"Jocular" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Haj Ibrahim, to whom I presented a watch worth twenty dollars, also promised to render me all his assistance and influence with the Sheikhs, and to be my wakeel (agent) in my absence. Jabour paid me a farewell visit, and after he received his present was very polite and jocular. Yusuf Moknee, as a Tripoline, also paid him six reals; for he is the official protector of people from that city, as well as some others. The day before, one of his people had seized my Fezzanee servant because he did not give the usual presents, viz. ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... Plumet soon called again, tricked out from head to foot in the latest fashion. She was a little flurried on entering a room full of jocular clerks. Escorted by Massinot, both of them with their eyes fixed on the ground, she reached my office. I closed the door after ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... deal. This certainly was his reputation. The numberless memoirs, petitions, and letters which flew from his pen gave even rise to jokes and bywords. Francesillo de Zuniga, Charles V.'s jester, in one of his jocular epistles exclaims: "I hope to God that Gutierrez will always have all the paper he wants, for he writes more than Ptolemy and than Columbus, the discoverer of ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... a great many jokes made at first, and a general spirit of hilariousness reigned, but it was observed by one of the keener witted ones that, despite his jocular tone, there was an underlying seriousness in Tom's air which might argue that he felt the weight of his responsibility. When the women began to come in, as they did later in the day, he received them with much cordiality, rising from ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... somewhat above that of his equals in navy rank—the Chaplain, Surgeon, and Professor. Moreover, he is frequently to be seen in close conversation with the Commodore, who, in the Neversink, was more than once known to be slightly jocular with our Purser. Upon several occasions, also, he was called into the Commodore's cabin, and remained closeted there for several minutes together. Nor do I remember that there ever happened a cabinet ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... this hour forth to my bosom as a friend (I think he was a Waiter or an Hostler at a village Inn, but many years have passed since he and I have met), remarks that the sassigassity of that dog is indeed surprising; and evermore this jocular conceit will live in my remembrance fresh and unfading, overtopping all possible jokes, unto the end of time. Or now, I learn with bitter tears how poor Jane Shore, dressed all in white, and with her brown hair hanging down, went starving through the streets; or how George Barnwell ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... the principle, De mortuis nil, nisi bone 'em!" suggested Miss Hurribattle, with such perfect gravity that neither Miss Prowley nor the clergyman suspected the jocular atrocity that was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... it," replied the stranger, with a smile. "What I said was intended to be jocular, and to put Brokedale at his ease. The Americans present, with their usual astuteness, would term it bluff. It was. I merely rattled on. I simply did not wish to offend the gentleman by letting him know that I had penetrated his disguise. Imagine my surprise, however, when his eye ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... and we were friends again. And with such jocular asperities the days passed quickly and agreeably until my nephew arrived with the plans and specifications. Frederick Grinnell was not only my nephew, but an architect of reputation and promise, ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... which we landed, a blond young Israelite, lavishly adorned with feathers, came running to know if we wished to see the church—by which name he put the synagogue to the Gentile comprehension. The street through which we passed had shops on either hand, and at the doors groups of jocular Hebrew youth sat plucking geese; while within, long files of all that was mortal of geese hung from the rafters and the walls. The ground was webbed with the feet of geese, and certain loutish boys, who paused ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... and he had called the meeting to order before Douglas arrived. He was making a few opening remarks, and was in an excellent frame of mind, and inclined to be somewhat jocular. He realised the importance of having an archdeacon present, and referred to it several times. To Douglas, he seemed most ridiculous as he stood there endeavouring to be as pompous as possible that all might ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... by the neighbouring tribes, and in all matters that relate to husbandry they excel: but in dash and courage they are deficient. The Waiyau, on the contrary, have round apple-shaped heads, as distinguished from the long well-shaped heads of the poor Manganja; they are jocular and merry, given to travelling, and bold in war—these are qualities which serve them well as they are driven from pillar to post through slave wars and internal dissension, but they have not the brains of the Manganja, ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... the night of the visitor in excelsis. Stout, important matrons wearing the dresses they had for afternoon calls at home in the towns moved slowly along in small groups, with a solid man or so in attendance who smoked his pipe or cigar and said little, but that little rather jocular. Girls tripped by, either pale with the heat, or flushed, or protected from extremes of temperature by a heavy layer of powder: and flappers with pert faces and fluffy hair swung gaily along, always with a generous display of fat neatly-stockinged leg. But it ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... classes of the community, which he—opposing all half-measures, and preferring to go the extreme animal—pledged himself to propose and divide upon, in committee. After announcing this determination, the honourable gentleman grew jocular; and as patent boots, lemon-coloured kid gloves, and a fur coat collar, assist jokes materially, there was immense laughter and much cheering, and moreover such a brilliant display of ladies' pocket-handkerchiefs, as threw the grievous ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... was vaguely jocular. "Be patient a little while longer. I shall seriously set to work and see what I can find for you by way ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... His jocular tone did not hide his deep earnestness. Never had Lenore felt him so forceful. His ruggedness seemed to steady her nerves that again began to fly. Anderson took her into his office, closed the ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... importance of the rubato in Chopin cannot be more readily realized than by his concession that he could never play a Viennese waltz properly, and by the fact that sometimes, when he was in a jocular mood, he would play one of his mazurkas in strict, metronomic time, to the great amusement of those who had heard him ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... deep sigh from a half-dozen throats, in which some strong but hitherto repressed passion, totally incomprehensible to me, found sudden vent, rose in one simultaneous sound from about that table, and I heard one jocular voice sing out: ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... to respond to the second bugle call. There was some disposition to make merry over Kennedy's "scare", as the boy Julius would persist in designating it; but as the lad was the only one who seemed to regard the matter purely from the jocular point of view, the conversation was soon steered in another and more agreeable direction, and we spent a very pleasant evening, breaking ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... project had ever been entertained, no such demand ever made, Kulbash Pasha not only laughed heartily at the mock-thunder of the Englishman, but at the energy with which a small official always opens fire, and in the jocularity of his Turkish nature—for they are jocular, these children of the Koran—he told the whole incident ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... almost a practical joke ... he started a fight on the absurd Blue Laws by focusing publicity on them ... and he exposed the bad prison conditions his unknown fellow prisoners lived under, who had not gone to the workhouse in a jocular mood because ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... such things, feeling instinctively that they would not believe him, but to women, especially if they were young and pretty, he was ever ready to talk at length about himself. He was good-looking, and talked well, so women always felt for him affectionate pity. On this occasion also, if jocular at the outset, Yourii relapsed into his usual tone; discoursing at great length about his own life. From his own description he appeared to be a man of extraordinary powers, cramped and crushed by the force of circumstances, ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... where he appeared regularly every afternoon, riding on a little pony, and wearing a magnificent beard of twenty years' growth, which an Oriental might well have envied, the more remarkable in an age when shaving was so generally practised.—A jocular epitaph was composed on "Mary Van Butchell," of which these lines may serve ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... the Romans by the Jews in this very matter of sabbath-keeping was widespread and deep. Jewish influence was felt and acknowledged almost from the time that Syria, of which Judaea was but a petty division, became a Roman province, and a generation had not passed away before we find Horace making jocular allusion to the spread of the recognition of the Jewish sabbath. In his ninth satire he describes himself as being buttonholed by a bore, and, seeing a friend pass by, as begging the latter to pretend business with him and so relieve him of his trouble. His friend mischievously excuses himself ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... passed the point when tolerance could be fairly asked, consistently with any respect for the English Church, for such sweeping and paradoxical contradictions, by her own servants, of her claims and title. Mr. Ward's manner also, which, while it was serious enough in his writings, was easy and even jocular in social intercourse, left the impression, in reality a most unfair impression, that he was playing and amusing himself with ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... my letter again, you will probably have discovered what was the meaning of my jocular complaint—"You answer me much too pathetically and seriously." You must have seen by the exact terms of my letter, somewhat loosely worded though it was, that by your answer I meant the manner in which you speak of my conduct towards D. ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... satiric poem from Casaubon before I leave this subject. "The 'satiric,'" says he, "is a dramatic poem annexed to a tragedy having a chorus which consists of Satyrs. The persons represented in it are illustrious men, the action of it is great, the style is partly serious and partly jocular, and the event of the ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... must here be explained, was more profoundly worried than she was willing to admit. Towards Martha she concealed the real trouble of her mind under the garb of her quaint, jocular speech, which meant much or little, as one might take it. She had just returned from one of her social pilgrimages, during which she had heard nothing but the absorbing subject of gossip. She had ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... he says, craning his neck and casting up his eye. Then, turning with a jocular air to the elder lady opposite, "I don't suppose that Marshall & Belden, for instance, have got up to nine ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... under the necessity of explaining to him, that he might return if he thought proper, but that in that case I would not pay him a single farthing for his past services. The argument ad crumenam, as it has been called by jocular logicians, has weight with the greater part of mankind, and Andrew was in that particular far from affecting any trick of singularity. He "drew in his horns," to use the Bailie's phrase, on the instant, professed no intention whatever to disoblige, and a resolution to be guided by my ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... censure of any profession[964]; but he was willing to allow a due share of merit to the various departments necessary in civilised life. In a splenetick, sarcastical, or jocular frame, however, he would sometimes utter a pointed saying of that nature. One instance has been mentioned[965], where he gave a sudden satirical stroke to the character of an attorney. The too indiscriminate admission to that employment, which requires both abilities ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... across team by team in the scow they kept for the purpose. The four hardy and muscular travellers were men according to the traders' understanding. They used the same scornful, jocular, profane tongue. Their very names were a recommendation: Big Jack Skinner, Black Shand Fraser, Husky Marr, and Young Joe Hagland, ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... England and Italy, to say nothing of his compatriots; and they applauded him emphatically as being a German himself and an ornament of Germany. At his first meeting with Froben, Erasmus permitted himself the pleasure of a jocular deception: he pretended to be a friend and agent of himself, to enjoy to the full the joy of being recognized. The German environment was rather to his mind: 'My Germany, which to my regret and shame I got to ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... Mr. Blake was beginning in a jocular way, when the serious look on the boy's face checked him. "What is it? What has happened, Merritt?" he asked soberly, while Rob regarded the spectacle of his usually placid ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... and jocular tone jarred upon her most disagreeably, but she tried to bear in mind in what dissimilar circumstances they had passed the last hour. If Clara appeared unfeeling, and her remarks were distinguished by less taste than was customary in one so thoroughly bred, it was because the exhilaration of the ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... her dislike to tobacco was well known, and she answered in the same jocular tone: "Do you not think that a mattress stuffed with these leaves would ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... peasants living in the vicinity of Moscow. When but thirteen years of age he was taken into the service of a pastry cook to sell pies and cakes about the streets, and he was accustomed to attract customers by singing jocular songs. The tzar chanced to hear him one day, and, diverted by his song and struck by his bright, intelligent appearance, called for the boy, and offered to purchase his whole ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... Prince pleaded for him; but these Poles, who, in order to make themselves understood, spoke Latin— and very bad Latin indeed—would not accept such an excuse, and forcing him to drink, howled furiously 'Bibat et Moriatur! Marege, who was very jocular and yet very choleric; used to tell this story in the same spirit, and made everyone ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... to be common, it ought to be universal. It is not likely to be in the present century; but at least, thinking people can consciously adopt an attitude of respect toward love, and consciously abandon as far as possible the attitude of jocular cynicism with which they too often treat it,—an attitude which is reflected so disgustingly in current ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... M'Kay's jocular and cordial manner, the soldiers grounded their muskets, and began to enter in earnest into the conversation which he was promoting. M'Kay, in the meantime, was watching his opportunity to seize them; but this, as it was necessary he should be placed, with regard to them, so as ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... spies out every detail of my daily life; of decent birth and richer than Croesus, but inflamed with a peevish penuriousness which no amount of plain speaking on my part will correct. Never a day passes that she does not permit herself some jocular observation anent my spendthrift habits. The following is an example of our matutinal ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... brig, the boat's crew of the Poughkeepsie had held more or less discourse with the people of the Swash. This usually happens on such occasions, and although Spike had endeavoured to prevent it, when his brig lay in this bay, he had not been entirely successful. Such discourse is commonly jocular, and sometimes witty; every speech, coming from which side it may, ordinarily commencing with "shipmate," though the interlocutors never saw each other before that interview. In one of the visits an allusion was made to cargo, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... has at command smiles for satire, simpers for repartee, sniggers for conundrums, titters for puns, and guffaws for jocular anecdotes. By Mr. T.C.'s system, cues for laughter are rendered unnecessary, as, from a long course of practical experience, the moment of cachinnation is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... judging by the evident traces of craft and dissimulation in his physiognomy, that they have been assumed as part of the means of getting into good company, to drive the more earnest trade of money-making. Argent evidently understood his true character, though he treated him with jocular familiarity. I thought it a fine example of the intellectual tact and superiority of T—-, that he seemed to view him with dislike and contempt. But I must not give you my reasons for so thinking, as you set no value ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... is it in this style, this way of putting things, so occasional, so variegated, so like his own harlequin in his 'ghastly vest of white patchwork,' 'the apparition of a dead rainbow'; what is it that gives to a style, which no man can analyse, its 'terseness, its jocular pathos, which makes one feel in laughter?' Those are his own words, not used of himself; but do they not do something to define what can, after all, never ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... the holes between the frames deepened, the work got harder and the footing bad, because they were forced to stand on slippery ledges while they passed the heavy stones from man to man. Charnock was ready with jocular sympathy if one fell or a stone bruised somebody's hand, and his jokes spurred on the weary. It got dark soon in the hollow, but as the light faded the flame of a powerful blast-lamp sprang up and threw out a dazzling glare. The lamp belonged to ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... his most happy and resplendent moods that the Archdeacon held jocular conversations with his daughter. These conversations had been, in the past, moments of agony and terror to her, but since that morning when she had suddenly woken to a realisation of the marvellous possibilities in life her terror had left her. There were other people in the word besides ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... my son," said the baronet, preserving his half-jocular air, "I must tell you that it is my wish to have ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... mien of 1812 was very different from the half-jocular, half-sarcastic curl of the lip and sparkle of the eye which had inspired his followers in former days quite as much as his stirring, incisive harangues. Yet careful study will prove that his sagacity as a great captain was in no way dimmed; his military combinations ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... usually due to a weakness of composition, to the goddess IIII., who is the presiding deity of the plots of New Comedy.[132] However, there are times when appreciable fun can be extracted from this, if the actor speak in a bland jocular tone, taking the audience into his confidence, as ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... while instructing his men, had insulted the French flag and had called the Alsatian recruits Wackes, a nick-name meaning "square-head," and frequently used by the people of Alsace-Lorraine in a jocular way, but hotly resented by them if used towards them by others. It was further reported that he had promised his men a reward of ten marks if one of them, in case of trouble, should bring down a Social ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... forget her." "Do you recollect a stroll down to the bay shore one moonlight night?" Of course I remembered it. This was John Concklin, Mary's cousin. I remembered very well how he devoted himself to one I felt considerable interest in, while his cousin Mary and I talked in a jocular way about the cost of housekeeping, both agreeing that it would require but a very small sum to set up such an establishment as our modest ambition demanded. I was heartily glad to meet the young man. He looks very ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... Hosea!" The crowd laughed, but above the roar of laughter rang out the voice of a Scotchman who was one of our best Bible students: "Gie him brimstone, Sandy!" A few minutes later I ejaculated, "And, bedad, that's for Joel!" In this new spirit and in this jocular way, I pounded the twelve minor prophets into him one after another, while the rafters of the ship rang with the cheers of the crew. By the time I had exhausted the minor prophets, I was much the stronger man of the ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... to borrow money," Bill retorted to the jocular latter part of the bartender's speech. "What time ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... have continued in this jocular strain; but at this moment several gentlemen, with whom they had appointed a meeting, came in by different secret ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... pleased with your "Spider," "your old freemason," as you call him. The three first stanzas are delicious; they seem to me a compound of Burns and. Old Quarles, those kind of home-strokes, where more is felt than strikes the ear,—a terseness, a jocular pathos which makes one feel in laughter. The measure, too, is novel and pleasing. I could almost wonder Rob Burns in his lifetime never stumbled upon it. The fourth stanza is less striking, as being less original. ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... called a Lollard and accused of "heretycall langage," and he is finally poisoned by a monk of Swinestead. Allegorical characters are mixed with the real persons. Ynglonde vidua, represents the nation, and the jocular element is provided by Sedwyson (sedition), who would have been the Vice in a pure morality play. One actor was obviously intended to play many parts, for stage directions such as "Go out Ynglond, and dress for Clargy" are by no means uncommon. The MS. of Kynge Johan was discovered between ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... years, like other agricultural patriarchs, including the Tammuz of Berosus, it is possible that he was ultimately sacrificed and burned. The beating of Nimrod recalls the beating of the corn spirit of the agricultural legend utilized by Burns in his ballad of "John Barleycorn", which gives a jocular account of widespread ancient customs that are not yet quite ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... commonly known by the term jocular and comick, is nothing but a turn of expression, an airy phantom, that must be caught at a particular point. As we lose this point, we lose the jocularity, and find nothing but dulness in its place. A lucky sally, which has filled a company with laughter, will ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... gayer than might have been expected. The Doctor was jocular, Lady Annabel lively, and Plantagenet excited by an extraordinary glass of wine. Venetia alone remained dispirited. The Doctor made mock speeches and proposed toasts, and told Plantagenet that he must learn ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... I said. We were so brusque on the frontier. Besides, the matter still suffered a jocular presentment. Mrs. Harbottle and Mr. Chichele were still 'great friends'; we could still put them next each other at our dinner-parties without the feeling that it would be 'marked.' There was still nothing unusual in the fact that when Mrs. Harbottle was ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... marry my daughter," said Lord Marshmoreton. A few moments before, Billie would undoubtedly have replied to such a statement with some jocular remark expressing disbelief that the earl could have a daughter old enough to be married. But now she felt oddly serious and ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... horrible skill,—a bear, tainted with dog and ox, and one of the most elaborately made of all his creatures. It treated Montgomery with a strange tenderness and devotion. Sometimes he would notice it, pat it, call it half-mocking, half-jocular names, and so make it caper with extraordinary delight; sometimes he would ill-treat it, especially after he had been at the whiskey, kicking it, beating it, pelting it with stones or lighted fusees. But whether he treated it well or ill, it loved ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... cousin, ACIS ARRANT, generally known to his jocular intimates as Knave ARRANT, had been living in luxury with his cousin's weak mother, whom he had contrived to marry. To effect this, however, he had been compelled to tear a will into little pieces, and had, at the same time, ruined that peace of his mind which he often gave to SONOGUN. The ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 7, 1891. • Various
... told that this jocular feature Of mine was a trick reprehensibly rude, And yet I was sold, like a commonplace creature, To work in a ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... beware of your partner in the dance of life; for, as Mahomet used to say, in his jocular moods, 'those who will dance must pay the fiddler.' To be tied, forever, for better, for worse, to such a —— as Amina Ghoul, is to be transformed in one's whole nature. It is the transmigration of a soul from amiability to peevishness, from activity to discouragement, from ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... clergyman, about forty years of age, who was rather a weak man, happened to be drinking wine in jocular company, and by accident swallowed a part of the seal of a letter, which he had just then received; one of his companions seeing him alarmed, cried out in humour, "It will seal your bowels up." He became melancholy from that instant, and in a day or two refused to swallow ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... probably have taken him out of the country at the end of a rope, but of his position with Fan they were in no doubt, for she was very frank with them. If they accused her of being "sweet on the bloody Englishman" she laughed. If they threatened his life in a jocular way she laughed again, but in a different way, and said: "Don't make a mistake; George Adelbert is a fighter from way back East." And once, in a burst of rage, she said: "I won't have you saying such things, Lincoln Compton. I won't have it, I tell you!" No one could accuse ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... confinement torrents of polluted mirth; the juvenile pickpocket, ripe in all the ribald wit and traditional slang of his profession; the ruffian burglar, with strong animal frame, dark eyebrows, low forehead, and face full of coarseness and brutality; the open robber, reckless and jocular, indifferent to consequences, and holding his life only in trust for the hangman, or for some determined opponent who may treat him to cold lead instead of pure gold; the sneaking thief, cool and cowardly, ready-witted at the extricating falsehood—for it is well known that the thief ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... A jocular, jibing account. Then Alten gave it up. He had about decided to plead guilty in the Magistrate's Court to disorderly conduct and all the rest of it! That was preferable to being ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... Mr. Heatherbloom, or any other blooming name!" Recovering his jocular manner. "It's not for me to inquire the 'why,' or care a rap for the 'wherefore.' Ethics hasn't anything to do with ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... trustworthy. But neither did he propose to have me familiar with him. Why was this? What had I done to elicit that veiled and skilful sarcasm about oddities coming in on every train? Having been sent to look after me, he would do so, would even carry my valise; but I could not be jocular with him. This handsome, ungrammatical son of the soil had set between us the bar of his cold and perfect civility. No polished person could have done it better. What was the matter? I looked at him, and suddenly it came to me. If he had tried ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... and R. K. Dent, John Baskerville, Cambridge, 1907. On page 19 the authors include a letter to Baskerville from Benjamin Franklin, written in 1760 in a jocular tone, which notes that he overheard a friend saying that Baskerville's types would be "the means of blinding all the Readers in the Nation owing to the thin and narrow strokes of ...
— Why Bewick Succeeded - A Note in the History of Wood Engraving • Jacob Kainen
... side the door; for, previous to Tadpole's taking possession of it, it had been an alehouse, and much frequented by seamen. The doctor had not removed these benches, as they were convenient, when the weather was fine, for those who waited for medicine or advice; and moreover, being a jocular, sociable man, he liked people to sit down there, and would often converse with them. Indeed, this assisted much to bring him into notice, and made him so well known among the humbler classes that ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... roused herself at the hearing of her name, but the careless, jocular mention of it, (so it seemed at least,) in contrast with the warmer leave-taking of other friends, added a new pang to her distress. She wished, for a moment, that she had never written her letter of thanks. What if she wished—in that hour of terrible suspicion and of vain ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... Jocular opinions of the passers-by were being freely exchanged back and forth; he paid no heed to them. The scoop dropped from his hand and clattered upon the floor; he let it lay. Silent and troubled, unaware of the demands of an insistent customer, he ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... much grossness, but with sparkling point. Of these Saturae he wrote no less than 150 books, of which fragments have been preserved amounting to near 600 lines. Menippus of Gadara, the originator of this style of composition, lived about 280 B.C.; he interspersed jocular and commonplace topics with moral maxims and philosophical doctrines, and may have added contemporary pictures, ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... explanation failed now to satisfy altogether. There was something that lay deeper than that. Some sort of strain between them dating back, she surmised, to the talk her father had referred to down in North Carolina in the jocular assertion that he had told Paula she would have to begin now supporting the family. Had the same topic come up again during his ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... elementary canal being out of order, and there about tonsors of the throat; here we hear of neurology in the head, there, of an embargo; one side of us we hear of men being killed by getting a pound of tough beef in the sarcofagus, and there another kills himself by discovering his jocular vein. Things change so that I declare I don't know how to subscribe for any diseases nowadays. New names and new nostrils takes the place of the old, and I might as well throw ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... transactions of life, his air became abstracted and restless; but if, by chance, the Revolution and the country were the topic, his whole system seemed altered—all his faculties were concentrated: he would listen for a great length of time, without speaking, and then would break silence by some light and jocular remark, that was too much at variance with his former manner, not to be affectation. But of the war, and of his father, he seldom spoke and always from some ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... walls; the captain of an army leaving the field victor, to find his legions rushing upon him in rout; figure any monstrous overturn in well-laid schemes, and you have but a faint reflex of poor Jack's heart-breaking anguish when this jocular fate stood above him, with the five gaping barrels pointed at his miserable head. Oh, if Dick had only been there! His quick eye and keen activity would have discovered this lurking devil; perhaps, between them, they would ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... to some friends on the confines of the county of Salop, bordering on Herefordshire, I took the opportunity long cherished of visiting the spot where lie the remains of the author of Boscobel; Fragmenta Antiquitatis, or Ancient Tenures of Land, and Jocular Customs of Manors, &c., and copied the following inscription from his monument, in the chancel of the ancient church of Orleton in the latter county. I believe it has never been published; and although neither Note nor ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 • Various
... never failed in consideration for her, Augustine could not help trembling as she saw that he kept for the outer world those treasures of wit and grace that he formerly would lay at her feet. She soon began to find sinister meaning in the jocular speeches that are current in the world as to the inconstancy of men. She made no complaints, ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... night prior to the shooting General Richardson and Col. Jo. C. McKibben, afterwards member of Congress, were at the Blue Wing in company. After midnight Richardson went out for a moment on the sidewalk. A man passed him, made a jocular remark and entered the saloon. Richardson followed him in, and asked of Perkins his name. He had been drinking heavily. McKibben prevailed upon him to start for his home. It was on Minna street, near Fred Woodworth's, just above Jessie street. Jo. accompanied him most ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... was Healy, who appeared on very good terms with her indeed. He appointed himself a sort of master of ceremonies, and handed to each man his mail with appropriate jocular comments designed to embarrass the recipient. He knew them all, and his hits were greeted with gay laughter. To the man standing in the doorway with his back to them, they seemed all one happy family—and himself a rank outsider. He trailed down ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... century, Sir Nicholas Bacon, who resembled Sir Thomas More in the gentleness of his happiest speeches, could also on occasion exhibit an unnecessary coarseness in his jocular retorts. A circuit story is told of him in which a convicted felon named Hog appealed for remission of his sentence on the ground that he was related to his lordship. "Nay, my friend," replied the judge, "you and I ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... altercation on the subject. In these debates, however, in accordance with my natural disposition, I took no part whatever, except by making some fruitless attempts to abate the resentment of the parties, by thrusting in a jocular remark or so, when anything particularly severe was said. Well, gentlemen, how was I rewarded for this charitable conduct, think ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... affectations she used to mimic with considerable effect. 'I think Lord Byron was a strange character,' she said, many years later. 'His generosity was for a motive, his avarice was for a motive; one time he was mopish, and nobody was to speak to him; another, he was for being jocular with everybody.... At Athens I saw nothing in him but a well-bred man, like many others: for as for poetry, it is easy enough to write verses; and as for the thoughts, who knows where he got them? Many a one picks up some old book that nobody knows anything about, and gets his ideas ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... out of his cart, and clambered over the fence. Something in Custer's manner warned him that any allusions of a jocular nature would prove highly distasteful to his son, and he followed silently as Custer led the way down to ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... of witnesses was very jocular, and sometimes very unfair; but his jocoseness was usually so distinct from mere flippant derisiveness, and his unfairness was redeemed by such delicacy of wit and courtesy of manner, that his most malicious ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... faint smile. The professor confessed in a jocular tone his impatience to complete the circuit of the globe and be done with it. It was impossible to remain quartered on the dear excellent Dunsters for an indefinite time. And then there were the lectures he had arranged to deliver in Paris. ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... before the fire touched her. Burning was simply a method of disposing of the body so expeditiously as to give no occasion and opportunity for the unseemly social rites commonly performed about the scaffold of the erring male by the jocular populace. As lately as 1763 a woman named Margaret Biddingfield was burned in Suffolk as an accomplice in the crime of "petty treason." She had assisted in the murder of her husband, the actual killing being done by a man; and he ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... sinecure; for this was the favourite stall with the purchasers of better style, since the articles were, in general, tasteful, and fairly worth the moderate price set on them. At Miss Cleveland's counter there was much noisy laughter— many jocular cheats—tricks for gaining money, and refusals to give change; and it seemed to be very popular with the Stoneborough people, and to carry on a brisk trade. The only languor was in Lady Leonora's quarter—the articles were too ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... emerged from the office into the open glare of the street, he was oppressed with such an intolerable sense of shame that he became sick and faint, and tottered against the policeman, who took no other notice of his condition than the utterance of a jocular remark: ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... and Highland. The grass closed about its base like a false foundation and surged on to new conquests, leaving the monolith bare and forlorn in its new surroundings. At first the weed satisfied itself with jocular and teasing ventures up the smooth sides; then, as though rasped by the skyscraper's quiescence, it forced its way into the narrow space between the steel sash, filling the lower floor and bursting out ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... same way he wished for something that he himself could eat, and he was weary of the perpetual joint and the vegetables a l'eau. One day, when in a jocular spirit he was talking to me on this subject, I told him that we English had a saying to the effect that 'God sent us food, but the devil ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... the weaker. If you had charged with the Six Hundred, you would not have remarked during the charge that one of your sleeves was too tight. Perhaps in your boyhood, a companion of a turn at once thoughtful and jocular, offered to pull a hair out of your head without your feeling it. And this he accomplished, by taking hold of the doomed hair, and then giving you a knock on the head that brought tears to your eyes. For, in the more vivid sensation of that knock ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... From one rather jocular sentence in your note I judge you may include some sonnets of your own. I see no possible reason why you should not. You are really now, at your highest, among our best sonnet-writers, and have written two or three sonnets that yield ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... had left the Athenian school to Zenodotus, a pupil of Proclus, and had removed to Alexandria. Salustius the Cynic was a Syrian, who had removed with Isidorus from Athens to Alexandria. He was virtuous in his morals though jocular in his manners, and as ready in his witty attacks upon the speculative opinions of his brother philosophers as upon the vices of the Alexandrians. These learned men, with Damascius and others from Athens, were kindly received by the Persians, who soon afterwards, when they made a treaty ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... drove to the house of Secretary Seward. The Secretary of State received them very cordially, and would neither admit nor deny that he had advised the censorship of the press. He said, however, in his semi-jocular way, "The affair at Baltimore to-day was only a local outbreak, for which the regimental officers, who had ridden through the city in a car, leaving some of the companies to follow on foot without a ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... that Master Jeffreys handed to Dorothy was too large and too heavy for a mere missive; and the maid, recalling some jocular promises of Raleigh's, at once suspected that some London gew-gaw lay snug within, and tore off the wrappings with eager fingers. Her hopes were not disappointed, and a dainty pair of silver shoebuckles shone in ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... A jocular allusion to the fact that if a person says he will be back, or done with anything "belyve," that is, immediately, or in a little, the probability is he will be longer ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... -ARI. These words have the stress on the antepenultima, which they shorten, as in 'secular' or keep short as in 'jocular', 'familiar', but of ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 4 - The Pronunciation of English Words Derived from the Latin • John Sargeaunt
... soldiers refreshed by food and coffee are in more receptive mood than when dejected by hunger. Some men in the third car who had heard his eager queries of the commissary sergeant knew for whom those supplies were meant, others did not, and of these latter one jocular and untutored Patlander sang out, "Bully for the leftenint; 'tis he that knows how to look out for number wan." Whereat there came furious shouts of "Shame!" "Shut up!" and inelegant and opprobrious epithets, all ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... cried The Laird. He realized that Elizabeth was not to be denied, so he thought best to assume a jocular attitude during ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... hearty laugh, when any thing really calls for it. Beware, however, of the practice of laughing when there is nothing to laugh at. Some people fall into a way of giving the accompaniment of a laugh to almost every thing that they utter, especially if they have any direct intention to be jocular. This habit is disagreeable to most of those who witness it. It proceeds, I believe, generally from a sort of shyness and awkwardness contracted in early youth, and is, as I know from experience, difficult to get rid of. It certainly is inconsistent ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... selling of badly built houses. Mechanical religion—a dry, hard church, shut off from the real life of the streets, inhumanly respectable as a top-hat. Mechanical golf and dinner-parties and bridge and conversation. Save with Paul Riesling, mechanical friendships—back-slapping and jocular, never daring to essay the test ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... Whites!" cried he, with a jocular simulation of disquiet. "You should not have told me that, till I had finished my cup. Now I shall feel that I am sharing a dissipation with ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... that came to give quickly way to a blaze of eyes and quiver of lips, I felt that Mr. Lincoln had gone beneath my mere words and caught my inner and current fears as to the result. And then, in a forgiving, jocular way peculiar to him, he said, 'Sit down; I have a moment to spare and will tell you a story.' Having been on his feet for some time, he sat on the end of the stone steps leading into the hotel door, while ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... dead," replied the man, in a drawling, jocular tone. "She's worth a dozen dead ones—ain't you, Lois? I found her layin' down side of the road kind of tuckered out, that's all, and I thought I'd give her a lift. Don't you be scared, Mis' Field. Now, Lois, you jest rest ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the way home from the races, he may relax a little. Certainly, if he has backed Cutandrun, he will. For Cutandrun won at ten to one, and his pocket is full of five-pound notes. He feels quite jocular now that the strain is over. He makes puns on the names of the defeated horses. "Lie Low lay low all right," he announces to the compartment, indifferent to the scowls of the man in the corner who had backed it. "Hopscotch didn't hop quite fast ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... radio-helio operator of the ill-fated Planetara. He was a perfect match for Venza, for all the millions of miles that separated their native lands. Venza, too was small and slim, her manner as readily jocular as his. ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... snug place too," said the lieutenant. "Good sandy bottom for running the lugger ashore. Nice game must have been carried on here. Come, Captain Duncan," he continued in a jocular tone, "you knew of ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... for the execution of that princess. She signed it readily, and ordered it to be sealed with the great seal of England. She appeared in such good humour on the occasion, that she said to him in a jocular manner, "Go, tell all this to Walsingham, who is now sick; though I fear he will die of sorrow when he hears of it." She added, that though she had so long delayed the execution, lest she should seem to be actuated by malice or cruelty, she was ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... felt that he might have taken Hilland into his confidence, he had, in terms substantially the same as those given, imagined his explanation, and he smiled as he portrayed to himself his friend's jocular response, which would have nevertheless its substratum of true sympathy. "Hilland would say," he thought, "'That is just like you, Graham. You can't smoke a cigar or make love to a girl without analyzing and philosophizing and arranging ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... the rejoicings of the North when General Lee surrendered. In our country home we had lived in an actual condition of camp life so long that at its conclusion I remarked to my husband in a jocular vein that I was prepared for a life with the Comanches! We restored our damaged fences, dug up our silver which had been buried many months under a tree in the garden, and Mr. Gouverneur began to turn his attention to agriculture. Our farm ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... heard, not far away, the measured beating of breakers as they charged at the foot of our cliff, when the wind, plucking the latch from my grasp, slammed the lattice and went yelling around the corner of the house like a jocular demon. I began to dress, thinking, as I had often thought before, that the place had a kind of fantastic kinship with the sea; every timber in it seemed to strain and creak to the repeated onsets of the storm, like those of any ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... grand saloon laughing, munching, singing, and playing at cards. On board the Zouave the company was as jolly as numerous, composed of officers going back to join their regiments, ladies from the Marseilles Alcazar Music Hall, strolling-players, a rich Mussulman returning from Mecca, and a very jocular Montenegrin prince, who favoured them with imitations of the low comedians of Paris. Not one of these jokers felt the sea-sickness, and their time was passed in quaffing champagne with the steamer captain, a good fat born Marseillais, who had ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... dictator, ordered the lictor to get ready his axe; and when the praetor, having discarded all hope of being able to clear himself, seemed utterly stupefied at the order, he commanded the lictor to cut down a shrub close by; and having in this jocular manner reproved him, he let him go: without himself incurring any disrespect by so doing, since all knew him for a man who, by his own unassisted vigour, had brought long and dangerous wars to a happy termination; and had been the only man reckoned able to ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... their normal meal. Gunga Dass cooked mine. The almost irresistible impulse to fly at the sand walls until I was wearied laid hold of me afresh, and I had to struggle against it with all my might. Gunga Dass was offensively jocular till I told him that if he addressed another remark of any kind whatever to me I should strangle him where he sat. This silenced him till silence became insupportable, and I bade him ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... repulsed, Stafford appealed to his sister-in-law, who had retreated to a corner on the other side of the room. In a maudlin, jocular way he asked: ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... there to lend a festal light. Moor trundled a great cheese in from the dairy, brought milk-pans without mishap, disposed dishes, and caused Nat to cleave to him by the administration of surreptitious titbits and jocular suggestions; while Phebe tumbled about in every one's way, quite wild with excitement; and grandma stood in her pantry like a culinary general, swaying a big knife for a baton, as she issued orders and marshalled her forces, the busiest and merriest ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... empty, by sympathising and enthusiastic odes. But it is, moreover, consistent with the essence of the Old Comedy, where not merely the subject, but the whole manner of treating it was sportive and jocular. The unlimited dominion of mirth and fun manifests itself even in this, that the dramatic form itself is not seriously adhered to, and that its laws are often suspended; just as in a droll disguise the masquerader sometimes ventures to lay aside the mask. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... are intact. Hastily anointing her, Pere Francois departs. He promises to return in the morning. He hastens to the nearest cabstand, and whirls away to Colonel Woods' hotel. Whose hand has dealt this blow? The financier is startled at the priest's face. Joseph has been jocular since the safe departure ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... But if, perceiving the man's breeding by his discourse, and admiring the prudence of his addresses, she rather wisheth to have such a one for a husband than a merchant or a dancing gallant of her fellow-citizens, she is to be commended. And when Ulysses is represented as pleased with Penelope's jocular conversation with her wooers, and at their presenting her with rich garments ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... looked at her for some time, Bernard Grandin replied with a jocular accent of sincere conviction: "You may well call her beautiful." "How old do you think she is?" "Wait a moment. I can tell you exactly, for I have known her since she was a child, and I saw her make her debut ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... but for her own she wanted to go. She believed that Smith knew it. She felt thankful, as he had dared to accuse her of not loving her husband, that he had the kindness not to accuse her of this. A certain awe of Smith came over her; he could be violent with those who were violent, coarse and jocular with his public who could be worked upon thus, but to her he spoke delicately, and he had shown her at times before this that he knew her ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... looking at my Lord Castlewood from under his eyelids, said, "But joking apart, and, my lord, as a divine, I cannot treat the subject in a jocular light, nor, as a pastor of this congregation, look with anything but sorrow at the idea of so very young a ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... atmosphere of their own, a sort of universal fame and the particular affection of their citizens. One of such streets is the Cannebiere, and the jest: "If Paris had a Cannebiere it would be a little Marseilles" is the jocular expression of municipal pride. I, too, I have been under the spell. For me it has been a street leading into ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... far, had said nothing whatever, though she had been addressed with more than one rough but kindly compliment on her youth and good looks. And now Andrew King explained that she was dumb. Consternation took the strange form of jocular approval of his discretion in selecting a wife who could never nag him—but it was consternation none the less. The mystery was felt to be deeper; there was nothing for it now but to call in the aid of the parish priest—"the minister," as they called ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... homely atmosphere, were here as in the other Y.M. centres. One felt, one was made to feel, that his was the right to enter and stay and enjoy himself each in his own way, and that is why the Y.M. is so popular, and why both the taciturn and the jocular find their way by common consent to these ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams
... about the second week of January, 1833, gives much interesting information concerning the writer's tastes and manners, the degree of success he had obtained, and the kind of life he was leading. After some jocular remarks on his long silence—remarks in which he alludes to recollections of Szafarnia and the sincerity of their friendship, and which he concludes with the statement that he is so much in demand on all sides as to ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... "Achilles, in a mood partly jocular and partly serious, reminds Priam of the real circumstances of his situation, not for the sake of alarming him, but of accounting for his choosing the place he did for the couch ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... sombrero as he dashed up, and was apparently about to make some jocular remark, but he stopped short at the sight of ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... of the ill-fated city, summer broke beautifully, and the weather, chequered occasionally by fitful intervals of cold and rain, made us all cheerful. You would scarcely have believed that the happy, good-humoured, and jocular visitors to the British Hotel were the same men who had a few weeks before ridden gloomily through the muddy road to its door. It was a period of relaxation, and they all enjoyed it. Amusement was the order of the day. Races, dog-hunts, cricket-matches, ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... and hearing was of wonderful assistance to these two men in their vocation, for the Englishman acted as correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, and the Frenchman, as correspondent of what newspaper, or of what newspapers, he did not say; and when asked, he replied in a jocular manner that he corresponded with "his cousin Madeleine." This Frenchman, however, neath his careless surface, was wonderfully shrewd and sagacious. Even while speaking at random, perhaps the better ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... One jocular French guard had put on a spiked helmet which he was keeping as a trophy, and, so much does the habit make the man, he now looked uncannily like a ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... tetchy humour toward the hour of five P. M. Having bitterly schooled himself to see men as paragraphs walking, he finds that his most august musings have a habit of stewing themselves down to some ferocious or jocular three-line comment. He may yearn desperately to compose a really thrilling poem that will speak his passionate soul; to churn up from the typewriter some lyric that will rock with blue seas and frantic hearts; he finds ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley |
