"Mocking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... know a way Of hearing what the larks and linnets say. The larks tell of the sunshine and the sky; The linnets from the hedges make reply, And boast of hidden nests with mocking lay. ...
— The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl
... bear on her all the mocking magnetism of his eyes, "if you value your happiness you will do exactly what I tell you. You will obey me implicitly. You must not ask questions. Pack your trunks at once. In ten minutes' time the porter will ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... reiterated presently, with mocking explicitness. "Tom Byers—I reckon ye knows him. That thar freckled-faced, snaggled- toothed, red-headed Tom Byers, ez lives at yer house. I reckon ye ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... amuse the bluish-gray monstrosity. "May I introduce myself?" he asked with a mocking note in his metallic voice. "I am Arlok of Xoran. I am an explorer of Space, and more particularly an Opener of Gates. My home is upon Xoran, which is one of the eleven major planets that circle about the giant blue-white sun ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... sat like one in a mocking cruel dream. The news stunned him. It was so unexpected, and yet ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... morning, except my wife. She wasn't at the camp-meeting." His aquiline profile, which met close at the lips from the loss of his teeth, compressed itself further in leaving the whole burden of the affair to the man on the claybank, and his narrowed eyes were a line of mocking under the thick gray brows that stuck out like feathers ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... the country boobies taking off their hats to a common soldier!" they cried, and gathered about the three with mocking laughter and jeers. ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... waking, they came to her in her sleep, grown woman that she was, and many a night of nightmare was hers, filled with fluttering shapes, vague and meaningless. The talk with Canim had excited her, and down all the twisted slant of the divide she harked back to the mocking fantasies of ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... The road winds in a very circuitous route through a dense forest, the lofty trees of which, rising upon either hand, cast their deep shadows upon us. The place, that would otherwise have been gloomy, was enlivened by the variable songs of the mocking-birds, and the notes of their more beautiful-plumed though ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... in Tartarin. The ignorant, the chicken-hearted, people like Bezuquet, whom a flea could put to flight, and who could not fire a gun without closing both eyes, these above all were pitiless. At the club, on the esplanade, they accosted poor Tartarin with little mocking remarks, "Et autremain, what about this trip then?" At Costecalde's shop his opinion was no longer law. The hat hunters had deserted ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... known sins and evils every day and death we have known; They pass over our world like clouds mocking us with their transient lightning laughter. Suddenly they have stopped, become a prodigy, And men must stand before them saying: "We do not fear you, O Monster! for we have lived every day by conquering you, "And we die with the faith that Peace is true, and Good ...
— Fruit-Gathering • Rabindranath Tagore
... from behind the bushes. Cautiously he returned to the road. His fine lips curled in a curious mocking smile. But it was himself that he mocked, for there was a look in his dark eyes that gave to his naturally strong face an almost pathetic expression of ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... jolly sides and rose, muttering something about a fahscinating young puppy;—whereby it may be perceived that he was thinking of mocking Tom. The night was splendid, and when a sharp air of wind set all the smacks gliding, our voyagers had once more an experience that is one of the most memorable for those to whom it comes seldom. The seaman tramps smartly; cocks an eye at the topsail, swings ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... recovered his senses, it was to wonder again at the change that had come over the scene. The loud yells, the bitter taunts, the mocking laughs, were heard no more; and nothing broke the silence of the wilderness save the stir of the leaf in the breeze, and the ripple of the river against its pebbly banks below. He glanced a moment from the bush in which he was lying, in search of the barbarians who had lately ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... ashamed and embarrassed; it seemed as though he had uttered his thoughts aloud, and a group of people with grave, noble faces had listened, and were now gazing at him in silence, but with mingled compassion and contempt. From inaccessible depths of his soul, into which his sober, critical, mocking reason did not shine, a mysterious voice appeared to rise, imperiously commanding his scepticism to be silent. "I am right!" reason ventured to murmur. "You are wrong!" thundered the voice from the depths. "I will not consciously permit myself to be made giddy ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... there is sore havoc made in other people's lives, and a pin knocked out by which many subsidiary friendships hung together. There are empty chairs, solitary walks, and single beds at night. Again, in taking away our friends, death does not take them away utterly, but leaves behind a mocking, tragical, and soon intolerable residue, which must be hurriedly concealed. Hence a whole chapter of sights and customs striking to the mind, from the pyramids of Egypt to the gibbets and dule trees of mediaeval Europe. ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... unfeeling letter," you say, sir? Perhaps. But there is often no reserve so deep or so delicate as that which is veiled by a frivolous exterior and a mocking attitude towards sentiment in general. Some sensitive people are so afraid of having their hearts dragged to light that, to escape inquisition, they pretend they do not possess any. Moreover, I know Dolly well enough to be certain that she was not quite so brutally unkind to Robin ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... glad you like them, sir," said Saunders, with a mocking laugh; and he turned and strode away, to order the men to take some of the food they had brought to the other two prisoners, leaving ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... surprise of her climate. The rain had ceased, and quickly was come out of the northwest a boisterous wind, chilled by the lakes and scented by the hemlocks of the Minnesota forests. The sun smiled and frowned Clouds hurried in the sky, mocking the human hubbub below. Cheering thousands pressed about the station as Mr. Lincoln's train arrived. They hemmed him in his triumphal passage under the great arching trees to the new Brewster House. The ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... has one of the most remarkable faces I ever saw. He is lividly pale, and but for the energy of his actions and the strength of his lungs, would seem to be a victim of consumption. His eye is black as Erebus, and has the most mocking, lying-in-wait sort of expression conceivable. His mouth is alive with a kind of working and impatient nervousness; and when he has burst forth as he does constantly with a particularly successful cataract ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... gaily in response to the half-friendly, half-mocking curtsey she gave him, and, turning to ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... way one thanks a friend. The waiter went back to his companions and sat down amongst them, embarrassed and snubbed. But Mr. Blom left the verandah with bitter thoughts and pushed his way through the crowd; he fancied that he could hear a mocking: "He hasn't been able ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... shuddered, and guessed that some disagreeable news was hidden under the long preamble and mocking smile of Dubois. ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... no joy for me. Dark masses of clouds closed round the present sunshine; the present fled like a mist before them, and they oped, and then—there was still Wallace; but oh! how did I see him? the scaffold, the cord, the mocking crowds, the steel-clad guards—all, all, even as he fell. My children! my children! was ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... will not have to shatter my mocking dreams—they are already gone. But you may be sure that I, too, have been dreaming of a knight who was to lay a kingdom at my feet and talk to me of flowers and love—Olof, I want to be your wife! Here is my hand! But this much I must tell you: that you never have been the ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... with a growing sense of injury. Of late she had seemed absolutely changed towards him; and from being his good friend, with established intimacies, she had turned before his very eyes into an alien, almost an enemy, more beautiful than ever, to be true, but perverse, mocking, impish. She flouted him for his youth, his bluntness, his guileless transparency. But hardest of all to bear was the delicate derision with which she treated his awkward attempts to express his passion for her, to speak ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... him that he should cast away everything for her sake? Once she had told him that she loved him, only to betray him. Was that a woman for whom a man should wanton his fortunes? And then he smiled derisively, mocking his reflections in the mirror ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... the thunderbolts alone for one short week-end," he answered. "I felt a hunger for this moorland air. London becomes so enveloping." Jane sat upright upon her horse and looked at him with a mocking smile. "How ungallant! I hoped you had come to atone for ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... understand the joke. But Peter didn't seem to like it. He had lived so much among the Indians, and was so accustomed to their way of biling things down to an essence, that he spoke in proverbs, or wise saws. Says he to me, with a shake of his head, "a mocking bird has no voice of its own." It warn't a bad sayin', was it? I wish I had noted more of them, for though I like 'em, I am so yarney, I can't make them as pithey as he did. I can't talk short-hand, and I must say I like condensation. Now, brevity is the ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... was warmly greeted, as was to be looked for. He found that all his belongings had been kept well since he left. Jorunn asked, "What woman that was who journeyed with him?" Hoskuld answered, "You will think I am giving you a mocking answer when I tell you that I do not know her name." Jorunn said, "One of two things there must be: either the talk is a lie that has come to my ears, or you must have spoken to her so much as to have asked her her name." Hoskuld said he could not gainsay that, and so told her the truth, and bade ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... the photographs. It was an extremely unwise proceeding, for each of them called him with irresistible voice back to the past from which he had sworn he would turn his eyes. It was always there with its whispering, mocking echo, but like a good fighter he had learnt to withstand its insidious temptations, and hold fast to the quiet, secure present where all he could know of joy or fulfilment ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... was fated to encounter here in Vouvray one of those indigenous jesters whose jests are not intolerable solely because they have reached the perfection of the mocking art. Right or wrong, the Tourangians are fond of inheriting from their parents. Consequently the doctrines of Saint-Simon were especially hated and villified among them. In Touraine hatred and villification take the form of superb disdain ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... surface or fringe of it—Carlyle was mostly, perhaps entirely without. He seems instead to have been haunted in the play of his mental action by a spectre, never entirely laid from first to last, (Greek scholars, I believe, find the same mocking and fantastic apparition attending Aristophanes, his comedies,)—the spectre ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... Footsore he might be, in his cheap "brogans" of Penitentiary fabric, and sore aweary of the way, but never sad. On the contrary, ever hilarious, exchanging jests with his fellow-pedestrians, or a word with Dinah in the wagon, jibing the teamsters, mocking the mule-drivers, sending his cachinations in sonorous ring along the moving line; himself far more mirthful than his master—more ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... teeter for hours on a plank by the woodpile, making long explorations by herself and returning, when we are all well frightened, with a pocketful of lizards and a wasp in her fingers; always talking of horned toads and heifers; not afraid of snakes, not even the rattlers; mocking the birds when she is happy, and growling bear-fashion to express her disapproval ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... called upon a wealthy young lady by the name of Silsby, who had the eyes of a gazelle, but "when I mentioned subscription it seemed to fall on her ears, not as the cadence of the wood thrush, or of the mocking bird does on mine, but as a shower ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... tops of the pines cut the sky; the water was dark and sullen in the gloom. The trail followed its edge and when a loon's wild cry rang across the woods Grace stopped. She knew the cry of the lonely bird that haunts the Canadian wilds, but it had a strange note, like mocking laughter. Grace disliked the loon when its voice first disturbed her sleep at the fishing camp; she hated ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... gets the name o' being a man of eminent godliness," answered the sergeant in a mocking tone; "and is even credited with having ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... nothing but sky and wave ever met my gaze. When it became dark, excited by the deep anxiety I had endured throughout the day, I could not sleep. I fancied I beheld through the darkness monstrous forms mocking and gibbering, and high above them all was reared the head of the enormous python I had combated in the Happy Valley. And he opened his tremendous jaws, as though to swallow me, and displayed fold upon fold of his immense form ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... notes, but he stood for a long time outside the church door stridently "caterwauling" at the top of his lungs. When expostulated with for this unseemly and unchristianlike annoyance he explained that he was "only mocking the banjo." To such depths of rebellion were stirred the Puritan instincts ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... gay and laughing expression she had seen on it when the two rode down Old Street together, and a wave of passionate jealousy swept over her. She had let him go alone; he was angry with her; and for three days he would be with Abby almost every minute. And suddenly, she heard spoken by a mocking voice at the back of her brain: "You look at least ten years older ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... sweltering lies, 300 And scorns the feeble arrow that assails His Heaven-defying crest and iron scales; His brows with wan and withered roses crowned, And reeling to the pipe's lascivious sound, We see Intemperance his goblet quaff; And mocking Blasphemy, with mad loud laugh, Acting before high Heaven a direr part, Sport with the weapons that shall pierce his heart! If o'er the southern wave[64] we turn our sight, More dismal shapes of hideous woe affright: 310 Grim-visaged ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... Always wears such mocking grin, Half cold, half grim, One sees that nought has interest for him; 'Tis writ on his brow, and can't be mistaken, No soul ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... to your skipper," said a mocking voice, "if you ever ketch him, and tell him he's welkim to my boat. I'll take a glass o' liquor with him if ever he comes our way.—Now then, shove off, you there forward. If you stop another minute, I'll send a pig ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... go and fetch him, and afterwards the whole household. They called aloud, "Setanta, Setanta," but there was no answer, only silence and the watching and mocking trees and a sound like low laughter in the leaves; for Setanta ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... forced a sickly smile upon his features, not daring to quarrel with his companion, yet not insensible to the sneering tone with which he was addressed. He had, at the first, been struck with the dwarf, and half inclined to choose him. But now the mocking speech deterred him. ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... prayer without forgiving those who injure us, then, in so using it, we are really asking God not to forgive us. And Jesus practised what he preached. As he hung bleeding and agonizing on the cross, while his enemies were cruelly mocking his misery, he looked up to heaven, and uttered that wonderful prayer—"Father forgive them; for they know not what they do." Here we have the best illustration of forgiveness that ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton
... at night have often experienced, without analyzing it, the supreme necessity of speaking low and reverently which attaches to certain localities. Only such persons can understand the strange impression produced on any one who heard it by that curt, mocking voice which now disturbed the solitude and the shadows. It vibrated an instant in the darkness, which seemed to quiver with it; then it slowly died away without an echo, escaping by all the many openings made by the ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... Lampblack, and could say no more, for he feared that the bird was mocking him, a poor, silly, rusty black paint, only spread out to rot in fair weather and foul. What good could he do to ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... how dreadful it must be to come there carelessly, and I wondered how the gentlemen felt who were kneeling there—and the hymn was so magnificent, Meredith. I think if you were there with your present feelings, you would be afraid to stay. It would seem like mocking God to come to answer all those solemn questions, and not mean what you said. I think ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... usual light, careless, half-mocking style, and passed his arm within Arthur's. At that moment a shopkeeper came to his door, and respectfully touched his hat to Hamish. Hamish nodded in return, and laughed again as ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... of the other, both in intellectual character and habits of life; and the New York Shaker differs again from both. Climate, by the habits it compels, makes trivial but still conspicuous differences; it is not possible that the Kentucky Shaker, who hears the mocking-bird sing in his pines on every sunny day the winter through, and in whose woods the blue-jay is a constant resident, should be the same being as his brother in Maine or New Hampshire, who sees the mercury fall to twenty ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... Following the wailing notes of the dirge with unsteady feet, moved the escort of ragged and war-worn soldiers—their tattered banners furled—and every torn dress and dented gun-carriage speaking eloquently of the right they had earned to sorrow for him. It was no mocking pageant. No holiday soldiery, spruce and gay, followed that precious bier—no chattering crowds pointed out the beauties of the sight. Solemn and mourning the escort passed; sad and almost voiceless the people turned away and, going to their homes, ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... and stumbling. They were nearing the goal. They had already passed San Marco, the old goal. The young Jew was still leading, but a fat old Jew pressed him close. The excitement of the crowd redoubled. A thousand mocking voices encouraged the rivals. They were on the bridge. The Castle of St. Angelo, whose bastions were named after the Apostles, was in sight. The fat old Jew drew closer, anxious, now that he was come so far, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... cornelian talisman at the end of his watch-chain and looked at it bitterly. It was but a mocking symbol of illusion. He unhooked it and laid it on the table. He would carry it about with him no longer. He would throw ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... their lack of gratitude. Lord John suggested that the Bourbons were afraid to be thought to be dependent on the English, but Napoleon brushed this aside by asserting that the English in general were very well received. In a mocking tone he expressed his wish to know whether the army was much attached to the Bourbons. The Vienna Congress was, of course, just then in progress, and Napoleon showed himself nothing loth to talk about it. He said: 'The Powers will disagree, but they will not go to war.' He spoke of the ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... was when first my eyes opened to the light of its love; and, my father, I see you with the same frown that terrified me in the concert-room—the same scowl that to my frightened fancy, seemed that of some mocking fiend who sought to drive me back to blindness! What is it, father? What has changed you so that you love your child no longer, and seek to take the new life that God has ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... Hildreth it surely was, spreading the satin folds of his grandmother's crimson gown in mocking courtesy. Moreover it was not the awkward, ragged elfish little gipsy who had tormented his debonair boyhood with her shy ardent worship of himself and his daring exploits, but instead a winsome vision of Christmas color and Christmas cheer, holly-red of cheek, with ...
— When the Yule Log Burns - A Christmas Story • Leona Dalrymple
... with bitter irony at his own presumptuousness. Now he understood Leonora's mocking tone, and the violence she had used in repulsing all boorish liberties he had tried to take. But despite the contempt he began to feel for himself, he lacked the strength to withdraw now. He had been caught up in the wake of seduction, the maelstrom of ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... fcheux, parcequ'il nous faisait voir les choses comme elles sont." I find men victims of illusion in all parts of life. Children, youths, adults, and old men, all are led by one bawble or another. Yoganidra, the goddess of illusion, Proteus, or Momus, or Gylfi's Mocking,—for the Power has many names,—is stronger than the Titans, stronger than Apollo. The toys, to be sure, are various, and are graduated in refinement to the quality of the dupe. The intellectual man requires a fine bait; the sots are easily amused. But everybody is drugged with his own dream, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... seas, but when the gods tried to launch it they could not move it an inch. The great vessel creaked and groaned, out no one could push it down to the water. Odin walked about it with a sad face, and the gentle ripple of the little waves chasing each other over the rocks seemed a mocking laugh ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... staff! my staff is lost again! where did I put it?" she exclaimed, when a little mocking voice was heard repeating her words, and skipping over the rocks was seen the well-remembered ...
— The Princess Idleways - A Fairy Story • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... pernounced brunette," explained the poet; "and her name is Birdie. I thought some of entitlin' the pome: 'To a Mocking Bird'; but I surmised that would sound too pussonal. She has mocked ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... Yardsley (mocking Barlow). Yes! Let me think! (Points his finger at his forehead and assumes tragic attitude. Then stalks to the front of stage in manner of burlesque Hamlet.) Come, thought, come. Shed the glory of thy greatness full on me, and thus confound ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... window lost in the snow drew their eyes. People sat in a room—warm, stiff figures. The lovers stood smiling toward it. Words, soft and mocking, formed themselves in Dorn. A pain was pulling his heart away. The ecstasy that had raised him beyond his emotions seemed suddenly to have cast him into the fury of them. He would say mocking things—absurd phrases to which he might cling. Or else he must weep ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... found Monroe entirely to their taste, refused to receive the distinguished lawyer and soldier. To escape indignity he was forced to retire to Holland. The new Republic violated her treaties with increasing insolence, and Bonaparte was thundering on his triumphant course. France was mocking the world, and in no humour to listen to the indignant protests of a young and distant nation. To dismember her by fanning the spirit of Jacobinism, and, at the ripe moment,—when internal warfare had sufficiently weakened her,—reduce her to a French colony, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... of warfare each hero, 'twas claimed, could a battle sustain; Yet by none of the three in this battle hath a foeman been conquered, or slain! In the future for all of these champions shall scorn and much mocking befall: One man hath come forth from yon castle; alone he hath wounded them all— Such disgrace for such heroes of valour no times that are past ever saw, For three lords of the battle lie conquered by ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... unconscious foil to Avis Dobell in Elizabeth Stuart Phelps' Story of Avis. "Her face is as innocent of sarcasm as a mocking bird's;" she "is one of the immortal few who can look pretty in their crimping-pins;" she "has the glibness of most unaccentuated natures;" she admires Avis without comprehending her, and she makes an excellent wife to John Rose, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... later taunting use of that diabolical if as the Christ hung upon the cross. The rulers of the Jews, mocking the crucified Jesus in His agony said, "Let him save himself if he be the Christ." And the soldier, reading the inscription at the head of the cross derided the dying God, saying: "If thou be the ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... Smith Before Bedtime "If I Could Glimpse Him" Attraction Love's Fashion Alcestis Reminiscence Sonnet Lines An Easter Hymn A Christmas Hymn When I Go Home Odessa Trifles Sunburnt Boys Gray Days An Invalid A Caged Mocking-Bird Dawn Harvest Two Pictures October The Old Clock Tear Stains A Prayer She Being Young Paul Jones The Drudge The Wife Vision September Barefooted Pardon Time The Rattlesnake The Prisoner Sonnet Folk Song "97": The Fast Mail Sundown At ...
— Songs, Merry and Sad • John Charles McNeill
... thud like thunder; and such a combustion of soot, stour, and sparks arose, as was never seen or heard tell of in the memory of man since the day that Samson pulled over the pillars in the house of Dagon, and smoored all the mocking Philistines as flat as flounders. For the space of a minute I was as blind as a beetle, and was like to be choked for want of breath; however, as the dust began to clear up, I saw an open window, and hallooed ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... the girl and her mocking words in his mind, and busying himself with all the clever things he might have said and did not say, mechanically traversed the remaining ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... desire to gratify that passionate sensuality which governed Italian thought, was sure in time to lead the typical insincerity and satiric view-point of the Italian mind to the delights of physical realism, and the free publication of mocking comment. Photographic musical imitations of the noises of battles, the songs of birds and the cries of a great city were certain to be succeeded by the adaptation to the uses of dramatic action of the musical means developed in these and this adaptation led the ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... now? These soldiers shall be levied, And thou, Lord Bourbon, our high admiral, Shall waft them over with our royal fleet.— I long till Edward fall by war's mischance For mocking marriage with ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... cipher. The last sentence did not please him. "God bless you and grant you a safe deliverance from factions and factious men." These words Wilkinson read over and over. To him, in his dejected mood, with nerves unstrung and head swimming in quinine bitters, the blessing sounded ironical; a mocking face seemed concealed behind the mask of considerate friendliness. The tone of the communication struck him as patronizing, perhaps unconsciously made so, but the more offensive on that account. One suspicious ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... taste to make display of such things: and it was with the people of bad taste whom he has had about him, such as a Jordan, a D'Argens, Maupertuis, La Beaumelle, La Mettrie, Abbe de Prades, and some dull sceptics of his own Academy, that he had acquired the habit of mocking at Religion; and of talking (DE PARLER) Dogma, Spinoism, Court of Rome and the like. In the end, I did n't always answer when he touched upon it. I now seized a moment's interval, while he was using his handkerchief, to speak to him about some business, in connection with the Circle ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... coincidence, have been the more seemly part, as much for his friend's sake as for Eve's, so that this haunting, intolerable doubt might have been for ever put away—as surely it would have been? The contrary issue was too horrible for supposition. And he ended by mocking at himself with a half-sigh for carrying fastidiousness so far, recognising the mundane fitness of the match, and that heroic lovers, such as his tenderness for the damsel would have had, are, after all, rare, perhaps hardly existing ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... I used here, dearly beloved, but I can not express the thousandth part of the malicious despite which lurked in this one temptation of Satan. It was a mocking of Christ and of His obedience. It was a plain denial of God's promise. It was the triumphing voice of him that appeared to have gotten victory. Oh, how bitter this temptation was no creature can understand but such as feel the grief of such darts as Satan casts at the tender conscience of ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... song to sing, O! [SHE] Sing me your song, O! [HE] It is sung to the moon By a love-lorn loon, Who fled from the mocking throng, O! It's the song of a merryman, moping mum, Whose soul was sad, whose glance was glum, Who sipped no sup, and who craved no crumb, As he sighed for the love of a ladye. Heighdy! heighdy! Misery me - lackadaydee! He sipped no sup, and he craved ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... the whole orchestra together thunders out the call. Then comes the adagio, where, as always, the mystery seems to be developing itself, where the earnest-seeking solemnly consecrates itself to success; and the minuet and finale conclude—the soaring, mocking, hellish laughter of fiends and demons of the air, at baffled curiosity and blighted hope. Is not that what these symphonies express? The pith of the matter is never reached. The very movement of the adagio, while it expresses a deep, solemn hope, seems to mourn with unutterable sorrow that the ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... strange knight was, but the king did not know, and said: 'He followed the enemy, and I did not see him again.' She inquired of the gardener where his boy was, but he smiled, and said: 'He has just come home on his three-legged horse, and the others have been mocking him, and crying: "Here comes our hobblety jib back again!" They asked, too: "Under what hedge have you been lying sleeping all the time?" So he said: "I did the best of all, and it would have gone badly without me." And then ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... approved rules of romance, was entirely creditable to human nature on the mountain. A candle, burning in the room that Chichester occupied, shone through the window faintly, and fell on Babe, while Chichester sat in the shadow. As they were talking, a mocking-bird in the apple trees awoke, and poured into the ear of night a flood of delicious melody. Hearing this, Babe seized Chichester's hat, and placed ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... you take any person or any thing, here, seriously," she half smiled. "You seem to me to be always mocking ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... lives a Mayor who, after having seen his young wife murdered, protected her murderers from the lynch-law of the mob when next day the town was recaptured. In the same district there is a meadow where fifteen old men were done to death, while a Hun officer sat under an oak-tree, drinking mocking toasts to the ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... at this. "Then you are not so vexed with Molly now, grandmother," she said. "I know it seemed like mocking you, but I am sure she didn't mean ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... their companions, saying that they had news to communicate. On being questioned, these peasants averred that while they were herding their goats upon the western cliffs many miles away, suddenly on the top of the hills appeared a body of fifteen Fung, who bound and blindfolded them, telling them in mocking language to take a message to the Council ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... of movement. And although his splendid dress and jewels so overshadowed Mr. Calvert's quiet appearance, he was conscious of being excelled before the crowd of spectators by the agility and sure young strength of the American. Piqued and disgusted at the thought, the habitual half-mocking good-humor of his manner gave way to sullen, repressed irritation. Knowing his world so well, he was sure of the interest and curiosity Calvert's performance would arouse, and longed to convert his ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... "You are mocking me, my lady," said Mary, bitterly. "You wouldn't have turned me off for a word if I had ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... was, of course, that Walewski's breeding, his dignity and uprightness, might be regarded only as a temporary repose for the impish, harsh-voiced, infinitely clever actress. Of course, it was all this, but we should not take it in a mocking sense. Rachel looked up out of her depths and gave her heart to this high-minded nobleman. He looked down and lifted her, as it were, so that she could forget for the time all the baseness and the brutality ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... allows anybody there except her guests, and her husband after he has smoked. Of course, her dog must be there; and one evening after her husband fell asleep in the arm-chair near her, the dog fell asleep on the fleece at her feet, and we heard them softly breathing in unison. She made a pretty little mocking mouth when the sound first became audible, and said that she ought really to have sent Mr. Makely out with the dog, for the dog ought to have the air every day, and she had been kept indoors; but sometimes Mr. Makely came ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... is not only bold and vociferous, but possesses a considerable talent for mimicry, and seems to enjoy great satisfaction in mocking and teasing other birds.—WILSON. ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... myself. Yielding to some influence, mesmeric or otherwise—an influence unwelcome, displeasing, but effective—I again glanced round to see if M. Paul was gone. No, there he stood on the same spot, looking still, but with a changed eye; he had penetrated my thought, and read my wish to shun him. The mocking but not ill-humoured gaze was turned to a swarthy frown, and when I bowed, with a view to conciliation, I got only the stiffest and sternest ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... of delicate physique. Charley had looked upon him with the pitying contempt of strong youth for weak youth. He considered that the stranger's hands were soft and effeminate, he disliked his little trimmed moustache, and especially the cool, mocking, appraising glance of his eyes. But as the day, and the night, and the day following wore away, Charley raised his opinion. The slender body possessed unexpected reserve, the long, lean hands plied the tools unweariedly, the sensitive face had become drawn and tired, but the ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... up short. She was mocking. He was profoundly hurt. "But you've chosen me. You've picked me out. You've used me to take you to places night after night! Don't fool with me, Joan. ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... qualities, Isaac married late in life. God permitted him to meet the wife suitable to him only after he had successfully disproved the mocking charges of Ishmael, who was in the habit of taunting him with having been circumcised at the early age of eight days, while Ishmael had submitted himself voluntarily to the operation when he was thirteen years old. For this reason God demanded Isaac as a sacrifice when he ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... then the usual sweetness of her nature seemed turning to gall. If she could have put her thoughts into words, she would have said it seemed as if some awful Thing, instead of the God of love, sat up aloft mocking at her wretchedness; and she felt for the instant, as she crossed the floor after the old broom, an impotent rage, almost scorn, of this mighty power which could stoop to deal such malignant blows against ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... stood by my side! And Pascherette! By the fiend! She has played Rufe a trick! And me—" He sprang from the wall like a tiger, snatching at his weaponless belt with slavering fury, to be gathered at once into the remorseless hug of Milo. And he glared full into the mocking face of Dolores—soft and generous no more, but ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... you are right! I did that same. Of course—of course. What was I thinking of? How she did sing, too; ten thousand mocking birds in her throat, all piping away at once. What was I thinking of? Now, Mr. Closs, while I'm gone—for I mean to strike while the iron is hot—just have the goodness to look in on Mrs. S., she will feel it a ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... was turned, every eye directed in amazement towards this extraordinary personage. There was much whispering and some half-suppressed laughter. Jean, seeing himself the centre of mocking glances and looks of annoyance, drew Tudesco towards the door. But just as the Marquis was making a series of sweeping bows by way of farewell to the ladies, Jean found himself face to face with the Superintendent of ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... address'd a bird, Then to his friend: "An old procrastinator, Sir, I am: do you wonder that I hate her? Though she but seven words can say, Twenty and twenty times a day She interferes with all my dreams, My projects, plans, and airy schemes, Mocking my foible to my sorrow: I'll advertise ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... see the Jam-wagon work. He was sprightly as a ballet dancer, as, weaving in and out, he dodged the other's blows. His arms swung at his sides, and he threw his head about in a manner insufferably mocking and tantalising. Then he took to landing light body-blows, that grew more frequent till he seemed to be beating a regular tattoo on Locasto's ribs. He was springy as a panther, elusive as an eel. As for Locasto, his face was sober now, ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... a rippling, tossing sea; In its golden depths the fairies play, Beckoning, dancing, mocking there, Luring my heart away. And her merry lips are the ripest red That ever addled a poor man's head, Or led his wits astray. What wouldn't I give to taste the sweets Of those rose-leaves wet with dew! But that wouldn't do at all, my dear, ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... panting, eyes closed. A shocking sense of degradation flooded her soul. She felt as though she were drowning in it, fathoms deep. Her lids fluttered open and she saw the gambler. He was still sitting on the stool. A mocking, cynical smile was in the eyes ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... quite left him, however, he felt his feet again touch the ground. The choking sensation passed away, and he found himself supported by two men. A burst of mocking laughter then proved to the wretched man that his tormentors had practised on him the refined cruelty of half-hanging him. If he had had any doubt on this subject, the remark of the interpreter, as he afterwards left him in his cell ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... one place, but had to jump up and pace the room with rapid steps. Now he seemed to see her in the early days of their marriage, with bare shoulders and a languid, passionate look on her face, and then immediately he saw beside her Dolokhov's handsome, insolent, hard, and mocking face as he had seen it at the banquet, and then that same face pale, quivering, and suffering, as it had been when he reeled and sank on ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... said to be about one hundred and fifty kinds of birds on the island of Puerto Rico. Among these are the mocking bird, the wild canary, the sugar bird, the thrush, the humming bird, the owl, the hawk, the dove, the cuckoo, the oriole, the nightingale, and the Guinea bird. During the migrating season, many other birds fly ...
— A Little Journey to Puerto Rico - For Intermediate and Upper Grades • Marian M. George
... and the spell was broke, And 'midst the laugh of mocking ghosts I woke; My eyes were open'd on an unhoped sight— The early morning and its welcome light, And, as I ponder'd o'er the past profound, I heard the cock crow, ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... bluebird nestling; cheery and gentle like the parents, he seems to escape the period of helplessness that many birds suffer from, perhaps because he is patient enough to stay in the nest till his wings are ready to use. The mocking-bird baby has a far different time. Victim of a devouring ambition that will not let him rest till either legs or wings will bear him, he scrambles out upon his native tree, stretches, plumes a little in a jerky, hurried way, and then boldly launches out in the air—alas!—to come flop ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... dismal pageant began to move forward through the crowd on that way of sorrows. There was a ceaseless roar and babble of voices as they went. Charke, in his minister's dress, able now to declaim without fear of reply, was hardly silent for a moment from mocking and rebuking the prisoners, and making pompous ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... "but he was used to laugh loud enough ten years ago. I can remember when he first moved in there, and his corps-fellows locked him in his room for a jest, and stood mocking in the street. And he climbed right down the woodwork and stepped on the signboard of the baker and jumped into the street, laughing all the while, though they were holding in their breath for fear he should break his neck. Ja, he was a right student; but he is changed now—the much reading, ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... weather was still cold and muggy; and a thick fog hung over the city. But the young detective was too engrossed with his own thoughts to pay attention to any atmospherical unpleasantness. Walking with a brisk stride, he had just reached the church of Saint Eustache, when a coarse, mocking voice accosted him with the exclamation: "Ah, ha! ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... robes, the baptismal chrism still wet and glistening on their foreheads, were taken captive with the sword by these murderers. The next day I sent letters begging them to liberate the baptized captives, but they answered my prayer with mocking laughter. I know not which I should mourn for more,—those who were slain, those who were taken prisoner, or those who in this were Satan's instruments, since these must suffer ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... was! How vividly her features rise before me. Well do I remember her as she entered my room on a stormy day in January. Her torn mocassins were a mocking protection to her nearly frozen feet; her worn "okendo kenda" hardly covering a wrinkled neck and arms seamed with the scars of many a self-inflicted wound; she tried to make her tattered blanket meet across her chest, but the benumbed fingers were powerless, ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... door closed with a bang that he seemed restored to consciousness. And as he heard the noise he sprang forward as if to recall his visitor. "Ah!" he exclaimed, with an oath, "the miserable old woman was mocking me!" And urged on by a wild, irrational impulse, he caught up his hat and darted out in pursuit. Madame Leon was considerably in advance of him, and was walking very quickly; still, by quickening his pace, he might have overtaken her. However, ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... with plumes and flowing scalp-locks, from the midnight wood they came,— Thrice around the block-house marching, met, unharmed, its volleyed flame; Then, with mocking laugh and gesture, sunk in earth or lost in air, All the ghostly wonder vanished, and the moonlit ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... heard it rise and swell, Tolled by the iron steamer's bell; Told by the mocking voice of Fate, Rung through her ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey
... incredible to me. All the memories of the past crowded about my heart when I thought of it. I seemed to see the spectres of our nights of love; they hung over a bottomless, eternal abyss, black as chaos, and from the bottom of that abyss arose a shriek of laughter, sweet but mocking, that said: ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... to Mrs. Acton's apartment. Eugenia reflected, as she went, that it was not the affectation of impertinence that made her dislike this young lady, for on that ground she could easily have beaten her. It was not an aspiration on the girl's part to rivalry, but a kind of laughing, childishly-mocking indifference to the results of comparison. Mrs. Acton was an emaciated, sweet-faced woman of five and fifty, sitting with pillows behind her, and looking out on a clump of hemlocks. She was very modest, very timid, and very ill; she made ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... concerns us here is that Jesus submitted to that extremity of shame and humiliation, and hung there naked for all these hours, gazed on, while the light lasted, by a mocking crowd. He had set the perfect Pattern of lowly self-abnegation when, amid the disciples in the upper room, He had 'laid aside His garments,' but now He humbles Himself yet more, being clothed only 'with shame.' Therefore should we clothe Him with hearts' ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... Heliodora affected a total forgetfulness of the past; she talked of Veranilda, and confessed that her efforts to make any discovery regarding the captive were still fruitless, though she by no means gave up hope; therewithal, she treated Basil only half seriously, with good-naturedly mocking smiles, as a mere boy, a disdain to her mature womanhood. Of this was he thinking as he tossed on the couch in the library; he had thought of it too much since leaving Heliodora yesterday afternoon. It began to nettle him that his grief should ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... itself on it with the air of gravity and circumspection peculiar to those animals, taking note of everything that went on. The hard and ironical expression of the parrot tribe, their green coats, their red caps, their yellow boots, and finally, the hoarse, mocking words which they generally utter, give them a strange and repulsive aspect, half serious, half-comic. There is in their air an indescribable something of the stiffness of diplomats. At times they remind one of buffoons, and they always resemble those absurdly ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... 'is that Clara is always proper and conventional, and I am the reverse. You can never catch her unawares or in an untidy gown, she is always just as immaculate as you see her now; while I am—well, just as the spirit moves me.' She swept a little mocking courtesy to her sister, who only smiled and shook her head, then taking Gladys by the arm, led her from ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... come to me. I worship Dicky. He sweeps me off my feet with his love, his vivid personality overpowers my more commonplace self, but through all the bewildering intoxication of my engagement and marriage a little mocking devil, a cool, cynical, little devil, is constantly whispering in my ear: "You fool, you fool, to imagine you can escape unhappiness! There is no such thing ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... their summer singing. Sometimes the alert chirp of the cardinal suddenly smote the ear from some neighboring tree; but he would pass, a flash of crimson, from one garden to the next, and with another chirp or two be gone for days. The nervy, unmusical waking cry of the mocking-bird was often the first daybreak sound. At times a myriad downy seed floated everywhere, now softly upward, now gently downward, and the mellow rays of sunset turned it into a warm, golden snow-fall. By night a soft glow from distant burning prairies showed ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... the truth now—could see himself, through the whole long course of events, the victim of ravenous vultures that had torn into his vitals and devoured him; of fiends that had racked and tortured him, mocking him, meantime, jeering in his face. Ah, God, the horror of it, the monstrous, hideous, demoniacal wickedness of it! He and his family, helpless women and children, struggling to live, ignorant and defenseless and forlorn as they were—and the enemies that had been ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... Mrs. Mallory, who was leaning back luxuriously in a steamer chair she had brought aboard at St. Michael's. It would have been hard to conceive a contrast greater than the one between this pampered heiress of the ages and the modern business berserk who looked down into her mocking eyes. He was the embodiment of the dominant male,—efficient to the last inch of his straight six feet. What he wanted he had always taken, by the sheer strength that was in him. Back of her smiling insolence lay a silken force to match his own. She too had taken what she wanted from life, but she ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... against a tree fiddling negro melodies to the birds, but negro melodies with the flavor of the tent instead of the cabin. At my request he played "Yankee Doodle," and imparted to it a revolutionary dash, a piquant mocking defiance, which convinced me that he knew its history and was interpreting it from his own heart—a fact which a subsequent conversation confirmed. I often wonder that no musical speculator has ever organized a band of Russian, Hungarian and English gypsies. Certainly, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... king, With me may she make tarrying Full long, yea, till I come to die." Therewith at last being come anigh Unto his very palace gate, He saw his knights and squires wait His coming, therefore on the ground He lighted, and they flocked around Till he should tell them of his fare. Then mocking said he, "Ye may dare, The worst man of you all, to go And watch as I was bold to do; For nought I heard except the wind, And nought I saw to call to mind." So said he, but they noted well That something more he ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... are against me too, and you are mocking me too, I find. I humbly thank you, gentlemen," cried Lady Anne, in a high tone of disdain; "from a colonel in the army, and a nobleman who has been on the continent, I might have expected more politeness. From ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... revolutionary symptom which really attracted much attention, but the 'Fly-sheets on German Style and Art' preceded the publication of 'Goetz,' as a kind of programme or manifesto." Even Wieland, the mocking and French-minded, the man of consummate talent but shallow genius, the representative of the Aufklaerung (Eclaircissement, Illumination) was carried away by this new stream of tendency, and saddled his hoppogriff for a ride ins alte ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... himself!"—said a thin, sharp voice with a mocking ring in its tone—"There was always some woman or other in love with him. Some woman he could ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... smiled. She thought that Choulette was mocking. But he denied the charge, indignantly, and Miss Bell said that Madame Martin was wrong. It was a fault of the French, she said, to think that ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... of small personal mortifications. He particularly resented, as well he might, being out-argued when he presented himself before Luis de Leon to be examined for his licentiateship of theology; the knowledge that this incident was talked over by mocking students did not improve matters.[43] Medina was, however, too wily to delate Luis de Leon directly; he reported to the Inquisition on the general situation at Salamanca, and in this document no names were mentioned. Luis de Leon was not in a position to ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... a word, the King turned him about and made for the turret stair by which he had ascended, but nowhere could he find it. Then said the sorceress, mocking him: "Fair sir, how think ye to escape without my good-will? See ye not the walls that guard my stronghold? And think ye that I have not servants enow to do my bidding?" She clapped her hands and forthwith there appeared a company of squires who, at her command, seized the King and ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... Like the mocking fantasy of a dream as seen in the instant of waking, Elaine and her company had gone, as if to return no more. Only two chapters were yet to be written, and he knew, vaguely, what Elaine was about to do when he left her, but his pen had lost ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... melayeh over his face and sobbed, I am not ashamed to say that I cried too. I know very well that Mahommed was not quite wrong in what he says of the Europeans. I know the cruel old platitudes about governing Orientals by fear which the English pick up like mocking birds from the Turks. I know all about 'the stick' and 'vigour' and all that—but—'I sit among the people' and I know too that Mohammed feels just as John Smith or Tom Brown would feel in his place, and that men who were very savage against the rioters in the beginning, ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... you think you could catch one, even the youngest? Not a bit of it. If you had given chase in a boat, the wee-est loon would have sailed off faster yet on the back of his father; and when you grew tired and stopped, you would have heard, as if mocking you, the old bird give, in a laughing voice, ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... advanced a tea-spoon towards a neighbouring glass (which she often did), for the purpose of abstracting but one sup of its sweet contents, Quilp's hand would overset it in the very moment of her triumph, and Quilp's mocking voice implore her to regard her precious health. And in any one of these his many cares, from first to last, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... shells jingling at its ears; with an abominable leer, like that of Silenus reeling on his ass. It was taking its ease; cosily smoking a pipe; its bowl, a duodecimo edition of the face of the smoker. This image looked sternward; everlastingly mocking us. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... and used such great big words!—"A good thing, too," Mrs Asplin averred. She wished the rest would follow her example, and not use so much foolish, meaningless slang.—Her eyes looked so bright and mocking, as if she were laughing at something all the time.—Poor, dear child! could she not talk as she liked? It was a great blessing she could be bright, poor lamb, with such a parting before her!—She was so grown-up, and patronising, and superior!—Tut! tut! Nonsense! ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... sudden muddled vision of another world, a world where sturdy men gave him their hands and in reality fulfilled June Bowman's mocking words. There the houses, the streets of his youth would have been impossible. Ah, he was thinking of another kind of heaven; it was ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... back into that robe of material light, until they fade away, lost in its lustre, to appear again above in the serene heaven like a wild, bright, impossible dream, foundationless, and inaccessible, their very bases vanishing in the unsubstantial and mocking blue of the deep lake below. Wait yet a little longer, and you shall see those mists gather themselves into white towers, and stand like fortresses along the promontories, massy and motionless, only piled, with every instant, higher and higher into the sky, and casting longer shadows athwart the ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... with his hands upon his hips, and his head bent forward. "I am a fatalist," he replied, "and just now (if you insist on it) an experimentalist. Talking of which, by the by, who painted out the schooner's name?" he said, with mocking softness, "because, do you know? one thinks it should be done again. It can still be partly read; and whatever is worth doing is surely worth doing well. You think with me? That is so nice! Well, shall we step on the verandah? I have ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to the tread, as if all the Paris catacombs were underneath. I started with misgivings at that hollow, boding sound, which seemed sighing with a subterraneous despair, through all the magnificent spectacle around me; mocking ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... throat ached; she was very tired, and, as the night darkened from pale to deep and starless shadows, she strolled mechanically from the Strand to the Embankment, and after walking some little distance she sat down in a corner close to Cleopatra's Needle—that mocking obelisk that has looked upon the decay of empires, itself impassive, and that still appears to say, "Pass on, ye puny generations! I, a mere carven block of stone, shall outlive you all!" For the first time in all her experience the child in her arms seemed a heavy burden. ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... rose swiftly in her cheeks, not so much because of the mocking words as the intonation of the voice in which they were uttered—the most wonderfully musical speaking voice she ever had heard. The angry resentment of the child's foster-father had left her unmoved ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart |
