest he took in her speech—"never includes a long period of time. But," he added with a smile of good- humoured pleasantry, "if admitted to such a distinction, I should not feel myself competent to the task of commenting on so much innocence and purity, as I know I should ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... is so much pleasantry and humour, as well as spirit and heroism in this story, as we have it recorded by William de Malmesbury, who represents the menace as thrown out in the King's presence, that I shall make no apology for setting down ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... heart, in which her suitors were about to encounter a formidable adversary. It is a fact that when a young woman's heart is chilled her head becomes clear; she observes with great rapidity of judgment, and with a tinge of pleasantry which Shakespeare's Beatrice so admirably represents in "Much Ado about Nothing." Modeste was seized with a deep disgust for men, now that the most distinguished among them had betrayed her hopes. When a woman loves, what she takes for disgust is simply ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... then I invite him with all my heart," she said, with a bitter pleasantry; "he can't be a great deal worse than the society I have sometimes had to share; and, if he discloses the futurity that awaits me, he will have been the most instructive companion that fortune ever ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... friendly importunity of Geneva, at length determined to accept Madame d'Epinay's offer of the Hermitage on conditions which left him an entire sentiment of independence of movement and freedom from all sense of pecuniary obligation, he was immediately exposed to a very copious torrent of pleasantry and remonstrance from the highly social circle who met round D'Holbach's dinner-table. They deemed it sheer midsummer madness, or even a sign of secret depravity, to quit their cheerful world for the dismal solitude of ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... never judges a knight by his outward guise," returned Camilla, with soft pleasantry. She adored ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... in her throat, until, by stealing a glance at her husband, she saw the cloud passing over his fine brow; and happening to catch her affectionate smile; his face was at once lighted into a look of pleasantry. ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... he, passing it off with that old stock pleasantry of the range, which covered anything and everything that a man didn't want ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... Post Office.—As the Savings' Bank Department has for years been the Cinderella of the Civil Service, this is a subject that will not create much interest; however, you might possibly extract a pleasantry out of the name of the present Postmaster-General in connection with the now-appeased employes. With a little trouble you should be able to say something quite sparkling about what the "officers" ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various
... president, with mock gravity, "I consider the whole affair, however ridiculous, most immoral and reprehensible. What, shall a crack-shot make a target of an elder? Never! Let us seek more appropriate butts for our barrels! You may perhaps look upon the whole as a piece of pleasantry but let me tell you that you ran a narrow chance of being indicted for a breach of the peace! And remember, that even shooting a deer may not prove so dear a shot as bringing ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... soon as she can." She adds, "I have a good portion which they cannot hinder me of." This correspondent is one of "the women who seldom ask advice before they have bought their wedding clothes." There was no sense of childhood in an age that could think this an opportune pleasantry. ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... have to put up with us low fellows for a bit instead, which if yer don't like it, yer can lump it, and if yer won't lump it, where will yer have it?" and he tapped his bayonet invitingly. Needless to say, the speaker's pleasantry was impracticable. But the officer did not know that; he only knew the way they have in Germany. Wherefore the officer relapsed into a ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan |
