"Mordant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... eyes, the fluff of waving hair, and—yes, actually a knot of fragrant violets at her breast, had given her an unpleasant shock of surprise. "I am sure I hope you can afford all this," was her comment, with a deliberate adjustment of eyebrows and glasses calculated to add mordant point and emphasis to ...
— The Transfiguration of Miss Philura • Florence Morse Kingsley
... found somebody else to do it. Of these, Candide is evidently one, and more than one of Candide's smaller companions have at least something of the same characteristic. Yet one may also say that if Voltaire himself had not written these, he must have written other things of the kind. The mordant wit, the easy, fluent, rippling style, so entirely free from boisterousness yet with constant "wap" of wavelet and bursting of foam-bubble; above all, the pure unadulterated faculty of tale-telling, must have found vent and play somehow. It had been well if the playfulness had not been, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... excellence, embodiments of a single attribute. Leaena of the Cur. is the perpetually thirsty lena: "Wine, wine, wine!"[164] Cleaerata of the As. is a plain caricature, but is exceptionally cleverly drawn as the lena with the mordant tongue. Phronesium's thirst in the Truc., is gold, gold, gold! The danista of the Most. finds the whole expression of his nature in the cry of "Faenus!"[165] Assuredly, he is the progenitor of the modern low-comedy Jew: ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... your poet begs The pounded yellow of two hard-boiled eggs; Two boiled potatoes, passed through kitchen-sieve, Smoothness and softness to the salad give; Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl, And, half-suspected, animate the whole. Of mordant mustard add a single spoon, Distrust the condiment that bites so soon; But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault, To add a double quantity of salt. And, lastly, o'er the flavored compound toss A magic soup-spoon of anchovy sauce. Oh, green and glorious! Oh, herbaceous treat! 'Twould tempt ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... Persians, typical not merely of the life and surroundings, but of the character and instincts and manner of thought of his countrymen. And yet it is from his lips that flows the delightful stream of naive confession and mordant sarcasm that never seems either ill-natured or artificial, that lashes without vindictiveness, and excoriates without malice. In strict ratio, however, to the verisimilitude of the performance, must be esteemed the talents of the non-Oriental writer, ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier |
