"Waggish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... remembered by readers of 'Guy Mannering.' Only recently a post-card reached Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co. requesting the immediate despatch of a copy of 'Hard on Horace,' which was the inaccurate, or perhaps waggish, sender's rendering of the 'Hawarden Horace.' This will be remembered with the request for 'The Crockit Minister,' by Stickett, and 'Sheep that Pass in the Night.' Some of the foregoing budget can scarcely be placed to the discredit of the cataloguer, ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... catch hold of you," cried her waggish brother Jack, as she crossed the threshold, tea-can ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... prophetess, and the priests, who all declared that the omens were not in favour of the marriage. Upon this Helge assembled his people to hear the word which the messengers were to carry to their master, but unfortunately King Halfdan gave way to his waggish humour, and made scoffing reference to the advanced age of the royal suitor. These impolitic words were reported to King Ring, and so offended him that he immediately collected an army and prepared to march against the Kings of Sogn to avenge the insult with his sword. When the rumour ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... life's waggish way that the project conceived in the obscure dreams of an out-at-elbows young man, and born a foundling upon his money, should have been adopted at sight as the spoiled darling of fashion's ultra-fashionable. Undoubtedly, astute Mr. Dayne had had somewhat to do with ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... I don't know what waggish propensity moved one of the officers of the "Trump" to say that there was an equerry of His Royal Highness the Prince on board, and to point me out as the dignified personage in question. So the Syrian Prince was introduced to the Royal equerry, and a great many ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... be necessary at all," replied the waggish lieutenant. "Not necessary at all. For ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel in his heart by any means waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting his own attention, and keeping ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... Mr. Fabian, with a forced laugh, with which he attempted to conceal his uneasiness, "you are a waggish rogue! Your last words have afforded me so much amusement that I have not the heart to injure you for such a trifle. But listen, you little simpleton; you must not suppose that the justice would allow you to say all that. ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... of a waggish leer, thou owest the lad for the venison, I suppose that thou killed, Cousin Duke! Marmaduke! Marmaduke! That was a marvellous tale of thine about the buck! Here, young man, are two dollars for the deer, and Judge Temple can do no less than pay the doctor. I shall charge you nothing for my services, ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... of night across Essex county, Ontario, Lake St. Clair and into Michigan. The writer happened to be on the Cleveland steamer with the returning party, and had occasion to notice that the amateurs were too busily engaged in writing up their notes to thoroughly enjoy Mr. King's waggish ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... of waggish critics has evolved the following: "First psychology lost its soul, then it lost its mind, then it lost consciousness; it still has ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... that Mr. Triplett was beaten from one Limb and Feature to another, till he was forced to resign the whole Woman. In the end I took notice Triplett recorded all this Malice in his Heart; and saw in his Countenance, and a certain waggish Shrug, that he design'd to repeat the Conversation: I therefore let the Discourse die, and soon after took an Occasion to commend a certain Gentleman of my Acquaintance for a Person of singular Modesty, Courage, Integrity, and withal as a Man of an entertaining Conversation, to which Advantages ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Honest waggish Vigee, painting industriously at his pleasing portraits, would recall it well; since, early in the following year, there was that to happen under his own modest roof which was to bring fame to his name, though he should not live to bask ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall
... visit, it was evident that he had made the offer, as a duty which a well- bred man owed to a lady in such a retired place, before he had left the country, and that his feelings were but very little, if at all, interested in the matter. After a few potations, the waggish pair persuaded the exhilarated Frenchman that there was an inexcusable partiality in offering to one lady, and not extending a similar courtesy to another. Consequently, about nine, Monsieur Le Quoi sallied forth to the rectory, on a similar mission to Miss Grant, which proved as successful ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... their colleagues thought them funny. Bouvard, who wrote spread over his desk, with his elbows out, in order the better to round his letters, gave vent to a kind of whistle while half-closing his heavy eyelids with a waggish air. Pecuchet, squatted on a big straw foot-stool, was always carefully forming the pot-hooks of his large handwriting, but all the while swelling his nostrils and pressing his lips together, as if he were afraid of ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... observe the effect of this statement. Willie having never heard of such things before, and having a thoughtful and speculative as well as waggish turn of mind, listened with open eyes and mouth and earnest attention, so ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... Baudraye not only as the handsomest woman in those parts, a woman so superior that she might give George Sand a qualm, but as a woman who would produce a great sensation in Paris. Hence the extreme though suppressed astonishment of Doctor Bianchon and the waggish journalist when they beheld, on the garden steps of Anzy, a lady dressed in thin black cashmere with a deep tucker, in effect like a riding-habit cut short, for they quite understood the pretentiousness of such extreme simplicity. Dinah also wore a black velvet cap, like that ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... which makes strong men weep. You shall hear her. I pray you have your handkerchers ready. His Flutiness the Duke—the title was granted last Candlemas—has a voice of a rare richness. He is cursed with a melancholy disposition most pleasing. He suffers from a surfeit of rejected love. A most waggish companion withal. ...
— First Plays • A. A. Milne
... Friar looked upon Robin for a long time, his head on one side, and with a most waggish twist to his face; then he slowly winked his right eye. "Nay, good youth," said he gently, "I doubt not that thou art in haste with thine affairs, yet thou dost think nothing of mine. Thine are of a carnal nature; ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... flight of steps, you found yourself in a large room, with deep alcoves furnished with shelves, on which, above and on all sides, were ranged huge volumes with massive clasps. "What are all these books?" inquired a youthful visitor—"old Bibles?" "No, sir; they're testaments," was a waggish official's reply. They are, in fact, copies of wills. The originals are deemed too precious for exhibition except on special application, and the stranger who pays his shilling only sees a copy. Formerly, unless ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... wiping one's tail, said Gargantua, but when it is foul; foul it cannot be, unless one have been a-skiting; skite then we must before we wipe our tails. O my pretty little waggish boy, said Grangousier, what an excellent wit thou hast? I will make thee very shortly proceed doctor in the jovial quirks of gay learning, and that, by G—, for thou hast more wit than age. Now, I prithee, go on in this torcheculative, or wipe-bummatory discourse, and ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... with the success which he had gained; with the clang of arms, and the glitter of his armed presence. The true spirit of the man, as happens in intoxication of another kind, rose to the surface, cruel, waggish, insolent—of an insolence long restrained, the insolence of the scholar, who always in secret, now in the light, panted to repay the slights he had suffered, the patronage of leaders, the scoffs of power. "Ay," he continued, "they may find me with you! But if you do not mind, I need not. And I ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... to raise the condition of the book clubs than Sir Walter Scott. In 1823 the Roxburghe made proffers of membership to him, partly, it would seem, under the influence of a waggish desire to disturb his great secret, which had not yet been revealed. Dibdin, weighting himself with more than his usual burden of ponderous jocularity, set himself in motion to intimate to Scott the desire of the ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... gurgling of an astonishingly long drink seemed to emphasize. The Count then handed the bottle back to his nephew, who, shaking it, ejaculated, "Why, we can't pledge you in return—there is nothing left!" to which came the waggish response, "I beg pardon; it was so dark I couldn't see"; nevertheless there was a little remaining, as ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... through Division Lobby; coming back startled by angry roar. COURTNEY on his feet solemnly shouting "Order, Order!" like minute-gun at sea. Nothing came of this; excitement increased; COURTNEY crying "Order, Order!" in sterner voice. Looked about for explanation, and lo! there was the waggish WIGGIN with his hat cocked well on one side of his head, waddling down the floor of the House past the Chair. You may do almost anything in the House of Commons but walk about with your hat on, and here was WIGGIN, not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 21, 1892 • Various
... before he knows where you are. You can do what you like with a reader then, if you only keep him nicely on the move. So long as you are happy your reader will be so too. But one law must be observed: an essay, like a dog that wishes to please, must have a lively tail, short but as waggish as possible. Like a rocket, an essay goes only with fizzle and sparks at the end of it. And, know, that to stop writing is the secret of writing an essay; the essay that the ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... age, realizing himself to be a "landed proprietor" through the christening gift of his waggish grandsire, young Barnum set out to survey his estate, which he had not yet seen. He had heard much of "Ivy Island." His grandfather had often, in the presence of the neighbors, spoken of him as the richest child ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... be portrayed in a simple narrative like the present. This casual private intercourse with Israel, but served to manifest him in his far lesser lights; thrifty, domestic, dietarian, and, it may be, didactically waggish. There was much benevolent irony, innocent mischievousness, in the wise man. Seeking here to depict him in his less exalted habitudes, the narrator feels more as if he were playing with one of the sage's worsted hose, than reverentially handling ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... ring-around-a-rosy curls!" supplemented Ruth, her own face breaking into laughter, as, caught by the infection of Fibsy's waggish gayety, ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... her sonne Cupid, as her Zany went, Carrying her boxes, whom she often sent To know of her faire Patients how they slept. By which meanes she, and the blinde Archer crept Into their fauours, who would often Toy, And tooke delight in sporting with the Boy; 70 Which many times amongst his waggish tricks, These wanton Wenches in the bosome prickes; That they before which had some franticke fits, Were by his Witchcraft quite out of their wits. Watching this Wisard, my minde gaue me still She some Impostor was, and that this skill Was counterfeit, and had some ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... I believe he knew Sunday just as well as Deacon Marble did. At any rate, the deacon thought the trout meant to aggravate him. The deacon, you know, is a little waggish. He often tells about that trout. Sez he, "One Sunday morning, just as I got along by the willows, I heard an awful splash, and not ten feet from shore I saw the trout, as long as my arm, just curving over like a bow, and going down with something for breakfast. Gracious! says I, and I almost ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... waggish laborers to deposit old horse shoes and other iron articles where they are at work, for the special pleasure of digging them up for credulous antiquarians, than to find proofs of the existence of ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... bright, crisp, and frosty. The men were in excellent spirits. We had with us a number of waggish fellows that would be the life of any company, jovial, hearty, able to bring forth a joke under the most forbidding circumstances. One of these (Smith let us call him) had served eight years in the regular army ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... after a visit to the Senate and House of Representatives at Washington, "but after all, the congressman in feathers interested me most. I thought indeed, that the Chat might well enough have been elected to the lower house. His volubility and waggish manners would have made him quite at home in that assembly, while his orange colored waistcoat would have given him an agreeable conspicuity. But, to be sure, he would have needed to learn ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [December, 1897], Vol 2. No 6. • Various
... "thank you very much. And now you shall listen to the Winsome Waggish Warblers, who have often cheered me ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... sunken, gave forth a flash that was perhaps but a flickering ember of the fire they once contained. The left eye, which was partly closed by a paralytic stroke several years ago, gave him a rather artful, waggish appearance. The whole physiognomy was that of a man of strong intuition, with the ability to force his point when necessary, and the shrewd common sense to yield ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... that water-fowl that cries, Quack! Quack!? Full often have I seen a waggish crew 30 Fasten the Bird of Wisdom on its back, The ivy-haunting bird, that ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... bell; joyful, joyous, jocund, jovial; jolly as a thrush, jolly as a sandboy^; blithesome; gleeful, gleesome^; hilarious, rattling. winsome, bonny, hearty, buxom. playful, playsome^; folatre [Fr.], playful as a kitten, tricksy^, frisky, frolicsome; gamesome; jocose, jocular, waggish; mirth loving, laughter-loving; mirthful, rollicking. elate, elated; exulting, jubilant, flushed; rejoicing &c 838; cock-a-hoop. cheering, inspiriting, exhilarating; cardiac, cardiacal^; pleasing &c 829; palmy. Adv. cheerfully &c adj.. Int. never say die!, come!, cheer up!, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the New Passage, and called at the Redland Post Office. Newman is said to have had a jackdaw. The bird, as the mail coach ran down the narrow road on Black Boy Hill, called "Mail, mail, quick, quick!" to attract his master's attention, and, waggish bird as he was, he not infrequently gave a false alarm, and called his master at the wrong time. After some years Mr. Newman moved with the Post Office to the east side of Black Boy Hill, to a house near the present Porter ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... said, chiding her with a waggish forefinger. "You think if you go out there you'll miss a chance of someone else asking you for the next dance, and so you'll have to ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... with an air and tone that admitted of no gainsay or appeal. He was always ready for either a fight or a frolic; but had more mischief than ill-will in his composition; and with all his overbearing roughness, there was a strong clash of waggish good humour at bottom. He had three or four boon companions, who regarded him as their model, and at the head of whom he scoured the country, attending every scene of feud or merriment for miles round. In cold weather he was distinguished by a fur cap, surmounted with a flaunting fox's tail; and ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... jargon, the gigantic guardsman; And General Fireface, famous in the field, A great tactician, and no less a swordsman, Who ate, last war, more Yankees than he kill'd. There was the waggish Welsh Judge, Jefferies Hardsman, In his grave office so completely skill'd, That when a culprit came far condemnation, He had his judge's ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... in his room, sometimes stopping in front of the canon, whom he terrified by his flashing glances and by the extreme animation of his language, sometimes according to him one of those familiar and waggish gestures which were the signs of his favor. The unfortunate Escoiquiz sought in vain to defend the cause of his prince, making the most of his merits and his personal attachment to the emperor, and pledging his submission if he became sovereign of Spain and an ally of the imperial family. ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... strength of such an inducement to the one who should put the finishing stroke to the building, Plante, Pillon, and Manaigre, whom the waggish Plante persisted in calling "mon negre," whenever he felt himself out of the reach of the other's arm, all ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... present-day writers keep diaries. I wish The Bookman would conduct a questionnaire on the subject. I have a suspicion that Charley Towne keeps one—probably a grim, tragic parchment wherein that waggish soul sets down its secret musings. I dare say Louis Untermeyer has one (morocco, tooled and goffered, with gilt edges), and looks over its nipping paragraphs now and then with a certain relish. It undoubtedly has a large portmanteau pocket with it, to contain clippings ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... fair specimen of ready wit: During a season of great drought in Persia, a schoolmaster at the head of his pupils marched out of Shiraz to pray (at the tomb of some saint in the suburbs) for rain, when they were met by a waggish fellow, who inquired where they were going. The preceptor informed him, and added that, no doubt, Allah would listen to the prayers of innocent children. "Friend," quoth the wit, "if that were the case, I fear there would not be a schoolmaster ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... excite a mirth that lightens the toil with which one rummages through the corridors of time. It would be treason to tell the name of that antique university-chapel where a certain wooden-headed verger was betrayed into the absurdest error; it would be personal to give the name of the waggish friend who made him his innocent butt; but the facts and the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... course believed Tom to be sincere in all this. It was looked upon as one of his waggish tricks, intended to hit off some one, or perhaps the whole class of fine tailor-made gentlemen ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... dining-room were more roses,— ropes and garlands of them, hanging in festoons along the dark, shining panels, drooping from the Venetian lustres of the quaint chandelier. Even the moose's head on the wall behind the Colonel's chair had a wreath, cocked slightly on one side, which gave a waggish look to the stately creature. The huge antlers spread abroad, three feet on either side; the boys eyed ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... varnished frame, with a gilt beading round it; you know the sort of tortoise-shell clock-case, inlaid with brass; the green stove, the Argand lamps, covered with oil and dust, have met your eyes before. The oilcloth which covers the long table is so greasy that a waggish externe will write his name on the surface, using his thumb-nail as a style. The chairs are broken-down invalids; the wretched little hempen mats slip away from under your feet without slipping away for ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... upon the score of not having my lesson ready, or of not saying it well, yet being a little busy boy, full of spirit, of a working head and active hand, I could not easily conform myself to the grave and sober rules and, as I then thought, severe orders of the school, but was often playing one waggish prank or other among my fellow-scholars, which subjected me to correction, so that I have come under the discipline of the rod twice in a forenoon; which yet ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... you did it, no doubt. Did you marry any one lately?" said Dick, with a waggish grin and ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... unusual emotion did not interfere one jot with the good humour of the waggish company, who laughed and joked all the way from the church to the castle, some repairing thither on horseback, and some on foot. Ordinarily, Master Jock would have been much diverted by their practical jokes, but now he only shook his head at them. Mike Horhi devised every conceivable sort of ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... look that had in other times distinguished it.... He was still, however, eminently handsome, and in exchange for whatever his features might have lost of their high romantic character, they had become more fitted for the expression of that arch, waggish wisdom, that epicurean play of humor, which he had shown to be equally inherent in his various and prodigally gifted nature; while by the somewhat increased roundness of the contours the resemblance of his finely-formed mouth and chin to those of the Belvedere ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... as the house had been facetiously named by some waggish officer, stood in the open lake, at a distance of fully a quarter of a mile from the nearest shore. On every other side the water extended much farther, the precise position being distant about two miles from the northern end of the sheet, and near, if not quite, a mile from its eastern ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... bad, Or viciously inclined, But from his early youth he had A waggish turn of mind. The Men of London grimly scowled With indignation wild; The Men of London gruffly ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... of top boots, big or little, shine with a lustre more resplendent; never was postilion's jacket more excellent of fit, nattier, or more carefully brushed; and nowhere could there be found two rows of crested silver buttons with such an air of waggish roguery, so sly, so knowing, and so pertinaciously on the everlasting wink, as these same eight buttons that adorned the very small person of his groomship, Milo of Crotona. He had slipped out suddenly from the hedge, and now stood cap in hand, staring from the Viscount ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... English, and had next to no sense of the meaning of punctuation. I admit that probably they were not trying to do their best; that they might have put on a little intentional clumsiness, in the instinctive hope of escaping derision by being thought waggish. But the pity of it was that they should need to protect themselves so. They had not the rudimentary accomplishment: that was the plain truth. They could not ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... This is the wise waggish-will and good-will of my soul, that it CONCEALETH NOT its winters and glacial storms; it ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... we receive an order we release them the very same day. We do not keep them; we do not particularly value their presence," said the general, again with a waggish smile, which had the effect only of making his ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... exception make, And break our rules for silly Tropos'[60] sake; Who was too much despised to be accused, And therefore scarce deserves to be abused; Raised only by his mercenary tongue, For railing smoothly, and for reasoning wrong, As boys, on holidays, let loose to play, Lay waggish traps for girls that pass that way; Then shout to see in dirt and deep distress 150 Some silly cit in her flower'd foolish dress: So have I mighty satisfaction found, To see his tinsel reason on the ground: To see the florid fool despised, and know it, By some who scarce have words enough ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... brings to my mind a good old parson in Springfield who used to complain that the Weekly Republican was as bad as himself. He was preaching his old sermons over and over again with new texts. Come to find out, he had a waggish grandson who for three previous weeks had neatly gummed the fresh date over the old one, and the dear divine had been perusing the same paper as ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... longer angry with the sexton. Now that his children had shown that they knew their bits, the demon of mischief flew into him. At the start he put a few straight questions to the sexton's pupils, but being unable to remain serious for long at a time he soon became as waggish as he usually was ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... of the page is an encounter with a fraudulent innkeeper, which is described with great spirit, and M. Jusserand has ingeniously surmised that Shakespeare, after reading these pages, determined to fuse the two characters, mine host and the waggish picaroon, into the single immortal figure of Falstaff. After this point in the tale, it is probable that the reader may find the interest of the story flag; but his attention will be reawakened when he ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... The waggish judge gave the poor nymph fair play, holding the eye steady for her; but when she wished to slip in the thread that she had twisted to make straight, he moved a little, and the thread went on the other side. She suspected the judge's argument, wetted the thread, stretched it, and came ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... was being relieved, two persons led their bicycles through the archway and down across the bridge. It was dark, and nobody recognized them. Fritzing was got up sportingly, almost waggishly—heaven knows his soul was not feeling waggish—as differently as possible from his usual sober clothes. Somehow he reminded Priscilla of a circus, and she found it extremely hard not to laugh. On his head he had a cap with ear-pieces that hid his grey hair; round his neck a gaudy handkerchief muffled well about his face; ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... lines—cheered by the sight of the relaxing gravity of his teachers' looks—while around, you see the bashful tremulous figure of poor Cowper, the small thin shape and bright eye of Warren Hastings, and the waggish countenance of Colman—all eagerly watching the reciter—and all, at last, distended and brightened with joy ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... house, belonging to the Laird of Col, and possessed by Mr M'Sweyn. On the beach here there is a singular variety of curious stones. I picked up one very like a small cucumber. By the by, Dr Johnson told me, that Gay's line in the Beggar's Opera, 'As men should serve a cucumber,' &c. has no waggish meaning, with reference to men flinging away cucumbers as too COOLING, which some have thought; for it has been a common saying of physicians in England, that a cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing. Mr M'Sweyn's predecessors ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... of nature description, although unconventional, does not lack truth. Goethe offers a similar example, when he speaks of schalkhafte (roguish, waggish) Veilchen. ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... one of whom I ever met in the house, and it was agreed not to introduce men of either of these professions. This table, sufficiently resorted to, was very cheerful without being noisy, and many of the guests were waggish, without descending to vulgarity. The old commander with all his smutty stories, with respect to the substance, never lost sight of the politeness of the old court; nor did any indecent expression, which even women would ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... would depict the manners of the steerage. We were in truth very innocently, cheerfully, and sensibly engaged, and there was no shadow of excuse for the swaying elegant superiority with which these damsels passed among us, or for the stiff and waggish glances of their squire. Not a word was said; only when they were gone Mackay sullenly damned their impudence under his breath; but we were all conscious of an icy influence and a dead break in the course of ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... moons, which were clearly absurd. The court poet improved on this explanation, and composed the neat little poem which is partially preserved by the Jewish chronicler, who asks "Is not this written in the book of Jasher?" The waggish laureate Jasher is supposed by some profane speculators to have got ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... stride, what a nonchalance in the perpetual wreath of cigarette smoke, what a carefully assumed bearing of one carrying great wisdom lightly and easily casting it aside for the moment in the pursuit of some waggish trifle. "Here," those very self-conscious young visages seem to betray, "is one who might tell you all about the Holy Roman Empire, and yet is, for the moment, diverting himself with a mere mandolin." And yet, as the Lady of Destiny shrewdly ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... that when Minister Smooth left General Pierce and his waggish cabinet he would so soon have taken a turn round the world, and fetched up in that world of misery and wealth called London. But the world has got very fast, and only a fast man can keep up with it. Indeed, it were well ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... night's flood. But the Captain was ready with another verse of the Chaldee MS., and groaned out, by way of echo, "Verily my fine gold hath perished!" Whereupon the "Great Magician" elevated his huge oaken staff as if to {p.276} lay it on the waggish soldier's back—but flourished it gayly over his own head, and laughed louder than the youngest of the company. As we walked and talked, the Pepper and Mustard terriers kept snuffing about among the bushes and heather near us, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... and stormy interview before him, entered Mr. Osborne's offices with a most dismal countenance and abashed gait, and, passing through the outer room where Mr. Chopper presided, was greeted by that functionary from his desk with a waggish air which farther discomfited him. Mr. Chopper winked and nodded and pointed his pen towards his patron's door, and said, "You'll find the governor all right," with the ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... what do you think of it?" says Sir John, looking mity waggish—for he knew it was me who ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... her, but had not told her so yet, and now, being a waggish old fellow, he thought he would let her take her cat, for the joke of it, so he ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... long run from Aden hears much of the incomparable island of palms, pearls, and elephants; and every waggish shipmate haunts smoke room and ladies' saloon waiting for the opportunity to point out the lighthouse on Minecoy Island in the Maldives as "the Light of Asia." Four hundred miles further and your good ship ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... her kindly servant; the very dogs seemed to partake of the human nature of their protector, and attended us wherever we went, with more than ordinary civility. Hogarth might have been tempted to immortalize one of them for its extreme ugliness, and the waggish spirit with which it pulled at its companion's ears, who in vain attempted to tug at the bits of stumps that stuck out at either side of its tormentor's head. Mr. Fairholt was permitted to sketch the drawing room; the open door leads to the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... Johnson muttered 'lead us not into temptation,' used with waggish and gallant humour to whisper Mrs. Davies, 'You, my dear, are ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... at him, but said nothing. She was looking instead towards a gentleman of middle age who was peeping round the door indulging in a waggish game of peep-bo with the unconscious Mr. Carter. Finding that he had at last attracted his attention, the gentleman came inside and, breathing somewhat heavily after his exertions, stood before him with ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... yesterday, I met a friend who says to me, "Roundabout my boy, have you seen your picture? Here it is!" And he pulls out a portrait, executed in photography, of your humble servant, as an immense and most unpleasant-featured baboon, with long hairy hands, and called by the waggish artist "A Literary Gorilla." O horror! And now you see why I can't play off this joke myself, and moralize on the fable, as it has ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Judas Maccabaeus, says, 'I will not be put out of countenance,'—Byron replies, 'Because thou hast no face.' The indignant pedant justifies, and, pointing to his physiognomy, inquires, 'What is this?' Whereupon the waggish courtiers proceed to define it: it is 'a cittern-head,' 'the head of a bodkin,' 'a death's-face in a ring,' 'the face of an old Roman coin, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... was Jack Jargon, the gigantic guardsman;[691] And General Fireface,[692] famous in the field, A great tactician, and no less a swordsman, Who ate, last war, more Yankees than he killed. There was the waggish Welsh Judge, Jefferies Hardsman, In his grave office so completely skilled, That when a culprit came for condemnation, He had ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... a fine singer, notwithstanding, and an excellent musician: as the subtle [lawyer] Alfenus, after every instrument of his calling was thrown aside, and his shop shut up, was [still] a barber; thus is the wise man of all trades, thus is he a king. O greatest of great kings, the waggish boys pluck you by the beard; whom unless you restrain with your staff, you will be jostled by a mob all about you, and you may wretchedly bark and burst your lungs in vain. Not to be tedious: while you, my king, shall go to the farthing ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... were undersized, some tough, some rather sickly. A dull-eyed, wretched, sodden lot. I got the liquor on their breaths. A fat old Irish stoker came drifting half-drunk up the pier with a serene and waggish smile. ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... night that the ship clove the dark sea into a blaze of phosphorescence, and her wake streamed like a comet's tail, a waggish middy got a bucketful hoisted on deck, and asked the doctor to analyze that. He did not much like it, but yielded to the general request; and by dividing it into smaller vessels, and dropping in various chemicals, made rainbows and silvery flames and what not. But he declined ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... was still, however, eminently handsome; and, in exchange for whatever his features might have lost of their high, romantic character, they had become more fitted for the expression of that arch, waggish wisdom, that Epicurean play of humour, which he had shown to be equally inherent in his various and prodigally gifted nature; while, by the somewhat increased roundness of the contours, the resemblance of his finely formed mouth and chin to those of the Belvedere Apollo had ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 - Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number • Various
... room to which she had retired, was looking with no slight confidence at the different persons present; and, having discovered Raoul, she amused herself with the profound astonishment which her own and her friend's presence there caused the unhappy lover. Her waggish and malicious look, which Raoul tried to avoid meeting, and which yet he sought inquiringly from time to time, placed him on the rack. As for Louise, whether from natural timidity, or some other reason for which Raoul could not account, she ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a waggish tone, "that would be quite new. He might then make the same use of them as he would of a ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... arch waggish fellow. In pickle, or in the pickling tub; in a salivation. There are rods in brine, or pickle, for him; a punishment awaits him, or is prepared for him. Pickle herring; the zany or merry andrew of ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... edge of the trees and looked out, anxiously peering in different directions, but nothing was seen of his friend. Knowing Fred's waggish nature, Jack hoped that he was indulging in some jest, but he could not quite convince himself that such was the fact. The hunger of Fred would have prevented his postponing the meal one ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... now, to quote a certain witty Congressman, one of our national institutions. Asked to name the five most characteristic American "institutions," this waggish legislator replied, "The Constitution, Free Public Schools, Railroads, Newspapers ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... of the trumpet; and another pole made its appearance, with a piece of bacon on it, and a placard bearing the inscription of "Treasury bacon," all which Tom Durfy had run off to procure at a huckster's shop the moment he heard the waggish answer, which ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... say, Sir Billy served the crown, Blunt could do business, H-ggins knew the town; In Sappho touch the failings of the sex, In reverend bishops note some small neglects, And own, the Spaniard did a waggish thing, Who cropped our ears, and sent them to the king. His sly, polite, insinuating style Could please at Court, and make Augustus smile: An artful manager, that crept between His friend and shame, and was a kind of screen. ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... epoch, some waggish member of the eating club employed his camera at their expense. The resultant film, in after weeks, became one of the most popular assets of the class. True, the needful haste had caused the camera to ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... somewhat calmer than I should otherwise have been; nay, I was even composed enough to divert myself with the folly of one bearing so vulgar an appellation taking it into his head to play the man of honor, and could not help a waggish feeling of curiosity to see if his name and ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... drawing—when they were not a little startled by the unexpected obtrusion into that sanctuary of genius, of a human head which, although a shaggy and somewhat alarming head in appearance, smiled affably upon them from the doorway, in a manner that was at once waggish, conciliatory, and ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... the counsel employed to oppose a person justifying bail in the Court of King's Bench. After some common questions, a waggish counsel sitting near suggested that the witness should be asked as to his having been a prisoner in Gloucester gaol. Mr. Baldwin thereon boldly asked: "When, sir, were you last in Gloucester gaol?" The witness, a respectable ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... a sword than to fall upon one, and the first is quite as much a Mountebank's Trick as t'other. Blow your brains out! A mighty fine climax truly, to make a Horrible Mess all over the floor, and frighten the neighbours out of their wits, besides, as a waggish friend of mine has it, rendering yourself stone-deaf for life. If it comes to powder and ball, why, a Man of courage would much sooner blow out somebody else's ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... in Chicago of the real-estate brokers, a waggish orator remarked that Columbus, with his cry of "Land! Land!" was clearly the patron saint ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... his potent, yeasty verses, fashioned from the roaring loom of every day, are winning their way into circulation. Any reader who went to Dreams and Dust (poems, published October, 1915) expecting to find light and waggish laughter, was on a blind quest. In that book speaks the hungry and visionary soul of this man, quick to see beauty and grace in common things, quick to question the answerless face ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... his pearl, his little round stomach, and his sweet smile. Only oysters know how to smile in this way; cool, gentle, waggish, and yet inexpressibly innocent and winning. Dando himself must have allowed such an artless native to go free, and consigned him to the glassy, cool, translucent ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... side!" exclaimed the tanner; for if he had a weakness it was for Madeira, which he always declared to have a musky smack of tan; and a waggish customer had told him once that the grapes it was made of were always tanned first. The others kept ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... with the minde, And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blinde. Nor hath loues minde of any iudgement taste: Wings and no eyes, figure, vnheedy haste. And therefore is Loue said to be a childe, Because in choise he is often beguil'd, As waggish boyes in game themselues forsweare; So the boy Loue is periur'd euery where. For ere Demetrius lookt on Hermias eyne, He hail'd downe oathes that he was onely mine. And when this Haile some heat from Hermia felt, So he dissolu'd, and showres ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... A fantastic, waggish crew—yet Francis minded them not, so long as they observed sufficient etiquette to keep their distance from his royal person and immediate following. This nice decorum, however, be it said, was an unwritten law with these waifs and scatterlings, ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... excited, both here and at Niagara, was astonishing. His very exit (than which nothing could be more natural) was considered somewhat mysterious, as his body was not found; and some time subsequent to the event, a fellow of a waggish disposition happening to be accidentally in that part of the country, and bearing, it is said, a singular resemblance to Patch, was stopped by a Rochester-man on the road, and questioned on the subject. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... Chinaman-like, shaking hands with himself over the glad event of the day. But on receiving the pluck of the ear, in the dear old way, the dear old fellow, quick to take the hint, gave vent to a sort of double yelp, peculiar to him when in a waggish humor—a smothered nasal "boo-woo," so irresistibly ludicrous that it had always made Sprigg laugh, as now it did, right heartily. This is but the prelude to what needs must follow. Up he rears himself on his hind ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... decisions with an air and tone admitting of no gainsay or appeal. He was always ready for either a fight or a frolic, but had more mischief than ill-will in his composition; and with all his overbearing roughness there was a strong dash of waggish good-humor at bottom. He had three or four boon companions who regarded him as their model, and at the head of whom he scoured the country, attending every scene of feud or merriment for miles around. In cold weather he was distinguished by a fur cap surmounted ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... allowed her name to be coupled with mine in the presence of the minions of the law. What, after that, could her father do but give his consent to a union which alone would save his only child's reputation from the cruelty of waggish tongues? ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Gods bless me, Scapha is waggish; the hussy's quite knowing. How cleverly she understands all matters, ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus
... give thee with my Tempe, and to boot That horse which struck a fountain with his foot. A bed of roses I'll provide for thee, And crystal springs shall drop thee melody. The breathing shades we'll haunt, where ev'ry leaf Shall whisper us asleep, though thou art deaf. Those waggish nymphs, too, which none ever yet Durst make love to, we'll teach the loving fit; We'll suck the coral of their lips, and feed Upon their spicy breath, a meal at need: Rove in their amber-tresses, and unfold That glist'ring grove, the curled wood of gold; Then peep for babies, a new ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... a half-curled bang on either side of her thin face. Her hat which was simply "dripping" with feathers suggested a fanciful letter "T" and exaggerated the thinness of her face in a remarkably funny way. The feathers overhanging the brim increased the broadness of the hat, and looked singularly waggish fluttering against the spriggy-looking projections of gray hair. The rules for the wedge-shaped face, as may readily be discerned, ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley |
