"Raillery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Age. There is another thing in which Theocritus is faulty, and that is making his Shepherds too sharp, and abusive to one another; Comatas and Lacon are ready to fight, and the railing between those two is as bitter as Billingsgate: Now certainly such Raillery cannot be suitable to those sedate times of ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin
... him full in the face and curtly said, in a tone of raillery, that suggested a past that refused to reopen an account for ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... Rafael," responded Gertrudis; "but what mysterious secret have you been communicating to my father?" added she, in a tone of gentle raillery. ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... lips of Guido." Hopeless, but impelled by the biting frenzy of despair, he pours out on his awe-stricken listeners a wild flood of entreaty, defiance, ghastly and anguished humour, flattery, satire, raving blasphemy and foaming impenitence. His desperate venom and blasphemous raillery is part despair, part calculated horror. In his last revolt against death and all his foes, he snatches at any weapon, even truth, that may serve his purpose and gain ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... more fundamental or ideal truth. The fable moves on the plane of the prudential virtues, the parable on the plane of the higher self-forgetting virtues. Because of that difference there is in the parable "no jesting nor raillery at the weakness, the follies, or the crimes of men." All is deeply earnest, befitting its high spiritual point of view. As a rule the parables use for illustration stories of what might actually happen. Two of the most familiar of the parables follow. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... bright, mischievous, spoiled child whose very tenderness only prepared her unsuspecting victim for a merciless thrust? And yet the sound of her sobbing was still in his ears. A true woman's heart beat beneath that idle raillery: challenged boldly, would it not answer ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... daring; he wished to make no further mistakes, and he walked back toward the hotel with apparent good grace. Armitage spoke now in a very different key, and the change displeased Chauvenet, for he much affected ironical raillery, and his ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... matter of surprise that, notwithstanding his sprightly wit, he never exposed by his raillery those vague, incoherent, and noisy discourses, those rash censures, ignorant decisions, coarse jests, and all that empty jingle of words which at Babylon went by the name of conversation. He had learned, in the first book of Zoroaster, that self love is a football ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... and falling slides combined form the circumflex, or wave, which is a very impressive and significant modification of the voice. It is chiefly used in sarcasm, raillery, irony, wit, and humor. It well deserves careful ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... Sir, says he, raising his Voice,—had not your unseasonable Mirth blinded you, you might have seen that Trim's carrying the Close-Stool-Pan upon his Head the whole Length of the Town, without blushing, is a pointed Raillery,—and one of the sharpest Sarcasms, Sir, that ever was thrown out upon you;—for it unveils the solemn Impudence of the whole Profession, who, I see, are ashamed of nothing which brings ...
— A Political Romance • Laurence Sterne
... feeling with the lightness of youth added an enchanting grace at this moment to Francesca's charms. This is the key to her character; she laughs and she is touched; she becomes enthusiastic, and returns to arch raillery with a readiness, a facility, which makes her the charming and exquisite creature she is, and for which her reputation is known outside Italy. Under the graces of a woman she conceals vast learning, thanks to the ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... treated Caroline and Emmeline often caused a laugh at his expense from Percy, but gratified Mrs. Hamilton; Percy declared he stood as much in awe of his sisters as if they were the highest ladies in the land. Arthur bore his raillery with unruffled temper, but he felt the distance that fortune placed between him and those fair girls, and he hoped, by reserve, to lessen the danger that might in their society attack his peace. Emmeline mistook this cautious reserve for coldness and ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... precepts, and corrected the fluctuating manners of fashion, in the tone of fashionable raillery; and the Connoisseur[7], by its gay and sparkling effusions, had forwarded the advance of the public mind to that last stage of intellectual refinement, in which alone a relish exists for delicate and half latent irony. The plain and literal ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... of his sermons has quite so much vivacity as this. But in the famous discourse upon an unlucky text—the sermon preached at the chapel of the English Embassy, in Paris—there are touches of unclerical raillery not a few. Thus: "What a noise," he exclaims, "among the simulants of the various virtues!... Behold Humility, become so out of mere pride; Chastity, never once in harm's way; and Courage, like a Spanish soldier upon an Italian stage—a bladder full of wind. Hush! the sound of that trumpet! ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... creature whom I had hitherto so intensely despised, I knew not what to think, or how to act. He had assumed a fresh shape, more marvelous than any he had hitherto put on in the whole round of his extraordinary mummery. The raillery and tipsy recklessness which appeared constitutional in him had suddenly passed away, leaving not a solitary trace behind. Even his figure, while he had been speaking, seemed to heave with a new life, and to dilate into unnatural ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... house-fairy was Louise; the beautiful, fragrant flowers were her favorites. Good-humoredly she smiled at the raillery of her sister, quietly listened to each thoughtless jest; but if any one, in joke, touched upon what was holy to her soul, she was aroused from her calmness and attained ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... who, for the evening meal, was always expected to sit at the main body of the table. She was busy at the moment hearing from Mr. McNeil all about the process of ostrich-feather plucking which was to begin next day, but she did not miss a word of the late comer's apologies or the merry raillery with which they were met by his hostess. The latter, as usual, gathered unto herself every remark uttered at the table, and the attentions of every man, though she never bothered much about old Andrew ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... new fashions, buying and selling of lands, advancement or ruin of favourites, victories or defeats of strange princes, which is the ordinary subject of ordinary conversation?—Most desire to frequent their superiors, and these men must either suffer their raillery, or must not be suffered to continue in their society; if we converse with them who speak with more address than ourselves, then we repine equally at our own dulness, and envy the acuteness that accomplishes the speaker; or, if we converse ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... record of the evidence as given in the newspapers seemed to be altogether different. At Tankerville there had been an indignant and sometimes an indiscreet zeal which had communicated itself to the whole proceedings. The general flavour of the trial at Durham was one of good-humoured raillery. Mr. Browborough's counsel in cross-examining the witnesses for the prosecution displayed none of that righteous wrath,—wrath righteous on behalf of injured innocence,—which is so common with gentlemen employed ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... murmured, protesting. His look both intimidated and drew her. Winnington came nearer to her, and suddenly he laid his hand on both of hers. Looking up she was conscious of a look that was half raillery, half tenderness. ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... starts for the upper world. The catastrophe is treated in much the same manner as it has been in subsequent versions of the story. Euridice disappears. Orpheus is about to turn back, but he is stopped by Tisiphone. He then breaks into virulent raillery, swears he'll never love woman more and advises all husbands to seek divorce. All this is in resounding octave rime. Then a Maenad calls upon her sisters to defend their sex. They drive Orpheus off the stage and slay him. Returning ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... twelve o'clock, when Voltaire appeared at last roused from his reverie. His whole frame seemed animated. He began his defense with the utmost defiance mixed with spirit, and now and then let fall the finest strokes of raillery upon his antagonist; and his harangue lasted till three in the morning. I must confess that, whether from national partiality or from the elegant sensibility of his manner, I never was so charmed, nor did I ever remember so absolute a victory as ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... shod, and perfectly equipped, started from the house on the long journey to Millerton. Denis Quirk was at the wheel, the chauffeur beside him. In the tonneau Molly Healy and Desmond O'Connor kept up a crossfire of good-humoured raillery, while Kathleen sat between them, smiling at their jests. It was a bright, sunny day, with a gentle breeze blowing from the south; the roads were smooth, and the motor throbbed along throwing the miles behind her, and the dust in the faces of those whom ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... tone of raillery was a trace of wistfulness, "we've lived like Guinea Negroes here for three years, and yet I believe you like it. I don't believe you'd go back right now as professor of Sanskrit at ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... a little piqued at Sahwah's raillery. "You don't need to call the attention of the whole car to the fact that I made a little mistake. Did you see that officer over there turn around and look when you laughed? He's looking yet, and he probably heard what you said, and is laughing at me ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... planned, but collected the materials for many works on various and important subjects: so many indeed, that the number of my unrealized schemes, and the mass of my miscellaneous fragments, have often furnished my friends with a subject of raillery, and sometimes of regret and reproof. Waiving the mention of all private and accidental hinderances, I am inclined to believe, that this want of perseverance has been produced in the main by an over-activity of thought, ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... we have Curran's retort upon an Irish judge, who was quite as remarkable for his good humour and raillery as for his legal researches. Curran was addressing a jury on one of the State trials in 1803 with his usual animation. The judge, whose political bias, if any judge can have one, was certainly supposed ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... simile, a broad, eddying bend in a river on a plateau, with cataracts and canyons awaiting it on its route to the sea. Or, discarding the simile and speaking in literal terms, in a search for a theme on which to hang the incidents, we revert to Mary's raillery at the announcement of an easy traveller that he was going to turn ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... Caesar. Favonius, a man of fair character, except that he used to suppose his own petulance and abusive talking a copy of Cato's straight-forwardness, bade Pompey stamp upon the ground, and call forth the forces he had promised. But Pompey bore patiently with this unseasonable raillery; and on Cato putting him in mind of what he had foretold from the very beginning about Caesar, made this answer only, that Cato indeed had spoken more like a prophet, but he had acted more like a friend. Cato then advised them to choose ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... at supper, I caught my first glimpse of the Eoites in a body. The contrast between them and my school-folk was agreeably different. I found among them an atmosphere of good-natured greeting and raillery, that sped from table to table. And when Spalton strode in, with his bold, swinging gait (it seemed that he had just returned from a lecture in a distant city early that afternoon), there ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... enjoyed her sharp tongue and withstood her raillery. She called him "Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum" and made believe that she was very much afraid of him; yet it was noticeable that there was no venom in the sharp speeches the lame girl addressed to her big cavalier—and Mercy Curtis could be most unmerciful ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... the genuine naivete and natural realism of the piece, it is easy to recognize in it something of the same spirit of gentle raillery that sparkles in the ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... the meek, anticipating the slow, intoxicating with compliment, plastering with praise that you in return may gild with flattery; in short, energetic without elegance, active without grace, and loquacious without wit; mistaking bustle for style, raillery for badinage, and noise for gayety—these are the characters who mar the very career they think they are creating, and who exercise a fatal influence on the destinies of all those who have the misfortune to ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... for months—half a year, perhaps—drinking lemonade and putting up with their raillery. And then he would begin with ginger-ale; and then it would come to beer; and then to whiskey. He was always devising new plans to control himself; always persuading himself that he had solved the problem. ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... apparent in the last works of Swift. His Will, like all his other writings, is drawn up in his own peculiar manner. Even in so serious a composition, he cannot help indulging himself in leaving legacies, that carry with them an air of raillery and jest. He disposes of his three best hats (his best, his second best, and his third best beaver) with an ironical solemnity, that renders the bequests ridiculous. He bequeaths, 'To Mr. John Grattan a silver-box, to keep in it the tobacco which the said John usually chewed, called pigtail.' ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... was perfectly well taken by Mr. Motley; not indeed without a little bantering talk and raillery upon the excessive care Mr. Linden bestowed on her. But Mr. Middleton, she saw, was not pleased that she disappointed him. Within two or three days Faith had become unmistakeably the centre of attraction to all the gentlemen of the neighbourhood. To walk with her, to talk to her, to attend upon ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... silent and confused, Lydia recovered her tongue and colour, and the equability of her temper. It was, therefore, with some raillery that ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... and, to say nothing of old Otard and Schiedam Schnapps, opened some bottles of Sparkling Catawba, and old Jersey Champagne, of a remote vintage, which I have now quite forgotten. With the flow of these beverages flowed our speech, in jovial words and songs and raillery enough, if not in wit. De Ary, as having by a hair's breadth just escaped with his life, and in virtue of his extraordinary feat in leaping five hundred feet or more through a bank of snow, now that the danger was over, was made the butt of much pleasantry, which he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... when suddenly, at the moment of the 'Ave Maria'—that is to say, at the hour when the day begins to decline—great cries went up from all the crowd mixed with bursts of laughter, a discordant murmur of threats and raillery, the cause being that they had just perceived at the top of the chimney a thin smoke, which seemed like a light cloud to go up perpendicularly into the sky. This smoke announced that Rome was still without a master, and that the world still had no pope; for this was the smoke of the voting ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... regard her brother as a demigod, caught herself blushing for him. She was angry with herself. She caught M. Raoul's murmur, "Heaven distributes to us our talents, Monsieur," and was angry with him, understanding and deprecating the raillery beneath his perfectly correct attitude. He kept this attitude to the end. When the time came for parting, he bent over ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... that this peculiar little sister of mine clings to some of her childish beliefs and pleasures in spite of Prue's preaching and my raillery," began Mark, after a refreshing whiff or two. "She is overflowing with love and good will, but being too shy or too proud to offer it to her fellow-creatures, she expends it upon the necessitous inhabitants of earth, air, and water with the most charming philanthropy. Her ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... his Highness Prince Waldeck, with the grand Army covering the Siege. It was some Time before the heavy Cannon, which we expected up the Maes, from Holland, arrived; which gave Occasion to a Piece of Raillery of Monsieur Calvo, the Governor, which was as handsomely repartec'd. That Governor, by a Messenger, intimating his Sorrow to find, we had pawn'd our Cannon for Ammunition Bread. Answer was made, That in a few Days we hoped to give him a Taste of ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... the world, which offends us in word and deed, and impels us to anger and impatience. In short, there is nothing but hatred and envy, enmity, violence and wrong, unfaithfulness, vengeance, cursing, raillery slander, pride and haughtiness, with superfluous finery, honor, fame, and power, where no one is willing to be the least, but every one desires to sit at the head and to be seen ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour is chiefly written in defence of raillery in the discussion of serious subjects, when managed 'with good breeding,' and for 'a liberty in decent language to question everything' amongst gentlemen and friends. He regards ridicule as the antidote to enthusiasm, believes in the ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... to get that apple dumpling off my conscience, as I couldn't digest it because it wasn't there. I preach twice, on Sunday and on Wednesday night, and I'm in my study behind the altar every afternoon that I'm not playing tennis. I'll be there any time by appointment." The worldly and protective raillery in that young Methodist minister's voice almost interrupted my religious researches, but I was in depths that were strange to me, and I was floundering for ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... be dissatisfied at the expense of it, for she kept company that I did not like, lived beyond what I could support, and sometimes lost at play more than I cared to pay; upon which one day I took occasion to mention it, but lightly, and said to her by way of raillery that we lived merrily for as long as it would last. She turned short upon me: "What do you mean?" says she; "why, you do not pretend to be uneasy, do ye?" "No, no, madam, not I, by no means; it is ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... sufficiently imbued with personality; for one of the first and principal topics of reproach is that he is a grocer, that he has a "pipe in his mouth, ledger-book, green canisters, dingy shop-boy, half a hogshead of brown treacle," &c. Nay, the same delicate raillery is upon the very title-page. When controversy has once commenced upon this footing, as Dr. Johnson said to Dr. Percy, "Sir, there is an end of politeness—we are to be as rude as we please—Sir, you said that I was short-sighted." As a man's profession is generally no more ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... when d'Artagnan made such a furious lunge at him that if he had not sprung nimbly backward, it is probable he would have jested for the last time. The stranger, then perceiving that the matter went beyond raillery, drew his sword, saluted his adversary, and seriously placed himself on guard. But at the same moment, his two auditors, accompanied by the host, fell upon d'Artagnan with sticks, shovels and tongs. This caused so rapid and complete a diversion ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to the home of our—our haut-monde, you understand?... And then it will interest you to see how our ladies live in that seclusion which is so droll to you. Confess you have heard strange stories," and he smiled in quizzical raillery upon her. ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... girl as if they had a fearful, hunted, and, at the same time, eager, unholy look, as if they sought refuge in some deadly sin in order to escape a far worse fate. Mavis's and Williams's gaiety was infectious. Ellis frequently joined in the raillery proceeding between the pair; it was as if Mavis's youth, comeliness, and charm compelled homage from the pleasure-worn man of the world. Mrs Hamilton, all this while, said little; she left the entertaining to Mavis, who was more than ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... infelicitous remarks, but Miss St. John had a frank, merry way of recognizing them, and yet malice and ridicule were so entirely absent from her words and ways that Graham soon positively enjoyed being laughed at, and much preferred her delicate open raillery, which gave him a chance to defend himself, to a smiling mask that would leave him in uncertainty as to the fitness of his replies. There was a subtle flattery also in this course, for she treated him as one capable of ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... relation (Aunt Belle could not comprehend her business success and Uncle Pyke would not admit it) and especially odious to her was the Occleve's polite interest in her direction when Aunt Belle, poor-relationing her, would turn to her from coquettish raillery of him with, "Dear child, you're eating nothing." He would smile towards her and, fatuously anxious to please, offer some remark that might draw her into the conversation. She never would be so drawn. She scarcely ever exchanged words with him. She made herself ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... listening, her eloquent silence and gentle flashes of raillery, her occasional caress—all were balm to him ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... was and yet have awakened a feeling in his mother's breast which she had never given to him. Now he was embarrassed somewhat by her playful insistence on her mother's right to her boy for a time. Playfulness sat as ill on her as could well be imagined, and he was captious over her raillery on his hurry to be at his cousin's side, calling it atrocious taste in his irritable mind, he who had never been irritable, to whom it would have seemed the worst of taste to question ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... was secretly pleased to discover that it was sufficiently important to be worthy of such bright raillery and humorous reproof. Salmagundi was only a lively jeu d'esprit, and Irving was never proud of it. "I know," said Paulding, writing to him in later life, "you consider old Sal as a sort of saucy, flippant trollope, belonging to nobody, and not worth fathering." But, nevertheless, ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... the king. No records remain of his diplomatic negotiations, but they extended into the night, and, it being too late to return to camp, he was sumptuously lodged in an apartment of the Alhambra. In the morning one of the courtiers about the palace, somewhat given to jest and raillery, invited Don Juan to a ceremony which some of the alfaquis were about to celebrate in the mosque of the palace. The religious punctilio of this most discreet cavalier immediately took umbrage at what he conceived ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... I do not. I think a great deal of jocose raillery may pass between intimates without the requisite tenderness being infringed upon. If any friend had been in a painful and ludicrous position (such as when Cardinal Balue in full dress is run away with on horseback, which Scott ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... amusing instance of that sense of reality with which we are impressed by Shakspeare's characters. He says of Benedick and Beatrice, as if he had known them personally, that the exclusive direction of their pointed raillery against each other "is a proof of a growing inclination." This is not unlikely; and the same inference would lead us to suppose that this mutual inclination had commenced before the opening of the play. The very first words ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... religious feelings were strongly affected by the conversion of his friend, Mr. Almond, whose opinions were previously as unsettled as his own. To escape the raillery with which he expected White would assail him on learning the change in his sentiments, Almond avoided his society; and when his friend offered to defend his opinions, if Henry would allow the divine originality ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... and even the dull are excited into saying good things. There is an overflow of topics; and the right thought, and the right words to put it in, spring up unsought. Grave alternates with gay: now serious converse, and now jokes, anecdotes, and playful raillery. Every one's best nature is shown, every one's best feelings are in pleasurable activity; and, for the time, life seems well ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... he reached his own room; and his thought was that living with a person so sensitive to kindly raillery might prove lugubrious. He whistled, long and low, then went to the window and looked through the darkness to the great silhouette of his grandfather's house. Lights were burning over there, upstairs; probably his newly arrived uncle was engaged ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... possess is really theirs; everything is tacked on, loosely fastened with pins. A gust of wind and the whole thing blows away. But at least they are certain of losing nothing. It is this assurance which gives to the marquis that air of raillery worthy of a Father Tranquille which he has when he looks at you with both hands in his pockets, as much as to say: "Ah, well, and what then? What can they ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... have no idea how much I am obliged to you for the Letter you sent me,’ writes a friend to a lady; ‘it is so very ingenious, and so nicely written. It narrates without narrating. It clears up the most intricate matters possible; its raillery is exquisite; it enlightens those who know little of the subject, and imparts double delight to those who understand it. It is an admirable apology; and if they would take it, a delicate and innocent censure. In short, the Letter displays so much art, so much spirit, and so much judgment, ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... now visible in every countenance, no language can portray. Only twenty hours ago, and all was hope and animation; wherever you went, you were enlivened by the sounds of merriment and raillery. The expected attack was mentioned, not only in terms of sanguine hope, but in perfect confidence as to the result. Now gloom and discontent everywhere prevailed. Disappointment, grief, indignation and rage succeeded each other in all ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... Count's curiosity may have been, he had the wit to hide it when Alban appeared. Adopting a well-feigned tone of raillery, he spoke as men speak when another has been absent and has no good excuse ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... banter him, Toby. 'Tis a conceited old Scarab, and will yield us excellent sport—go play upon him a little—exercise thy Wit.' cf. Swift, Apology (1710), Talke of a Tub: 'Where wit hath any mixture of raillery, 'tis but calling it banter, and the work is done. This polite word of theirs was first borrowed from the bullies in Whitefriars, then fell among the footmen, and at last retired ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... the crowd, to some officers, who seemed scarce to deserve the name; for, when I signified my request, they neither rose up, nor desired me to sit down; but, lolling in their chairs, with one leg stretched out, asked, with an air of disrespectful raillery where I was going; and when I answered, "To Paris," desired to know what ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... you found something to laugh at in almost everything—it is your way," said Mrs. Chiverton coldly, and as her flush subsided she appeared paler than before. She was so evidently hurt by something understood or imagined in Bessie's innocent raillery that Bessie, abashed herself, drew back her hand, and as Mr. Forbes began to speak with becoming seriousness she took the opportunity of gliding away to join Miss Burleigh in the ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... author of the Road to Ruin) was one of the most violent and fiery-spirited of all that motley crew of persons, who attended the Sunday meetings at Wimbledon. One day he was so enraged by some paradox or raillery of his host, that he indignantly rose from his chair, and said, "Mr. Tooke, you are a scoundrel!" His opponent without manifesting the least emotion, replied, "Mr. Holcroft, when is it that I am to dine with you? shall it be next ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... week producing two or three letters which he writ in his youth to a coquette lady. The raillery of them was natural, and well enough for a mere man of the town; but very unluckily, several of the words were wrong spelt. Will laughed this off at first as well as he could; but finding himself pushed on all sides, and especially by the Templar, he told us with ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... of speech sallies of wit are admissible, and they carry perhaps only too much weight in an oration. Of them there are two kinds,—facetiousness and raillery,—and the orator will employ both; but he will use the one in relating anything neatly, and the other in darting ridicule on his adversaries. And of this latter kind there are more descriptions than one; however, it is a different thing that we are discussing now. Nevertheless we may give this ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... of that pleasant friendly intercourse which for some time past had been customary between him and Miss Dunstable. There were no passages of arms between them; no abuse from the doctor against the lady's London gaiety; no raillery from the lady as to the doctor's country habits. They were very courteous to each other, and, as Mrs. Gresham thought, too civil by half; nor, as far as she could see, did they ever remain alone in ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... of half-savage raillery, and Diana winced under it. His moods changed so rapidly that she was bewildered. At one moment there would be an exquisite gentleness in his manner when he spoke to her, at the next a contemptuous irony that cut like ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... that the shadow was off his face. Raillery and rebuke she did not mind; only the shadow, which fell coldly on ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... I was as soon as I saw the baroness! Small, delicate, supple, stylish, a fairy waist, the shoulders of a goddess, and, besides all this, a certain little air of audacity, of raillery, ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... "I can't very well turn her off as long as she does her work. But you needn't be worried about making me unhappy. If anything, I rather liked it. It showed how much you did care for me." He bent toward her, with a look of bright raillery, for the parting kiss. "Now then: once, twice, three ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... considerably reduced. "We are fully aware," said the public address of the management, "that we shall have to encounter many professional jokes on this occasion, but we are prepared to smile at the good-humoured raillery of our friends, and the hostile attempts of our enemies, who may both, perhaps, be inclined to call this a 'Bartholomew Fair scheme.' Let them call it what they will, we know that our sole aim is to exist by your favour, and by devising all means for your ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... another of her graceful courtesies, and begged that neither of us would mind the colonel's raillery; she never could keep him in order. And she laughed softly as she gave her hand to Fitz, who touched it very much as if he quite believed the colonel's reference to the porcelain to ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the old man held her to him, his pale face once more illumined by that momentary gleam, then loosening her arms from his neck, he said in calm tones, in which mingled surprise, raillery, almost rebuke, "Why, my child, this is indeed an ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... dining yesterday at the Dutch Embassador's, after dinner they drank and were pretty merry; and among the rest of the King's company there was that worthy fellow my Lord of Rochester, and Tom Killigrew, whose mirth and raillery offended the former so much, that he did give Tom Killigrew a box on the ear in the King's presence; which do give much offence to the people here at Court to see how cheap the King makes himself, and the more, for that the King hath not only passed by the thing and pardoned it to Rochester ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... in his letters here and there a good-natured raillery, and jesting, which show a sense of humor that goes beyond the limits of mere fun and horse-play. Here is a letter he wrote toward the close of the war, asking some ladies to dine with him in his quarters at ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... every corner of this land.' If the conduct of many professors were so vile, as there can be no doubt but that it was, how gross must have been that of the openly profane? It accounts for the wicked wit and raillery of Hudibras, when so many professors threw off the mask and gloried in their hypocrisy—Butler shut his eyes to the cruel sufferings of thousands who perished in jails, the martyrs to the sincerity of their faith and conduct. The falling away was indeed great; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Father could visit his old haunts on election day, he would be astonished at the sober decorum. In his time elections lasted three days, days filled with harangue, with drinking, betting, raillery, and occasional encounters. Even those whose memory goes back to the Civil War can contrast the ballot peddling, the soliciting, the crowded noisy polling-places, with the calm and quiet with which men deposit their ballots ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... raged markedly fierce; for M'Adam noticed his son's more frequent presence at home, and commented on the fact in his usual spirit of playful raillery. ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... fond of a joke, and rather given to teazing, and being less guarded than usual, introduced some subject exceedingly unpleasant to young Elwyn. The quick temper of the latter was aroused at once, and he gave a hasty and angry reply. The raillery was pushed still farther; and before those about him had time to interfere, the fatal blow was struck in ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... such title as The Relaxations of Gog and Magog, dividing them into portions like the Arabian Nights, and supposing Gog and Magog to entertain each other with such narrations in Guildhall all night long, and to break off every morning at daylight. An almost inexhaustible field of fun, raillery, and interest would be laid open by pursuing ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... of, is the persecution he must bear in private. Your back is not turned before one whom I dare not name to you falls upon him with the most unfeeling taunts; twits him—pardon me, my lord—twits him with your partiality, calls him Jacob, calls him clown, pursues him with ungenerous raillery, not to be borne by man. And let but one of you appear, instantly he changes; and my master must smile and courtesy to the man who has been feeding him with insults; I know, for I have shared in some ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... very excusable: since, no doubt, there might be many tender things, circumstanced as you were, well enough for your parents to see, but for nobody else; and relations of our side, the least of all, whose future intimacy, and frequent visits, might give occasions for raillery and remarks, not otherwise agreeable. I regard her apology for you the more, because I knew it was a great baulk to her, that you did not comply with my request. But now, child, when you know me more, you'll find, that if I am obliged to give up one point, ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... when they lingered, and restrained them when they came too fast, addressing one and another with jocularity, laying his hands on some and pushing them on with assumed playfulness, keeping up the fire of raillery with desperate resistance. When screams were heard now and then from below, he made it appear to be only excited feminine merriment, directing attention to it, and calling out to those yet ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... felt, without perhaps comprehending, the joviality arising from a return to Nature. Every man was forthwith nicknamed, and pitiless was the raillery upon the venerable subjects of long and short, fat and thin. One sang a war-song, another a love-song, a third some song of the sea, whilst the fourth, an Eesa youth, with the villanous expression of face common to his tribe, gave us a rain measure, such as men chaunt ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... door is shut on him with some Parthian jeer, and, as he walks dejectedly away, the agent says—"Ah, it's a pity you offended that fellow. He's very influential in this ward, and I believe a civil word would have won him." If, on the other hand, the candidate endures the raillery and smiles a sickly smile, he really fares no better. After a prolonged battle of wits (in which he takes care not to be too successful) he discovers that the beery gentleman in shirtsleeves has no vote, and that, in the time which he has spent in these fruitless ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... against a virtuous woman, and her busy brain was already at work, mending her fences. In the interview with Donna she had expected tears and anguish. Instead she had been met with smiles and good-natured raillery; and she had an uncomfortable feeling that her fellow committeewomen were already enraged at her and preparing to turn against her. She drank her lemonade hastily and explained that their visit had been for the purpose of setting ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... a couple of well-known artists—John Leech and John Tenniel. The latter still lives (may he long live!) to delight and instruct us. Of the former, whose genial and manly "Pictures of Life and Character" are in every home where good- humoured raillery is prized and appreciated, it is scarcely necessary to speak. Who does not remember the splendid languid swells, the bright-eyed rosy girls ("with no nonsense about them!") in pork pie hats and crinolines, the superlative "Jeames's," the hairy "Mossoos," the ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... for Nan's party he brooded over his new relation to his old sweetheart with increasing pleasure. She had begun to tease him with gentle raillery about his tragic exaggeration of the treachery of her betrayal, and laughingly promised to make it all up by introducing him to a group of the richest and most beautiful girls in New York. He could take his choice under her wise guidance. She ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... more pointed; but, as I was not of the number of women, whose virtue, as it is termed, immediately takes alarm, I endeavoured, rather by raillery than serious expostulation, to give a different turn to his conversation. He assumed a new mode of attack, and I was, for a while, the dupe of his ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... girl in Axe-yard, Westminster. The plain fact is this, Davenant was of an amorous complexion, and was so unlucky as to carry the marks of his regular gallantries in the depression of his nose; this exposed him to the pleasant raillery of cotemporary wits, which very little affected him, and to shew that he was undisturbed by their merriment, he wrote a burlesque copy of verses upon himself. This accident happened pretty early in his life, since it gave occasion ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... this raillery there was something indulgent in the lady's eye which made me suppose there might be ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "Your raillery ill becomes you," said Max, half sullenly. "If I forget my rank and hold it of small account for your sake, you should not make a ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... any more than they could see the countless little ones. Even Annie and the clergyman were stone-blind: so that Klaus, speaking unintelligibly at every turn, had to bear the jokes of all; for young and old, woman and man, chimed readily in with the tone of sportive raillery, as soon ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... by his friend's raillery, proceeded to relate with much vivacity and graphic fervor the occurrences of the morning. Lorimer listened patiently with a forbearing smile on his open, ruddy countenance. When he had heard everything he looked ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... she said with raillery. Then she added, "Less unendurable than profiting by a-creeping up ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... my good Friends; but what are the Conclusions you would draw from your Raillery? Do you suppose that I am ignorant of all that a Wise Man might urge against my Conduct, my Tales, and my Language? But alas! my path was chalk'd out for me not by Choice but by Necessity. I had not the Happiness of living in ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... Lyon without any protection here?" The remark was made in a tone of good-humored raillery, but for some reason it seemed to sting ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... but gave full utterance to what I thought of it: and it was not until Charlotte had addressed herself to the two other ladies, that I remembered their presence, and observed them sitting mute with astonishment. The aunt looked at me several times with an air of raillery, which, however, I did not at ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... minute account of the torture of this prisoner is too revolting to be dwelt upon. One of the most atrocious features of the scene was the alternation of raillery and ironical compliment which attended it throughout, as well as the pains taken to preserve life and consciousness in the victim as long as possible. Portions of his flesh were afterwards ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... Rev. John Black's spirit of kindly raillery, Rev. John C. Davidson, of Hallowell, in inviting Dr. Ryerson to take part in a Camp-meeting (and after mentioning several ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... Gentleman's Magazine is full of the arguments of lesser men who took sides. The author of the Essay on Wit places himself firmly beside Shaftesbury when he remarks (p. 14) that "a Subject which will not bear Raillery, is suspicious." The controversy is reviewed in an article by A.O. Aldridge, called "Shaftesbury and the Test of Truth" ...
— Essays on Wit No. 2 • Richard Flecknoe and Joseph Warton
... libertine, and he had obscene verses at command; the esprits forts had a leaning to incredulity, and he put himself at the head of the movement, and made use of it to turn into ridicule all that men had been most accustomed to revere. Gifted with extraordinary powers of raillery and sarcasm, he faithfully reflected in his writings the graces and the vices of the brilliant and profligate society in which he lived. He kept some measure in his publications as long as he had any hope of obtaining in France a political station; but from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... everybody alike he shrugged his shoulders, and we used to wonder to each other why so great a man stayed in Belfield at all. But he did us no harm, and it is not impossible that he did us good. He laughed freely at our provincialisms, accustomed us to take raillery good-naturedly, disillusionized us in many ways, and showed us always a pattern of polished and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... Tiphaine reigned supreme in Provins, in the midst of the Guenee family, represented by Mesdames Galardon, Lessourd, Martener, and Auffray; took in, or, rather, defended Pierrette Lorrain; and overwhelmed the Rogron salon with her spirit of raillery. [Pierrette.] ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... any serious impression he felt pretty sure, felt certain of it when he reflected upon her severe occupation with her profession. Hang it, he would say to himself, she is nothing but pure intellect anyway. And he only felt uncertain of it when she was in one of her moods of raillery, with mocking mischief in her eyes. At such times she seemed to prefer Harry's society to his. When Philip was miserable about this, he always took refuge with Alice, who was never moody, and who generally laughed him out of his sentimental nonsense. He felt at his ease ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... now, it was verse—that is to say, the ballad—which set its seal on the popular incident of the moment. When the event was an unlucky one, the song was a burlesquely pathetic complaint, and always with a vein of raillery running through it. Such was the effusion with which every ruelle rang, and it was really set to music, for the notation is still to be found in the Recueil de Chansons notees, preserved at the Arsenal at Paris. It ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... is advancing, yet the sport, though loudly demanded, does not begin. The Americains grow derisive and find pastime in gibes and raillery. They mock the various Latins with their national inflections, and answer their scowls with laughter. Some of the more aggressive shout pretty French greetings to the women of Gascony, and one bargeman, amid peals of applause, stands on a seat and hurls a kiss to the quadroons. The marines ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... opening for mockery and good-natured raillery, but she did not make use of it. Instead, she let him look as deeply as he pleased into the velvety eyes when she said: "It is given to some of us to see and to understand where others have to learn slowly, letter by letter. Surely, your own gift ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... professor? Servants, though themselves be carnal, expect, when they come into the house of professors, that there they shall see religion in spangling colors; but behold, when he enters thy door, he finds sin and wickedness there. There is pride instead of humility, and height of raillery instead of meekness and holiness of mind. He looked for a house full of virtue, and behold nothing but spider-webs; fair and plausible abroad, but like the sow ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... raillery and intimidation, together with the unwavering glance and deep voice of the husband, produced a remarkable impression on the lover. He remained for a moment utterly confused, like people overcome with passion and deprived of all presence of mind ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... agitation equal to yours, or else, her decency gone, she has nothing but bad humor with which to oppose you. This is the last ditch of a woman without mind, and what a culmination! On the contrary, what are not the advantages of an intelligent, resourceful woman? A lively repartee, piquant raillery, a quarrel seasoned with a trifle of malice, a happy citation, a graceful recitation, are not these so many distractions for her, and the time thus employed, is it not so ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... 1848. The press of Paris noticed my departure only with raillery. When a man of letters has no party, no followers, at his back, when he takes his way alone and independently, the least that can be expected is that the world should give itself the pleasure of insulting him a little on his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... could not have furnished speech more truly mortifying to Cecilia than this thoughtless and accidental sally of Lady Honoria's: particularly, however, upon her guard, from the raillery she had already endured, she answered, with apparent indifference, "he is ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... anything, save water and grass for their horses. So rigid were his orders, and the obedience he exacted in this respect, that a Frankish soldier having taken, without the consent of the owner, some hay, which belonged to a poor man, saying in raillery "that it was but grass," he caused the aggressor to be put to death, exclaiming that "Victory could not be expected, if St. Martin ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... in his Memoires d'outretombe, so full of sadness and bitterness, was to speak of the coronation in a tone of scepticism verging on raillery, celebrated at the accession of Charles, in almost epic language, the merits of this traditional solemnity without which a "Very Christian King" was not yet completely King. In his pamphlet, Le roi est mort! Vive le roi! he conjured the new monarch to give to ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... genially, "there is no great harm done. Don't you suppose I know what people say of me? You were only repeating the 'general report,' you know." And then he added seriously, as he saw my confusion was but increased by his raillery: ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... shouting out a good-natured word or so of farewell. Bennington, recovering from his daze at the rapid passage of these events, stepped forward to where Fay and the girl had resumed their discussion. He saw that the young miner had recovered his habitual tone of raillery, and that the girl was now looking up at him with eyes ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... talking a change had come over him. His voice had lost its note of gentle raillery, his lips had straightened into hard lines, his eyes were glowing with the light she had seen in them more than once—the cold glitter ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... to be long behind-hand in returning it, and that very often with interest. If we were the aggressors in this way, some ironical observation respecting the Kabloonas was frequently the consequence; and no small portion of wit as well as irony was at times mixed with their raillery. ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... Brentford; don't be a fool and cry; you make a much taller and handsomer viscount than ever I could." But the fond boy, with oaths and protestations, laughter and incoherent outbreaks of passionate emotion, could not be got, for some little time, to put up with Esmond's raillery; wanted to kneel down to him, and kissed his hand; asked him and implored him to order something, to bid Castlewood give his own life or take somebody else's; anything, so that he might show his gratitude for the generosity ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... tear or two which would have way, she little imagined what agony her husband was enduring from this letter, which she was supposing must make his heart overflow with pleasure. The letter was half full of reply to Edward's account of Margaret, in his epistle of last June—of raillery about her, of intreaty that Edward would give him such a sister-in-law, and of intimations that nothing could be more apparent than that the whole rich treasure of his heart's love was Margaret's own. Hope's soul sickened as he read, with that deadly sickness ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... nature and extent of the excisions to which the bulk of the correspondence was subjected. The result was a curious obscuration of some of Arnold's most characteristic traits—such, for example, as his over-flowing gaiety, and his love of what our fathers called Raillery. And, in even more important respects than these, an erroneous impression was created by the suppression of what was thought too personal for publication. Thus I remember to have read, in some one's criticism of the Letters, that ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... was certainly hard hit. He made a pretence of devoting himself to his studies to keep away from Gaynor's raillery. But one day he said ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... of becoming a subject of raillery for coxcombs, and losing my money to boot, stung me to the quick; but I made a virtue of my indignation, and swore that no man should with impunity either asperse the character of Melinda, or turn my behaviour into ridicule. He replied in a dry manner, that I would find it a Herculean task to ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... was so distressed by this gentle raillery that the girl begged pardon and vowed that she would never again offend. It so happened that they were sitting together in Parson Throckmorton's garden a day or so after this when a friend came running in with tidings the most unexpected and incredible. A negro slave ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... that "one of your niggers" was waiting outside for an audience. "I very much regret, Mr. Page," came the answer, "that you should insist on spelling 'Negro' with two 'g's'." Despite the mock solemnity of this rebuke, perennial good-nature and raillery prevailed between the son of Garrison and his disrespectful but ever sympathetic Southern friend. Indeed, one of Page's earliest performances was to introduce a spirit of laughter and genial cooeperation into a rather solemn and self-satisfied environment. Mr. Mifflin, the head ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... silence followed the girl's words—a moment in which she was sure a hard, hostile gleam leaped into the man's eyes. A trick of fancy doubtless, she thought, for the next instant it had vanished. When he spoke, his air of light raillery was gone, but his lips smiled—a smile that seemed to ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... the sentiment is distinctly Protestant. Rabelais was much struck by the vices of the clergy and did not spare them. Whether we are unable to forgive his criticisms because they were conceived in a spirit of raillery, or whether, on the other hand, we feel admiration for him on this point, yet Rabelais was not in the least a sectary. If he strongly desired a moral reform, indirectly pointing out the need of it in his mocking fashion, he was not favourable to a political reform. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... pleased with our inn at Bristol. 'Let us see now, (said I,) how we should describe it.' Johnson was ready with his raillery. 'Describe it, Sir?—Why, it was so bad that Boswell wished ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... so far-fetched and so extravagant in the idea of danger to liberty from the militia, that one is at a loss whether to treat it with gravity or with raillery; whether to consider it as a mere trial of skill, like the paradoxes of rhetoricians; as a disingenuous artifice to instil prejudices at any price; or as the serious offspring of political fanaticism. ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... table, when it happened that they made themselves merry over the peculiarities and simplicity of the Swiss in connection with the belief in mesmerism, Lavater's physiognomical system and the like. One of my companions, whose national pride was touched by their raillery, begged me to make some reply, particularly in answer to a young man of superior appearance who sat opposite, and had indulged ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... tone of raillery, "what can one be waiting for when one is twenty, when there are stars in the sky and songs in ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... he thought about her; she had neither force of conception, nor the art of pathos, but—without knowing the French language—she had style. Like him, she took her glory in raillery, and had a profound contempt for the public, which she called Jumento. Defending her past life, he says: "All the follies that she has committed are titles to fame in the eyes of great and noble souls. She was duped by Madame Dorval, Bocage, ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... piece of raillery sent a fiery tingle into Tansey's blood, for the indictment was true—barring the kiss. That was a thing to dream of; to wildly hope for; but too remote and sacred a thing to ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... The last night's raillery of his companions was recalled to his remembrance when he awoke, and the colder homilies of prudence began to suggest some things which were nowise favourable for a performance of his promise to the unfortunate female he had met with before. He rose, ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... doing literary drudgery for the bookseller. His own genius would probably have directed him to the ambitious labours of an epic poem; but for this the age afforded little encouragement. "Gondibert," the style of which, Dryden certainly both admired and copied, became a martyr to the raillery of the critics; and to fill up the measure of shame, the "Paradise Lost" fell still-born from the press. This last instance of bad taste had not, it is true, yet taken place; but the men who were guilty of it, were then ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... has occasion himself to rally their foibles in his poems, he does so openly, and does it with such an implied sympathy and avowal of kindred weakness in himself, that offence was impossible. Above all, he possessed in perfection what Mr Disraeli happily calls "the rare gift of raillery, which flatters the self-love of those whom it seems not to spare." These characteristics are admirably indicated by Persius (I. 116) in ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... messe!" A tall man elbowed his way through the crowd, and in letters half an inch high, wrote his name, 'Chicot.' Then, turning to La Huriere, he asked if he had not another register to sign. La Huriere did not understand raillery, and answered angrily. Chicot retorted, and a quarrel seemed approaching, when Chicot, feeling some one touch his arm, turned, and saw the king disguised as a simple bourgeois, and accompanied by Quelus and Maugiron, also disguised, and carrying an arquebuse ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... said I, jokingly, notwithstanding that I felt as melancholy and little inclined for raillery as their mother, whose words seemed to clinch what old Shuffler had said. "So I would, too, if there weren't a pair of you, and bigamy contrary to law. 'How happy could I be with either, were t'other dear ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... of night After the fierce day's irritant excess; Besides, a deep absorbing interest Detains me here, fills up my mind, and sways My inmost thoughts—has got, as 'twere a gripe Upon my very life, as strange as new. I scarcely know how well to speak of this, Fearing your raillery at best—at worst Even your contempt; yet, spite of ...
— A Roman Lawyer in Jerusalem - First Century • W. W. Story
... amused at this raillery. He began to walk forward by her side as she moved away from the spot, now addressing her, now listening to her words, in a desire to stretch the last minute to the uttermost. Her head came just even with his shoulder, ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... old Batchelor as Sir Peter was[,] having taken a young wife from out of the Country—as Lady Teazle is—are certainly fair subjects for a little mischievous raillery— but here are two young men—to whom Sir Peter has acted as a kind of Guardian since their Father's death, the eldest possessing the most amiable Character and universally well spoken of[,] the youngest the most dissipated and extravagant young Fellow in ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... looked down on him; those highest up, where only the sound of his voice could be heard, were eager, and tear-stained. Of those nearest him, some were astonished, some enthusiastic, some doubtful. The tears were pouring down Noemi's pale face also. The students had put off their air of raillery. When Benedetto ceased, one of them came forward to speak, resolute and serious. At the same moment the old ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... which put everybody in good spirits. His lightheartedness was caught by all. Melancholy was a farce in the presence of his smile; and there was no possible combination of scrapes that could withstand his kind and brilliant raillery. At the present moment, Ferdinand was in a sufficiently good humour with his destiny, and he kept up the ball with effect; so that nearly an ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... his eminent administrative abilities. By temper and conviction opposed to persecution, he connived at Catholic worship under the very walls of the Castle. The sour and jaundiced bigotry of the local oligarchy he encountered with bon mots and raillery. The only "dangerous Papist" he had seen in Ireland, he declared to the King on his return, was a celebrated beauty of that religion—Miss Palmer. Relying on the magical effect of doing justice to all classes, and seeing justice done, he was enabled to spare four ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... of the mental powers; and it is therefore the more perfect, the more unreservedly it goes to work, and the more lively the appearance there is of purposeless fun and unrestrained caprice. Wit and raillery may be employed in a sportive manner, but they are also both of them compatible with the severest earnestness, as is proved by the example of the later Roman satires and the ancient Iambic poetry of ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... inimitable as his use of passion and logic, and on one occasion he treated Gouverneur Morris, who was his opposing counsel, to such a prolonged attack of raillery that his momentary rival sat with the perspiration pouring from his brow, and was acid for some time after. During his earlier years of practice, while listening to Chancellor Livingston summing up a case in which eloquence was made to disguise the poverty ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... He twirled his moustache, his voice had lost its suavity and had taken on an accent of almost contemptuous raillery. He even winked at his two brother officers, he was beginning to play with Faversham. "I read the letter to illustrate how strange, how very strange, are your English girls. Here is one of them ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... he gave them about their close dealings with the Indians was much enjoyed. Soon all were on the best of terms, and it was a mutual pleasure, in that lonely place, to meet and interchange the news of the country, as well as to have the flashings of wit and fun and pleasant raillery. ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... allies; not the less so that they did not agree as to many of their avocations. Tudor, at his friend's solicitation, had occasionally attempted to pull an oar from Searle's slip to Battersea bridge. But his failure in this line was so complete, and he had to encounter so much of Norman's raillery, which was endurable, and of his instruction, which was unendurable, that he very soon gave up the pursuit. He was not more successful with a racket; and keeping a horse was of course out ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... schoolmaster!" shouted a voice from behind; "move on, and make way for Father Neptune!" Whereon a whole storm of raillery ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... dozen times she had stopped the proposal on the lover's lips. And not from coquetry either. Loth and reluctant she clung to her independence. A rival might have warmed her to a more coming-on mood, but there was no rival. When by silence or raillery she had shut off the avowal she was relieved and yet half despised him for permitting her to take the lead. Why had he not forced her to listen? Why had he not seized her and even if she struggled, held her and ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... grinned in thorough enjoyment of this raillery. "I'll say nothing at all of my seamanship," he said, relapsing into the faintest of brogues, "but there's no denying that the master of a ship has many unpleasant and disgusting duties to perform. He has to amuse the prominent passengers ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... Lincoln was a candidate for the Legislature, it was the practice at that date in Illinois for two rival candidates to travel over the district together. The custom led to much good-natured raillery between them; and in such contests Lincoln was rarely, if ever, worsted. He could even turn the generosity of a rival to account by his ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... each recipient. What merriment and comparing of notes! What pleased feigning of indignation! The girls determined to reward him with a Rowland for his Oliver, and Charlotte wrote some rhymes full of fun and raillery which all the girls signed—Emily entering into all this with much spirit and amusement—and finally despatched in mystery ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... disease, as became the sport of the whole town: he would have no servants but huge massy fellows, no plate or household stuff but thrice as big as the fashion; you may believe me, for I speak it without raillery, his extravagancy came at last into such a madness that he would not put on a pair of shoes each of which was not big enough for both his feet; he would eat nothing but what was great, nor touch any fruit but horse-plums and pound-pears. He kept a ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... ridicule, derision; sardonic smile, sardonic grin; irrision[obs3]; scoffing &c. (disrespect) 929; mockery, quiz|!, banter, irony, persiflage, raillery, chaff, badinage; quizzing &c. v.; asteism[obs3]. squib, satire, skit, quip, quib[obs3], grin. parody, burlesque, travesty, travestie[obs3]; farce &c. (drama) 599; caricature. buffoonery &c. (fun) 840; practical joke; horseplay. scorn, contempt &c. 930. V. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... photographed by me, but feebly indicated: for it was just four hundred years ago, the raillery was coarse, she returned every stroke in kind, and though a virtuous woman, said things without winking, which no decent man of our day would say even ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... ran through her head. Surely it couldn't be——? But nothing we think of very much seems always impossible. It might be! Her air of raillery dropped from her. She sat down, blushing and ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope |
