"Popinjay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to ask himself another question, namely, how it comes about that eight young women out of ten are endowed with an intelligence or instinct sufficiently keen to enable them to discriminate between an empty-headed popinjay of a man, intoxicated with the fumes of his own vanity, and an honest young fellow of stable character and sterling worth? Not that Adrian was altogether empty-headed, for in some ways he was clever; also beneath all ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... doing here, sir, when I left you to watch the side-steps of that French popinjay and the Whitworth woman? Did you hear what all that powwow was about at her tea fight this afternoon?" he demanded of fine Buzz, with a great anxiety. "There's been hell to pay, since you left, Governor, and I think this French scoundrel and Jeff's gang are preparing to put through some sort of ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... is sung to the knell Of a churchyard bell, And a doleful dirge, ding dong, O! It's a song of a popinjay, bravely born, Who turned up his noble nose with scorn At the humble merrymaid, peerly proud, Who loved a lord, and who laughed aloud At the moan of the merryman, moping mum, Whose soul was sad, and whose glance was glum, ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... not smoke this level-eyed girl out of the schoolhouse, nor sprinkle the floor with cayenne, as was the usual proceeding of the country bumpkin who failed to admire his teacher. Jake Ransom was not really a bully; he was a shy boy who had been domineered over by a young popinjay of a teacher who had never taught school before and who had himself many lessons to learn in life's school. The boy brought out his slate, spit on its grimy surface and wiped it with his sleeve. One of the buttons on his cuff squeaked as he ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... understand, it would be money in your youthful pocket if you could acquire the habit of looking a person in the eyes, and not directing that cherubic gaze at the waistcoat buttons, or even the necktie, of your in-ter-loc-utor. Now, here we are at the house, and you may go, my interesting popinjay. Bear in mind that my eye is upon you. Adieu! adieu! ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... popinjay doing here?" thundered Doctor Carey. "Got some medicine that cures everybody. Going to make her well, is he? Make the cows, and the ducks, and the chickens, and the shitepokes well, and happy——no name for it! After this we are all going to be well and happy! You look it right now, David! ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... strutting peacock and pretends that women and money are his only interests, but what the wise ones said yesterday, Pertinax does today; and what they say today, he will do tomorrow. He can look more like a popinjay and act more like a man than ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... God!—he was not one of the right sort, if the boy was telling the truth. With all due respect for an officer, he seemed to be a perfect popinjay. There were people like that here and there who were ready to burst with pride and conceit, and who looked upon an inferior as ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... than any that I had worn hitherto, being made of the finest embroidered cotton and of the glittering feathers of the humming bird. On my head they set wreaths of flowers, and about my neck and wrists emeralds of vast size and value, and a sorry popinjay I looked in this attire, that seemed more suited to a woman's beauty than ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... Zora wandered over the world—chiefly Italy—without an experience which might be called an adventure. When the Literary Man from London crossed her mind she laughed him to scorn for a prophetic popinjay. She had broken no man's heart, and her own was whole. The tribes of Crim Tartary had exhibited no signs of worry and had left her unmolested. She had furthermore taken rapturous delight in cathedrals, expensive restaurants, and the set ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... could use its language. He could be stately with Spaniards, familiar with Flemings witty with Italians. He could strike down a bull in the ring like a matador at Madrid, or win the prize in the tourney like a knight of old; he could ride at the ring with the Flemish nobles, hit the popinjay with his crossbow among Antwerp artisans, or drink beer and exchange rude jests with the boors of Brabant. For virtues such as these, his grave crimes against God and man, against religion and chartered ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... may be put to my account in purgatory, my Martin. You are spoiling a good outlaw. Have your way, only this gay popinjay of a knight must stay until his ransom be paid. We can't afford to lose that. But no harm shall befall him. Beside, we may want him as hostage in case this morning's work bring a hornets' ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... again to January, That in the garden with his faire May Singeth well merrier than the popinjay:* *parrot "You love I best, and shall, and other none." So long about the alleys is he gone, Till he was come to *that ilke perry,* *the same pear-tree* Where as this Damian satte full merry On high, among the freshe leaves green. This freshe May, that is so bright and ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... unmannerly, To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse Betwixt the wind and his nobility. With many holiday and lady terms He questioned me; among the rest, demanded My prisoners, in your majesty's behalf. I then, all smarting, with my wounds being cold, To be so pestered with a popinjay, Out of my grief and my impatience, Answered neglectingly, I know not what; He should, or he should not;—for he made me mad. To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet, And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman, Of guns, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... stage-struck youth is of a softer and more shallow sort. He seeks, not a chance to test his mettle by hard and useful work, but an easy chance to shine. He craves the regard, not of men, but of women. He is, in brief, a hollow and incompetent creature, a strutter and poseur, a popinjay, a ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... that day at Mr Quinnell's bearing a legend printed in fair italics: Mr Malachi Mulligan. Fertiliser and Incubator. Lambay Island. His project, as he went on to expound, was to withdraw from the round of idle pleasures such as form the chief business of sir Fopling Popinjay and sir Milksop Quidnunc in town and to devote himself to the noblest task for which our bodily organism has been framed. Well, let us hear of it, good my friend, said Mr Dixon. I make no doubt it smacks of wenching. Come, be seated, both. 'Tis as cheap ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... jack-of-all-trades, he is a man only less poverty-stricken than a tramp. He has the illusion of efficiency. He wonders that society generally judges that he is not worth his salt, that on every battlefield Hotspur curses him for a popinjay, that in every company of master workmen met for council he is at most a tolerated guest. The judgment upon him—not my judgment, but the judgment which the days thrust in his face—is this: that when there is important work to be done he cannot do it. He is full of versatility. He knows ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... as tho' 'twere May; The spearhawk, and the popinjay, {32} It was a joy to hear; The throstle cock made eke his lay, The wood-dove sung upon the spray, With note full loud ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... with reddish twigs, and more greenish and rounder leaves: Another kind there is, call'd perch, of limber and green twigs having a very slender leaf; the third sort is totally like the second, only the twigs are not altogether so green, but yellowish, and near the popinjay: This is the very best for use, tough and hardy. But the most usual names by which basket-makers call them about London, and which are all of different species (therefore to be planted separately) are, ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... to me, "Dick, my son, I can see and feel for you too, but bear up; you are no boy now, you know. And I had set my heart on it too; so had our old friend. He wants you to go and see him, Dick, to help him make up his quarterly account, as you used to do. Perhaps she'll tire of this popinjay—and, when she ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... but I hear he is something of a popinjay in his attire, and swelled up with the conceit that he is better than any of ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... into another fad, at the time all the rage, invented since the accession of Commodus and made fashionable by the young Emperor. Some popinjay had conceived a whim for travelling by litter instead of in his carriage. It was far less expeditious and far more expensive. But the notion took. All at once every fop in Roman society must needs take ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... the little old man in his rocking chair with the patchwork cover, and down sat the little old woman in her rocking chair with the patchwork cover; and after a long consultation of the "Sorrows of Prince Popinjay," and the "Wonderful History of the Princess Lillie Bulero and the Fairy Allinmieyeo," they discovered that the proper way to do was to hold the fairy foxglove in your hand exactly as the clock struck twelve, at ...
— Funny Little Socks - Being the Fourth Book • Sarah. L. Barrow
... uneasily. "I shall enjoy seeing if that French popinjay keeps all of his fine airs when the hour for stern ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... certain moral effect only over the head of the rank and file, but it grew to a crushing beam for the officer who did not with alacrity habitually attend to his every duty, great or small. The do-nothing, the popinjay, the intractable, the self-important, the remonstrant, the I thought, sir—the It is due to my dignity, sir—none of these flourished in the Army of the Valley. The tendencies had been there, of course; they came up like the flowers of spring, but each poor bloom ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... "And such a confounded popinjay has been with me, too!" growled Herr von Kracht. "He also imparted to me his Electoral message—command, the fellow called it. I did just like Commandant von Rochow, left him standing while I hurried off to ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... the Duke of Lotzen dare not, I presume I'll have to submit to your impertinent intrusion. Pray, let me know your business here—I assume it is business—and get it ended quickly. I will expedite it all I may. Anything, to be rid of you and that popinjay in red ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... standeth at the door, And tirleth at the pin: Now speak and say, my popinjay, If I ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... figure, saw his great nose, his greying hair, his fierce mustachios and his stern, quick eyes. Again she heard the rasp of his metallic voice with its brisk derision. She saw him in the hall below, his foot upon the neck of that popinjay of Condillac daring them all to draw a breath, should he forbid it; again in fancy she rode on the withers of his horse at the gallop towards Grenoble. A sigh escaped her. Surely that was the first man who was indeed a man she had ever set eyes on since her father died. ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... thought not you knew how I'd set my heart on her, ever since she was that high," said Tom, indicating a length of about a yard. "I've never thought o' none but her all my life. But she's that taken up with a sorry popinjay of a fellow, she'll not hear me now. I'd always thought Jenny'd ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt
... He had fully made up his mind as to what his course should be, and what was the extent of Mira's misdoing. Just as he said to her, he blamed those who should have been her advisers and protectors far more than he blamed her, and as to this popinjay who had become infatuated with her beauty, though the lieutenant's blood boiled in wrath and indignation, his calmer judgment and his disciplined spirit tempered any and every expression. He had spent long, wakeful, prayerful hours in the silence and solemnity ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... repetition of the trait shown in his first speech when he sneered at the popinjay-lord for talking in "holiday and lady terms." But not only does Shakespeare repeat well-known traits in Hotspur, he also uses him as a mere mouthpiece again and again, as he used him at the beginning in the poetic description of the Severn. The fourth act opens with a speech of Hotspur ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... he hath berries as red as any Rose, The foresters, the hunters, keep them from the does; Ivy she hath berries as black as any Sloe, There come the owls and eat them as they go; Holly he hath birds, a full fair flock, The nightingale, the popinjay, the gentle laverock; Good Ivy, say to us, what birds hast thou? None but the owlet that ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... describes the sport, "Shooting at the Popinjay," "as an ancient game formerly practised with archery, but at this period (1679) with firearms. This was the figure of a bird decked with parti-coloured feathers, so as to resemble a popinjay or parrot. ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Mother said you were a popinjay, and father said there was no doubt about your being a jay, and Sue said there didn't seem to be much chance of your poppin', and now you say you aren't a bird ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... this one overlooked that part of it, intent on the chieftaincy.—And now, God have mercy on us! there is to be all the round of wars and proscriptions and massacres over again: Roma caput mundi herself piteously decapitate; and with every booby and popinjay rising in turn to kick her about at his pleasure;—and here first comes Mark Anthony to start the game, ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... schoolmasters, "black cattle" whom he neither trusted nor respected. But he could make or invent exceptions, as in the uncomplaining and kindly usher of the verbose Cleishbotham. Once launched in his legend, with the shooting of the Popinjay, he never falters. The gallant, dauntless, overbearing Bothwell, the dour Burley, the handful of Preachers, representing every current of opinion in the Covenant, the awful figure of Habakkuk Mucklewrath, the charm of goodness in Bessie McLure, are all immortal, deathless ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... be miserable in my home, and in less than ten years see a popinjay like Julliard hovering round my wife and addressing verses to her in the newspapers. I'm too much of a man to stand that. No, I will never make a marriage that is disproportionate ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... loveliest creature he had ever seen. Yes; she was the golden girl of his dreams. Within his grasp, so to speak, and yet he could not hope to seize her, after all. Was she meant for that popinjay youth with the petulant eye and the sullen jaw? Was he to be the lucky man, ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... popinjay officer reckoned without his host, for that gentleman had the most indomitable eyes in Arizona. It was not necessary for him to stiffen his will to meet the other's attack. His manner was still lazy, his gaze almost insolent in its indolence, but somewhere in the blue eyes ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... Tranchefer takes of his scabbard, brave me in my absence, and affect to make love to my lady par amours! And she, too—methinks Brenhilda allows more license than she is wont to do to yonder chattering popinjay. By the rood! I will spring into the apartment, front them with my personal appearance, and confute yonder braggart in a manner he is ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... same thing, you have no need to blush. But though you be the bravest of the brave, though you know a thousand things of which he is utterly ignorant, yet so long as he can tell you one thing which you ought to know, he is master of the situation. He may be the most conceited little popinjay who ever strutted in uniform; no matter; it is more for your interest to learn than for his to teach. Let our volunteer officers, as a body, once resolve to act on this principle, and we shall have such an army as the world never saw. But nothing costs the nation a price ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... men; alternating, in all ways, between Light and Dark; between joy and sorrow, between rest and toil,—between hope, hope reaching high as Heaven, and fear deep as very Hell. Not vapour Fantasms, Rymer's Foedera at all! Coeur-de-Lion was not a theatrical popinjay with greaves and steel-cap on it, but a man living upon victuals,—not imported by Peel's Tariff. Coeur-de-Lion came palpably athwart this Jocelin at St. Edmundsbury; and had almost peeled the sacred gold 'Feretrum,' or St. ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... Popinjay! He has been my folly, greater than Mexico. He would have gone to Gaeta, or to perdition, long ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... was young, Would dance and play, Like many another Young popinjay; And run to her ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... although, in the narrower but honest admiration of many, he is also a Perfect Ass. Thus, indeed, he comes down the centuries—a sort of Siamese Twins, each miraculously visible only to its own admirers; a worthy personage proceeding at one end of the connecting cartilage, and a popinjay prancing at the other. Emerson was, and described, one twin when he wrote, 'The gentleman is a man of truth, lord of his own actions, and expressing that lordship in his behavior; not in any manner dependent or servile, either on persons, or opinions, or possessions.' Walter Pater, had Leonardo ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... possible to get rid of a quid without attracting undue attention. No man likes to be stared at as an outlaw against the recognized decencies of life. One may smoke cigars under a lady's nose, dress like a popinjay, or kiss his bearded friend in most Continental cities, but he must not chew tobacco, because it is considered a barbarous and filthy habit. He may guzzle beer, take snuff, and wear dirty shirts, but if he would avoid reproach as an unclean ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... profit, I pray give advice. They are here in abundance and the great chief merchandise. There is also a market for cloth of all kinds of light and pleasing colors, pleasing to the eye, as Venice reds, stamels, some few scarlets for presents, and also to sell to great men, popinjay greens of the brightest dye, cinnamon colors, light dove colors, peach colors, silver colors, light yellows with others like, but no dark or sad colors, for here they are not vendible. Those of the last voyage are yet upon our hands and will not be sold for the monies that they ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... Grainge and Gridiron Grainge. Many animal surnames are to be referred partly to this source, e.g. Bull, Hart, Lamb, Lyon, Ram, Roebuck, Stagg; Cock, Falcon, Peacock, Raven, Swann, etc., all still common as tavern signs. The popinjay, or parrot, is still occasionally found as Pobgee, Popjoy. These surnames all have, of course, an alternative explanation (ch. xxiii.). Here also usually ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... spake the popinjay That flew abune her head: "Gae let him in that tirls the pin: He ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... such a bad sort—what's the matter with me, anyhow? Why ain't I good enough for you or any other woman? Suppose I'm not a young whippersnapper with his head full of nonsense and his pockets full of nothing, can the best popinjay of them all do for you what I can? Can any of 'em offer you what I can offer? Let him try to: I'll raise ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... Jack, blowing out his cheeks and striking himself a violent blow in the chest, "to think of a pale-faced, pranked-out, spindle-shanked, mealy-mouthed popinjay like him!" ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... which was eighty paces wide, that fifty men of their front rank should enter in, only to find a rampart stronger than the wall. They threw themselves upon the poor cats, and shot them with arquebuses as men shoot at the popinjay. ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... and lord of Scotland (although he was a dead one), must have nought to do with me, a yeoman's son, and bound to be the father of more yeomen? I had been very sorry when first I heard about that poor young popinjay, and would gladly have fought hard for him; but now it struck me that after all he had no right to be there, prowling (as it were) for Lorna, without any invitation: and we farmers love not trespass. Still, if I had seen the thing, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... great hands a chattering viscount, or a sturdy duke, or a popinjay Italian marquis was ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... CAESAR. Come! the popinjay is an amusing dog—tells a story; sings a song; and saves us the trouble of flattering the Queen. What does she care for old politicians and campfed bears like us? No: Apollodorus is good company, ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... [11] in May for [12] the sun(en) bright So glad(e), that they show in singing That in (t)heir hearts is such liking,[13] That they mote [14] sing(en) and be light. Then doth the nightingale her might To make noise and sing(en) blithe, Then is bussful many sithe,[15] The calandra [16] and the popinjay.[17] Then young(e) folk entend(en)[18] aye For to be gay and amorous, The time is then so favorous.[19] Hard is the heart that loveth nought, In May when all this mirth is wrought: When he may on these branches hear The small(e) bird(e)s sing(en) clear (T)heir blissful' sweet ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... I detected him in unfair practices. He vowed I lied, and called upon me to prove my words at the sword's point; but in my fury and rage I sprang upon him with my bare hands, and would have wrung his neck—the insolent popinjay—had I been able. As it was, we struggled and swayed together till my greater weight caused him to fall over backwards against one of the tables, and I verily believe his back is broken. I know not whether he is living yet. But as he is not only ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... extremely unpleasant reading. Generals Joubert and Smit, who had been described with admirable truth and candour, were so enraged that they demanded the instant dismissal of the 'conceited young popinjay' who had dared to criticise his masters. The President, however, who had been described as an ignorant, narrow-minded, pig-headed, and irascible old Boer whom—with the others thrown in—the writer could play with and twist round his finger as he chose, was not disturbed ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... not yet become a manly game, the maker young of men as good as dead, the talk of cabinets But there was lawn tennis also, which you might play without losing caste "at home," Fitzhugh Williams never used that term but with the one meaning. He would say, for instance, to the little Duchess of Popinjay—or one just as good—having kissed her to make up for having pushed her into her ancestral pond, "Now I am going to the house," meaning Perth House, that Mrs. Williams had taken for the season. But if he had said, "Now I am ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... Hugh, "for whom I have a message that he will be glad to hear, and, popinjay, this for yourself; were it not for his presence it is you who should stop upon the road till you ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... his ilk will be amazed at many things shortly. Ned, I warn you to beware of him. He has changed greatly since the days when he fought so gallantly under Rochambeau in our great War of Independence. He has become an aristocrat of aristocrats, a popinjay, a silken dandy, like most of the young nobles at this court. He is high in the King's favor and devoted to his cause. Though your friendships and opinions can have no official weight, as you are my private ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... Government, an under-secretary for something, but he and Rose and Lady Charlotte talked again of nothing but musicians and actors. It is strange that politicians should have time to know so much of these things. The other gentleman reminded me of Hotspur's popinjay. I think now I made out that he wrote for the newspapers, but at the moment I should have felt it insulting to accuse him of anything so humdrum as an occupation in life. He discovered somehow that I had an interest in the Church, and he asked me, leaning ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... flatters himself he does. He complacently takes all his images from the other animals, or from natural objects and phenomena, depicting himself bold as an eagle, brave as a lion, strong as an ox, patient as an ass, vain as a popinjay, talkative as a parrot, wily as a serpent, gentle as a dove, cunning as a fox, surly as a bear; his glance is lightning, his voice thunder, his heart stone, his hands are iron, his conscience a hell, his sinews of steel, and his love like fire. In short, he is like anything alive or dead, ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... care for that popinjay? How did you get over it? Had you no sensation of horror, when you were required to bow down ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... sarkless on the public, eh? I'm afeard there's mony a man else that throws awa' the gude auld plaid o' Scots Puritanism, an' is unco fain to cover his nakedness wi' ony cast popinjay's feathers he can forgather wi'. Aweel, aweel—a puir priestless age it is, the noo. We'll e'en gang hear him the nicht, Alton, laddie; ye ha' na darkened the kirk door this mony a day—nor ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... made a purple path for Spain Up to the throne of Mary; as a child Gathering with friends upon a winter's morn For some mock fight between the hateful prince Philip and Thomas Wyatt, all at once Might see in gorgeous ruffs embastioned Popinjay plumes and slouching hats of Spain, Gay shimmering silks and rich encrusted gems, Gold collars, rare brocades, and sleek trunk-hose The Ambassador and peacock courtiers come Strutting along the white snow-strangled street, A walking plot of scarlet Spanish flowers, And with one cry a hundred ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... talking-birds. These are not so common as in Maerchen, but still are very general, and cause no surprise to their human listeners. The omniscient popinjay, who "up and spoke" in the Border minstrelsy, is of the same family of birds as those that, according to Talvj, pervade Servian song; as the [Greek: tria poulakia] which introduce the story in the Romaic ballads; as the wise birds whose ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... the sour grapes doctrine that they have never tried, and the latter, having fallen victims, sooth their egoism by arrogating the whole agency to themselves, thus giving it a specious appearance of the volitional, and even of the audacious. The average man is an almost incredible popinjay; he can think of himself only as at the centre of situations. All the sordid transactions of his life appear to him, and are depicted in his accounts of them, as feats, successes, proofs of his acumen. He regards it as an almost magical ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... kitchen without another word, only muttering to herself prognostications of evil if such a popinjay were admitted into the household. Not that Cuthbert's sober riding suit merited such a criticism, for there was nothing fine about it at all; yet it had been fashionably cut in its day, and still had the nameless air that always clings to a thoroughly well-made ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the Rue Quincangrogne, because it was a lonely place, far from other habitations. The husband and the wife were thus both in his service, and he had by La Beaupertuys a daughter, who died a nun. This Nicole had a tongue as sharp as a popinjay's, was of stately proportions, furnished with large beautiful cushions of nature, firm to the touch, white as the wings of an angel, and known for the rest to be fertile in peripatetic ways, which brought it to pass that never with her was the same ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... many holiday and lady terms He question'd me; amongst the rest, demanded My prisoners in your Majesty's behalf. I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold, Out of my grief and my impatience To be so pester'd with a popinjay, Answer'd neglectingly, I know not what,— He should, or he should not; for't made me mad To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet, And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman Of guns and drums and wounds,—God ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... of travel), sun-burned visages and stolid manner in marked contrast with the bearing and aspect of the king's gay following. One of the alien troop pulled a red mustachio fiercely and eyed a blithe popinjay of the court with quizzical superiority; the others ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... my mission in Nareda my thoughts had been subconsciously more upon Jetta—far more—than upon smugglers of quicksilver. This palsied popinjay! This, the reality of the specter which had been between Jetta and me during all that magic time in ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... Muscovy! You call me Prince of Poland, and yourselves My subjects—traitors therefore to this hour, Who let me perish all my youth away Chain'd there among the mountains; till, forsooth, Terrified at your treachery foregone, You spirit me up here, I know not how, Popinjay-like invest me like yourselves, Choke me with scent and music that I loathe, And, worse than all the music and the scent, With false, long-winded, fulsome compliment, That 'Oh, you are my subjects!' and in word Reiterating still obedience, Thwart me in deed at every step ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... stock, husbanding his means, believing that a man has too many enemies, than that he can afford to be his own; that we cannot give ourselves too many advantages, in this unequal conflict, with powers so vast and unweariable ranged on one side, and this little, conceited, vulnerable popinjay that a man is, bobbing up and down into every danger, on the other. It is a position taken up for better defense, as of more safety, and one that can be maintained; and it is one of more opportunity and range; as, when we build a house, the rule is, to set it not too high nor too ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... earth. There he sowed the grain that is the bread of man, chanting the hymn used at seed-time, calling on the mother earth to make the green herb spring, and on Ukko to send clouds and rain. So the corn sprang, and the golden cuckoo—which in Finland plays the part of the popinjay in Scotch ballads, or of the three golden birds in Greek folksongs—came with his congratulations. In regard to the epithet 'golden,' it may be observed that gold and silver, in the Finnish epic, are lavished on the ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... came in, alone in the house, I grew very melancholy, and so my brother being come in I went forth to Mrs. Holden's, to whom I formerly spoke about a girle to come to me instead of a boy, and the like I did to Mrs. Standing and also to my brother Tom, whom I found at an alehouse in Popinjay ally drinking, and I standing with him at the gate of the ally, Ashwell came by, and so I left Tom and went almost home with her, talking of her going away. I find that she is willing to go, and told her (though behind my back my wife has told her that it was more ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... but I felt no thrill. To me the heroine was but a painted dummy mechanically repeating the lines that some Jew had written for her as he puffed a reeking cigar in his rear office, and the villain but a popinjay with a black whisker stuck on with a bit of pitch. Yet I grinned and clapped to deceive them, and agreed that it was the most inspiriting performance I ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... consisting of large sheets loaded with scoundrel, villain, liar, rascal, numskull, nincompoop, dunderhead, wiseacre, blockhead, jackass." As single words were not always explosive enough to make a report equal to their feelings, they had recourse to compounds;—"pert and prating popinjay," "hackneyed gutscraper," "maggot of corruption," "toad on a dung-heap," "snivelling sophisticating hound," are a few of the chain-shot which strike our eyes in turning over the yellow faded files. They are all quiet now, those eager, snarling editors of fifty years since, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... aldermen used to walk in procession to the bonfire, and even deigned to light it; after which the assembly marched thrice round the burning pile. At Aix a nominal king, chosen from among the youth for his skill in shooting at a popinjay, presided over the midsummer festival. He selected his own officers, and escorted by a brilliant train marched to the bonfire, kindled it, and was the first to dance round it. Next day he distributed largesse to his followers. ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... of course I'm glad you don't. You'd be a detestably conceited popinjay if you did. But I do, and in a strictly limited way I'm going to explain it to you for your own good, and as a warning. I can't explain it fully without treason to my own sex. But I'll tell you this much: you have a singularly ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... he flew, the Cuckoo, ever and aye, Kept crying, "Farewell!—farewell, Popinjay!" As if in scornful mockery of me; And on I hunted him from tree to tree, Till he was far, all ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... elsewhere, "was it written by Theologians: a King rules by divine right. He carries in him an authority from God, or man will never give it him. Can I choose my own King? I can choose my own King Popinjay, and play what farce or tragedy I may with him: but he who is to be my Ruler, whose will is to be higher than my will, was chosen for me in Heaven. Neither except in such Obedience to the Heaven-chosen is Freedom so much ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... up to the Yankee outpost, and if some popinjay of a tacky officer didn't come along, we would have a good time. One morning I was sitting down to eat a good breakfast with the Yankee outpost. They were cavalry, and they were mighty clever and pleasant fellows. I looked down the road toward Atlanta, ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... coming to the conclusion that I should have to stick a pin into his arm, Paul returned,—and, positively, Sydney was rude to him. I was ashamed, if Mr Atherton was not. As if it was not enough that he should be insulted by a mere popinjay, at the very moment when he had been adding another stone to the fabric of his country's glory,—papa came up. He actually wanted to take me away from Paul. I should have liked to see him do it. Of course I went down with Paul to the carriage, leaving ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... Blackwell write most enthusiastically, and I try to feel so and to see that the 'Philadelphia splinter' is something. Between nothing and that, there is no choice, and we must accept it. With my natural pride of character, it makes me feel intensely bitter to have my rights discussed by popinjay priests and politicians, to have woman's work in church and State decided by striplings of twenty-one, and the press of the country in a broad grin because, forsooth, some American matrons choose to attend a political convention. Now do I know ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... the popinjay, That flew aboun her head; "Lady! keep weel your green cleiding "Frae gude Erl ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... lady; if you set your affections on a French popinjay, I'll come over there and fight a duel with him. I know you're too sensible to look at those addle-pated dandies, but I wish you'd promise not to like anybody better than THIS plain, ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... to Milton and Shakspeare I have not neglected to hunt; but unfortunately, I have found nothing to my purpose in Milton, and in all Shakspeare no trace of a bore; except it be that thing, that popinjay, who so pestered Hotspur, that day when he, faint with toil and dry with rage, was leaning on his sword after the battle—all that bald, disjointed talk, to which Hotspur, past his patience, answered neglectingly, he knew not what, and that sticking to him with questions even when his wounds were ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... said the Squire, "is that every man who doesn't like the country best, when he can get it, isn't a man at all. He's a popinjay." ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall |
