"Raillery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ashamed for him or, with his gaze fixed upon her with an air at once passionate and complacent, sat hitching his shoulder and coughing as from time to time he smiled and whispered something in her ear. Yet throughout he wore the same expression of raillery as was peculiar to him even ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... too much to say that the Protestants were innocent of any infraction upon the letter or spirit of the Edict of Amboise. They would have been angels, not men, had they been proof against the contagious spirit of raillery that infected the men of the sixteenth century. Where they dared, they not unfrequently held up their opponents to ridicule in the coarse style so popular with all classes.[415] Thus a contemporary Roman Catholic recounts with ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... If a man who is resolved to blow his brains out is accosted, he presses the trigger, he doesn't conceal his pistol. There was one alone, among all his friends, who loved him enough not to see the ludicrousness of his position; one alone generous enough not to torture him with raillery; it was Sauvresy. ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... suffocating by night. Those who are able to afford it sit guzzling beer or boyaloa. The perspiration produced by copious draughts seems to give enjoyment, the evaporation causing a feeling of coolness. The attendants of the chief, on these occasions, keep up a continuous roar of bantering, raillery, laughing, and swearing. The dance is kept up in the moonlight till past midnight. The women stand clapping their hands continuously, and the old men sit admiringly, and say, "It is really very fine." As crowds came to see me, I employed much of my time in ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... was one of affectionate raillery as she gathered her draperies about her in the automobile. The notion of Anna's responsibilities amused her; Anna was so untouched by them—as smooth-skinned, as slim and vivacious, as the forty-year-old mother of two boys entering college, a girl in the schoolroom and another in the nursery, as ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... the head and fountain of other evils of the worst kind. All the prophets attack it with all the weapons in their armoury—with hot indignation and close argument and scalding tears. Isaiah is remarkable for attacking it with raillery and sarcasm. He takes his readers into the idol workshop and details the process of their manufacture. He shows us the workmen, surrounded with their plates of metal and logs of wood, out of which the god is to be fashioned, and busy with their files and ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... King dining yesterday at the Dutch Embassador's, after dinner they drank and were pretty merry; and among the rest of the King's company there was that worthy fellow my Lord of Rochester, and Tom Killigrew, whose mirth and raillery offended the former so much, that he did give Tom Killigrew a box on the ear in the King's presence; which do give much offence to the people here at Court to see how cheap the King makes himself, and the more, for that the King hath not only passed by the thing and pardoned ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... the Queen, "and let not our indulgence lead you to forget the difference betwixt yourself and the kinswoman of England.—But you, my dear cousin," she continued, resuming her tone of raillery, "how can you, who are so good-natured, begrudge us poor wretches a few minutes' laughing, when we have had so many days devoted to weeping and gnashing ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... objection could be made, and the ensuing raillery Fleda bore with steadiness at least if not with coolness; for Charlton heard it, and she ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... him. Still another element of good conversation is the right sort of gossip; gossip which is contemporary and past history of people we know and of people we don't know; gossip which is in no way a temptation to detract. Raillery may also become a legitimate part of good conversation, if the ridicule is like a good parody of good literature—in no way malignant or commonplace. "Shop," if nicely adjusted to the conversational conditions, may have its rightful share in interesting talk. Friends often meet together just ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... harsh French. I thought that excess of imitation perfectly scandalous, and I could not help telling De la Haye that he ought to change his pupil's deportment, because such servile mimicry would only expose him to bitter raillery. As I was giving him my opinion on that subject, Bavois made his appearance, and when he had spent an hour in the company of the young man he was entirely of the same mind. Calvi died two or three years later. De la Haye, who was bent upon forming pupils, became, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... capacity for listening, her eloquent silence and gentle flashes of raillery, her occasional caress—all were balm to him in his ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... woman's loveliness, such as, in Portia, should he at once stately and fascinating and inspire at once respect and passion, was felicitous beyond the reach of descriptive phrases." Then, on her appearance in "Much Ado About Nothing:" "She permeates the raillery of Beatrice with an indescribable charm of mischievous sweetness. The silver arrows of her pungent wit have no barb, for evidently she does not mean that they shall really wound. Her appearance and carriage are ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... oblivious of her guest's blunders and infelicitous remarks, but Miss St. John had a frank, merry way of recognizing them, and yet malice and ridicule were so entirely absent from her words and ways that Graham soon positively enjoyed being laughed at, and much preferred her delicate open raillery, which gave him a chance to defend himself, to a smiling mask that would leave him in uncertainty as to the fitness of his replies. There was a subtle flattery also in this course, for she treated him as one capable of holding his own, and not in need of social charity and ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... in the Row, where Brutus turned as naturally to Wild Rose as the sunflower to the sun, and Diana and I grew more intimate every day. Happiness and security made me almost witty. I was merciless in my raillery of the eccentric exhibitions of horsemanship which were to be met with, and Diana was provoked by my comments to the sweetest silvery laughter. As for Colonel Cockshott, whom I had once suspected of a desire to be my rival, he had long become a 'negligible quantity;' and if I ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... her sister's raillery, but she had gained enough sense to say very little about the Listers and their stroke ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... fell with a lurid glare over the heart of his wife, who, seeing him determined to cover his designs by light raillery, replied nothing; but, calling to her her three children, kissed them, and bade them set aside their sports, and return with her to the Castle. As they passed along, Cockburn still cast a wistful eye to the skies, which wore a threatening aspect—the sun having been surrounded in ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... her raillery entrapped both him and Anne in a scene of coquetry. No longer embarrassed by the feeling of strangeness and apprehension which had depressed her spirits on their first meeting after his return from college, Anne now assumed ease and liveliness of manner. Every hour he spent in her society removed ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... raillery, Lanty was enough concerned in the safety of her horse to visit it the next day with a view of bringing it nearer home. She had just stepped into the alder fringe of a dry "run" when she came suddenly upon the figure ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... journey. But he stopped her at every turn that he might press her arm the closer to his own, that he might look into the brightness of her eyes, and prolong his hour of delight. There were no more gibes now on her tongue, no raillery at his London finery, no laughing comments on his coming and going. With downright honesty she told him everything: how she had loved him before her heart was warranted in such a passion; how, with much thinking, she had ...
— The Parson's Daughter of Oxney Colne • Anthony Trollope
... secretly pleased to discover that it was sufficiently important to be worthy of such bright raillery and humorous reproof. Salmagundi was only a lively jeu d'esprit, and Irving was never proud of it. "I know," said Paulding, writing to him in later life, "you consider old Sal as a sort of saucy, flippant trollope, belonging to nobody, and not worth fathering." But, nevertheless, ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... tub all out of the same old blue bed-spread, and a white linen marvel contrived from a pair of sheets for Sunday. Please don't send me out into the big world—other people might not think me as lovely as you do," and her raillery was ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... sorrow the poet lived many more years suffering great agony from a spinal complaint which confined him to his bed, or "mattress grave" as he called it. His powers of wit and raillery never failed him, even to the last. On the night before he died an anxious friend called to bid farewell. He asked if the dying man had made his "peace with God." Heine replied with a wan smile: "Do not trouble ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... all this?" asked Halcyone quietly, while her eyes smiled at his raillery. "Do I look such an old-fashioned ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... not answer the question in his usual manner. He would customarily smile gently at her badinage, and perhaps say a word intended to show that he was not in the least moved by her raillery. But in this instance he was very grave, and stood before her a moment making no answer at all, looking at her in a sad and almost solemn manner. "They have told you that they can do without you," she said, breaking out ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... in October, 1848. The press of Paris noticed my departure only with raillery. When a man of letters has no party, no followers, at his back, when he takes his way alone and independently, the least that can be expected is that the world should give itself the pleasure of insulting him a little on his passage. In Belgium I met with unexpected ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... is the kind of woman that you will fall violently in love with, some day, Dick. It will be your punishment." She had fully recovered by now, and the old-time raillery was in the ascendant. "Oh, she has read you fairly well. You are good and kind and wise, but these virtues are not of equal weight. Your goodness and wisdom will never catch up with your abundant kindness. I've a good deal to thank you ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... little dislike at my raillery; and, by her bridling up, I perceived she expected to be treated hereafter not as Jenny Distaff, but Mrs. Tranquillus. I was very well pleased with this change in her humor; and, upon talking with her on several subjects, I could not but fancy I saw ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... and freedom from all restraint in the exercise of the mental powers; and it is therefore the more perfect, the more unreservedly it goes to work, and the more lively the appearance there is of purposeless fun and unrestrained caprice. Wit and raillery may be employed in a sportive manner, but they are also both of them compatible with the severest earnestness, as is proved by the example of the later Roman satires and the ancient Iambic poetry of the Greeks, where ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... to understand that she was always thus, nor over-often. More frequently that side of her which I soon came to call the mother's was turned to me, and I was made to stand a target for her wit and raillery. But she was ever changeful as a child, and in the midst of some light jesting mood would sober instantly and give my age ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... my presence of mind a little, I took the locket out of the bit of paper (the locket indeed! it was as big as a barndoor padlock), and slowly put it into my shirt. "Thank you, Aunt," said I, with admirable raillery. "I shall always value this present for the sake of you, who gave it me; and it will recall to me my uncle, and ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he went free. This escape he owed partly to the station he had reached, partly to the fact that his family claims had been based on birth so obscure at the time as to subject the claimants to good-natured raillery. ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... uncharacteristic of him, that it even forced itself on the notice of Pedgift Junior and the clerks as he passed through the outer office. Accustomed to make the old man their butt, they took a boisterously comic view of the marked alteration in him. Deaf to the merciless raillery with which he was assailed on all sides, he stopped opposite young Pedgift, and, looking him attentively in the face, said, in a quiet, absent manner, like a man thinking aloud, "I wonder whether ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... you are here, for your folks are not the sort to fight us.' With such assurance spoke the good knight that Lord Ludovico took pleasure there-in, though his say was enough to astound him. 'On my faith, my gentleman,' said he, as it were in raillery, 'I have a good mind that the King of France's army and mine should come together, in order that by battle it may be known to whom of right belongs this heritage, for I see no other way to it.' 'By my sacred oath, my lord,' said the good knight, 'I would that ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... pursuit: then, then, ye gods, just then, by an over-transport, to fall just fainting before the surrendering gates, unable to receive the yielding treasure! Oh Sylvia! What demon, malicious at my glory, seized my vigour? What god, envious of my mighty joy, rendered me a shameful object of his raillery? Snatched my (till then) never failing power, and left me dying on thy charming bosom. Heavens, how I lay! Silent with wonder, rage and ecstasy of love, unable to complain, or rail, or storm, or seek for ease, but with my sighs alone, ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... Jane could not forbear a shaft of raillery. "You'll leave yourself some time to be a ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... but know is going forward round me. I see it gathering, crowding, driving on, In wild uncustomary movements. Well, In due time, doubtless, it will reach even me. Where think you I have been, dear lady? Nay, No raillery. The turmoil of the camp, The spring-tide of acquaintance rolling in, The pointless jest, the empty conversation, Oppressed and stifled me. I gasped for air— I could not breathe—I was constrained to fly, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... could not comprehend her business success and Uncle Pyke would not admit it) and especially odious to her was the Occleve's polite interest in her direction when Aunt Belle, poor-relationing her, would turn to her from coquettish raillery of him with, "Dear child, you're eating nothing." He would smile towards her and, fatuously anxious to please, offer some remark that might draw her into the conversation. She never would be so drawn. She scarcely ever exchanged ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... ordered a little equipage of all things necessary for me, while I was in her service, yet my ideas were wholly taken up with what I saw on every side of me, and I winked at my own littleness, as people do at their own faults. The captain understood my raillery very well, and merrily replied that he did not observe my stomach so good, although I had fasted all day; and, continuing in his mirth, protested he would have gladly given a hundred pounds to have seen my closet in the eagle's bill, and afterwards in its fall from so ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... raillery was gay, He loved the simpleton to mock, To make wise men the idiot play Openly or 'neath decent cloak. Yet sometimes this or that deceit Encountered punishment complete, And sometimes into snares as well Himself just like ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... Mr. Lyon without any protection here?" The remark was made in a tone of good-humored raillery, but for some reason it seemed to ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... It looks as if you were weary of me, and wanted to break my heart. To what purpose is all this prelude of yours, to introduce to me somebody, who, by her likeness to my daughter, may expose me to your scoff and raillery? This is a disobedience I never expected from ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... a proposal is to refuse," said he with gentle raillery. "A man is a fool who does not understand and sheer off when a woman asks ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... I've had as much pleasure as this is giving me." And he made a bow that hid its seriousness behind a smile of good-humored raillery. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... company that I did not like, lived beyond what I could support, and sometimes lost at play more than I cared to pay; upon which one day I took occasion to mention it, but lightly, and said to her by way of raillery that we lived merrily for as long as it would last. She turned short upon me: "What do you mean?" says she; "why, you do not pretend to be uneasy, do ye?" "No, no, madam, not I, by no means; it is no business of mine, you know," said I, "to inquire what my wife spends, or whether she spends more ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... complete and absolute infidels on this particular than give themselves out for such. Uncertain whether he had not dreamed of these sounds which seemed yet in his ears, he was unwilling to risk the raillery of his friend by summoning him to his assistance. He sat up, therefore, in his bed, not without experiencing that nervous agitation to which brave men as well as cowards are subject; with this difference, that the one sinks under ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... [To STERLING, purposely speaking with good-humored raillery to relieve the tension of the situation.] Well, you're ...
— The Climbers - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... turn upon one of his favorite topics. Fontenelle continued his triumph until about twelve o'clock, when Voltaire appeared at last roused from his reverie. His whole frame seemed animated. He began his defense with the utmost defiance mixed with spirit, and now and then let fall the finest strokes of raillery upon his antagonist; and his harangue lasted till three in the morning. I must confess that, whether from national partiality or from the elegant sensibility of his manner, I never was so charmed, nor did I ever remember so absolute a victory as he ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... well aware that folks laughed at Janville over the folly of their attempt—that mad idea of growing wheat among the marshes of the plateau. Lepailleur, in particular, distinguished himself by the violent raillery he levelled at this Parisian, a gentleman born, with a good berth, who was so stupid as to make himself a peasant, and fling what money he had to that rascally earth, which would assuredly swallow him and his children and his money all together, ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... spirit of Ossawattomie Brown yet lives in the land which he saved for freedom; it should not be forgotten that nearly every western homestead has its grave in the battlefields of the war which made us one people forever. Making due allowance for that good-natured raillery which is one of the spices of existence, it may be truthfully said that anyone who laughs in earnest at the West calls attention merely to his own shallow conceit. Intelligent people in the East are studying, not ridiculing ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... lady," stammered old Andrew, half hurt by her gentle raillery, "mine een are keen enough as yet, although my ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... bottles of Sparkling Catawba, and old Jersey Champagne, of a remote vintage, which I have now quite forgotten. With the flow of these beverages flowed our speech, in jovial words and songs and raillery enough, if not in wit. De Ary, as having by a hair's breadth just escaped with his life, and in virtue of his extraordinary feat in leaping five hundred feet or more through a bank of snow, now that the danger was over, was made the butt of much pleasantry, which he bore ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... had disliked and distrusted since the day in which he had first entered the employ of Mr. Stephens, six months before. Very strange and just a little unreasonable had seemed his distrust. Mr. Stephens had tried sober argument and good-humored raillery by turns to convince his confidential clerk that he was prejudiced. All to no purpose. Theodore could give no tangible reasons for his unwavering opinion; but his early living by his wits, among all sorts of people, had so sharpened his ideas that ...
— Three People • Pansy
... reason to fear rebuke for the judgment which he had pronounced upon his little paragon. All the flattering attention which was shewn her, and it was a good deal, could not draw Fleda a line beyond the dignified simplicity which seemed natural to her; any more than the witty attempts at raillery and endeavours to amuse themselves at her expense, in which some of the gentlemen shewed their wisdom, could move her from her modest self-possession. Very quiet, very modest, as she invariably ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... gained over the laughers on his side, he has struck a blow which puts his adversary hors de combat. A grave reply can never wound ridicule, which, assuming all forms, has really none. Witty calumny and licentious raillery are airy nothings that float about us, invulnerable from their very nature, like those chimeras of hell which the sword of AEneas could not pierce—yet these shadows of truth, these false images, these fictitious realities, have made heroism ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... represented amongst the Brachman sages. Such was in Iberia the mountain of salt so highly written of by Cato. Such was the branch of gold consecrated to the subterranean goddess, which Virgil treats of so sublimely. It is a true cornucopia of merriment and raillery. If at any time it seem to you to be emptied to the very lees, yet shall it not for all that be drawn wholly dry. Good hope remains there at the bottom, as in Pandora's bottle; and not despair, as in the puncheon of the Danaids. Remark well what I have said, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... age and Guillaume's profession. Paul was not a safe man to laugh at. If from time to time, in the way of business, he was obliged to throw a light brighter than he would have preferred on his own character, he did not therefore choose to be made the subject of raillery. And if it was not safe to mock him, neither was it very safe to talk of money to him. The thought of money—of thousands of francs, easily convertible into pounds, marks, dollars, florins, or whatever chanced to be the denomination of the country to ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... explosion was imminent. Liszt, quickly divining that Chopin was about to break forth in an hysterical fury, forstalled him by jocosely crying: "Freddy, my old son, the trouble with you is that you have no Sand in you!" And before the enraged Pole could answer this cruel, mocking raillery, the tall Magyar leaned over, pressed the button three times, and the lemonade came in ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... conceptions of circumstances; but no matter, your voyages are always made in search of discoveries, and, in spite of your resolutions, 183you may perchance be entrapp'd. But no more of this; I perceive your raillery is directed to me, and I hope ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... that red-headed Peckerwoods go to the devil on Fridays," I retorted to the raillery ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... as his use of passion and logic, and on one occasion he treated Gouverneur Morris, who was his opposing counsel, to such a prolonged attack of raillery that his momentary rival sat with the perspiration pouring from his brow, and was acid for some time after. During his earlier years of practice, while listening to Chancellor Livingston summing up ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... he knew how to answer her, Colonel Mayhew was upon them, overflowing with cheerful raillery, and radiantly unaware that he had stepped ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... you make a much taller and handsomer viscount than ever I could." But the fond boy with oaths and protestations, laughter and incoherent outbreaks of passionate emotion, could not be got, for some little time, to put up with Esmond's raillery; wanted to kneel down to him, and kissed his hand; asked him and implored him to order something, to bid Castlewood give his own life up or take somebody else's; anything, so that he might show his gratitude for the generosity Esmond ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... child," said the lady;——"It would have been cruel before; but after you have promised me never to marry without your father's consent, in which you know is implied your giving up Jones, sure you can bear a little raillery on a passion which was pardonable enough in a young girl in the country, and of which you tell me you have so entirely got the better. What must I think, my dear Sophy, if you cannot bear a little ridicule even on his dress? I shall begin to fear ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... of changing his Religion for Bread?" And many Citations us'd to be produc'd out of his Writings, as Specimens of his ironical Talent; among which I particularly remember his Ridicule of his Adversary Mr. Alsop, a famous Presbyterian Wit and Divine; whose Book, which was full of low Raillery and Ridicule, he resembles [35] to the Bird of Athens, as made up of Face and Feathers. And the Doctor himself adds, in Justification of the polite Method of Raillery in Controversy, that there is a pleasantness of Wit, which serves to entertain ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... time before she found courage to return to the sitting-room. Her heart was throbbing with grief and at the same time a wild exultation that she could not understand and had no time to analyze. She did not even attempt to answer Wallace's raillery as to the length of time she had been away, or John's as to why she had stayed in the cellar long enough to eat all the apples which she found she had forgotten to bring. The event had been too stupendous for her to come down to the commonplace. And at ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... the shorthand in which I am writing these lines is Pitman's. And the reason is, that my secretary cannot transcribe Sweet, having been perforce taught in the schools of Pitman. Therefore, Sweet railed at Pitman as vainly as Thersites railed at Ajax: his raillery, however it may have eased his soul, gave no popular vogue to Current Shorthand. Pygmalion Higgins is not a portrait of Sweet, to whom the adventure of Eliza Doolittle would have been impossible; still, as will be seen, there are touches of Sweet in the play. With Higgins's ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... time came around for the distribution of our ripened fruit, and vegetables, for which fact I was very glad. I knew the task was going to be no easy one, with Mr. Winthrop silently, and no doubt sarcastically, watching me; and Hubert's good humored raillery would in no wise lighten ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... the indiscreet act of an enamoured young gallant,—the kind of act which vulgarity meets with angry lampoons or rude violence. The poem is an idyll quite as much as a satire. The follies of fashionable life are treated with nothing severer than light raillery; and its actually distasteful features,—its lapses into stupidity, its vacuous restlessness, its ennui,—are cunningly suppressed. But all that made it seem the height of human felicity is preserved, and enhanced in charm. "Launched on the bosom of the silver Thames," ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... joke, of course—that they preferred finding a harlot in their chemises to a good woman. Certain other jokers reproached them with imitating the lives of the saints, in their own fashion, and said that all they admired in Mary of Egypt was her fashion of paying the boatmen. From whence the raillery: To honour the saints after the fashion of Poissy. There is still the crucifix of Poissy, which kept the stomachs warm; and the matins of Poissy, which concluded with a little chorister. Finally, of a hearty jade well acquainted ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... not too seriously. He was "jist Doc Weaver," and Kilo reserved the right to laugh at him in private, and to brag about him to strangers, and they were apt to "joke" him about his beliefs. As he was sensitive and dreaded the rough raillery of his neighbors, he kept his enthusiasms to himself. He was like an overcharged bottle of ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... to speak with a natural and graceful raillery, and to comprehend much matter of thought in few words. For Lycurgus, who ordered, as we saw, that a great piece of money should be but of an inconsiderable value, on the contrary would allow no discourse to be current which did not contain in few words a great deal of useful and curious sense; ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... if he has occasion himself to rally their foibles in his poems, he does so openly, and does it with such an implied sympathy and avowal of kindred weakness in himself, that offence was impossible. Above all, he possessed in perfection what Mr Disraeli happily calls "the rare gift of raillery, which flatters the self-love of those whom it seems not to spare." These characteristics are admirably indicated by Persius (I. 116) in ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... been taking such pains to abstract himself from eyes which scarcely noticed whether he was there or not brought with it a little bitter raillery at his own expense. He was piqued at once in his self-love and in his masculine instinct for domination. It seemed to be out of the natural order of things that his thoughts should dwell so much on a woman to whom he was only a detail in the scheme of her ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... the prospect of having another speech, and promises that he will set up a golden statue of Socrates at Delphi, if he keeps his word. Some raillery ensues, and at length Socrates, conquered by the threat that he shall never again hear a speech of Lysias unless he fulfils his promise, veils his face ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... unhappiness of a man's life, are easily counted, and distinctly remembered. The HAPPINESS of life, on the contrary, is made up of minute fractions—the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the disguise of playful raillery, and the countless other infinitesimals of pleasurable thought and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... chagrin, the priest bundled the cocks into the basket and catching up the valise, took himself abruptly away, almost running till he had put himself out of hearing of Annixter's raillery. And even ten minutes later, when Annixter, still chuckling, stood upon the porch steps, he saw the priest, far in the distance, climbing the slope of the high ground, in the direction of the Mission, still hurrying on at a great pace, his cassock flapping behind him, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... liberation from restraint, and of freer enjoyment of the gay Parisian life, proved but the commencement of a dreary spell of dulness and misery. Her friends, who came to congratulate her the next day after the wedding, were surprised to find her weeping bitterly, and, in answer to their raillery, were told by her, "Alas! I used to have such a desire to be a nun: why, then, am I married now? and by what fatality has this happened to me?" She was overwhelmed with this regret, this longing to be a religieuse. The sudden transition from being the admired of all beholders, "the cynosure ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... to my good-humored raillery was feeble indeed. And it soon died in a look of depression that made him seem even older and more decrepit than was his wont. "The same story, wherever I go," said he sadly. "The business interests refuse to ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... Parisian, but he cannot quite assume the gay insouciance of the French; if to England, he adores method, learns to grumble and imbibe old ale, yet does not become accustomed to the free, blunt raillery,—the "chaff,"—with which Britons disport themselves; if to China, he lives upon curries and inscribes his name with a camel's-hair pencil, but all Oriental bizarrerie fails to thoroughly amuse him. Wherever he may go, he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... During the first sojourn of Luis at the count's house, he was naturally thrown a great deal into Dona Rita's society, and a reciprocal attachment grew up between them, which, if it occasionally afforded the young Villabuenas a subject of good-humoured raillery, on the other hand was unobserved or uncared for by the count—a stern silent man, whose thoughts and time were engrossed by political intrigues. When Luis went to Salamanca, his attachment to Rita, instead ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... gratified at Les Touches the taste for the glorious, powerful at his age, and that artless admiration, the first love of adolescence, which is always irritated by criticism. It is so natural that flame should rise! He listened to that charming Parisian raillery, that graceful satire which revealed to him French wit and the qualities of the French mind, and awakened in him a thousand ideas, which might have slumbered forever in the soft torpor of his family life. For him, Mademoiselle des Touches was the mother of his intellect. She was ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... There was no raillery in her voice now. She was altogether serious. Her eyes, luminous, yet darkly unfathomable, were held full upon his face. He felt rather than saw that she was under a mental strain. The revelation she was about to make throbbed in her voice when she ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... disliked the tone of raillery that existed between her and Veslovsky, but fell in with it ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... me with this continual raillery. Ever since I began to love you, you have tortured me in this manner, and now I do not even know whether you have ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... The men took his raillery in excellent part, and one, their spokesman, bowing low to the Superior, said,—"Forgive us all the same, good Father. The hard eggs of Beauport will be soft as lard compared with the iron shells we are preparing ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... learning them and keeping them alive. To the men of the township his selection, which he had proudly named Taylor's Flat, was known as Taylor's Folly; and the owner of it, dull-witted and slow of speech, was loth to face the raillery his presence always ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... enjoyed. Soon all were on the best of terms, and it was a mutual pleasure, in that lonely place, to meet and interchange the news of the country, as well as to have the flashings of wit and fun and pleasant raillery. ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... good-by to me?" cried Sholto, finding his words at once in the wholesome atmosphere of raillery which everywhere accompanied that quipsome damosel, ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... Dolores industriously shocking her mother by a persistent heckling of Lord James, who was smiling at her quips and sallies and twirling his little blond mustache as if he enjoyed the raillery. ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... with the inscription, which makes me proudest. It will be attended with proeme, prolegomena, testimonia scriptorum, index authorum, and notes variorum. As to the latter, I desire you to read over the text, and make a few in any way you like best; whether dry raillery, upon the style and way of commenting of trivial critics; or humourous, upon the authors in the poem; or historical, of persons, places, times; or explanatory, or collecting the parallel passages of the ancients. Adieu. I am pretty well, my mother not ill, Dr. Arbuthnot vexed with ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... overflow of spirits, and they went up the river like a party of children on a merry-making. Sylvia decorated herself with garlands till she looked like a mermaid; Mark, as skipper, issued his orders with the true Marblehead twang; Moor kept up a fire of pun-provoking raillery; Warwick sung like a jovial giant; while the Kelpie danced over the water as if inspired with the universal gayety, and the very ripples seemed to laugh as they ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... at King's raillery, but she was bound she wouldn't show it, and her slim little white fingers grasped ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... jests upon. And as there is no one who so little likes to be made a jest of as those who are apt to take the same liberty themselves, so it was with Benedick and Beatrice; these two sharp wits never met in former times but a perfect war of raillery was kept up between them, and they always parted mutually displeased with each other. Therefore when Beatrice stopped him in the middle of his discourse with telling him nobody marked what he was saying, Benedick, affecting not to have observed before ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... Madam Bennet." We further learn, from the "Spectator" (No. 266), that she was the Lady B. to whom Wycherley addressed his ironical dedication of "The Plain Dealer," which is considered as a masterpiece of raillery. It is worthy of remark that the fair sex may justly complain of almost every word in the English language designating a woman having, at some time or another, been used as a term of reproach; for we find Mother, Madam, Mistress, and Miss, all denoting women of bad character; and here Pepys ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... full in the face and curtly said, in a tone of raillery, that suggested a past that refused to reopen an ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... as my friend, pupil, and protege," he replied, with evident enjoyment of the other's discomfiture at the unwelcome association. Then with incredible swiftness his mood changed. The raillery passed from his voice and he went on bitterly, "Do you think I love my life? Perhaps I do—at times. But not always, no, not always. You see that fly there on the table? Watch it now. It tastes the spilt wine, the ragout with its spices, the salad with its oil and its vinegar, ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... He twirled his moustache, his voice had lost its suavity and had taken on an accent of almost contemptuous raillery. He even winked at his two brother officers, he was beginning to play with Faversham. "I read the letter to illustrate how strange, how very strange, are your English girls. Here is one of them ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... was bitterly cold; we had brought no clothes; my dames and I nothing earthly but a black ANDRIENNE each (whatever that may be), to spare bulk of luggage: strictest incognito was indispensable. The Marwitzes, for giggling, raillery, French airs, and absolute impertinence, were intolerable, in that solitary place. We return to Frankfurt again; have balls and theatres, at least: "of these latter I missed none. One evening, my head-dress got accidentally shoved awry, and exposed my face for a moment; Prince George of Hessen-Cassel, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... of the Road to Ruin) was one of the most violent and fiery-spirited of all that motley crew of persons, who attended the Sunday meetings at Wimbledon. One day he was so enraged by some paradox or raillery of his host, that he indignantly rose from his chair, and said, "Mr. Tooke, you are a scoundrel!" His opponent without manifesting the least emotion, replied, "Mr. Holcroft, when is it that I am ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... of expression now visible in every countenance, no language can portray. Only twenty hours ago, and all was hope and animation; wherever you went, you were enlivened by the sounds of merriment and raillery. The expected attack was mentioned, not only in terms of sanguine hope, but in perfect confidence as to the result. Now gloom and discontent everywhere prevailed. Disappointment, grief, indignation and rage succeeded each ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... were killed. The noise was simply deafening, but so little effect had the fire that the men shouted with laughter and held their caps up on the end of their rifles to give the German gunners a bit of encouragement." The same spirit of raillery is spoken of by a Seaforth Highlander, who says one of the Wiltshires stuck out in the trenches a tin can on which was the notice "Business as Usual." As, however, it gave the enemy too good a target he was cheerily asked to "take the blooming thing in again," ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... a kiss," said D'Arcy. But there was a tone of raillery in his voice which put Amabel on her dignity, and she shook her head, and began to go down the steps of the house, ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... his standard. Seeing nothing good, he will gradually forget what goodness is; and will accept as good that which is least bad. So it is with the graphic reporter in Parliament. He really does imagine that Hob 'raked the Treasury Bench with a merciless fire of raillery,' and that Nob 'went, as is his way, straight to the root of the subject,' and that Chittabob 'struck a deep note of pathos that will linger long in the memory of all who heard him.' If Hob, Nob, and Chittabob ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... laugh—so hearty, so spontaneous, so wholly foreign in its fine expression of good-natured raillery, to the tense atmosphere of accusation on the part of Mrs. Vanderlyn and supreme self-abnegation on the part of the old flute-player, which had, until this time, been vibrant in the room, that ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... said genially, "there is no great harm done. Don't you suppose I know what people say of me? You were only repeating the 'general report,' you know." And then he added seriously, as he saw my confusion was but increased by his raillery: ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... where he had an interview with him. Upon entering the room, Swift desired to know his commands. "Sir," says he, "I am Sergeant Bet-tes-worth;" in his usual pompous way of pronouncing his name in three distinct syllables. "Of what regiment, pray?" says Swift. "O, Mr. Dean, we know your powers of raillery; you know me well enough, that I am one of his majesty's sergeants-at-law." "What then, sir?" "Why then, sir, I am come to demand of you, whether you are the author of this poem (producing it), and the villanous lines on me?" at the same time reading them aloud with great vehemence of emphasis, ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... to pat tenderly the hand that held his check. "I'm glad if you care," he said, and there was an undertone of seriousness beneath his raillery, "but save your sympathy for the Admiral. The U. S. Navy can't bluff me." He rose ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... contained nothing but the ring. Unmitigated by any word of greeting, remembrance, or even raillery, it seemed almost an insult. Had she intended to flaunt his folly in his face, or had she believed he still mourned for it and deemed its recovery a sufficient reward for his slight service? For an instant he felt tempted to follow Charley's advice, and cast ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... any means," said Peters, in a tone of raillery. "He has petitioned for a new trial; and the question is to come ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... his lip and scowled—- an act which only roused against him the raillery of his comrades, who were now collected in a circle, and symptoms of anger of a ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... and persistent humorist of so good a sort that he never could help being humorous, yet there was never a sting in his jokes. Gentle raillery was the severest thing he ever attempted, and even this he did with so genial a smile and so merry an eye, that a word of his friendly chaffing was worth more than any amount of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... is made up of minute fractions,—the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the disguise of a playful raillery, and the countless other infinitesimals of ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... religious feelings were strongly affected by the conversion of his friend, Mr. Almond, whose opinions were previously as unsettled as his own. To escape the raillery with which he expected White would assail him on learning the change in his sentiments, Almond avoided his society; and when his friend offered to defend his opinions, if Henry would allow the divine originality of the Bible, he exclaimed, "Good God! you ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... made some evasive response to this raillery and then became silent. Soon quiet prevailed in the encampment; only out of the recesses of the forest came the menacing howl of a ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... plaintive as she asked the question. Though from moment to moment she could use her little skill in pricking him with her satire, still she loved him; and she would vary her tone, and as at one minute she would make him uneasy by her raillery, so at the next she would quell him by her tenderness. She looked into his face for a reply, when he hesitated. "Tell me that you do not love her," she ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... to explain it; since, if I prove mistaken, and mistaken I may easily be, I would be fain to creep into Phalaris's bull, were it standing before me ready heated, rather than be roasted with thy raillery. Do not tax me with want of confidence; for the instant I can throw any light on the matter thou shalt have it; but while I am only blundering about in the dark, I do not choose to call wise folks to see me, perchance, break my nose ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... shady covert, drew near under the irresistible attraction of the music. Then the goat-men rushed upon them with a demoniac fury. Folded in the arms of their ruthless assailants, the nymphs strove to keep up a while longer their raillery and loud laughter, but the mirth died on their lips. With heads thrown back and eyes swooning with joy and terror, they could only call upon their mother, or scream a shrill "You are killing me," ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... its parts, retires and then advances, compares and contrasts it, illustrates, confirms, and enforces it, till the hearer feels ashamed of doubting a position which seems built on a foundation so strictly argumentative. And having established his case, he opens upon his opponent a discharge of raillery so delicate and good-natured that it is impossible for the latter to maintain his ground against it; or, when the subject is too grave, he colors his exaggerations with all the bitterness of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... position of an independent man, and merely stated his intentions to one or two intimate friends, such as Bluenose, Laker, and old Jeph. As these regarded his statement as the wild fancy of an enthusiastic boy in the first gush of disappointment, they treated it with good-natured raillery. So Tommy resolved, as he would have himself have expressed it, "to shut up, and keep ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... her, as maidenly reserve would not permit it. Bramble seemed to be most anxious that such should be the case—indeed, considered it as a matter of course: perhaps Bessy thought so too in her own bosom; and the continual raillery of Bramble did more harm than good, as it appeared to warrant her thinking that it ought to be so. Why it was not I will now ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... understand that Miss Fermor would feel such raillery to be equivocal. It may be added, that an equal want of delicacy is implied in the mock-heroic battle at the end, where the ladies are gifted with an excess of ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... enjoyment of this raillery. "I'll say nothing at all of my seamanship," he said, relapsing into the faintest of brogues, "but there's no denying that the master of a ship has many unpleasant and disgusting duties to perform. He has to amuse the prominent passengers who can't amuse themselves, for one ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... his race, attempted to amuse the household—namely, Mrs McAllister, Dan, Hugh, and two good-looking and sturdy-limbed servant-girls—by measuring wits with the "canny Scot," as he called the farmer. He soon found, however, that he had caught a Tartar. The good-natured Highlander met his raillery with what we may call a smile of grave simplicity, and led him slyly into committing himself in such a way that even the untutored servants could see how far the man was behind their master in general knowledge; but Hobbs took refuge in smart reply, confident assertion, extreme volubility, ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... Annie and the clergyman were stone-blind: so that Klaus, speaking unintelligibly at every turn, had to bear the jokes of all; for young and old, woman and man, chimed readily in with the tone of sportive raillery, as soon ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various |
