"Pleasantry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... having made his obeisance to this supposed Miss Meadows, told her, with an air of pleasantry, that although he thought himself highly honoured in being admitted to her presence, and allowed to pay his respects to her, as superior beings are adored, unseen; yet his pleasure would receive a very ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... commendable gruffness, considering his contentment at heart, as he hastily retreated to his gondola under the Rialto for needed shelter from the banter which followed him, until some other unwary victim became the centre of the well-meant pleasantry. ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... to be reflections of the streaming crimson there. She shook her face to the sky, and affected laughter at the symbol. Her companions clapped hands. Farina's eyes yearned to her once, and then he rose and joined in the pleasantry. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... view of their past relation, and of meeting it in the key of pleasantry prevalent among her new friends, was deeply humiliating to Lily. But she dared less than ever to quarrel with Rosedale. She suspected that her rejection rankled among the most unforgettable of his rebuffs, and the fact that he knew something ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... a pleasantry? Or do you mean me to understand that you have been hatching an affair of honour for ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... justly considered as one of the most delightful of Shakspeare's comedies. It is full of sweetness and pleasantry. It is perhaps too good-natured for comedy. It has little satire, and no spleen. It aims at the ludicrous rather than the ridiculous. It makes us laugh at the follies of mankind, not despise them, and still less bear ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... bit me," said he, passing it off with that old stock pleasantry of the range, which covered anything and everything that a man ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... companion the necessity for their parting company; in order, that, by riding forward himself, he might be able to send back succour to his fellow-traveller. He was no little surprised, therefore, to perceive that his pleasantry was taken in actually a serious light; and therefore had determined to desist ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... admitted on sufferance, as it were—and perceiving two or three gentlemen at supper, who, he was aware, were not Members, and could not, in that place, very well resent his behaviour, he indulged in the pleasantry of sitting with his booted leg on the table at which they were supping! He is generally ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... in Henry VIII., as described by Holinshed, perhaps furnishes a clue to the Queen's pleasantry, though Shakspeare has omitted the particular incident relating to Sir Henry Nevill. The old chronicler, after giving an account of Wolsey's banquet, and the entrance of a noble troop of strangers in masks, amongst whom he suspected that the king ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 50. Saturday, October 12, 1850 • Various
... instantaneous in its action, requires a very small quantity, and defies detection even by autopsy." He uncorked the bottle, and dipped in a long glass rod. "Will you watch the experiment?" he invited, with a sort of ghastly pleasantry. "I do not want you to ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... churches; solid blocks of houses, with all the modern improvements; but you can't tell whether there's any town there till you're on the ground; and then, if you don't like it, there's no way of gettin' back to the States." He turned round upon Bartley and opened his mouth wide, to imply that this was pleasantry. ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... no greater mistake than to suppose that fairies, champions, distressed damsels, and by consequence ogres, have ceased to exist. It may not be OGREABLE to them (pardon the horrible pleasantry, but as I am writing in the solitude of my chamber, I am grinding my teeth—yelling, roaring, and cursing—brandishing my scissors and paper-cutter, and as it were, have become an ogre). I say there is no greater mistake than to suppose that ogres have ceased to exist. We all KNOW ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... man's arts to use the peril in which (as I say) he was supposed to stand. He spoke of it to those who loved him with a gentle pleasantry, which made it the more touching. To Mr. Henry he used it as a cruel weapon of offence. I remember his laying his finger on the clean lozenge of the painted window one day when we three were alone together in the hall. "Here went your lucky guinea, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to the boy's story of his love and regret with sympathy and apparent understanding. He encouraged him wherever he sought encouragement. He had a pleasantry of happy expression wherever it was needed. In a word he played to the last degree upon a nature as weak ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... have been a surprising thing if Jack had really made some communication to the lawyer; but he did stop short at that amount of pleasantry, and, as he himself expressed it, for once in a way he let the old ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... it incompatible with the highest scholastic excellence. But there is a place for all things, and school is not the place for fun. If you enjoy in moderation out of school the relaxation and refreshment which jokes, wit, and pleasantry give, you will be all the more likely to grapple successfully with the serious employments which await you here. Still do not forget that your employments here are serious. Study is a sober business. If you would acquire really ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... by dancing. The bride and bridegroom retired as usual, when of a sudden the most wild and piercing cries were heard from the nuptial chamber. It was then the custom, to prevent any coarse pleasantry which old times perhaps admitted, that the key of the nuptial chamber should be entrusted to the bridesman. He was called upon, but refused at first to give it up, till the shrieks became so hideous that he was compelled to hasten with ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... any heed to Tommy's pleasantry. They were too amazed and perplexed to give thought to anything but the ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... occasion for Mr. Finley to indulge in any pleasantry at the expense of his old friend, Simon Kenton, however appropriate it might be at another time. His words were grave, quick and prompt, as were becoming. He hurriedly shook hands with Boone, Kenton and the rangers, to all of whom he was well known and by them held in high esteem. He greeted ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... in a lighter manner, almost amounting to pleasantry, and did not appear to notice that the priest moved uneasily in ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... ran him into scurrility; and in his love of laughing away serious arguments in judicial cases by jests and facetious remarks, with a view to the advantage of his clients, he paid too little regard to what was decent. Indeed, Cicero was by natural temper very much disposed to mirth and pleasantry, and always appeared with a smiling and serene countenance. But Demosthenes had constant care and thoughtfulness in his look, and a serious anxiety, which he seldom, if ever, set aside, and, therefore, was accounted by his enemies, as he himself ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... conversation then became animated, and even gay. Bonaparte was in high spirits. He said to some one, smiling, and pointing to Bernadotte, "You are not aware that the General yonder is a Chouan."—"A Chouan?" repeated Bernadotte, also in a tone of pleasantry. "Ah! General you contradict yourself. Only the other day you taxed me with favouring the violence of the friends of the Republic, and now you accuse me of protecting ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... four ten-pound notes, and several pieces of gold. 'Didn't I tell you so, brother?' said Mr. Petulengro. 'Now, in the first place, please to pay me the five shillings you have lost.' 'This is only a foolish piece of pleasantry,' said I; 'you put it into my pocket whilst you were moving about me, making faces like a distracted person. Here, take your purse back.' 'I?' said Mr. Petulengro, 'not I, indeed! don't think I am such a fool. I have won my wager, so pay me the five shillings, brother.' 'Do drop ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... children; and his humour was infectious. We were next neighbours and met daily, yet our salutations lasted minutes at a stretch—shaking hands, slapping shoulders, capering like a pair of Merry-Andrews, laughing to split our sides upon some pleasantry that would scarce raise a titter in an infant school. It might be five in the morning, the toddy-cutters just gone by, the road empty, the shade of the island lying far on the lagoon: and the ebullition cheered me for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as I am convinced this is only a little pleasantry on your part, or perhaps a mere trial whether I am possessed of the spirit and determination of a De Benyon, I shall, of course, please you by not complying with ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... faintest idea of playfulness or jocularity. Perhaps it was difficult to connect the serious men, who occasionally walked beside them and seemed to grow more taciturn and depressed as the day wore on, with this past effusive pleasantry. ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... excellent pleasantry," he said with a smile of the blandest. "Without doubt, not a very flattering pleasantry—but I know that her denial of me in favour of her cat is but a jesting at which we both may laugh. And we may laugh together the better because, in the roots of her ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... make uncomfortable those to whom the situation is already sufficiently trying? Why, after so much pains and expense have been employed to make the occasion beautiful and impressive, should the "practical joker" take it upon himself to spoil it all by an ill-timed "pleasantry" which is the acme of rudeness and discourtesy? It is a curious character that can enjoy perpetrating what are really outrages upon ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... that his mistress was making him wear the horns, that she was hobnobbing with the General, and that she was in possession of one of the five keys of the house in the Eglisottes quarter; and as he was as jealous as an Andalusian, and felt a horror for that kind of pleasantry, he swore that he would make his rival pay a hundred fold for the trick which ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... who, after the glorious day of Plataea, ordered the slaves to prepare in the tent of Mardonius such a banquet as would have been served to the Persian, while his own Spartan broth and bread were set beside it, in order that he might utter to the chiefs of Greece that noble pleasantry, 'Behold the folly of the Persians, who forsook such splendour to plunder ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... odd at the time, for the house laughed incontinently." "Ay, ay," gravely replied a young Irishman who was present, "I dare say it was your game eye they laughed at." Down fell the muscles of poor H's face—he changed colour, and was for sometime before he could rally his spirit or recover his pleasantry.[F] ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... tripped as lightly down the ladder to the gun-deck as Mr. Mouse, and making another dive down to the berth-deck, exchanging a rapid volley of pleasantry with the midshipmen in the steerage, he opened the wardroom door and entered. There, in a large open space, transversely dividing the stern of the ship, with rows of latticed-doored staterooms on either side, lighted by open skylights from above, with a barrel of a wind-sail ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... and contempt, which have fallen in my way, in twice crossing this great continent, I could make a second Joe Miller of one, and a Jane Shore of the other. If this traveller could have understood the Beggars' Opera, the humour of Sam. Foote, or the pleasantry among English sailors, watermen, and the lower order of the people, he would have known, that, though the English nation have not so much vivacity as the French, they are behind-hand with no nation whatever, where true wit and genuine humour are to be displayed. What would ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... major, quickly, with a desperate but sickly attempt at pleasantry, "that you had gone in for Florence again; she's worth all your 'lost sheep of ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... Lancashire; in this country since he was four years old. Had nothing to care for but an old mother; didn't know what he should do, if he lost her. Though so long in this country, he had all the simplicity and childlike light-heartedness which belong to the Old World's people. He laughed at the smallest pleasantry, and showed his great white English teeth; he took a joke without retorting by an impertinence; he had a very limited curiosity about all that was going on; he had small store of information; he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... observed on this curious head of our author's speculations. But, taking leave of what the writer says in his serious part, if he be serious in any part, I shall only just point out a piece of his pleasantry. No man, I believe, ever denied that the time for making peace is that in which the best terms maybe obtained. But what that time is, together with the use that has been made of it, we are to judge by seeing whether terms adequate to our advantages, and to our ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... when the public Treasury was exhausted, Mademoiselle Deschamps sent all her plate to the Mint. Louis XIV. boasted of this act of generous devotion to her country. The Duc d'Ayen made it the subject of a pleasantry, which detracted nothing from the merit of the sacrifice—but which is rather too gay for us to ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 1 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... to return a small volley of French pleasantry; but the effort was obviously a forced one. The pulses of her heart were throbbing with anxiety and fear; and they all began to feel suspense increasing to agony, when at last the whistled tones of Ca ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... of all others, when Indian orators try to be humorous and witty. As a race they do not excel along these lines, but sometimes they get off some very good things. While they began their speeches with some bright pleasantry that brought smiles, and even laughter, there was never anything unbecoming to the place, and all quickly drifted into a strain of thanksgiving to God for his blessings. To listen to their grateful joyous words, one ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... which the undisciplined animalism of youth often has a stealthy satisfaction, always called the blood to his cheeks and covered him with embarrassment. For all that, his spirit was full of a frank gaiety, and he would indulge in long bursts of laughter at a pleasantry or frolic that struck him. We may be glad to know this, because without express testimony to the contrary, there would have been some reason for suspecting that Turgot was defective in that most wholesome and human quality ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley
... prejudices and passions not less extraordinary. As he advanced up the House, he recognized every one on both sides, and spoke or smiled to nearly all. He stopped once or twice in his way, and was surrounded by a circle with whom, as I could judge from their laughter, he exchanged some pleasantry of the hour. When at length he arrived at the seat which had been reserved for him, he threw himself upon it with the easy look of comfort of a man who had reached home—gave nod to Windham, held ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... incidents of the feast—the banter of the younger women, the duenna's lachrymose confidences, the incessant interchange of theatrical jargon and coarse pleasantry—there remained to Odo but a confused image, obscured by the smoke of guttering candles, the fumes of wine and the stifling air of the low-ceilinged tavern. Even the face of the pretty girl who had dragged him from his concealment, and who now sat at his side, plying him with sweets from her ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... of his own. This trifling incident reminded me afresh that France is a democratic country. I think I re- ceived an admonition to the same effect from the free, familiar way in which the game of whist was going on just behind me. It was attended with a great deal of noisy pleasantry, flavored every now and then with a dash of irritation. There was a young man of whom I made a note; he was such a beautiful specimen of his class. Sometimes he was very facetious, chatter- ing, joking, punning, showing off; then, as the game ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... out his snuff-box with a shrug and a smile; taking it no doubt for an awkward piece of English pleasantry, which politeness required him to be charmed with. My uncle went on gravely, however, and related the whole circumstance. The Marquis heard him through with profound attention, holding his snuff-box unopened in his hand. ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... few days! Wait, my friend," cried Tric-Trac, eagerly; "and say!—come back here next Monday! There will be a few of us here—a few friends. And keep your mouth shut tight. Here! Wait. Look here, friend, don't let a little pleasantry stand between comrades. Your fagot-knife against my little flute that sings pa-pa!—that leaves matters ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... all share alike?" continued Rose, ignoring the pleasantry, "big and little—that ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... in February, 1755, and stepped ashore at Dover February 1, 1756. For his route it is necessary to consult his writings. His letters of the time have perished. In later life, Foote tells us, "he frequently used to talk, with great pleasantry, of his distresses on the Continent, such as living on the hospitalities of the friars, sleeping in barns, and picking up a kind of mendicant livelihood by the German flute." His early memoir-writers assert with confidence that ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... wrong, when in a book issued some quarter of a century ago he followed the lead of Mr. Dyce in assuming that because the author of "Doctor Faustus" and "The Jew of Malta" "was as certainly"—and certainly it is difficult to deny that whether as a mere transcriber or as an original dealer in pleasantry he sometimes was—"one of the least and worst among jesters as he was one of the best and greatest among poets," he could not have had a hand in the admirable comic scenes of "The Taming of the Shrew." For it is now, I should hope, unnecessary to insist that the able and conscientious ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... and inquired if they could be of any assistance, but I assured them it was a matter of no consequence—that I had, evidently, been mistaken for another—or it was only a bit of pleasantry from some ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... This pleasantry finished the poor geographer. The crew burst out into loud Homeric laughter. Paganel ran about like a madman, seized his head with both hands and tore his hair. He neither knew what he was doing nor what he wanted to do. He rushed down the poop stairs mechanically and paced the deck, nodding ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... angle-worms, neatly bound with a pink ribbon tied into a simple knot. The dog is an heirloom and will descend to the Gishes of the next generation, in the direct line of inheritance. A Cow-County Pleasantry. ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... relieve him from the necessity of any labours but those of national undoing. Holding but an inferior and struggling rank in all the manlier provinces of the mind, in science, poetry, and philosophy; he was the prince of scorners. The splenetic pleasantry which stimulates the wearied tastes of high life; the grossness which half concealed captivates the loose, without offence to their feeble decorum; and the easy brilliancy which throws what colours it will on the darker features of its purpose; made Voltaire, the very genius of ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... him by one of those cold-drawn jests which consist in defending an opinion in which we have no belief, simply to rouse the wrath of a poor man who argues in good faith; a regular journalist's pleasantry. ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... both speakers knew that what they had seen in Sylvia's face and heard in her voice exceeded pleasantry. ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... says: "It is astonishing what strange ideas some of them have concerning me. They have been informed that I can find stolen goods, and am often applied to on such occasions. I think it would be no hard matter to make them believe me a wizard." This was probably a serious version of his pleasantry with the Dutchman about finding his goods by calculating the ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... good humor; stretching out on my sofa he began to chaff me about the appearance of my face which looked, he said, as though I had not slept well. As I was little disposed to indulge in pleasantry I ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... Carlyle his infinite demurs to those finite flourishings. The listeners laughed and applauded by turns; and had now fairly pitted them against each other, as the philosopher of hopefulness and of the unhopeful. The contest continued with all that ready wit and philosophy, that mixture of pleasantry and profundity, that extensive knowledge of books and character, with their ready application in argument or illustration, and that perfect ease and good nature which distinguish both of these men. The opponents were so well ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... a cryptic smile. After they had left it was hinted they were not married at all; the oldest hands had been taken in.... One afternoon I met Dolly, the commercial traveler's wife, and she stopped and spoke to me. I remembered what I had heard and ventured on some pleasantry at which she laughed, and on my proposing that we should go for a walk she consented. She had left the commercial traveler, it came out in conversation, and we went on talking and walking, one idea only in my mind now; ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... court-word for a pheasant] This satire, or this pleasantry, I confess myself not well ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... of conduct exposes her; or how exceedingly cold and hollow that ceremony must be, which is not the language of a warm heart. She does not reflect how insipid those smiles are, which indicate no internal pleasantry; nor how awkward those graces, which spring not from habits of good-nature and benevolence. Thus, pertness succeeds to delicacy, assurance to modesty, and all the vagaries of a listless to the sensibilities of an ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... no heed. The colonel persisted. Without a word in reply, she resolutely sought the nearest policeman. Wallenstein, remaining where he was, laughed. Meantime the policeman frowned. It was incredible; his excellency could not possibly have intended any wrong, it was only a harmless pleasantry. Gretchen's lips quivered; the law of redress in Ehrenstein had no ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... Mr. Rogers. "But unless I'm a Dutchman, it used to be The Gabriel's antimacassar"—and with that Mr. Rogers winked, for he had (as the other knew to his cost) an artless, primitive sense of pleasantry. "A gage d'amour, I'll bet any man a ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... strokes of pleasantry and lively criticism, and ever and anon reveal most delightful pictures of fireside groups. A high-toned morality pervades the whole. We feel sure that the book will ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... intent to commit murder—they always put it that way whether you meant the shot as anything more than a little pleasantry or really had murder in your heart—that would be a minimum of ten years in many of the American states and a hard-hearted judge might soak you for twenty. Then pile on that from one to five years for hiding stolen property; and then a first-class ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... superiority and dignity, combined with a genuine appreciation of others, the expression of friendship, cordiality, playfulness and pleasantry, which characterize the letters to his Swiss friends, make this collection extremely interesting and lovable as well as exceedingly instructive, although Winckelmann's letters cannot on ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... laughed; "he is a fair size, and sits up well in the saddle," a harmless pleasantry which, to judge by his peevish exclamation, Felix ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... at once. He resolved to disengage the lady from her vow, and sat down to write the words which were to rend his heart in twain. At that moment Dulac entered the room with a packet of letters just arrived from Paris by estafette. Amongst them was one from the young lady's mother, full of sweet pleasantry and graceful mirth, describing the gay doings at the Tuileries, and the delight her daughter had experienced at the idea of being allowed to attend the Duchesse d'Angouleme to the ball about to be given in honor of the visit to Paris of some one or ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... he went on with the same good-humoured pleasantry, "which our friend citizen Chauvelin had forgotten was that, though I happen to have aroused his unconquerable ire, I am but one man amongst a league of gallant English gentlemen. Their chief, I ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... drink with a smile ends in uproarious laughter, and he who frowns will often end in fighting. Vic Gregg did not frown as he drank, but the corners of his lips turned up a trifle in a smile of fixed and acid pleasantry and his glance went from face to face in the barroom, steadily, with a trifling pause at each pair of eyes. Beginning with himself, he hated mankind in general; the burn of the cheap whisky within served to set the color of that hatred in a fixed dye. He did not lift his chaser, but his ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... in which business and pleasure are equally combined. They are essentially gregarious, and this industry brings many together during the long bright days. The light work leaves their tongues free, and families and neighbors pick together with a ceaseless chatter, a running fire of rude, broad pleasantry, intermingled occasionally with a windy war of words in a jargon that becomes all the more uncouth from anger, but which rarely ends ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... trifle for these frolics. His friends Tickell and Richardson, both men of wit and humor, and the former possessing the same degree of light animal spirits as himself, were the constant companions of all his social hours, and kept up with him that ready rebound of pleasantry, without which the play ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... set afoot by a pleasantry of Ensign Tyler's, of Massey's dragoons, with a playful allusion to a letter in a feminine hand which Kenneth had let fall, and which Tyler had restored to him. Quip had followed quip until in their jests they transcended all ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... appeared to smile as at some amiable pleasantry, but McLean caught the snarl of his lifted lip, and felt ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... take this pleasantry as one might suppose he would. His own primitive aversion to the strange, deformed child made him weakly sensitive. He recoiled from Falstar's gibe with a sneaking shame he dared not defend by a ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... A hum drum fellow; a dull tedious narrator, a bore; also a set of gentlemen, who (Bailey says) used to meet near the Charter House, or at the King's Head in St. John's-street, who had more of pleasantry, and less of mystery, than ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... ignored this pleasantry. "Thank you for saying calico, Marian. I was just wondering what to call him and that will ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... it seemed, young Frost made no reply to this pleasantry; for already he was impatient to be gone. Although the room was intensely cold and uncomfortable, still his guest lingered, standing before the massive cabinet, exclaiming upon the exquisiteness of the workmanship, and every now and then running his dainty fingers ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... the merry Greek beneath the portico and in the Agora; it makes us entertain a very humble idea respecting the amount of creative power given to man, even for the production of so small a matter as a pleasantry, not to speak of pleasantries so very small as some of these mysterious and time-honoured jokes. If we remember, still further, that the pedigree of these trifling insects of the brain, these children of the quip, does not stop even in the venerable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... beauty of his Christian manhood. It rather served to bring them into fuller relief, and even to render more striking those bright natural traits—the sportive humor, the ready mother wit, the facetious pleasantry, the keen sense of the ridiculous, and the wondrous story-telling gift—which made him a most delightful companion to young and old, to the wise and the unlettered alike. It served, moreover, to impart ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... the letters to his lady correspondents, among them being Maria Edgeworth, Lady Dunraven, and Lady Campbell. Many of these sheets relate to literary matters, but they are largely intermingled With genial pleasantry, and serve at all events to show the affection and esteem with which he was regarded by all who had the privilege of knowing him. There are also the letters to the sisters whom he adored, letters brimming over with such exalted sentiment, that most ordinary sisters would be tempted ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... by refuting those of the opponent. The second, by giving hopes of being brief, and by having recourse to the means prescribed for making the judge attentive. In the latter case, too, some seasonable pleasantry, or anything witty to freshen the mind will have a good effect. It will not be amiss, likewise, to remove any seeming obstruction. As Cicero says of himself, he is not unaware that some will find it strange that he, who for so many years had defended such a number of people, ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... heartily at his pleasantry. He was a French-Canadian half-breed and spoke with a strong foreign accent. ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... begging her for a position in the engine-room staff. He knew, he said, that the quota was probably made up, and that he could not hope for an important place. But if she would take him as a first-class artificer he would be more than grateful, and ventured on the little pleasantry that even if he had to be squeezed in as a supernumerary he was confident he could save her his pay and keep a ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... illustrate with some detail the distinction—often ignored by those who are beginning to write English, and sometimes by others also—between the Diction of Prose, and that of Poetry. It endeavors to dissipate that excessive and vulgar dread of tautology which, together with a fondness for misplaced pleasantry, gives rise to the vicious style described above. It gives some practical rules for writing a long sentence clearly and impressively; and it also examines the difference between slang, conversation, and written prose. Both for translating ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... of this pleasantry he bowed and retired. Nelson turned with determined politeness to the lady. He was sorry that she had come, she looking to him a very fine lady indeed, with her black silk gown, her shining black ornaments, and her bright black eyes. She was not ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... basis of ethical earnestness, appropriate to woman, beneath her chatty flow of small talk. That she was comparatively a new-comer accounted partially for this impression, but it was mainly due to the fact that she still reverted after her sallies of pleasantry to a grave ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... no slight infusion of pleasantry in the minds of some of the royal household. When they got rid of the stately pedantry of Caroline, and the smooth hypocrisy of her confidante,—when the gross and formal monarch was shut out, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... could well afford to laugh at the pleasantry of the man who, it was evident, felt a partiality for them. He ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... within a very few years God had a rival in the Devil, but now the Devil lives only as a pleasantry. Until the time of Moses, the God of Sinai was only the God of the Hebrew people, and this accounts for His violence, wrath, jealousy, and all of those qualities which went to make up a barbaric chief, including the tendency of His sons ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... filled with fear," said Charley, quickly, regretting his attempt at pleasantry, "but they found that they had been only children frightened at shadows. They have slain that which made the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the quay, in a surging crowd of khaki and civilian grey, mingled with the bright hats and dresses of ladies. Then bells began to ring, the siren to bellow mournfully, and the band to play valedictory tunes ("Say au revoir and not goodbye," I thought rather an ominous pleasantry). We two said good-bye, and I squeezed myself up the gangway. Every inch of standing room aboard was already packed, but I got a commanding position by clambering high up, with some others, on to a derrick-boom. The pilot appeared on the bridge, shore-ropes were cast off, "Auld Lang Syne" ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... Lord Mansfield covered his retreat from an untenable position with a sparkling pleasantry. An old witness named ELM having given his evidence with remarkable clearness, although he was more than eighty years of age, Lord Mansfield examined him as to his habitual mode of living, and found he had been through life an early riser and a singularly ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... a figure was not wrought to pleasantry; and that to brave it was no child's play. The dead Arab at my feet was proof of what could be done! So I examined again along the wall; and found here and there chippings as if someone had been tapping with a heavy hammer. ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... nephew met these brethren daily, for the most part, at John Durie's table. The group contained the very flower and chivalry of the Church. At their meals they discussed the incidents of the day's sittings, and their conversation was enlivened with many a pleasantry—it was always Melville's 'form' at table to 'interlase' discourse on serious subjects with 'merry interludes.' When the company rose from table they held lengthened devotional exercises: in the reading of Scripture each in his turn made his observations on the passage; and we can ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... time, had recovered, in some measure, from their alarm; and, beginning to regard the whole matter as a well-contrived pleasantry, set up a loud shout of laughter at the predicament of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... a huskiness in his voice that defeated the attempt at pleasantry, "he would be glad to have ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... he began in a dim way to understand. This was the thing which Tissot had not been able to bear; which in the end had driven the young man with the small chin from the house. This was the pleasantry to which his feeble resistance, his outbursts of anger, of jealousy, or of protest had but added piquancy, the ultimate sting of pleasure to the jaded palate of the performers. This was the obsession under which she lay, the trial and persecution which she ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... study "sometimes relieved with a temporary application to music and poetry"—and when the disconsolate Arthur had lost his father, and thereby gained 800 pounds a year, he drowned his sorrows by an almost exclusive devotion to "society and pleasantry." We are told[A] that on the ratification of the Peace of Ryswick he went to Paris, where he was exceedingly well received in consequence of the numerous introductory letters which had been furnished him from various quarters. He there ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... not meant. There was a time when even Jewdwine was outdone by the young men of The Planet in honest contempt for the taste and judgement of the many; when it had been Rankin's task to pursue with indefatigable pleasantry the figures of popular renown. And now he was popular himself. The British public had given ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... that never has he been more welcome than he is at this moment. Signor Smees, you are a great lover of masquerades and make a carnival of the whole year. I trust your distinguished countryman, Sir Cicero, will have it in his power to convince these brave Inglese that all is done in pure pleasantry ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Willoughby, "his conversation this afternoon rather amused me. It recalled to my mind an excellent and most characteristic pleasantry, which you may not have heard. The story goes that Coleridge once asked Lamb, 'Did you ever hear me preach?' 'Preach!' said Lamb; 'Gad, I never heard you do anything else!' And yet, if Mr. Collins ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... no novice in the science—that his admiration had awakened one dormant but hallowed affection, long lulled in the soft lap of pleasure. The maiden, with whom it was his sole aim to pass a few hours of pleasantry and amusement, had enthralled him by so sudden a spell, that he was more than half inclined to believe in the boasted skill and exploits of the sex, which has rendered Lancashire so famous. Her unaccountable absence impressed ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... where Reid went, or what he planned; he would have to stay away from that camp. That Mackenzie vowed, meaning it to the last letter. Tim Sullivan would be informed of this latest pleasantry at their first meeting, also, and hear a chapter from Mackenzie's heart on the matter ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... a tour in Western Asia sends to the Drawer the following account of a little bit of pleasantry which took place in the gala ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... they indulged a vein of pleasantry, one might perceive that they would not use one unnecessary word, nor let an expression escape them that had not some sense worth attending to. For one being asked to go and hear a person who imitated the nightingale to perfection, answered, ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... of age, have kept twelve terms, and have been for five, or three years, at least, a member of the society. The keeping of terms includes dining a certain number of times in the hall, and hence the pleasantry of eating the way to the bar; the preparatory studies being now private. Of the great business of refection, the engraving herewith shows the most dignified scene—the Benchers' Dinner; the benchers, or "antients," as they ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... answer: "Ah, that rational man who thinks to advise us in sorrow, Knows not how little of power his cold words have in relieving Ever a heart from that woe which a sovereign fate has inflicted. Ye are prosperous and glad; how then should a pleasantry wound you? Yet but the lightest touch is a source of pain to the sick man. Nay, concealment itself, if successful, had profited nothing. Better show now what had later increased to a bitterer anguish, And to an inward consuming despair might perhaps have reduced me. ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... Raoul's ready leash rewarded the felicity of this application, and sent the fool howling off to seek a more favourable audience, for his pleasantry. At the same time Raoul pressed up to Damian, and with an earnestness very different from his usual dry causticity of manner, begged him for God's sake not to make himself the general spectacle, by standing there as if the devil sat on the ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... fat legs and folded his hands as he did at the ending of his sermons, and the others sat before him with the strained and reverential faces which they put on like a veil in church and took off when the service was over. That it was not a prayer, but a pleasantry of which he was about to deliver himself, they quite understood; but he had a habit of speaking on week days in his Sunday tones, which gave, as it were, an official weight to his remarks. He was a fleshy wide-girthed gentleman, with a bald head, ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... enthusiastically continue to explain. They never dull your enthusiasm by short phlegmatic or pessimistic replies. And when you are sad they will condone so genuinely with you that you forget your disappointments in the charming pleasantry of their sympathy. But all this continual race for pleasure is destined in the course of time to end ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... as he was troubled at this accident, could not help laughing at the lady's pleasantry. "Madam," said he, thinking of something else that tormented his mind, "there is nothing in what you imagine; this is my common dinner, and no extraordinary preparation, I assure you." As he could not bring himself to sit down at a table which was not provided for him, he would have taken his ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... jocularly remarked to the Commandant, "if I don't, you will be saying that you captured these villains, and, sending them off to Lahore, will secure the reward my men have earned!" The Commandant laughed heartily at this blunt pleasantry, and partly out of good nature, and partly to avoid all blame should the prisoners escape, agreed to the proposal of the diplomatic subadar. During the course of the day the utmost cordiality was maintained, the Sikhs coming out and freely fraternising with the ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... Morgan" was the first thought of every one who wished to inaugurate a charitable enterprise, and his business house was a rendezvous for all the distressed, and a sort of "intelligence office" for the poor seeking employment. His temper was cheerful and frequently gay; no man more relished pleasantry and mirth in the society of his friends, with whom his manner was free and even at times jovial; but he never himself indulged in personal jests nor familiarities, nor did he permit them from his most ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... at the signal the others came forward. Ivan presented each in turn, applying to each a German name that had been agreed upon during the night's travel. Nicolas expressed his pleasure at seeing them and after a few words of pleasantry, said: ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... completely fitted for the French style of comedy. He gives you the idea of a perfect gentleman, with much wit and liveliness, and consummate confidence and self-possession; who delivers himself with inimitable archness and pleasantry, but without the least exaggeration or buffoonery; who has too high an opinion of himself and his powers, to descend to broad jokes or allusions belonging to the lower kinds of humour. Those who have an accurate recollection of the admirable acting of ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... one of the coffers, so carefully packed and accounted for, contained no less an ornament than the little King in person, to whose childish mind no doubt this mode of transport was a delightful device and pleasantry. One can imagine how the Queen's heart must have throbbed with anxiety while her son lay hidden in the bed made for him within the heavy chest, where if air failed, or any varlet made the discovery prematurely, all her hopes would have come to an end. She must have fluttered like a bird over her ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... the fair side of things; and therefore the interval between Sunday and Tuesday evening, did not pass without some mixture of cheerfulness. On Monday, Dr. Fordyce forbad the child's having the breast, and we therefore procured puppies to draw off the milk. This occasioned some pleasantry of Mary with me and the other attendants. Nothing could exceed the equanimity, the patience and affectionateness of the poor sufferer. I intreated her to recover; I dwelt with trembling fondness on every ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... her; he saw nothing but Martie, and only rarely moved his eyes from her, or spoke to any one else. He glowed at her lightest word, laughed at her mildest pleasantry; he frequently asked her family if ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... whom they wished to wreak their vengeance. A bandit named Teutgaud, notorious in those times for his robberies, assaults, and murders of travellers, had thrown himself headlong into the cause of the commune. The bishop, who knew him, had by way of pleasantry and on account of his evil mien given him the nickname of Isengrin. This was the name which was given in the fables of the day to the wolf, and which corresponded to that of Master Reynard. Teutgaud and his men penetrated into the cellar of the church; they ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... The poor sufferer in Trinidad who lost his all in the devouring flames will remember your charity to his latest moments. The traveller, as he leaves your port, casts a longing, lingering look behind: your attentions, your hospitality, your pleasantry and mirth are uppermost in his thoughts; your prosperity is close to his heart. Let us now, gentle reader, retire from the busy scenes of man and journey on towards the wilds in ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... said he once to a mob that had gathered at his door, 'if any of you has a stick, just leave it in my porch for a keepsake.' With shouts of laughter the shillelaghs came flying over the heads of the people in front till the porch was filled. The pleasantry gave Howe a stock of fuel, and sent away the mob disarmed and ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... quick, searching, almost pleading glance on Prof. Easton, and then looked down with a flushed and disappointed face. He was not equal to a bold spreading of his professed colors. He laughed, not easily, or as if he enjoyed the sharp words veiled so thinly by pleasantry, but as if he were in an awkward position, and did ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... hands and naked swords in their right, the youthful gallants fell in; some in front, others to the rear of the carriage, while Raoul and I, unable to oppose this ludicrous whim, walked on either side. Marie, who did not favour D'Arcy's pleasantry, sat so far back that her face could not be observed, but her aunt entered into the fun, and laughed merrily when the torchbearers, catching some luckless wight, forced him to bow humbly before the carriage and to ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... Scotch Reviewers, he had alluded, with provoking pleasantry, to a meeting which had taken place at Chalk Farm some years before, between Mr Jeffrey, the Edinburgh reviewer, and Mr Moore, without recollecting, indeed without having heard, that Mr Moore had explained, ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... to himself at all, but "to one of his colleagues." Furthermore he is at the pains to add (Chez Paddy, p. 43) that the story, which was not to the taste of some of the French ecclesiastics who heard it, was related "as a simple pleasantry." "But," he adds, and this I suspect is the sting which has so exasperated the "Canadian priest," "he gave us to understand at the same time that this pleasantry struck the keynote of the state of mind of many Irish priests, and, he said, that ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... Jacinto, took them off the Trent, just as Mr. Mason had drawn and fortunately filled a hand with which he hoped to pay a part of the war-debt of the South and get a new overcoat in London. Later, however, the United States disavowed this act of Captain Wilkes, and said it was only a bit of pleasantry on his part. ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... Ireland he called the Roman Catholic faith "a lie and a heathenish superstition"; or, in a lighter mood, made imbecile jokes about pigs and potatoes. In Scotland, thriftiness and oatmeal were the themes of his pleasantry; in Wales, he found the language, the literature, and the local nomenclature equally comic, and reserved his loudest guffaw for the Eisteddfod. Abroad, "Foreigners don't wash" was the all-embracing formula. Nasality, Bloomerism, and Dollars epitomized ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... not only fail to respect the wish in a matter of common concern of its more powerful ally, but that it might act in disregard of Germany's wish. This strains human credulity to the breaking point. Did the German Secretary of State keep a straight face when he uttered this sardonic pleasantry? It may be the duty of a diplomat to lie on occasion, but is it ever necessary to utter such a stupid falsehood? The German Secretary of State sardonically added in the same conversation that he was not sure that ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... magazines and expose their wares. Sometimes they were met by curses, but oftener by interest and some concern in their needs, and the interview was invariably concluded by a drink. It was three o'clock before this pleasantry was given over, and with a small waterproof bag of india-rubber strapped on his shoulders Dick returned to the hotel. But here he was waylaid by Beauty,—Beauty opulent in charms, affluent in dress, persuasive ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... personal attractions in youth, it is not to be wondered at that we should find the name of Reginald Rookwood recorded in the scandalous chronicles of the day, as belonging to a cavalier of infinite address and discretion, matchless wit, and marvellous pleasantry; and eminent beyond his peers for his successes with some of the most distinguished beauties who ornamented that brilliant and ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... joined perforce in the laughter with which the big man enjoyed his own pleasantry. His mirth had some superficial signs of shamefacedness, but it was hopeful underneath. "The City!" he echoed, with meaning. "That's the curse of it. What do I know about the City? What business have I in the City? As you said, I'm the amateur. A strong man like you can make me seem any kind ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... suffered to perish. The history of the human character; the interesting memoir, founded no less on the careless proceedings of a private life, than on the formal transactions of a public station; the ingenious pleasantry, the piercing ridicule, the tender, pathetic, or the elevated strain of elocution, have been confined in modern, as well as ancient times, with a few exceptions, to the same latitudes with the fig ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... Academy, which consists of forty members, took forty years to compile their Dictionary. JOHNSON. Sir, thus it is. This is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman.' With so much ease and pleasantry could he talk of that prodigious labour which he ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... ordinary boy'. My Mother, stung by this want of appreciation, would proceed so far as to declare that she believed that in future times the F.R.S. would be chiefly known as his son's father! (This is a pleasantry ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... the novel is by its character-drawing and its pathos, I doubt if it would have captivated the world without its humor. This is of the old-fashioned kind, the large humor of Scott, and again of Cervantes, not verbal pleasantry, not the felicities of Lamb, but the humor of character in action, of situations elaborated with great freedom, and with what may be called a hilarious conception. This quality is never wanting in the book, either for the reader's entertainment ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various |
