"Persiflage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... may be your occupation, Mr. Bayham?" asks the Colonel, rather gloomily, for he had an idea that Bayham was adopting a strain of persiflage which the Indian gentleman by no means relished. Never saying aught but a kind word to any one, he was on fire at the notion that any should take a ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... — N. ridicule, derision; sardonic smile, sardonic grin; irrision[obs3]; scoffing &c. (disrespect) 929; mockery, quiz|!, banter, irony, persiflage, raillery, chaff, badinage; quizzing &c. v.; asteism[obs3]. squib, satire, skit, quip, quib[obs3], grin. parody, burlesque, travesty, travestie[obs3]; farce &c. (drama) 599; caricature. buffoonery &c. (fun) 840; practical joke; horseplay. scorn, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... of these visits, Blount remarked by way of airy persiflage, that that drink of wine that had been sent for was a long time coming. Anything as subtle as that was lost on our friend, for he walked solemnly away, only to reappear in a few minutes with a bottle and several glasses which he ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... dealt with others, while he did not. But, curiously enough, the reproach of sniggering, which lies so heavily on Laurence Sterne and Francois Arouet, does not lie on Crebillon. He has an audacity of grave persiflage[345] which is sometimes almost Swiftian in a lower sphere: and it saves him from the unpardonable sin of the snigger. He has also—as, to have this grave persiflage, he almost necessarily must have—a singularly clear and flexible ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... that—I frequently think of it," said Villiers, adding his mite to the persiflage all appeared determined to bestow ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... bind St. John to Quebec, and make Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, and Newfoundland only stepping-stones to Europe, we cannot say. Probably they will become like the rest of the world, and furnish no material for the kindly persiflage of the traveler. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... way back to their rooms Harry and Frank were greeted by all sorts of calls and persiflage from the sophomores, who had gathered in ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... Barnabas' Day) departed the other day for Afric's sunny shores—for Algiers, in fact—to nurse a tedious trench legacy. This, of course, was a matter of great concern to his nieces, in whose eyes he is distinctly persona grata, owing to his command of persiflage and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various
... his persiflage, "The Japans are the politest nation on the earth; they say cheatin' and lyin' hain't polite, and so they don't want to foller 'em; they hitch principle and politeness right up in one ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... attain'd, and on a scale of infinity. To-day, in books, in the rivalry of writers, especially novelists, success, (so-call'd,) is for him or her who strikes the mean flat average, the sensational appetite for stimulus, incident, persiflage, &c., and depicts, to the common calibre, sensual, exterior life. To such, or the luckiest of them, as we see, the audiences are limitless and profitable; but they cease presently. While this day, or any day, to workmen portraying ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... see us through, began at his persiflage immediately, and congratulated me upon the house I should play to, speaking of box-office receipts and a benefit night. Tucson is more than half a Mexican town, and in its crowd upon the platform I saw the gaudy shawls, the ear-rings, the steeple straw hats, the old shrivelled cigarette-rolling ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... at his keen blue eye, his lean brown face, and his punishing jaw, and I knew that no airy persiflage would deceive him. ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... School-master, persuasively. "The Idiot was only indulging in persiflage, Doctor. That's all. When you have known him longer you will understand him better. Views are as necessary to him as sunlight to the flowers; and I truly think that in an asylum he ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs
... the carriage, the women began a light, friendly chatter; smiles and laughter; little jests about Benedicks, about the servant question, about coming home late o' nights; antenuptial persiflage. There was little that was spontaneous; each jest was an effort; but it sufficed to relieve what ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... by lamplight, seated on benches on either side of the long table improvised from boards and cross-pieces of two-by-fours. There was no tablecloth and the dishes were of agate-ware as formerly. Kate ate hurriedly and in silence, but the usual airy persiflage went on between Bowers ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... sovereign. But when it was observed that the new minister of State, Mora's successor and bitter enemy, sitting on the government benches, seemed overjoyed at the rebuke administered to a creature of the defunct statesman, and smiled complacently at Le Merquier's stinging persiflage, all embarrassment instantly disappeared and the ministerial smile, repeated on three hundred mouths, soon increased to scarce-restrained laughter, the laughter of crowds dominated by any rod, by whomsoever held, which the slightest sign of approbation ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... story in the manner of Scudery, the plot of which, however, is drawn not from Scudery, but from Voiture,[364] and which is treated in a playful accent, and with an air of persiflage that reminds us of Byron's tone when relating the adventures of Don Juan. It is Voiture indeed, but Voiture turned inside-out. As with Byron, the raillery is from time to time interrupted by poetical flights, and, as with him, licentious scenes ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... anger. What right have they . . . however . . . as for myself I shall not reenter the world for any but the object I have just mentioned. Luncheons! Dinners! Balls! I was surfeited before the war. And I have forgotten persiflage, small talk. I am told that Americans avoid serious topics in Society. I, alas, have ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... be drawn out either by Churchill's persiflage or flattery, and he tried both, to talk of his tastes or opinions of women. He felt too much perhaps about love to talk much about it. This all agreed well in Helen's imagination with what Lady Cecilia had told her of his secret engagement. She was sure he was ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... grave American savant, being in London, observed at an evening party there, a certain coxcombical fellow, as he thought, an absurd ribbon in his lapel, and full of smart persiflage, whisking about to the admiration of as many as were disposed to admire. Great was the savan's disdain; but, chancing ere long to find himself in a corner with the jackanapes, got into conversation with him, when he was somewhat ill-prepared ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... to his persiflage with an air of sad distraction. She was intent upon the procession as it approached from the other side of the Piazza, and she replied at random to his comments on the different bodies ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... freedoms of manner with Dick Kearney and O'Shea were now completely given up. No more was there between them that interchange of light persiflage which, presupposing some subject of common interest, is in itself a ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... [75] is a further persiflage of the old song. Its reading, too, is changed. It is said there that age, with his stealing steps, as clawed the lover in his clutch [76] and shipped him into the land as if he 'never had ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... the Morgante Maggiore ... the brusque transition from piety to ribaldry, from pathos to satire," the paradoxical union of persiflage with gravity, a confession of faith alternating with a profession of mockery and profanity, have puzzled and confounded more than one student and interpreter. An intimate knowledge of the history, the literature, the art, the manners and passions of the times has ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... panegyric, panorama, paradoxical, paramount, parasite, parochial, paroxysm, parsimonious, parturition, patois, patriarchal, patrician, patrimony, peccadillo, pecuniary, pedantic, pellucid, pendulous, penultimate, penurious, peregrination, perfunctory, peripatetic, periphery, persiflage, perspicacious, perspicuity, pertinacious, pharmaceutic, phenomenal, phlegmatic, phraseology, pictorial, piquant, pique, plagiarize, platitudinous, platonic, plebeian, plenipotentiary, plethora, pneumatic, poignant, polity, poltroon, polyglot, pontifical, portentous, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... his side, and he rubbed his nose. Kronau had been a favorite of Albrecht's... How would he act? In truth, the Marshal's thoughts were not altogether pleasant. Some of these men surrounding him, exchanging persiflage, might never witness another sunset. For, while the world would look upon this encounter as one looks upon a comedy, for some it would serve as tragedy. Often he lent his ear to the gay banter of the young American, and watched the careless smile on his face. What was he doing here? Why ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... buy a chicken or a cluster of eggs there must first be a prolonged shauri with much interchange of views and conversation and aerated persiflage. The native loves his shauri, and if he asks you a certain price for a chicken and you give the price without haggling he is greatly disappointed. In fact I have often seen them offer an article for a certain price and then refuse to accept the money ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... they possess virtue. The fact is that fewer people are endowed with virtue than wish to be thought to be so. It is such people that take delight in flattery. When they are addressed in language expressly adapted to flatter their vanity, they look upon such empty persiflage as a testimony to the truth of their own praises. It is not then properly friendship at all when the one will not listen to the truth, and the other is prepared to lie. Nor would the servility of ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... and Joseph Medill; and then David Swing, Robert Collyer, Doctor Frank Gunsaulus and 'Gene Field were added to the coterie. 'Gene Field's column of "Sharps and Flats" used to get the benefit of the persiflage. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... curiously at Miranda Bailey, but the sight of her escort checked any familiarity. Covered with dust from their ride, guns on hip, the three musketeers did not encourage persiflage at the expense of their outfit and they passed unchallenged into the eating-house where a stubby man with a big ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... he seemed content to abandon persiflage, satisfied that his average for acerbity was still high. "Besides," he said peaceably, "I'm all dressed up pretty now, and it doesn't look right for a respectable member of society to be pulling ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... Elizabethan English was a right joyous and jolly tongue also, as became the heart of brave, honest, merry old England; yet it was earnest and candid withal, and had in no sort caught the French disease of vanity and persiflage: it was all alive, too, with virgin sensibility and imaginative delicacy; to say nothing of how Spenser found or made it as melodious and musical ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... It is simply incredible to me that human beings possessed of the same senses as ours could find satisfaction for their imagination in the sterile moralising, stilted sentiment, superficial wit, and tiresome persiflage of that queer generation. I suppose they didn't really. I suppose they used to go off on the sly, and read Rabelais and Villon. I suppose it was only the preposterous "social world" of those days who enjoyed nothing in literature except pseudo-classic attitudes and gestures; just ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... offenses, she greeted him quite as if nothing had happened, challenging him gaily to a gallop with the valley head for its goal, and refusing to be drawn into anything more serious than joyous persiflage until they were returning at a walk down a boulder-strewn wood road at the back of the Dabney horse pasture. Then, and not till then, was the question of Nancy Bryerson's future ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... uneasily—he did not quite understand the American's light and easy manner, and he seemed to suspect him of persiflage. ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... just dealt the Dutchman what you might call idle persiflage until you fellows had been gone a few minutes, and then I held him out my dollar. 'What's that?' says he. 'That's a dollar,' says I, 'to pay for my dinner.' 'How about all those other fellows?' ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... wonderful adaptability which made him at ease in any society in which he found himself, he adjusted himself to the company of the evening, and, being perfectly master of the French language, could not only understand the light talk and persiflage, but even led in ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... grew red in the face at this piece of persiflage, and under the stress of excitement he swallowed his quid of tobacco and likewise ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... to you: you remember that passage, 'The poor ye have always with you, but Me ye have not always.' Now, Mr. Montague you have always with you, but me you have not always." So we resumed our conversation together, and kept up a brief interchange of persiflage which made us both laugh very much, and in which he showed a very ready use of ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... and the bonds of government are by no means synonymous," said Dank, and felt rather proud of himself when his companions favoured him with a stare of amazement. The excellent lieutenant was not given to persiflage. He felt that for a moment ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... admired you so much, or loved you so dearly, as I do at this hour. You must believe me,' she continued, pushing her plate away and beckoning the maid with a slight backward gesture of the head, 'I hate this tone of persiflage, but what is there left for us if we would be blamelessly alone, and yet speak our hearts to ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... the year 1795 were 'The Partition of the Earth', wherein Zeus takes pity on the portionless poet by giving him a perpetual entree to the celestial court; the mildly humorous 'Deeds of the Philosopher', a bit of persiflage on the art of proving what everybody knows, and also several ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... here who should know you?' M. de Rosny continued, in a tone almost of persiflage, and with the same change in his voice which had struck me before; but now it was more marked. 'If not, M. de Marsac, I am afraid—But first look round, look round, sir; I would not ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... the glory!" Fulkerson insinuated with impudent persiflage. "I hadn't got to the glory yet, because it's hard to estimate it; but put the glory at the lowest figure, Mr. Dryfoos, and add it to the twenty- five thousand, and you've got an annual income from 'Every Other Week' of dollars enough to construct a silver railroad, double-track, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... engineer of the G. E. and W., when they picked him up at the hotel, proved to be an entire human being with red whiskers and not a care in the world. Bobby was enjoying a lot of preliminary persiflage when Shepherd ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... pursuing persiflage with engaging lightness, "then you must be on the White Wings force. I ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... pride, at the consciousness that he was all her own. The exigencies of etiquette prevented for more than an hour any nearer approach, but when Mr. Dunbar had rendered "Caesar's things" to social Caesar, and paid tribute of bows, smiles, compliments and persiflage into the coffer of custom, he made his way through the throng, to the spot where his betrothed stood resting after ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... But he had hit upon a way of meeting the Rev. Bruno which promised greatly to diminish the suffering inherent in the situation. He would use the large-souled man deliberately for his mirth. Chilvers's self-absorption lent itself to persiflage, and by indulging in that mood Godwin tasted some compensation for the ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... you would know that under all that persiflage there is much depth of feeling and passion. I do not claim any unusual amount of intellectuality for him, but he has a wonderful supply of hard common-sense, and remarkably quick perceptions. And I have great respect for ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... What may that be? Some more of your American slang, I suppose." She broke away from persiflage to add seriously: "You're right about one thing, though. You've got the best girl in the world. Be good to her, ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... ridicule, derision; sardonic smile, sardonic grin; irrision^; scoffing &c (disrespect) 929; mockery, quiz^, banter, irony, persiflage, raillery, chaff, badinage; quizzing &c v.; asteism^. squib, satire, skit, quip, quib^, grin. parody, burlesque, travesty, travestie^; farce &c (drama) 599; caricature. buffoonery &c (fun) 840; practical joke; horseplay. scorn, contempt &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... tree's umbrageous limb A hungry fox sat smiling; He saw the raven watching him, And spoke in words beguiling. "J'admire," said he "ton beau plumage," (The which was simply persiflage.) ...
— The Best Nonsense Verses • Various
... the Row, everlastingly gossiping, bantering and sarcastically praising things, and going on in a style which was a curious commingling of earnest and persiflage. Col. Sellers liked this talk amazingly, though he was sometimes a little at sea in it—and perhaps that didn't lessen the relish of the conversation ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... was wondering how long we were to stand here exchanging ideas and persiflage, an animated group of five. The duke and duchess were charming, but I had had enough of them; I could have spared even good old Dunny; what I wanted, and wanted frantically, was a tete-a-tete; just Esme Falconer and myself. When I saw two automobiles, ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... might be a little too much vivacity in the case, but that, upon the whole, you make no doubt of the thing's being soon set right again; as, in truth, I dare say it will. Upon these delicate occasions, you must practice the ministerial shrugs and 'persiflage'; for silent gesticulations, which you would be most inclined to, would not be sufficient: something must be said, but that something, when analyzed, must amount to nothing. As for instance, 'Il est vrai qu'on s'y perd, mais que voulez-vous que je vous dise?—il y a bien ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... "But I am," she assured him, pleased and flattered with the centering of their persiflage on herself. She made a gesture toward Lydia, disappearing down the stairs. "I'm as much ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... a declamatory style, very much resembling the devotional rants of that rude blunderer, Mr. Thomas Paine, in his Age of Reason, and whispered in my ear, what damned hypocrism all Jesus Christ's business was. I dare aver, that few men have less reason to charge themselves with indulging in persiflage than myself. I should hate it, if it were only that it is a Frenchman's vice, and feel a pride in avoiding it, because our own language is too honest to have a word to express it by. But in this instance the temptation had been too powerful, and I have placed it on the list of my ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... but Phoebe looked on in astonishment. Seventeen is often a more serious time of life than two-and twenty, and the damsel could not comprehend the possibility of thoughtlessness when there was anything to think about. The ass's bridge was nothing compared with Lucy! Moreover the habits of persiflage of a lively family often are confusing to one not used to the tone of jest and repartee, and Phoebe had as little power as will to take part in what was passing between the brother and sister; she sat like the spectator of a farce in a foreign tongue, till the boat had ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... memories of her random humour and kindly whimsicality. But I close on a word of tenderer gravity, which I am sure will affect you. She had been a little tyrannical, as usual, and perhaps thought the tone of her persiflage rather excessive; a few hours later came a second note, which began: "You have made my life happier for me these last years—you, and Lady Airlie, and dearest Winifred." From her who never gave way to sentimentality in any ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... Give me time and I will." And Mrs. Tristram remained silent for some time afterwards, as if she was trying to keep her pledge. It did not appear that evening that she succeeded; but as he was rising to take his leave she passed suddenly, as she was very apt to do, from the tone of unsparing persiflage to that of almost tremulous sympathy. "Speaking seriously," she said, "I believe in you, Mr. Newman. You flatter ...
— The American • Henry James
... From eleven to twelve things were considerably enlivened. Many sleek youths, of a type he had seen on Broadway, arrived. They saluted the cheerful one gayly as "Sally" and indulged in varying degrees of witty persiflage before the inevitable ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... and looked at the thermometer. To my surprise I discovered that there were thirty-seven degrees of frost. A little alarmed, I tapped the thing impatiently. "Come, come," I said, "this is not the time for persiflage." However, it insisted on remaining at five degrees below zero. What I should have done about it I cannot say, but at that moment I remembered that it was a Centigrade thermometer with the freezing point in the wrong place. Slightly disappointed that there were only five degrees of frost (Centigrade) ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... purely after-dinner task. It was Lord Marshmoreton's habit, when he awoke after one of his naps too late to resume work, to throw out some vague promise of "attending to it tomorrow"; but, he reflected bitterly, the girl ought to have tact and sense to understand that this was only polite persiflage, and ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... turning a concentrated light ... he turns the pivot with his finger ... he baffles the swiftest runners as he stands and easily overtakes and envelopes them. The time straying towards infidelity and confections and persiflage he withholds by his steady faith ... he spreads out his dishes ... he offers the sweet firmfibred meat that grows men and women. His brain is the ultimate brain. He is no arguer ... he is judgment. He judges not ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... and domestic life as it is more especially in the ruder districts and in the back settlements, or again sallies of broad humour, exhibiting those characteristics which form in the country itself the subject of mutual persiflage between the citizens of different States. The work will have ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... cleverly handled that we read with pleasure—and then at the end are disgusted with ourselves for being pleased, and enraged at the writer for deluding us; for we thought there would be something beneath his graceful manners and airy persiflage, and ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... how a girl could carry her head so high and "put on such airs," and Aileen could not understand how any one could be so lymphatic and lackadaisical as Lillian Cowperwood. Life was made for riding, driving, dancing, going. It was made for airs and banter and persiflage and coquetry. To see this woman, the wife of a young, forceful man like Cowperwood, acting, even though she were five years older and the mother of two children, as though life on its romantic and enthusiastic pleasurable side were all over was too much for her. Of course ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... Every one seems to have accepted the philosophy of the irrepressible Ninon, who "returned thanks to God every evening for her esprit, and prayed him every morning to be preserved from follies of the heart." If a young wife was modest or shy, she was the object of unflattering persiflage. If she betrayed her innocent love for her husband, she was not of the charmed circle of wit and good tone which frowned upon so vulgar a weakness, and laughed ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... that little persiflage aside too. "He's no doubt an idealist of some sort," says he, "a man with high hopes, ambitions. If I ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... in vain for some airy nothing with which to answer his nonsense. I never have had the gift of repartee. I can talk well enough about subjects that interest me when I am conversing with some one whom I know well, but the frothy persiflage, the light banter that forms the conversation's stock in trade of so many women, is ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... arranged for Orange and Castrillon took place, but Orange was not present. He had sent word from Almouth House that he could not leave Lord Reckage. His Excellency, therefore, was thoroughly annoyed, and Castrillon's persiflage fell heavily upon his ears. He tried to think that this nobleman's vivacity made him appear flippant, whereas he was, in reality, a Don Juan of the classic type—unscrupulous, calculating, and damnable. ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... an idea," said the Senior Captain. "I nurse a private grief of my own beneath a camouflage of—of persiflage. I think I shall ask Cuthbert's opinion, as an artist, of a brother artist who himself does perfectly unrecognisable sketches of farm-yards"—he waved a golden-syrup spoon towards the Colonel and the manure-heap—"and yet demands a finnicking ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... talk, though animated, had been chiefly earnest and serious; here it was all touch and go, sally and repartee. The subjects were the light on lots and lively anecdotes of the day, not free from literature and politics, but both treated as matters of persiflage, hovered round with a jest and quitted with an epigram. The two French lady authors, the Count de Passy, the physician, and the host far outspoke all the other guests. Now and then, however, the German Count struck in with an ironical remark condensing ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... should have called there daily and have dined there weekly, and yet never have given the former object of his adoration the slightest idea that he cared a breath for her presence. According to etiquette, he should never have addressed her but in a vein of persiflage, and with a smile which indicated his perfect heartease and her bad taste. According to etiquette, he should have flirted with every woman in her company, rode with her in the Park, walked with her in the Gardens, chatted with her at ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... was what my three neighbours were saying. They were talking of people in the place whom they knew, then of various friends. Their persiflage and the consistent irony of their remarks ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... welcome to the newcomer was always of the simplest and most unstudied. He had no mannerisms nor affectation of phrase. He would begin at once to talk on everyday topics; an intimate friend he would perhaps rally upon some standing subject of persiflage. But the subsequent course of conversation adapted itself to his company. Deeper subjects were reached soon enough by those who cared for them; with others he was quite happy to talk of politics or people or his garden, yet, whatever he touched, never ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... mockery against hoops and patches and their wearers, which supplied Addison and his colleagues with the materials of so many Spectators. I think that even in Addison there is something which rather jars upon us. His persiflage is full of humour and kindliness, but underlying it there is a tone of superiority to women which is sometimes offensive. It is taken for granted that a woman is a fool, or at least should be flattered ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... must sure be dull at the ranch, if you had to ride twenty miles on a day like this to pick a fight with me," he observed, leisurely singling one leaf out of his book of papers. "Left your horse to bake in the sun, too, I suppose, while you practice the art of persiflage on me." ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... serve you as a confederate, to allow you to display your erudition," retorted the General, continuing his persiflage. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... with the Jesuits—these are things to which one cannot refuse hearty sympathy. And how masterly is his treatment on all occasions! How he turns about and rounds off every subject in his own mind before he expresses it! And then, when all is matured, what wit, spirit, irony, and persiflage, and what heartiness, naivete, and grace, are unfolded at every step! His songs have every year made millions of joyous men; they always flow glibly from the tongue, even with the working-classes, whilst they are so ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... thought persiflage was out of taste when the happiness of a mother's whole life was ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... look, and saw the fierce demand through the softness and persiflage. He gave it no answer, but, turning to her, kindled into the man whom she was so proud to show as her capture,—a man far off from Stephen Holmes. Brilliant she called him,—frank, winning, generous. She thought she knew him well; held him ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... a declamatory style very much resembling the devotional rants of that rude blunderer Mr. Thomas Paine, in his 'Age of Reason'. I dare aver, that few men have less reason to charge themselves with indulging in persiflage than myself; I should hate it, if it were only that it is a Frenchman's vice, and feel a pride in avoiding it, because our own language is too honest to have a ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... and provocative persiflage of "Intentions" there is a deep and true conception of the nature of art—a conception which might well serve as the "philosophy" of much of the most interesting and ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... graceful and winning Phebe than Mrs. Plowden, a more tender Celia than Miss Schletter, a more realistic Audrey than Miss Fulton, I have never seen. Rosalind suffered a good deal through the omission of the first act; we saw, I mean, more of the saucy boy than we did of the noble girl; and though the persiflage always told, the poetry was often lost; still Miss Calhoun gave much pleasure; and Lady Archibald Campbell's Orlando was a really remarkable performance. Too melancholy some seemed to think it. Yet is not ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... live in that part of New York called Greenwich Village and wear a Russian blouse and your hair bobbed. Those are the kind of bon mots those people throw off in conversation. Light and airy persiflage, it is called," said ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... off with her nose in the air, as she always does whenever I spring any of my punk persiflage ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... the immutable East," said Mr. Jelnik, with a faint smile. "He is archaic." And dismissing this persiflage with a wave of the hand, ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... singular chance, next to the very same youth whose ribs he had crushed on the Elevated a few hours before. The young man was in more amiable mood. He grinned. "Don't you flap again and spill me coffee, Mr. Chicken," he said, with delicate persiflage. ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... him to a good education. He had met with considerable success as a lawyer, though he always relied rather upon his eloquence than his law, and there were few juries which could resist the force and fury of his speech, and not many lawyers could keep their equanimity in the face of his witty persiflage and savage sarcasm. When to all this is added a genuine love of every species of combat, physical and moral, we may understand the name Charles Sumner—paraphrasing a well-known epigram—applied to him in the Senate, after his heroic death at Ball's Bluff, "the Prince ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... people would have called his quater-centenary if they had not been deterred by the terrific appearance of so huge a word, was the occasion of many preachments and much lecturing, besides a great deal of heroic talk in public and private. With so much to encourage cynicism and persiflage among us it was comforting to find that the instinct of hero-worship is not quite dead, and that the story of a great man's life still stirs the heart. It was inevitable that, among the many utterances with which we were treated in the year 1883, many should be very foolish, and ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... rose and led the way to the drawing-room, where they rejoined the ladies and the conversation took on a different colour and weight, by which it lost all value for those who knew not the art of twittering persiflage and found less joy in a handkerchief flirtation than in the nation's onward march. Rolf and Quonab enjoyed it now about as much as Skookum had done all ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... lieutenant pack off about his business. Being an easy-going fellow, with no dislike for the people among whom the fortunes of his calling had cast him, and with a strong fondness for pretty maids, the young man deprecated the anger of the woman, but finding, after some persiflage, that it was of small use to try to make friends with her, he marched away toward his quarters, trolling a lively air and drumming with his fingers on his sword-hilt. On the next evening he was at Maumee Nina's again, and before the very nose of that indignant dame chaffed her daughter, whom he ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... were breasting the breakers; and afterwards, as in their street attire they were returning on the boardwalk, she chatted brightly with him, revealing a certain cleverness in off-hand persiflage. ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... "Cut the persiflage, you two," Garlock ordered. "Consider three things. First, as you all know, I've been trying to figure out a generator that would give us intrinsic control, but I haven't got any farther with it than we did back on Tellus. Second, consider all the jumps we've made except this last one. Every ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... season is an exquisitely colored fashion plate of life's butterflies and drones. This throng of fashion and beauty, marked with its air of distinction carelessly abandoned to pleasure, ever murmuring pleasant nothings and tossing light persiflage from table to table, is truly an interesting study of the lighter sides of life. One sits on a magnificent markee-covered, glass-enclosed terrace, overlooking the Thames with its ever-changing scenes of ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... happy. We had music and a little dancing, and enjoyed in others the buoyancy of spirit that we no longer possess ourselves. Yet I do not think the young people of this age so gay as we were. There is a turn for persiflage, a fear of ridicule among them, which stifles the honest emotions of gaiety and lightness of spirit; and people, when they give in the least to the expansion of their natural feelings, are always kept under by the fear of becoming ludicrous. To restrain your feelings and check your enthusiasm ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... not take it!" she laughed richly. Bert thought for a second that this was more than mere persiflage, for the expression on the girl's face was new. Later he reminded himself that they all used curious forms of speech. "I just was too tired to get up this morning," a girl who had actually gotten up would say, or someone would comment upon a late train: "The old ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris
... of the godly that Mary should ratify the Book of Discipline was countered by the scoffs of Lethington. He and his brothers ever tormented Knox by persiflage. Still the preachers must be supported, and to that end, by a singular compromise, the Crown assumed dominion over the property of the old Church, a proceeding which Mary, if a good Catholic, could not have sanctioned. The higher clergy ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... trenches? What you've seen from automobiles. That's all. That's where you get off! I've lived in the trenches for fifteen months, froze in 'em, starved in 'em, risked my life in 'em, and I've saved other lives, too, by hauling men out of the trenches. And that's no airy persiflage, either!" ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... followed by a toro, or small boy, he had bought from some of the savage tribes to carry his blanket and cooking pot for him. To the friends who darted out to the line of march, he was gracious, but he held his head high, and had no time for mere persiflage. ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... enough, but he lives on the surface of everything! He is altogether shallow and blase. His good-nature is the fruit of want of feeling; between his gracefulness and his sneering persiflage he ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... truly be said to be looking after the loaves and fishes, and they who, as the Scripture says, are 'wise to catch soles,' speak to them for no other purpose than that for which the Lord spake unto the whale—that is, to ascertain how much they can swallow. The moral of this pungent persiflage, aimed to admonish the proud and uncharitable believer, who expected his acceptance with the deity on the score of his credulity, that when his credulity was fairly put to trial, it might be found that he was in reality as far from believing what he did not ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... perfectly well that if a man has no ear for music he had better not try to sing. But the danger with such men is that they are apt to doubt if music itself be not a vain delusion. This danger Hawthorne escaped. There is none of the shallow persiflage of the sceptic in his tone, nor any affectation of cosmopolitan superiority. Mr. Edward Dicey, in his interesting reminiscences of Hawthorne, published in Macmillan's ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... humour. Possibly, upon these discussions, were finally founded the rumours of which Dowson had heard but which she had impartially declined to "credit". Lively conjecture inevitably figured largely in their arguments and, when persons of unrestrained wit devote their attention to airy persiflage, much may be included in their points ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Why should his house be called "Stinkers"? Truly, it was a small thing, but he had been trained to believe that straws show which way the wind blows, and that there is no smoke without fire. He approached King in Common-room with a sense of injustice, but King was pleased to be full of airy persiflage that tide, and brilliantly danced dialectical rings ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... ignored; and Hyde did not feel any desire to bring even her name into such a mocking, jeering, perfectly heartless conversation. He was content to laugh, and let the hour go past in such flim-flams of criticism and persiflage. He remembered when he had been one of the units in such a life, and he wondered if it were possible that he could ever drift back into it. For even as he sat there, with the memory of his wife and child in his heart, he felt the light charm ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... on the stretch. They were always discovering odd, unexpected bits of knowledge in each other, and a great deal more accordance in views and opinions than appealed on the surface, for his enthusiasm usually veiled itself in persiflage on hers, though he was too good and serious to carry ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... learning; hence our weakness for slang. I should apologize for the word "weakness." On the contrary it is a token of our virile independence, our scorn for the delicatessen of education, mere dilettanteism. And this has its practical side, for if we don't know how to pronounce the words "evanescent persiflage" we can call it "bunk" or "rot." We suspect all college graduates. We don't want them in our business. They slink through our lives like pickpockets fearful ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... opinions of Mr. Labouchere and a number of Radicals below the gangway, and the occupants of the Treasury Bench. Of Mr. Labouchere the saying may be used, which is often employed with regard to weak men—Mr. Labouchere is far from a weak man—he is his own worst enemy. His delight in persiflage, his keen wit—his love of the pose of the bloodless and cynical Boulevardier—have served to conceal from Parliament, and sometimes, perhaps, even from himself, the sincerity of his convictions, and the masculine strength and firmness of his will. Somehow or ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... charmer in Geneva? Winterbourne, who denied the existence of such a person, was quite unable to discover, and he was divided between amazement at the rapidity of her induction and amusement at the frankness of her persiflage. She seemed to him, in all this, an extraordinary mixture of innocence and crudity. "Does she never allow you more than three days at a time?" asked Daisy ironically. "Doesn't she give you a vacation in summer? There's no one so hard worked but they can get leave to ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James
... incongruities between the man and his surroundings; but in England there is a deep impassable gulf between the man at the table and the man behind his chair. This democratic independence of external and adventitious circumstance sometimes gives a tone of irreverence to American persiflage, and the temporary character of class distinctions in America undoubtedly diminishes the amount of literary material "in sight" but when, as in the case of Browne and Clemens, there is in the humorist's mind a basis of reverence for things and persons that are really reverend, it gives a ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... at him through his persiflage wistfully, searchingly. "But there were other things ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... (entranced with the airy persiflage, but knowing her own to be no light hand at repartee). "Ask ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... his hand with airy persiflage. "No exact information obtainable, my friend. Likely to-day. Maybe not till to-morrow. The one dead-sure point is that I'll make my ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... ventured to state, in guarded language, that the boasted civilisation of the United States was not quite perfect, resulted in the former being called a snob and the latter a liar. English stolidity would only have smiled at the criticism even had it been couched in the language of persiflage. And when M. Max O'Rell traverses the statements of the two Englishmen and exaggerates American civilisation, we must bear in mind first that la vulgarite ne se traduit pas, and secondly, that the foes of our foemen are our friends. Woe be to the man who refuses ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... the most typical American minds. Benjamin Franklin, for example, modelled his style and his sense of the humorous on the papers of the Spectator. He produced humorous fables and apologues, choice little morsels of social and political persiflage, which were perfectly suited, not merely to the taste of London in the so-called golden age of English satire, but to the tone of the wittiest salons of Paris in the age when the old regime went tottering, talking, quoting, jesting ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... make good his accusation. He had dropped back into his slightly listless air of thinly veiled persiflage, and he appeared to address the lady, to explain the situation to her, rather than to justify the charge he ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... wait until she does," Roxholm answered, and his youthful face was as grave as the hero's own, though if triflers had heard their words, they would have taken their talk for idle persiflage and jest. ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... looking up with sudden exasperation. 'Now go away then, and leave me alone. I don't want any more of your meretricious persiflage.' ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... begin by depreciating the ministers of this religion. Let us declare open war on them, let us provoke suspicions on their devotion, on their private conduct, and by ridicule and persiflage we shall be right in the consideration attached to the state and the costume ...
— The History of a Lie - 'The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion' • Herman Bernstein
... thousand pictures which gave to the spot, naturally charming, a thousand novel features. We walked along the most extensive of these terraces, which was covered with a thick umbrage of trees. She had recovered from the effects of her husband's persiflage, and as we walked along she gave me her confidence. Confidence begets confidence, and as I told her mine, all she said to me became more intimate and more interesting. Madame de T——- at first gave me her arm; but soon this arm became ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... home, you would be honored by all ... in that case I hope you may grace my bridal couch." And again in the fourth book he relates that he is taking Medea home to be his wife "in accordance with her wishes!" Without persiflage, his attitude may be summed up in these words: "I come to you because I am in danger of my precious life. Help me to get back the Golden Fleece and I promise you that, on condition that I get home safe and sound, ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Orchestra music flickered. Young girls, the traditions of demure sixteen hanging by one-inch shoulder straps, and who could not walk across a hardwood floor without sliding the last three steps, teetered in bare arm-in-arm groups, swapping persiflage with pimply, patent-leather-haired young men who were full of nervous excitement and eager to excel ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... died and nine when her mother married again. Stephen Lorimer would never forget her first inspection of him. Nursemaids had done their worst on the subject of stepfathers; fairy tales had presented the pattern. He knew exactly what was going on in her mind, and—quite as earnestly beneath his persiflage as he had set himself to woo the widow—he set himself to win her daughter. It was a matter of moments only before he saw the color coming back into her square little face and the horror seeping out of her eyes. It was a matter of days only until she sought him out and told ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell |
