"Flippantly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the smile of gallantry upon his lips, "I have no doubt that you deserve the richest blessings of earth and heaven. For myself——" He shrugged his shoulders, just about to say conventionally, flippantly, that he was a sad, worthless fellow, but in some way her sincerity made him sincere, and he finished: "I do not know that I have ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... of course too they find resistance to this impossible; though I must own that their method of circumventing the vow reminded me dangerously of the young man who used a cigarette-holder because he had been told to keep away from tobacco. I speak flippantly; but as a matter of fact the story of Edward and Sally is not free from tragedy, very simply and movingly told. If Concerning a Vow does not add to Miss BROUGHTON'S popularity it will only be because this is impossible; it certainly will do ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 147, August 12, 1914 • Various
... have given a good deal to be out of that room. There was something in Mr Smith's voice and manner and frightened eyes which made the question, coming from him, very different from the same inquiry flippantly thrown out by one of my old comrades. And yet I ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... no sense of reverence, Jurgen, you seem to have no sense at all of what is due to one's creator. I suppose you cannot help that: but you might at least remember it troubles me to hear you talk so flippantly of my religion." ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... atheists or habitual drunkards," said Attwater flippantly.—"Let us go across the island ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... But what is most absurd in the adventure was that, when I pointed out Mme. du Barry to her—whose figure and favourite domino I knew—the Queen expressed the most anxious desire to hear her speak and bade me intriguer her. She answered me flippantly, and I am sure if I had offered her my other arm, the Queen would not have objected to it. Such was the esprit d'aventure at that time in the court of Versailles and in the head of the ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... his company was wont to enter a fray with a leg perched flippantly about the horn of his saddle, a cigarette hanging from his lips, which emitted smoke and original slogans of clever invention. Buckley would have given a year's pay to attain that devil- may-care method. Once the debonair youth said to him: "Buck, you go into a scrap like it was a funeral. ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... of Massachusetts concerning slavery in America is often flippantly branded in these Halls, as wild, passionate, unreasoning fanaticism. Senators of the South! tell me, I pray you tell me, if it be fanaticism for Massachusetts to see in this age, what your peerless Washington saw in his age "the direful effects ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... the right of the whites to unite against this tremendous menace, we are challenged with the smallness of our vote. This has long been flippantly charged to be evidence and has now been solemnly and officially declared to be proof of political turpitude and baseness on our part. Let us see. Virginia—a state now under fierce assault for this alleged crime—cast in 1888 seventy-five per cent ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... while roaming around in the dark; but for all that, would we not have the constitution broken up. Somebody says, "In Heaven there will be no secrets," which, it seems to me, would be intolerable. (If that were a revelation from the King of Heaven, of course I would not speak flippantly of it; but though towards Heaven we look with reverence and humble hope, I do not know that Tom, Dick and Harry's notions of it have any special claim to our respect.) Such publicity would destroy all individuality, and undermine the foundations ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... flippantly that "poverty is no disgrace but it's mighty uncomfortable." And yet poverty is often a real disgrace. People born to poverty may rise above it. People who have poverty thrust upon them may overcome it. In this ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... Coe Cheever was chattering flippantly with a group of the dispersing audience, while her heart was in throes of dismay at her own feelings and ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... R. Coglan, flippantly. "The terrestrial, globular, planetary hunk of matter, slightly flattened at the poles, and known as the Earth, is my abode. I've met a good many object-bound citizens of this country abroad. I've seen men from Chicago sit in a gondola ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... and that careful respect that they did in the times of the fathers. In politics, it is the habit to speak in light and disrespectful terms of those whose experience gives them the right to counsel and command. Young men talk flippantly of "fossils," and "old fogies," and wonder why men who have been buried once will not remain quietly in their graves. Of course, when such a spirit as this prevails, there can be no reverence for authority, no respect for place and position, and no genuine and hearty loyalty. ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... won't see anybody now, for he's busy talking with one of our producers. You'll have to call again," she said flippantly. But even as she spoke she glanced at the card, started and turned red. "Oh, pardon me!" she added hastily and fled back ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... doubt. Mr Macaulay affirms that Southey may be always read with pleasure, except when he tries to be droll; that a more insufferable jester never existed; and that, often as he attempts to be humorous, he in no single occasion has succeeded further than to be quaintly and flippantly dull. Another reviewer warned the author of the Doctor, that there is no greater mistake than that which a grave person falls into, when he fancies himself humorous; adding, as a consolatory corollary ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... it therefore belongs somewhere in the literature of the day. Perhaps it would have been for the good of some of our readers, if we had done this sooner. But, indeed, to treat with entirely condign justice a book which deals very freely and flippantly with the literary and even the personal character of one who, though an eminent and to some extent a public man, was still only yesterday a private gentleman among us, a neighbor and a friend, is a matter of some delicacy. By the extraordinary alacrity with which this book was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... literature. There was no doubt that he was a fine scholar, and he was engaged on a work which was quite in the right tradition: he was writing a treatise on the trees in Latin literature; but he talked of it flippantly, as though it were a pastime of no great importance, like billiards, which engaged his leisure but was not to be considered with seriousness. And Squirts, the master of the Middle Third, grew more ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... Spoken flippantly enough, there was yet steady determination in the words of Stuart. He meant everything he said, and most generously gave up his prospects, at least of companionship, for the sake of those companions. More than that, he probably gave up all chances ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... harmonized with this stormy look, and trembled into half sarcastic smiles, as if each feature reviled the other. Now I was larger, taller, more pronounced in face and person than the pretty fairy who could entertain him so flippantly, while I sat dumb and silent in his presence. No wonder I hated myself, yet many persons had thought me good looking, and I could recollect a thousand compliments on my talents and powers of pleasing, which came to me ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... before he sailed for South Africa there was a service in St. Paul's Cathedral, for which each volunteer had two tickets. Simon sent his to his father. 'The Lord Mayor will attend in state. I dare say you'll like to see the show,' he wrote flippantly. ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... continues to flap over you shelteringly, madame," I rejoined, somewhat flippantly, I fear, "and will to the end, no doubt; for, in its very organization, our country can never be subjected to the fluctuations of other lands—revolt ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... do what I please by the divine right of—well, of just doing it. But, even so, a lot of the men are rather afraid of me in their hearts. They suspect the bluestocking. Let 'em suspect! The market is plenty good enough," declared Io flippantly. ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... people to the stress and strain of life, has without a doubt increased. The most casual of observers will tell you that the generation of the Great War is a neurasthenic generation. It takes its pleasures too intensely, its pains too seriously, its troubles too flippantly. But what is neurasthenia? Beard himself regarded it as a chronic fatigue and loss of tone of the nervous system, a literal interpretation of his term. That the conception, as far as it goes, is valid is proved by the fact that ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... are present, I'll deny it flat. When I sit in the company of ladies at dinner, I dissemble my true nature, as doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat. If then, you taunt me, for want of a better escape, I shall turn it to a jest. I shall engage the table flippantly: Hear how preposterously the fellow talks!—he jests to satisfy a grudge. In appearance I am whole as the marble, founded as ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... course." It was a statement, not a question. The Lensman ignored as completely as did the observer, if not as flippantly, the distinct possibility that at any moment the observatory and all that it contained might be resolved ...
— The Vortex Blaster • Edward Elmer Smith
... women read the magazines—and believe what they hear or else what their husbands tell them," she rejoined flippantly. Presently, as Lane continued to look over the stock page of the ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... one of ourselves, and of answer by Miss Jeremy. These replies were usually in a querulous tone, and were often apparently unwilling. Also occasionally there was a bit of vernacular, as in the next reply. Herbert, who was still flippantly amused, said: ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... on the bed in the dingy room next door. His heart was beating violently. He had risked all on this throw. How would they decide? And all the while that this agonized questioning went on within him, he talked flippantly to Conrad, enraging the cross-grained doorkeeper to the ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... to foment, certainly nothing has assisted more to continue, the agrarian disturbances in Ireland, than the statements, made so flippantly by journalists and pamphleteers, of the great excess of rent exacted in Ireland over that paid by the English tenantry. Those writers have invariably assumed the truth of the assertions made in this particular; yet nothing can ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... had literally nothing more to say, and Lord Kilcullen was so irritated that he told his father he would not stand it any longer. Then they went into money affairs, and the earl spoke despondingly about ten thousands and twenty thousands, and the viscount somewhat flippantly of fifty thousands and sixty thousands; and this was continued till the earl felt that his son was too deep in the mire to be pulled out, and the son thought that, deep as he was there, it would be ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... spiral-shaped fossil as large as the crown of a hat; it was embedded in the marble bench, and had been sat upon by tourists until it was worn smooth. Contrasted with the inconceivable antiquity of this modest fossil, those other things were flippantly modern—jejune—mere matters of day-before-yesterday. The sense of the oldness of the Cathedral vanished away under the influence of this truly ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... said Amy flippantly. In those days, they always put two nots together when they meant to speak strongly. They did not see, as we do now, that the one ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... much laughter," interrupted the delegate flippantly. "Well, we were yarning and laughing over Mrs. Beaudesart's simplicity; and it came out that Nelson and Mooney knew there was some reason why you dare n't go back to where you were known; but they had never heard the ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... "Flippantly, my dear?" returned he. "I'm sure I don't know why you should use that word. If a man takes his life, why shouldn't I speak of it,—to you, that is; of course I ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... fact which the Frenchman flippantly stated—that no human beings really believe that death is inevitable until the last clasp of the stone-cold king numbs their pulses. Perhaps this insensibility is a merciful gift; at any rate, it is a fact. If ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... from her letter. She seemed to write flippantly about things—but that was just because she hates insincerity and flummery, and the world she lives in doesn't satisfy her. Why, it was as if I read slick through to her soul. That woman would go through anything for a man she ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... Clemence felt sorry for having misjudged her, as she saw a bright silver piece glitter in her hand the next Sabbath, as she sat beside her during the weekly collection of contribution for the missionary fund. Maria was wrong, and she was sorry she laughed when she spoke flippantly of Mrs. Little's magnificent gift of a penny a Sabbath amounting to fifty-two cents annually. She ought to be more careful to give people the benefit of ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... curiosity to know what that 'thorough talk' of yours is going to be about. You and I, in our briefly connected careers, have discussed every subject on earth, gravely or flippantly, and what in the world this 'thorough talk' is going ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... The phrase is not to be taken flippantly, but when two young people talk with the primary object of concealing their respective thoughts, the conversation is apt to partake of futility. In this case, at all events, it led to ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... attempt to draw a comparison between the two men. The one was a colossal human genius, and the other, extraordinary in the art of his profession, was entirely without the faculty of understanding or appreciating the distinguished man he flippantly ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... of hedging in conversation: one which comes from failing to follow the trend of the discussion; another which is the result of talking at random merely to make bulk. The first is tolerable; the last is contemptible. The moment one begins to talk for effect, or to hedge flippantly, he is talking insincerely. And when a good converser runs against this sort of talker, his heart calls out, with Carlyle, for an empty room, his tobacco, and his pipe. It is maintained by some one that there ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... hypotheses. Thus, indeed, "the dead bury their dead," while all the strange, mysterious, inner powers of nature, which the philosophers of the Middle Ages, as Psellus, Albertus Magnus, Trithemius, Cardanus, Theophastus, &c., did so much to elucidate, are at once flippantly and ignorantly placed in the category of ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... old days—more so than they were to again. As the days went on Georgie, whom marriage had taken completely away from the old artistic set, found herself feeling that after all she was a married woman and Judy was still only Miss Parminter.... Judy, scenting this, told her flippantly that a miss was as good as a mother, and Georgie laughed, but warned her to remember the children were in the room.... Judy was inclined to be hurt by the needless reminder, and, as she considered it foolish ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... reconstituted French society. German Rationalism, empirical or spiritual,(72) in two parallel developments, the philosophical and the literary, neither coldly denied Christianity with the practical doubts of the English deists, nor flippantly denounced it as imposture with the trenchant and undiscriminating logic of the French infidels; but appreciating its beauty with the freshness of a poetical genius, and regarding it as one phase of the religious consciousness, ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... is, wherever I have authority to adjudicate, a rule with me to decide as few abstract propositions as I possibly can. I therefore resolved first to ascertain the fact whether Darby Moran could write or not. I accordingly gave him paper, and asked him could he write his name. He flippantly answered that he could, and in my presence instantly wrote down 'John O'Brien'—he totally forgot that he was playing Darby Moran. Thus this ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... Thus flippantly he addressed the ruddy-faced, middle-aged gentleman in gray tweeds, whose attention was apparently concentrated upon the lengthening ash ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... They may be found not only in the tropical isles of the Orient, but in the Western world, in the lagoons and forests of Equatorial America. Many of the "sailors' yarns" of past times, which we have been accustomed so flippantly to discredit, on account of their appearing rather tough, have under the light of recent scientific ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... Emily Davis flippantly, "as long as we delay our decision, we shall continue to be persons of importance in the eyes of the faculty. It's comical to see how deferential they all are. I took dinner at the Burton Sunday, and afterward Miss Raymond invited ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... opening friendships. In her eyes love was a very sacred thing, hardly to be thought of till it came, reverently received and cherished faithfully to the end. Therefore, it is not strange that she shrank from hearing it flippantly discussed and marriage treated as a bargain to be haggled over, with little thought of its high duties, great responsibilities, and tender joys. Many things perplexed her, and sometimes a doubt of all that till now she had believed and trusted made her ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... from this sage conclusion," he answered a little flippantly. "As far as I can see, the external condition has a great deal to do with our happiness. I am very sure, that if I were situated as some people are whom I know, I would be miserable. So you see, Doctor, I have my doubts touching this theory of yours ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... Eliza the dinner seemed endless, and the rich fare strangely unappetizing. She was abashed by the easy intimacy of her hostess's voice and eye. With Mr. Ramy Mrs. Hochmuller was almost flippantly familiar, and it was only when Ann Eliza pictured her generous form bent above his sick-bed that she could forgive her for tersely addressing him as "Ramy." During one of the pauses of the meal Mrs. Hochmuller laid her knife and fork against the edges of her plate, ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... under her spectacles. She wished Richard could have seen the girls dressed, 'just once.' But Rose treated the cards with no sort of tenderness. 'If one could but put them up to auction,' she said flippantly, holding them up, 'how many German opera tickets I should get for nothing! I don't know what Agnes feels. As for me, I have neither nerve enough for the people, nor money enough ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... it as my humble opinion that for an American woman an English husband was at least an experiment; Salemina declared that for that matter a husband of any nationality was an experiment. Francesca ended the conversation flippantly by saying that in her judgment no husband at all was a ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... woman from Shyuamo," flippantly observed Shotaye; "it will make Turquoises cheaper." She turned away with an indifferent air. Her careless manner struck the young man, and when he saw that she would not speak, but only gazed at the sky, he went off with the present he had received. He ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... but I thought to have had a month's time, at least, to look about me, and having treated Lord G—— too flippantly, to give him by degrees some fairer prospects of happiness with me, than hitherto ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... had my first case thrown to me by our railroad friends who own this State. More and more after I've said them over in campaigning next fall, and pretty soon I'll be so sure I believe them that I really will believe them—and that," he concluded, flippantly, "is the new brand of American honesty. Why, any smart man can persuade ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... disapproving look brought a mocking little smile to the other girl's face; her quick comprehension evidently detected the rebuke, but she only answered flippantly: ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... there are masters and experts in every art and science, only on matters of theology and Holy Scripture, the foundations of all arts and sciences, can few be found to speak well. Yet questions relating to them are discussed most flippantly at table, and in public places; the hare-brained youth, the uneducated labourer, and the dotard, give their opinions freely on the highest mysteries of ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... done," said Tom flippantly; "any place that can give Bert three such meals a day as he gets at the training table is sure to make a hit ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... than a cold in the head," he answered flippantly. "My dear child, we all have fever. You'll have it, too, if you go out at ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... remonstrance a little flippantly, I thought, evidently feeling that too much had been made out of very little; for he averred that his 'attentions' to Hesper had been of the slightest character, hardly more than occasional looks and whispers, which, from her cold reception of ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... head. "You have done everything in your power. Dysart has been fairly warned. Besides, who knows?" he added rather flippantly. "They may strike a hundred inches of water, as your ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... reason I feel very keenly what I am about to say. The committee feels that Mr. McGowan holds ideas that are too far advanced for our humble little church. We must not overlook the fact that we hold sacred some of the things to which he flippantly referred to-night, and it is our duty to protect—er—the sacred doctrines which have been handed down to us from the more sacred memory of our fathers and ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... time,' Sir George answered flippantly, as he emptied his glass. 'You know Selwyn's last upon that? It came by bones, and it is ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... Dupre, flippantly. "It went directly through the heart, and Lemoine, here, insists that when that happens a man should fall dead instantly. I did ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... I was not flippantly disposed, or I would have said I had thought the time he spent away always short, by his ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... fellow your aunt saw," she answered flippantly. "There's so many of them at the classes. I can't tell which it might be. Did she tell you ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... flippantly about it, but, at heart, isn't she seriously right? She has pulled herself up to a certain level. Except in response to a grande passion she will not again drop below it. She will bring up her children at a point ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... treat me so flippantly!" said his mother, turning again to him with a tearful look. "You are unnatural, Clym, and I ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... speechless, frozen with terror. Ali raised his whip to strike the ruffian who had spoken so flippantly of Monte-Cristo's daughter, but the indignant mute was instantly overpowered and ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... judge regarded the prince who thus flippantly defied the law of which he was the guardian, but his face was firm and his voice ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... the smart people all over the world belong to it so as to appear as though they held death in scorn. Then, once they get here, they feel obliged to be cheerful that they may not appear to be afraid. So they joke and laugh and talk flippantly, they are witty and they become so. At present it is certainly the most frequented and the most entertaining place in Paris. The women are even thinking of building ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... he walks there in the moonlight; that is, if we are at all to understand him—a matter by no means easy, considering that he has confessed he did not understand himself. Did ever man make a sincere declaration of sudden passion as flippantly as he had done, or in terms-better calculated to alienate the regard he sought to win? Did ever man choose his time with less discrimination, or his words with less discretion? Assuredly not. To suppose that Mr. Caryll was unaware ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... kind which reproduces itself frequently in the careers of all men of any public distinction. In his days of comparative obscurity, or in some position of "greater freedom and less responsibility," even when he ceases to be obscure, a man deals faithfully, but perhaps a little flippantly, with this or that person, thing, nation, subject, doctrine. Afterwards he is brought into a relation with the person or nation, into a position as regards the thing, subject, or doctrine, which necessitates, if ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... to present his friend in the usual form. To his astonishment, Midwinter took the words flippantly out of his lips, and introduced himself to Miss Milroy with a confident look, a hard laugh, and a clumsy assumption of ease which presented him at his worst. His artificial spirits, lashed continuously into higher and higher effervescence ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... business," she remarked flippantly as she entered. "I tell you right at the start, father, I can't understand it." Her eyes wandered about the room curiously. It was strange to her. She took up a woman's picture from the desk. "Who is this?" ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... incorrigible!" laughed Miss Crawford, fairly carried away by the irresistible current of the wild girl's humor. "How can you talk so flippantly ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... they dismember'd him So entirely, that e'en when they came to his wrists, With those great sugar-nippers they nipped off his "flippers," As the Clerk, very flippantly, termed his fists. ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... into her eyes, which were blue, and watching heavily. He could not understand them. 'Am I my brother's keeper?' he said to himself, almost flippantly. ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... Brimston, and she only delights in it so long as it is made a jest of. But they are all alike in that set she belongs to. Their ideas of propriety are bounded by their sense of pleasure. So long as you talk flippantly, they will listen and laugh; but if you talk seriously on the same subject, you make the matter disagreeable, and then they ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... I have been so silent, when I had announced a war between the House of Commons and the City—nay, when hostilities were actually commenced; but many a campaign languishes that has set out very flippantly. My letters depend on events, and I am like the man in the weather-house who only comes forth on a storm. The wards in the City have complimented the prisoners,[1] and some towns; but the train has not spread much. Wilkes is your only gun-powder that makes an explosion. He and ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... an Ibsen drama of it!" interrupted the young man, flippantly. "Riddles—especially old Hildebrant's riddles—don't have to be worked out seriously. They are light themes such as Sim Ford and Harry Thurston Peck like to handle. But, somehow, I can't strike just the answer. ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... answered Madelene flippantly. "I was wondering how long it would take that Skinner girl to earn enough money to pay for a ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... songs—Cynthia remembers all of them, although she would not confess such a thing. "Naughty, naughty Clara," was another one; the other three were almost wholly about love, some treating it flippantly, others seriously—this applied to the last one, which had many farewells in it. Then they went away, and the crickets and frogs on Coniston ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... man, so easily scared at the very shadow of trickery, who is so flippantly pronounced to ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... bound for Plymouth. So, you see, this little misadventure has shortened my journey by days." She paused. "No; I ought not to speak of it flippantly. I shall be very thankful in my prayers to-night ... all ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... been made to two of Guido's kinsmen, on the wing for Rome like everyone else—Conti being one. Both had refused, but Conti had referred her to Caponsacchi—not evilly like Margherita, but jestingly, flippantly. Nevertheless, that name had come to take a half-fateful sense to her ears . . . and the Other Half-Rome thus images the moment in which she resolved to ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... manner has been so unfortunate as to displease you, sir, it is impossible for me to apologize too deeply, or too sincerely; but I cannot confess the same contrition for having answered Sir Frederick flippantly when he pressed me rudely. Since he forgot I was a lady, it was time to show him that I am ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... wanting to borrow money," she said quickly and flippantly. "And you must despise the lot. You are a real 'King,' bigger than any crowned head, because you can do just as you like, and you are not the servant of Governments or peoples. I am sure you must be the happiest man in ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... die some day like the rest of you," she answered flippantly. "But I shan't have you by my death-bed. I shouldn't think you had ever ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... and should be frowned upon. The mistake of these individuals lies in the fact that they fail to see that the chief cause of humanity's triumphs is found in the works performed by those thinkers who in all ages have corresponded to the persons flippantly characterized pessimists at the present time: they who have assailed the existing order of things, who have thrown into the congregation of the people the shells of doubt; who have confronted the priests and potentates of conventionalism with a disturbing ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... had fought shy of them, mainly because Chip didn't do them justice. He spoke of them flippantly as "those two old flyaways," and would never go to their house. For this reason she herself went rarely, though when she did she got a perception of broad social inclusiveness which Chip could hardly appreciate. ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... messenger of the coming change of weather entered by way of a lowered window. It was a smart little breeze and it flippantly sent the ashes flying on the hearth and several sheets of paper broadcast in the room. Truedale sprang to recover his treasures; he caught four or five, but one escaped his notice and floated toward the door, which ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... you should not," he went on, flippantly, "just let me know, Miss Richards, and I will see what I can do for you, for I have ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... flatly, but flippantly. "You subjugated Eric Stanford in half that time, and his gray matter has been in a pulpy condition ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... realised that these were not the masked mutes at a very grisly funeral, but merely ladies literally obeying a convention of wearing veils in public, he would probably have a reaction of laughter. He would be disposed to say flippantly that it must be, a dull life, not only for the women but the men; and that a man might well want five wives if he had to marry them before he could even look at them. But he will be wise not to be satisfied with ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... me of avoiding him, and keeping out of his way on purpose when he tried to speak with me alone, ever since he came back from Scotland; and I retorted flippantly: "Oh, have you only ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... of this form is justified only by condemning an established usage of the language; namely, the passive sense in some verbs of the participle in ing. In reference to this it is flippantly asked, 'What does the house build?' 'What does the letter write?' etc.—taking for granted, without attempting to prove, that the participle in ing can not have a passive sense in any verb. The following are a few examples from writers of the best reputation, ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... energy and conscientiousness. But her efforts were forestalled by an event, or rather a condition of the national temper, of which too little notice has been taken by literary historians. The attacks on the stage for its indecency and blasphemy had been flippantly met by the theatrical agents, but they had sunk deeply into the conscience of the people. There followed with alarming abruptness a general public repulsion against the playhouses, and to this, early in 1699, a roughly worded Royal ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... out one of the survivors, who hums as he goes, and steps in time with it flippantly, as hussars of the stage do. It is ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... before. It was the first Socialist publication he had ever seen, and it had repelled him because its editor had printed his own picture in a conspicuous place, and also because in his leading editorial he had dealt flippantly with an eminent reformer and philanthropist for whom Thyrsis ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... with a tune they have just picked up. But the pious Monnica, who heard him, could not tolerate the singing of such holy words in such a place. She spoke sharply to the offender. Upon this the young scatter-brains answered rather flippantly: ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... try your luck. See how I manipulate this ball. Easy enough to find if you're only lucky." He was so flippantly shrewd that his newness to the business was insolently apparent to Schwalliger, who knew a thing or two himself. Schwalliger smiled ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... come to leave that out?" Schnitzel answered flippantly. "What about Coleman, the foreman at Bahia, and that German contractor, Ebhardt, and old Smedburg? They talked too much, and they died of yellow-fever, maybe, and maybe what happened to them was they ate knockout ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... Society for—" she began, with stately emphasis. But she broke off abruptly, under the impulse of a change in mood. "Oh, what's the use?" she questioned flippantly. "You'll all get copies of it in full in your mail to-morrow morning." Mightily pleased with this labor-saving expedient, Cicily beamed on her fellow club-members. "What next?" she ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... engineering feat the construction of the canal was nothing remarkable. Any youth knowing the principles of running lines and following the course of least resistance might have planned it. In Cairo and Alexandria it is flippantly said that De Lesseps traced with his gold-headed walking-stick the course of the canal in the sand, while hundreds of thousands of unpaid natives scooped the soil out with their hands. The work was completed with dredges and labor-saving ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... they purported to be; as, for instance, a feather of the angel Gabriel, the snout of a seraph, a ray from the star of Bethlehem, two skulls of the same saint,—one taken when the departed saint was somewhat younger, as flippantly explained to an astonished tourist, who found in two ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... peace-loving people, and he told his daughter sadly that she was going to bring her father's grey hairs in sorrow to the grave through the medium of her lover's stiletto. This feat, however, would have been difficult to perform, as the girl flippantly pointed out to him, for the old man was as bald as the smooth round top of the Ortler; nevertheless, she spoke to her lover about it, and told him frankly that if there was any knife practice in that vicinity he need never come to see her again. So the young man with the curly black ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... "La, man!" she replied flippantly, "how serious you look all of a sudden. . . . Indeed I do not know if I WOULD render France a small service—at any rate, it depends upon the kind of ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... said Thuillier, flippantly, "you said we were in want of a romance-feuilletonist; but really, after this, I sha'n't be ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... except in terms of artists like you, in the service of beauty and the faith in freedom. Prussia, at least cannot help me; Lord Palmerston, I believe, called it a country of damned professors. Lord Palmerston, I fear, used the word "damned" more or less flippantly. I use it reverently. ...
— The Appetite of Tyranny - Including Letters to an Old Garibaldian • G.K. Chesterton
... after a long interval there occurs the inevitable reflection that the realities out of which it was spun were material for another kind of study of this little group of church musicians than is found in the chapters here penned so lightly, even so farcically and flippantly at times. But circumstances would have rendered any aim at a deeper, more essential, more transcendent handling unadvisable at the date of writing; and the exhibition of the Mellstock Quire in the following pages must remain the only extant one, except for the few glimpses of that ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... would," admitted Corinna. "But, dear boy, the way to make you human—and you've never been really human all through, you know—was not with a uniform and glory." She was talking flippantly, for they made a pretence now of alluding lightly to his years in France—he had gone into the war before his country—and to the nervous malady, the disabled will, he had brought back. "What you need is not to win more esteem, but to lose some that you've ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... itself of course," said Lewis, flippantly, as he came up and sat down on the end of the sofa, being out of humour with himself and everybody in consequence of having utterly failed to gain the attention of Nita Horetzki, although he had made unusually earnest efforts to join in conversation ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... to me that Germany has flippantly constructed a law of necessity; prove it to me in this hour, when your country has gone over to our enemies, and we have half the world to fight. You cannot do that; you could not do it on the 4th of August, and consequently you have assumed ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... rules that one observes for one's own comfort. For instance, never be flippantly rude to any inoffensive grey-bearded stranger that you may meet in pine forests or hotel smoking-rooms on the Continent. It always turns out to be the ...
— Reginald • Saki
... hear him speak so lightly. She would have been surprised if she could have known the desperate unhappiness in his heart, the bitterness that drove him to speak so flippantly of all that he held best ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... women in every community whom society flippantly denominates "old maids." The world needs yet to be told what uncrowned queens many of these women are, what undecorated heroines, what blessings to humanity, what builders of homes, what servants of others and of Christ. In thousands of cases they remain unmarried for the sake of their ...
— Girls: Faults and Ideals - A Familiar Talk, With Quotations From Letters • J.R. Miller
... says Mass in an unknown tongue, are not the people thereby kept in ignorance of what he says, and is not their time wasted in Church? We are forced to smile at such charges, which are flippantly repeated from year to year. These assertions arise from a total ignorance of the Mass. Many Protestants imagine that the essence of public worship consists in a sermon. Hence, to their minds, the primary duty of a congregation is to listen to ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... jocosely? (Flippantly.) What is a court? (A place where disputes between persons are settled by a judge, or by a judge and jury.) What is a jury? (A company of men, usually six or twelve, who hear the evidence and decide on the facts.) What are cases? (The dispute ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... hear these great names so flippantly handled, for to us these renowned soldiers were almost gods. In their far-off splendor they rose upon our imaginations dim and huge, shadowy and awful, and it was a fearful thing to hear them spoken of as if they were mere ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... flippantly. "I'd like to, just for the sake of doing something. Do you know, Bea,"—knitting the arched brows with a petulant air,—"Sometimes I think I'll do something dreadful; perfectly dreadful, you know, so as to have things different for a little bit. It's horrible to live right along, just so, ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... old Cedar-tank Merton's only thing," replied the girl rather flippantly, Patricia thought. "She's hordes and gobs of coin, as well as being gifted with a voice and a family tree that makes the California redwoods look like mere bushes. You're with Tancredi, ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... am afraid," said Caroline flippantly, as her father described the lurid grandeur ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... corridor toward the desk when she saw something that caused her to change her mind. There was the young lady who had been talking so flippantly to the woman with a grievance, and she was now talking, of ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... his son would fain avenge him," said Hubert flippantly, "and flout the ghosts, if such things there be. And if men—Frenchmen or the like—see fit to attire themselves in masquerade, no coward fear will blunt the edge of ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... it with the Vatican, Millicent?" asked Anna, flippantly. Millicent turned a distant, starry gaze upon ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... Miss Greeb," said Lucian flippantly, "poor Vrain was stabbed with a stiletto. Ghosts ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... Tant mieux pour toi," she said flippantly. "I have left you all that I have in the world, dear brother. ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... and in which he continues the liberal hospitality for which it was eminent. Dr. Johnson esteemed him much. He hung up in the counting-house a fine proof of the admirable mizzotinto of Dr. Johnson, by Doughty; and when Mrs. Thrale asked him somewhat flippantly, 'Why do you put him up in the counting-house?' he answered, 'Because, Madam, I wish to have one wise man there.' 'Sir,' (said Johnson,) 'I thank you. It is a very handsome compliment, and I believe ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... to a room where a young woman had been sleeping. She had literally been blown to fragments. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, were splotched with—well, it's enough to say that that woman's remains could only have been collected with a shovel. In saying this, I am not speaking flippantly either. I have dwelt upon these details, revolting as they are, because I wish to drive home the fact that the only victims of this air-raid ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... the two fliers, each with heightened color and full of that fresh buoyancy which short, lively flights are apt to create. Both were flippantly arguing as to which one had got the best of ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... this interesting young woman to say that she coyly urged me not to forget my other friends, since I was to leave so soon, and it pleased me to fancy that she was not altogether offended when I spoke somewhat hastily and rather flippantly of those of my former companions who had lapsed into tediousness. I reminded her also that as the happiest memory of my childhood was associated with her mother, so it was sweet to me to be with her and live again, in a pleasant dream, the brightness of the past. Then, ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... sort that would go on the rocks for some man," Nina had said once, rather flippantly, "and never know she was shipwrecked. No man in the world could do that ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... "Don't talk flippantly, please. I think it better to wait until to-morrow, George, before you do anything rash. I want to see something of the country. I want us to take a little journey together to-morrow, and then, out in the country, not in this grimy, ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... exclaimed Barber, sarcastically. "You can understand plain English!—Yes, dear Mister Perkins, I mean that I don't want y' round." With that he continued on to the hall door, and opened it. "This way out," he said flippantly. The brown teeth ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... sides of the universe; no dead stuff, no longer any afflicting lumpishness. His brain was vivifying light. And how humane he was! how supremely tolerant! Where she had really thought instead of flippantly tapping at the doors of thought, or crying vagrantly for an echo, his firm footing in the region thrilled her; and where she had felt deeper than fancifully, his wise tenderness overwhelmed. Strange to consider: with all his precious gifts, which must make the gift of life thrice dear to him, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... what she told him, and though he sometimes spoiled things by laughing at the wrong time, for which she scolded him duly and without mercy, she knew he meant to do his best. His impending retirement had been one of her greatest triumphs. She was sick to death of the circle of City people, of what she flippantly called "Square milers," and that had been the main reason she had given to her husband in urging him to give up business and go into ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... Government is whether it provides, beyond yea or nay, for the absolute unity of Ireland as one distinct nation. Unless this essential unity is recognised all proposals for settlement, no matter how generous in intent otherwise, must fail. Mr Lloyd George grossly offended Irish sentiment when he flippantly declared that Ireland was not one nation but two nations. This is the kind of foolishness that makes one despair at times of British good sense, not to speak of British statesmanship. Mr Asquith, whatever his political blunderings—and ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... was setting by the time Charley was ready to leave his office. Never in his life had he stayed so late in "the halls of industry," as he flippantly called his place of business. The few cases he had won so brilliantly since the beginning of his career, he had studied at night in his luxurious bedroom in the white brick house among the maples on the hill. In every case, as at the trial of Joseph Nadeau, the man who murdered the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... 700,000 were present under arms. That is the force which Carnot had to wield. He was a man of energy, of integrity, and of professional skill as an engineer, but he was not a man of commanding abilities. Lord Castlereagh rather flippantly called him a foolish mathematician. Once, having quarrelled with his former comrade Fouche and having been condemned to banishment, he had this conversation with him: "Where am I to go, traitor?" "Wherever you like, idiot." As an austere republican he was out ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... to keep away, Paula became less reasonable in her desires, and proceeded to wish that Somerset would arrive; then that anybody would come; then, walking towards the portraits on the wall, she flippantly asked one of those cavaliers to oblige her fancy for company by stepping down from his frame. The temerity of the request led her to prudently withdraw it almost as soon as conceived: old paintings had been said to play queer tricks in extreme ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... the K——s, one of those families of women which, if I did not value their delicacy more than my own inclination, I should like to describe, in contradiction to those who, viewing only the surface of American society, have so flippantly passed judgment upon ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... Sevier, said the Doctor, "That chap's working himself to death, Anna," and gave his fair guest such a stern white look that she had to answer flippantly. ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... youngest Miss Morton flippantly, "he's sent around to the Music School for Miss Howe to come ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... prompt enough, lieutenant. I noticed that when you handed over your gun to me so lamblike." He laughed it out flippantly, buoyantly, though it was on his mind to wonder whether the choleric little officer might not kill him out ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... As to Calvin, his crystalline clearness of mind, his calm, cold logic, his severe vehemence are French, also. To this day, a French system of theology is the strongest and most coercive over the strongest of countries—Scotland and America; and yet shallow thinkers flippantly say the French are incapable of ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... go easy," he protested flippantly; "there's such a thing, you remember, as the pot ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... me," she replied flippantly, rising. "I think I'll go up; and I almost think I will kiss you again." He grumbled a protest, and watched her trail from the room, the silver girdle and chiffon emphasizing her thin, vigorous body, the lamplight falling ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... later page, will produce a feeling of wonder at the hardihood of him who not only conceived, but penned and dared to publish them as well, against the gentlemen whom we all know to be foremost in the political agitation at which Mr. Froude so flippantly sneers. An emphatic denial may be opposed to his pretence that "they did not complain that their affairs had been ill-managed." Why, the very gist and kernel of the whole agitation, set forth in print through ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... view the splendor of "Ciro's" and a keeper of the vestiaire in scarlet breeches and silk stockings. Afterwards they were to go to the little bon-bon play-house up by the more pretentious bon-bon Casino. He was to watch the antics of a band of actors toying with some mimic fate, flippantly, to the sound of music, when his own destiny swung trembling on the last silken thread of tortured suspense! Yet it was better than moping alone, he told himself. He hated loneliness. And until the last ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... my book on farm pedagogy I shall certainly make large use of the horse in illustrating the fundamental principles, for he is a noble animal and altogether worthy of the fullest recognition. We often use the expression "horse-sense" somewhat flippantly, but I have often seen a driver who would have been a more useful member of society if he had had as much sense as the horses he was driving. If I were making a catalogue of the "lower animals" I'd certainly include ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... eat at the same time, I see. So tell me what you've been doing all this while." Billy Louise spoke lightly, even flippantly, but her eyes were making love to him shyly, whether she ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... popinjay, as little officer cubs are like to be, answered flippantly that the colonel had commuted my sentence; that I was to be shot like a soldier, and that far enough afield so the volleying ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... viands money could procure. In the handsome rooms above they puffed fragrant and real Havanas, while the latest developments of news, strategy and policy were discussed; sometimes ably, sometimes flippantly, but always freshly. Here men who had been riding raids in the mountains of the West; had lain shut up in the water batteries of the Mississippi; or had faced the advance of the many "On-to-Richmonds"—met after long separation. ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... "how can you allude so flippantly to the tragedies which are inseparable from the possession of Buff Orpingtons? In the morning a young bird struts about in his pride, resolved to live his life fearlessly and to salute the dawn at any and every hour before the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various
... matter more flippantly, Mr. Holmes, than you would probably do if you were brought into personal contact with these things. Your advice, then, as I understand it, is that the young man will be as safe in Devonshire as in London. He comes in fifty minutes. What ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... office and handed on from ministry to ministry as a kind of necessary appendage, the public never knew why—the minister's second wife, an attache from the Austrian embassy, two members of Parliament, and a well-known journalist—Ashe said to himself flippantly that so far the trumps were not many. But he was always reasonably glad to see Mary, and he went up to her, cared for her bag, and made her put on her cloak, with cousinly civility. In the omnibus on the way to the house ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... officers was beyond any thing I ever could have supposed would have proceeded from the mouth of a human being. The master, one day, incurred his displeasure, and he very flippantly told the poor man ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... calm, cloudless, brilliant night. The heavens, the work of God's fingers, canopied them gloriously. The moon and the stars, which God had ordained beamed down upon them with serene lustre. As they were flippantly giving utterance to the arguments of atheism. Napoleon paced to and fro upon the deck, taking no part in the conversation, and apparently absorbed in his own thoughts. Suddenly he stopped before them and said, in those tones of dignity which ever ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... But she can't, reader! We speak candidly, for we know "a heap" more about her than you do. There may be those in the wide world who hug themselves in the belief that she can tell little fibs and large fibs pretty flippantly. Well, let them continue thus to believe, if they choose! We shall not pause to say ay, yes, or nay; and we also entertain a private opinion, now publicly expressed, that there are people within the limited circle of our ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... bitter complaints of the enormous strain thrown upon the already over-taxed railway system in Germany by the KAISER'S repeated journeys to and fro between the Eastern and the Western Theatres of War. He is referred to (rather flippantly) as "The Imperial Pendulum" (Perpendikel). The writer, while recognising the eager devotion with which the KAISER is pursuing his search for a victory in the face of repeated disappointment, congratulates himself that the Imperial journeys, though they are not likely to be discontinued, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various
... to him—to shock his propriety—to scandalize the five senses out of him! (To Catherine perversely.) I don't care whether he finds out about the chocolate cream soldier or not. I half hope he may. (She again turns flippantly away and strolls up the path to the corner ...
— Arms and the Man • George Bernard Shaw |
