"Ironical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Judson if she had any suspicion of the person who had tampered with the packet. She looked at me with an icy smile, and answered in ironical accents, which were even more chilling than the ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... away to join a conference in Uncle John's sitting room. Major Doyle was speaking when she entered and his voice was coldly ironical. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... shoulders slightly. This affair had hopelessly and unreasonably complicated his existence for him. One absurdity more or less in the development did not matter—all absurdity was distasteful to him; but, urbane as ever, he produced a faintly ironical smile, and said in his calm voice, "It certainly will do away to some extent with ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... that by declaration of republican principles he had violated the oath of allegiance. When this appeal had been dismissed, Sir Charles, on rising again to address the House, was, in the discreet words of Hansard, "received with much confusion." There was a "chorus of groans and Oh's and ironical cheers." But the House, after a brief demonstration, settled down to hear the speaker, who proceeded to set out the grounds on which he asked for full information concerning the Civil List under a number ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... who now came to her house as they might come to a cafe, to swagger and learn the latest news. She had noticed the free-and-easy manner in which these people entered her drawing-room, and it had made her take a dislike to them. Even the marquis, with his ironical politeness, was beginning to displease her. To triumph alone, therefore, to keep the cake for themselves, as she expressed it, was a revenge which she fondly cherished. Later on, when all those ill-bred ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... in Moscow are more occupied with dinner parties and scandal than with politics," said he in his quiet ironical tone. "I know nothing about it and have not thought about it. Moscow is chiefly busy with gossip," he continued. "Just now they are talking about ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... life to observe the new directions which thought and character were taking in the world; nor for observing the changed forms in which time moulds the various generations of mankind. He was dumbfounded, speechless, and only after a while did an ironical smile appear on his lips—that lad with his ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... the women rose in confusion from the back of the carriage, and the second lady made a slight curtsey, terminated by the most ironical smile that jealousy ever imparted ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... who comes a bit nearer to our idea of practical politics over on the other side of the pond. Mr. Horrocks doesn't make any bones about it. He wants that four hundred a year; in fact he needs it!" (Ironical cheers.) "He wants to call himself M.P. because when he goes out to lecture on Socialism he'll get a ten-guinea fee instead of five, on account of those two ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... man of easy assurance, who chatted and gossiped with the fluency of a superficial nature; he was critical of himself as well as of others, and, exacting a good deal of others, to think them agreeable, probably took a rather ironical view of what he himself offered: a proof into the bargain that he was not grossly conceited. If he had not been shy he wouldn't have effected that gradual, subtle, successful conversion of it to which she owed both what pleased ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... as yet felt in any degree adequate to make a deep impression on the public mind.... Except with those directly interested [merchants in the American trade], the dispute with the United States seems almost forgotten, or remembered only to draw forth ironical gratitude, that the kind embargo leaves the golden harvest to be reaped ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... said, in his ironical way. "I wish I were seven years old, with a smudgy face and a perpetual sniff. Who knows! You might have some pity ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... Providence, or whatever it is that presides at the destinies of nations, has a way of setting aside with ironical smile the most deliberate actions of men. And so, on this occasion, it turned out that the hard-won victory of Messrs. Randolph, Bland, Pendleton, and Wythe was of no avail. William Gordon tells us, without mentioning the source of his information, ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... furs," the Greek replied with an ironical smile, and he took his short sable from ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... of the satires which make the greater part of Swift's work is supported in part by variety of satiric method. Sometimes he pours out a savage direct attack. Sometimes, in a long ironical statement, he says exactly the opposite of what he really means to suggest. Sometimes he uses apparently logical reasoning where either, as in 'A Modest Proposal,' the proposition, or, as in the 'Argument Against Abolishing Christianity,' the arguments are absurd. He often shoots out incidental ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... got beyond, &c.: an ironical way of saying that he has so much overdone his application to himself of the title of (prospective) 'benefactor' of Athens, that another word (e.g. 'deceiver') would be more appropriate. The word [Greek: psychrhon] is (at least by Greek literary ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... happy, my mother?" interrupted Sara with an ironical smile, and a searching glance; "are you then so happy in this circle, and this domestic life, which you praise so highly, that you thus repeat what has been said on the subject from the beginning of the world. Those perpetual cares ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... lover's war, of D'Aubigne and of the charlocks, the birds, the polished ivy, the denuded brambles, tasting in my pensive and idle occupation—what is greatest in men, their memory;—and what is most beautiful in nature, her ironical encroachments and ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... me with a light nod, untied his dogs, shouldered his tools, and slouched away down the path, to sleep under his accustomed tree that night and be off again, next day, travelling amongst men and watching them with his weary ironical smile. ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... colored; the compliment might be ironical; and there was ever afterwards a reflection of her uncertainty in her opinion of Roderick's genius. Mr. Leavenworth responded that with all deference to Miss Blanchard's beauty, he desired something colder, more monumental, more impersonal. ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... across the hall to the drawing-room, she left the group about the door to welcome him. "Weren't you surprised," she asked him with an ironical laugh, "at the people, I mean—all ages and kinds? You see Parker had to be appeased. He didn't want to stay, and I don't know why he should. So we gave him Laura Lindsay." She nodded good-naturedly in the direction of a young girl, whose sharp thin little face was turned joyfully toward the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... "I'll go to him and say to him in manner most ironical." Mrs. Mallowe laughed to herself. Then she grew suddenly sober. "I wonder whether I've done well in advising that amusement? Lucy's a clever woman, but ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... a murmur was raised by the lookers-on, and some of the boldest cried, 'Oh, indeed!—Wasn't it though?—Nothing, eh?—He called that nothing, did he? Lucky for him if he found it nothing.' These and many other expressions of ironical disapprobation having been exhausted, two or three of the out-of-door fellows began to hustle Nicholas and the young gentleman who had made the noise: stumbling against them by accident, and treading on their toes, and so forth. But this being a round ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... fresh and old, upon the rows of placid grinning Buddhas. The vision was of short duration. The sigh, which had been so long repressed, escaped; his shoulders sank a little, and the angle of his chin became less resolute; but only for a moment. Tension gave place to an ironical grimness. The brows relaxed, but the lips became firmer. He listened, with this new expression unchanging, to the high note that soared above all others. The French horns blared and the timpani crashed. The curtain sank slowly. The audience rustled, stood up, sought its wraps, and pressed toward ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... dear sir, that is philosophy. However, we can discuss that. Come to my house next Saturday. You will find there scholars, litterateurs, artists. We will have a talk on social questions," said the lawyer, pronouncing the words "social questions" with ironical pathos. "Are you acquainted with my wife? Call ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... other gesticulating in the most fanciful and fervid manner. He would recite in passionate whispers—so as not to awaken Katie—for hours at a time, poems from Shakespeare to Shelley, and Verlaine to Whitman, poems tender and sweet, bitter and ironical and revolutionary, just as the mood suited him. His feeling for poetry and nature seemed to grow as his hope for ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... more keenly the awkwardness of all this from having received, as a reward for service, the honor of a Baronetcy of Great Britain. The "Gazette," in announcing this, (May 1, 1769,) has an ironical article addressing the new Baronet thus:—"Your promotion, Sir, reflects an honor on the Province itself,—an honor which has never been conferred upon it since the thrice happy administration of Sir Edmund ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... the emphasis is ironical. The Spaniards pretended that they would protect the Peruvians if they would submit to them, whereas it was evident that they merely desired to plunder and destroy them. Thus their protection is ironically called "such protection as vultures give to ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Asa had his physicians to whom he turned—with the result that he 'slept with his fathers.' There is no more ironical statement in the whole Bible than that. We turn to our physicians because we have no faith in God. Materia medica physicians do not heal the sick. They sometimes succeed in causing the human mind temporarily to substitute a belief of health for a belief of disease ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... in so far as they challenge the current sentimentality at all, seem to move irresistibly toward the same disdainful skepticism. Consider the last words of "Riders to the Sea." Or Gorky's "Nachtasyl." Or Frank Norris' "McTeague." Or Stephen Crane's "The Blue Hotel." Or the ironical fables of Dunsany. Or Dreiser's "Jennie Gerhardt." Or George ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... pouring through the windows—the only plate-glass windows in Garland Town—gilded the dome of Mr. Fossell's bald head. As the Commandant entered, Mr. Fossell looked up and nodded pleasantly, in a neighbourly way, albeit with a touch of ironical interrogation. He had heard gossip from his friend Pope of the doings on Garrison Hill, and, so far as he allowed himself to be jocose, he meant his glance to be interpreted. "Well, you are a pretty fellow! And pray what account are you going to ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... aggressor! Why, the Dunces had been maligning him all their days, long before the treatise on the Profund. And that is bad law, indeed, that recognises a natural right in blockheads to be blackguards, and gives unlimited license of brutality towards any man of genius who may have been ironical on the tribe. But then, quoth some hypocritical wiseacre, is not satire wicked? Pope was a Christian; and should have learned ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... the part she had to play—had no intention of quitting the field of battle. The more wrathful and excited Mademoiselle de Marny became the more insolent and triumphant waxed the young actress' whole attitude. An ironical smile played round the corners of her mouth, her almond-shaped eyes were half-closed, regarding through dropping lashed the trembling figure of the young impoverished aristocrat. Her head was thrown well back, in obvious defiance of the social conventions, which should ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... unfinished by Bishop Hacket. At the time he wrote the dedication, Woods had not turned a single stone, and it is said, that much against his will he did something, from having been so publicly reminded of it by this ironical dedication. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... and for the most part the long, involved sentences rolled themselves without meaning. But now and then something struggled clear—a familiar phrase—an ironical echo. Then Robert Stonehouse saw through the disfigurement to the man that had been—the poor maimed and shackled fighter gibing and ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... like you, my dear Lieutenant," said Coronado, in a tone which might have been either apologetical or ironical. "You must make allowance for ordinary ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... always to be found among a poet's weapons; which exercise seems to give him both relief and delight. Apart from these thrusts edged with personal bitterness, William Watson possesses a rarely used vein of ironical wit that immediately recalls Byron, who might himself have written some of the stanzas in The Eloping Angels. Faust requests Mephisto to procure for them both admission into ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... a matter of perfect indifference to him; he was, what they call, ironical. "Oh, yes, of course. Deeply interesting! deeply interesting!" He suddenly broke into the wildest good spirits, and tucked my hand under his arm with a gayety which it was impossible to resist. "What a boy you are!" Helena ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... I can't," he said, almost gruffly. "Go in, Con., and be prepared to welcome Sybil back; and I," he added, moving away, and turning a wicked look over his shoulder, "will be prepared to welcome Burrill;" a low, ironical laugh followed these words, and Evan Lamotte leaped the low garden palings, and went back as he had come, by the ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... Field's wedded life, only two of whom, Eugene, the second, and Roswell, survived babyhood. There is some uncertainty as to the exact date and location of Eugene's birth. When his father was married he took his bride home to a house on Collins Street, which, under Time's transmuting and ironical fingers, has since become a noisy boiler-shop. There their first child was born. Subsequently they moved to the house, No. 634 South Fifth Street (now Broadway), which is one in the middle of a block of houses pointed out in St. Louis as the birthplace ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... you, I don't want to hear about the murder," he said, in answer to Ruth's ironical question, "nor yet the Summer styles in sleeves. All that slop on the Woman's Page, about making home happy, is not suited to such ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... brewing. Undoubtedly it is practised to keep the prisoners keyed up to a feverish pitch of hopefulness. Certainly it succeeded for a time, although such announcements at a later date, when we had seen through the subterfuge, were received with ironical cheering and jeers. ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... with a low bow and with a smile decidedly ironical. I, at least, felt that we had got the ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... life under Lycurgus. Beneath the veil of an ideal communism, into which there has been worked some witty extravagance, there lies a noble English argument. Sometimes More puts the case as of France when he means England. Sometimes there is ironical praise of the good faith of Christian kings, saving the book from censure as a political attack on the policy of Henry VIII. Erasmus wrote to a friend in 1517 that he should send for More's "Utopia," if he had not read it, and "wished to see the true source of all political evils." And ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... class, in spite of their earnestness, often display a certain ironical waggishness which comes into play on easy provocation, and lends an agreeable charm to life, just as the deep brook greets with its silver curling waves the light breeze ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... stuff they utter There's ne'er a worse off but there's a better off They seem to me to be educated to conceal their education They have not to speak to exhibit their minds They dare not. The more I dare, the less dare they They are little ironical laughter—Accidents Those who are rescued and made happy by circumstances Tight grasps of the hand, in which there was warmth and shyness 'Tis the fashion to have our tattle done by machinery To hope, and not be ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... heart that he spoke thus, as the father of four accomplished daughters, and not as the sceptic of the office who was always quick to prick the bubbles of pretence. But it was not long before he had an opportunity to turn ironical himself, and I could fancy the grim smile with which he wrote the despatch which sent me from the academic discussion of war to the study of war at ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... answer. The manner of ironical comradeship his captive chose to employ was more than an annoyance. To serve his ends it was necessary to put the fear of death into this man's heart, which was a thing he had found impossible to do. His ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... comes from the East, and in which the aged and weary West is quite inclined to believe. To whom is it necessary for me to ramble among the cultured nations like a leper, to conceal my race and obtain the ironical bow so essential to my unacknowledged dignity, by means of exorbitant "tips" flung right and left? A ...
— The Shield • Various
... many times at each man's door, rapped hard at Huxley's door in Eighteen Hundred Sixty. It was at Oxford, at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science: "A big society with a slightly ironical name," once said Huxley. The audience was large and fashionable, delegates being present from all ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... of the slightest use to them for military purposes. Today it is Kiel with its ships, shipyards, and dry-docks; tomorrow, Krupps; and so on until they will have to stop fighting for the lack of munitions of war. I shall endeavour as far as possible to avoid loss of life, but," with an ironical smile, "if these people wish to indulge in a fanatical display of heroism and patriotism, I shall allow them the privilege of sinking with their ships, or dying with ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... swarthy auctioneer with his amiable countenance and ironical smile acquired through years of dispassionate observation of the follies of human emotion, the mutability of human affairs, the brevity of human endeavour, that brought everything at last under his hammer—there by the chestnut tree the auctioneer had taken his stand in temporary ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... a dreadful thing to say that Mr. W.B.Yeats does not understand fairyland. But I do say it. He is an ironical Irishman, full of intellectual reactions. He is not stupid enough to understand fairyland. Fairies prefer people of the yokel type like myself; people who gape and grin and do as they are told. Mr. ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... apparent to Government, both civil and ecclesiastical, that, they have found it necessary to provide rewards and honours for such advances in learning and piety as may best enable the clergy to serve the interests of the Church of Christ,' a remark which we might have thought ironical did we not know the temper of the times.—See Watson's ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... ironical grin. "All right, take it that way, if you want to. He let on he thought I was trying ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... ones; and, in fact, those authors who have sought to oppose mind to matter have not failed to introduce emotion into their parallel as representing the essence of mind. On this point I will recall the fine ironical image used by Tyndall, the illustrious English physicist, to show the abyss which separates thought from the molecular states of the brain. "Let us suppose," he says, "that the sentiment love, for example, corresponds ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... candles immediately appeared in the adjoining room, and the bishop found himself completely encircled by lights, which shone upon the worn, haggard face of the duchesse, revealing every feature but too clearly. Aramis fixed a long ironical look upon her pale, thin, withered cheeks—her dim, dull eyes—and upon her lips, which she kept carefully closed over her discolored scanty teeth. He, however, had thrown himself into a graceful attitude, with his haughty and intelligent ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of my protestations.) This annihilation of all civilisation was the goal upon which his heart was set. Meanwhile it amused him to utilise every lever of political agitation he could lay hands on for the advancement of this aim, and in so doing he often found cause for ironical merriment. In his retreat he received people belonging to every shade of revolutionary thought. Nearest to him stood those of Slav nationality, because these, he thought, would be the most convenient and effective weapons he could use in the uprooting of Russian despotism. ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... Hartnett went on, in that same ironical drawl, "that we do not believe Margot Vernee did this thing herself. She had a companion, undoubtedly, one who accompanied her to the house on After Street, and assisted her in the crime. Who that companion was, we are not sure; but there is decidedly a case of suspicion against ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... watching their ironical negligence of the stage and their interest in each other's company; their animated talk and rapid decisions as to the merits and charms of a performer; the comfort of their attitudes and carelessness ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... would like a priest, gentlemen." This Jarauta uttered with an ironical grin that was revolting to behold. "If you would," he continued, "say so. I sometimes officiate in that capacity myself. ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... was a keen politician, and he had transferred the scope of his energy from Collingwood to Grey Town. Unlike many men, he had not changed his politics with the change in his fortunes. He it was who had organised the opposition. At his word a storm of protest, a roar of ironical laughter, or a volley of interjections harassed the speakers on the platform. And it was Samuel Quirk who asked the first questions at the close of the meeting. Straightway Desmond transferred the old man to his note-book, to appear ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... lighted another cigarette, and, casting a glance partly ironical, partly provocative, at the good-looking young man ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... no way changed. Major Lischke and Captain von Wegstetten were still at loggerheads, Lischke blustering away in his loud voice, and Wegstetten assuming his most ironical expression. Captain Stuckardt was listening in a half-hearted way; he had quite recently been put on the list for promotion to the staff, and consequently wore a rather preoccupied look. Hitherto he had found the charge ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... was Scotch, and it was judged fitting I should pay a visit on my way Paris-ward, to my Uncle Adam Loudon, a wealthy retired grocer of Edinburgh. He was very stiff and very ironical; he fed me well, lodged me sumptuously, and seemed to take it out of me all the time, cent per cent, in secret entertainment which caused his spectacles to glitter and his mouth to twitch. The ground of this ill-suppressed mirth (as well as I could make out) was simply the fact that ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... disillusion—estrangement from the "beloved woman" in whose affection he was then reposing; decay and disappearance of those "flitting phantasies" with which he was then so joyously trifling, and the bitterly ironical scholia which fate was preparing for such ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... while you're about it, write a vigorous editorial for the 'Courier,' on the same line, and a few ironical squibs based on the eagerness of the Republican papers to see all Democrats through black goggles." The humor showed in Bassett's eyes for an instant, and he added: "Praise the Republican prosecutor of Ranger County for refusing ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... succeed in collecting a pleasant party," retorted Marston, with ironical courtesy, "though we do not always command the means of entertaining them ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... deflected, retraced his tracks, shrieking distractedly, and, by one of those ironical twists which Karma reserves for the tails of the fated, dived for blind safety into the store commanded by the ecstatic and inimical clerk. There were shouts; the sleepy Square beginning to wake up: the boy who had mocked the planing-mill got to his ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... habitually affects a style of arrogance, and dictates rather than persuades. This authoritative and magisterial language he expected to be received as his peculiar mode of jocularity: but he apparently flattered his own arrogance by an assumed imperiousness, in which he was ironical only to the resentful, and to the submissive sufficiently serious. He told stories with great felicity, and delighted in doing what he knew himself to do well; he was therefore captivated by the respectful silence of a steady listener, and told the same ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... that point would have been the act of a stoic, but not of a woman, particularly when she considered the children, the hopes of her mother for them, and her own condition—though this was least—under the ironical cheers which would greet a slip back ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... one at a time, but both at the same time—I will fight both or none. If you are my superior officer, you must descend," replied Jack, with an ironical sneer, "to meet me, or I will not descend to meet that fellow, whom I believe to have been little better than ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... proceeded to the harem, and lifting the Purdah stood in the presence of his wives. 'What is this?' said he, glancing savagely round.—'We expected your return and have prepared a feast to welcome you,' was the ironical reply of the favourite wife, who at the same time trembling in her limbs scarce dared to face the enraged tyrant, 'It is a lie, offspring of a Kaffir; you shall pay the penalty of your disobedience of my orders. Here, Saleh, take her and throw ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... reasons for not wishing to descant upon literature, and suffered him without protest to deliver himself on certain social topics, which he treated with extraordinary humor and with constant revelations of that power of ironical portraiture of which his books are full. He had a great deal to say about London, as London appears to the observer who does n't fear the accusation of cynicism, during the high-pressure time—from April to July—of its peculiarities. He flashed his faculty of making the fanciful ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... whether it should collapse amidst the foul struggles of a horde of swindlers. In utrumque paratus, the article was mysterious, suggestive, amusing, well-informed,—that in the 'Evening Pulpit' was a matter of course,—and, above all things, ironical. Next to its omniscience its irony was the strongest weapon belonging to the 'Evening Pulpit.' There was a little praise given, no doubt in irony, to the duchesses who served Mr Melmotte. There was ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... something very human in this apparent mirth and mockery of the squirrels. It seems to be a sort of ironical laughter, and implies self-conscious pride and exultation in the laugher. "What a ridiculous thing you are, to be sure!" he seems to say; "how clumsy and awkward, and what a poor show for a tail! ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... quicker than the ordinary muzzleloader, and this the poor loon could not or did not dodge. He had not timed himself to that species of fire-arm, and when, with his fellow, he swam about within rifle range of our camp, letting off volleys of his wild ironical ha-ha, he little suspected the dangerous gun that was matched against him. As the rifle cracked both loons made the gesture of diving, but only one of them disappeared beneath the water; and when he came to the surface in a few moments, a hundred or more yards away, and saw his companion ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... realization, and make sure that it is assimilated without damage to the subject." His dark expressionless eyes met Bryce's, and Bryce felt the impact of them, and realized for the first time that there was the same slight bitter off-hand smile on his own lips, and inwardly the quiet ironical mood with the still clarity of a deep pool. His own mood? He hefted the gun in his hand, feeling its weight and balance. "You could have done that over the televiewer," he pointed out dispassionately. "What is the average mortality, do ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... engine for 'getting a rise' out of him, while Clement as often, though with less design, offended by disparagement of his choir; nor could Edgar refuse himself the diversion of tormenting Clement by ironical questions and remarks on his standard of perfection, which mode of torture enchanted Fulbert, whenever he understood it. Thus these four brothers contrived to inflict a good amount of teasing on one another, all the more wearing and worrying because ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... appear in the Parmenides, and which later writers, in their matter of fact way, have explained by the residence of Plato at Megara. Socrates disclaims the character of a professional eristic, and also, with a sort of ironical admiration, expresses his inability to attain the Megarian precision in the use of terms. Yet he too employs a similar sophistical skill in overturning ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... praises were ironical. He knows How to use words as weapons, and to wound While seeming to defend. But look, Bastiano, See how the setting sun ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Trinity College, Dublin. He graduated B.A. in 1748; M.A., 1751. In 1750 he came to London, to the Middle Temple. In 1756 Burke became known as a writer, by two pieces. One was a pamphlet called "A Vindication of Natural Society." This was an ironical piece, reducing to absurdity those theories of the excellence of uncivilised humanity which were gathering strength in France, and had been favoured in the philosophical works of Bolingbroke, then lately published. ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... have detected something sarcastic and ironical in the excessive applause, but he, the possessor of a skin like unto that of an armadillo, was very pleased with the ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... came up behind us a tall peasant, perhaps forty years of age, of an ironical snuffy countenance, and arrayed in the green tail-coat of the country. He overtook us hand over hand, and stopped to consider our ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... repeated. I didn't know what it meant at the time, but now I know that they were after us because we were Boches and spies. There was no love lost between the Constantinople scum and their new masters. It seemed an ironical end for Peter and me to be done in because we were Boches. And done in we should be. I had heard of the East as a good place for people to disappear in; there were no inquisitive newspapers or ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... warning, Robert tried to rise. He raised himself to his knees, but the pain in his injured foot was too great, and he fell forward on his face unconscious, and the race ended with Paterson as winner. It was an ironical situation, and soon the crowd were over the ropes, and the two opponents were carried to the dressing tent, where restoratives were applied under ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... sulky and savage to seek unnecessary intercourse with any one, I found occasional amusement in chaffing the sentinels. The orders against conversation with these were not rigidly enforced. Finding that they rose very freely to the bait of a strained ironical politeness, I used to beg them to tell off by sections, the victims of their red right hands—chickens and ducks not being counted; also, I was fain to learn, how many rebel standards and pieces of cannon each ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... parchments, and George felt inclined to blush as he glanced at the decorated words of eulogy; while a half-ironical twinkle crept into Grant's eyes. Then Hardie rose to reply, and faltered once or twice with a sob of emotion in his voice, for the testimonial had a deeper significance to him than it had to the others. His audience, however, ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... have only two berths, so that we can only accommodate Miss Clara besides yourself.' He smiled on through this terse harangue, but the smile froze, as though beneath it raged some crucial debate. Suddenly he laughed (a low, ironical laugh). ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... words after him, with such an ironical emphasis that his unreflected courage curled and shrivelled. He wished the ground had swallowed him up before he had said them. For, as they fell from her lips, the audacity he had been guilty of, and the absurdity that was latent in ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... go on in this way?" Hsiang-lien said, with an ironical smile. "Why, I thought you ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... impressive. Most noticeable was the statue of Disraeli, which, on Primrose Day, I saw much garlanded and banked up with the favorite flower of that peculiarly rustic and English statesman. He had the air of looking at the simple blossoms and forbearing an ironical smile, or was this merely the fancy of the spectator? Among the royal statues is that of the Charles whom they put to death, and who was so unequal in character though not in spirit to his dread fate. It was stolen away, ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... repeats my husband, with the slightest possible ironical accent. Then we go to church. It is too near to drive, so we all walk. The church-yard elms are out in fullest leaf above our heads. There are so many leaves, and they are so close together, that they hide the great brown rooks' nests. ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... as Secretary of State, when he resigned the office to become Justice of the Supreme Court of Illinois. Abigail wrote me a most amusing and ironical letter on this sudden shift of his activities. "What do you think now?" was her query. "I think he is as well fitted to be judge as to be Secretary of State, ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... said Solomon, with ironical softness, "you and me are not fine, and handsome, and clever enough: we must be humble and let smart people ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... be altogether ironical about this rather serious matter—not so much so as to forfeit anything of lucidity. Let me state, then, in all earnestness and sobriety and simplicity of speech, what is known to every worldly-wise male dweller ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... and ironical glee, since it joyed him thus to gibe at one that had loved his wife. He—with his ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... ball at Versailles Queen Victoria spoke to me in German. She gave me the impression of beholding in me a noteworthy but unsympathetic personality, but still her tone of voice was without that touch of ironical superiority that I thought I detected in Prince Albert's. She continued to be amiable and courteous like one unwilling to treat an eccentric fellow ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... friend, known to all of us, M. Boniface, a great sportsman and a connoisseur of wine, a man of wonderful physique, witty and gay, and endowed with an ironical and resigned philosophy, which manifested itself in caustic humor, and never in melancholy, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... said, my dear," said she. She permitted herself the little endearment now and then with an ironical inflection, as one fearful of being robbed might show a diamond ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... This ironical sequence of things angered him like an impish trick from a fellow-creature. Like Prester John's, his table had been spread, and infernal harpies had snatched up the food. He went out of the house, and moved sullenly onward ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... camp with us. Each minute he may come, and I go to get ready a stew of hedgehog, for Gentile words I must use to you, who are a Gorgio. And so good day to you, my lady," ended the old hag, again becoming the truly respectable pew-opener. Then she dropped a curtsey—whether ironical or not, Miss Greeby could not tell—and disappeared into the tent, followed by the white cat, who haunted her footsteps like the ghost ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... them as guide, and the order was obeyed with both fear and alacrity. Mr. Gouverneur then exacted from the commanding officer his word of honor that the man be permitted to return, and remarked at the same time, in an ironical manner, that if they continued to tear down our fences and commit other depredations we should all of us know the location ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... this good-looking musician who had restored to her her father. Certain of being no longer thwarted in her enthusiasm, she said to her that evening, with a smile which was meant to be excessively ironical: ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... in the disguise of a gentleman? Caius Cassius was that, wasn't he?" she retorted in an ironical tone. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... me—at least, I think she did so. I know that the fixity of her scrutiny and her ironical "Mr." made me feel peculiarly uncomfortable. But she was extremely kind and attentive to me, though perhaps her kindness and attention showed up more vividly against her complete neglect of Seaton. Only one remark that I have any recollection of she ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... various ways of expressing itself. "Take it off" is one of the most popular of these, and though it certainly suffers from a lack of originality, it appears to give great satisfaction. Another, more recondite, but perhaps ironical, is "Put it on." "Where's yer trousers?" "Go it, white legs!" "Who's yer hatter?" and many similar cries, all testify to the joyous humour of the ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... saw M. Camusot, a judge recently called to Paris from a provincial Court of the same class, as he went forward bowing to the Judge and the President, Popinot could not repress an ironical smile. This pale, fair young man, full of covert ambition, looked ready to hang and unhang, at the pleasure of any earthy king, the innocent and the guilty alike, and to follow the example of a Laubardemont rather than ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... miracles for the rescue of desperate sinners, related so jocosely as to keep the crowd in a roar of laughter. He had laughed with the rest, but he could not imagine his guide, with the stern, grave eyebrows, writhen features and earnest, ironical tone, covering—as even he could detect—the deepest feeling, enjoying such broad sallies as tickled the slow merriment of village clowns ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... what a curious world this is, and what an ironical vein of humour the gods who look after it must possess," she replied, with a mirthless laugh, rising ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... across her face. Fortunately Montlouis had had time to prepare himself for this meeting, and his face showed no token of recognition. But though his salutation was of the most respectful description, Madame de Mussidan thought she saw in his eyes that ironical expression of contempt which she had more than once seen in ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... that Banks suspected that McClellan's commendations were ironical. In any case, praise had no more effect upon him than a peremptory order or the promise of reinforcements. He was instructed to push forward as far as New Market; he was told that he would be joined by two regiments of cavalry, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... what think you of the Reviewers commending such an execrable performance? I have a fancy to write an ironical criticism upon it, and praise all the worst lines, which you shall send to Derrick, as the real sentiments of a gentleman of your acquaintance on reading his work. For want of something else to entertain you, I begin my criticism immediately.—To versify poetical prose has been found a very ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... Place, whose part was taken by this undutiful child. All things considered, both in this controversy and the later one with Pope, Cibber did not come off worst. His few hits were personal and unscrupulous, and they were probably far more deadly in their effects than any of the ironical attacks which his adversaries, on their part, directed against his poetical ineptitude or halting "parts of speech." Despite his superlative coxcombry and egotism, he was, moreover, a man of no mean abilities. ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... what end?" cried Riccabocca, thrown off his guard, and his breast dilated, his crest rose, and his eye flashed; valor and defiance broke from habitual caution and self-control. "But pooh," he added, striving to regain his ordinary and half-ironical calm, "it matters not to me. I grant, sir, that I know the Count di Peschiera; but what has Dr. Riccabocca to do with the kinsmen of so ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... of an ironical divinity's hand in the great drama of existence would find no small indication thereof in the stupendous question-mark that is called Christianity. That mankind should be on its knees before the very antithesis of what was the ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... delivered with an ironical accent, embarrassed Madame Cornelis, but Lady Harrington, a great supporter of hers, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... of Mrs. Bloomfield was riveted on her young friend, as she advanced into the room; and her smile, usually so gay and sometimes ironical, was ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... Duc de Fronsac never failed, when he came to pay his respects to the Queen at her toilet, to turn the conversation upon Trianon, in order to make some ironical remarks on my father-in-law, of whom, from the time of his appointment, he always spoke as "my colleague Campan." The Queen would shrug her shoulders, and say, when he was gone, "It is quite shocking to find so little a man in the son ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... is you," she said calmly, with a cold smile. She had completely recovered her self-possession, so much was evident; and apparently she was determined to play the game to the end, accepting defeat with an air of ironical and gay indifference. Yvette was by no means an ordinary woman. Her face was at once sinister and attractive, with lines of strength about it; she moved with a certain distinction; she had brains ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... not help smiling. He was very well versed in irony, and everything that evening seemed to him ironical. The episode of the cat; the announcement of his own daughter's engagement. So he had no more part or parcel in her than he had in the Puss! And the poetical justice of this appealed ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... was carrying out my trunk, a lay brother with a good ironical face came in to sweep out the room. Alexandr Ivanitch seemed flustered and embarrassed and ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... calling puts in an occasional appearance. The recreant Sosia in Amph. 958 ff. mimics the dutiful slave. As. 259 ff. contains an ironical treatment of augury, while in 751 ff. the poet has his satirical fling at the ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... is a loose sprawling figure, such as we see cut out of wood or paper, and pulled or jerked with wire or thread, to make sudden and surprising motions, without meaning, grace, or nature in them. By far the best of his works are some of his shorter personal compositions, in which there is an ironical mixture of the quaint and serious, such as his lines on a picture of Gaspar Poussin, the fine tale of Gualberto, his Description of a Pig, and the Holly-tree, which is an affecting, beautiful, and modest retrospect on his own character. ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... the shopman, looking defiantly at the questioner, who was leaning across the counter with folded arms, staring at Luke Tulliver with an ironical grin upon his countenance. ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... especially to Plato, who knew him best, Socrates was at once the sweetest and most compelling spirit of his age. There was a kind of truth in the quality of his character. He was perhaps the first of all reverent men. In the presence of conceit his self-depreciation was ironical, but in another presence it was most genuine, and his deepest spring of thought and action. This other presence was his own ideal. Socrates was sincerely humble because, expecting so much of philosophy, he saw his ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... She accompanied her words with gesticulations. Gerlan found her pulse quiet, her arm not rigid, but relaxed, as natural. After an interval, her countenance put on a mocking expression, and she began anew her exhortation, which was now mixed with ironical reflections upon the Church of Rome. She then suddenly stopped, continuing asleep. It was in vain they stirred her. When her arms were lifted and let go, they dropped unconsciously. As several now went away, whom her silence rendered impatient, she said in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... all the peril, that it might have brought with it.'[1] It is difficult to know which to admire most, the superstition of Gianpaolo, or the cynicism of the commentary, the spurious piety which made the tyrant miss his opportunity, or the false standard of moral sublimity by which the half-ironical critic measures his mistake. In combination they produce a lively impression of the truth of what I have attempted to establish—that in Italy at this period religion survived as superstition even among the most ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... not employ them?" said Trefusis, with ironical gravity. "The principle of buying laborforce in the cheapest market and selling its product in the dearest has done much ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... understanding of man as the eternal tragic comedian, is at the bottom of that compassionate irony which paces under the name of the maternal instinct. A woman wishes to mother a man simply because she sees into his helplessness, his need of an amiable environment, his touching self delusion. That ironical note is not only daily apparent in real life; it sets the whole tone of feminine fiction. The woman novelist, if she be skillful enough to arise out of mere imitation into genuine self-expression, never takes her heroes quite seriously. From the day of George Sand to the day of Selma ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... was cold and ironical; its bitterness but reflecting the terrible disappointment he had suffered. Such a fearful disillusionment, such a blasting of life-long hopes and aspirations, such an uprooting of age-old tradition might have excused ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... nothing would germinate, so rotten was all the land. Although he almost choked with covert anger at seeing his predictions thus falsified, he was unwilling to admit his error, and put on an air of ironical doubt. ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... With one element, he could coldly appraise the Faery's intellectual capacity, note with some surprise that she could be on occasion "most interesting and amusing," and then continue his use of the trowel with an ironical solemnity; while, with the other, he could be overwhelmed by the immemorial panoply of royalty, and, thrilling with the sense of his own strange elevation, dream himself into a gorgeous phantasy ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... eyes wide, and I learned most of the things a feller's liable to learn in this world when he acts that way. I learned something of the notions lying back of this feller's work up there. Say, he hadn't finished with you when he took that ten millions out of you." An ironical smile lit the man's dark eyes as he thrust home his retaliation for the financier's insults. "Not by a lot," he went on, with a smiling display of teeth that conveyed nothing pleasant. "They've a slogan up there that means a whole heap, and it comes from him, and runs ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... had his hat in his hand when the colleague who was to relieve him appeared. "Good and cold out to-day!" was the latter's greeting. Horn answered with an ironical: "Then I suppose you'll be glad if I relieve you of this case. But I assure you I wouldn't do it if it wasn't Fellner. Good-bye. Oh, and one thing more. Please send a physician at once to Fellner's house, No. ...
— The Case of the Golden Bullet • Grace Isabel Colbron, and Augusta Groner
... nights in which the silence, remaining unbroken in the shape of a cord to which he hung with both hands, vibrated with senseless phrases, always the same but utterly incomprehensible, about Nostromo, Antonia, Barrios, and proclamations mingled into an ironical and senseless buzzing. In the daytime he could look at the silence like a still cord stretched to breaking-point, with his life, his vain life, suspended ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... half a mile of shore-line at the most. What we had been doing all the time I was unable to figure out. I thought we had been rowing. I could have sworn we had been rowing, but apparently we had not. I looked up from my meditation in time to catch the ironical gaze of the coxswain upon me, and I involuntarily braced myself to ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... of feeling on a colourless telegraph form, and as she was, at Knightsbridge, unable to hear the ironical tone of the message she took ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... "I wot not what I did, and I pray my reverend brother, whose interesting and instructive address I have interrupted by this unmannerliness, to grant me his pardon, for my tongue simply obeyed my ear." Which untoward incident brought the modern to an end, as by a stroke of ironical fate. It seemed to the clerk that little good to any one concerned was to come out of this debate, and he signalled to Doctor Dowbiggin, with whom he had dined the night before, when they concocted a motion over their ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... and full of light. He sits next to Degas, that round-shouldered man in suit of pepper and salt. There is nothing very trenchantly French about him either, except the large necktie; his eyes are small and his words are sharp, ironical, cynical. These two men are the leaders of the impressionist school. Their friendship has been jarred by inevitable rivalry. "Degas was painting 'Semiramis' when I was painting 'Modern Paris,'" says Manet. "Manet is in despair because he cannot ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... buccaneers had lasted some time, when one of them re-entered the house, and with a repetition of the same salute, which had in my eyes an ironical air, begged for a moment's loan of the torch. Silver briefly agreed; and this emissary retired again, leaving ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... extravagant as ever, and his recitations were received with good-natured amusement. He didn't lack for applause, however. There were some boys on the front seats who applauded him, just for the fun of it. Though the applause was ironical, the professor persuaded himself that it was genuine, and posed before the audience at each outburst, with his hand on his heart, and his head bent so far over that he seemed likely to lose ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... you over her?" answered Sperver with an ironical smile. "See, there she is. I can see her at the bottom of the cave. What right have you to meddle with our affairs? Don't you know that we are here in the domains of Nideck, and that we administer justice and execute our ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... under the lead of Constable Richard L. Swift, fully answered all expectations. As Miss Anthony stepped forward to open the meeting, she was greeted with a broadside of hisses and ironical applause. When Mrs. Stanton began her address her voice was drowned in jeers and groans and, although she persevered for some time, she was unable to complete a single sentence. Rev. May attempted to speak and was met by yells, and ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper |
