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Jovial   Listen
adjective
jovial  adj.  
1.
(capitalized) Of or pertaining to the god, or the planet, Jupiter. (Obs.) "Our jovial star reigned at his birth." "The fixed stars astrologically differenced by the planets, and esteemed Martial or Jovial according to the colors whereby they answer these planets."
2.
Sunny; serene. (Obs.) "The heavens always joviall."
3.
Gay; merry; joyous; jolly; mirth-inspiring; hilarious; characterized by mirth or jollity; as, a jovial youth; a jovial company; a jovial poem. "Be bright and jovial among your guests." "His odes are some of them panegyrical, others moral; the rest are jovial or bacchanalian." Note: This word is a relic of the belief in planetary influence. Other examples are saturnine, mercurial, martial, lunatic, etc.
Synonyms: Merry; joyous; gay; festive; mirthful; gleeful; jolly; hilarious.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Jovial" Quotes from Famous Books



... a jovial one; and although they were all hungry, and plied their ladles with right good will, yet, dip in as often as they would, the four magic kettles held out, and had plenty to the end of ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews

... as children get together in ever so little compass, I saw a dozen fierce men come down, on the other side of the water, not bearing any fire-arms, but looking lax and jovial, as if they were come from riding and a dinner taken hungrily. "Queen, queen!" they were shouting, here and there, and now and then: "where the pest is our little ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... a rousing Salvation meeting. The Officer in charge of the Depot, assisted by detachments from the Training Homes, conducts a jovial free-and-easy social evening. The girls have their banjos and their tambourines, and for a couple of hours you have as lively a meeting as you will find in London. There is prayer, short and to the point; there are addresses, some delivered ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... always a mixture of grief and sadness in the inward retired closet of the heart. It is of such deadness and inefficacy that it drives not out of the heart all discontentments and anxieties, but if the most jovial man, that seems to be transported with his delights would but retire within and examine his own conscience, he would find those delights have but little power to affect his heart. He would find terrible and dreadful representations there, that his joys may well ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... was the manner of the South and West. There is a broad difference of character between the peoples of East and West Scotland. The East throws a narrower and a nippier breed. In the West they take Burns for their exemplar, and affect the jovial and robustious—in some cases it is affectation only, and a mighty poor one at that. They claim to be bigger men and bigger fools than the Eastern billies. And the Eastern billies are very willing to yield one half ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... to sully the character of a most honourable man." The report moreover read a sharp lesson to the promoters of the accusation against him. It declared that "If every effervescence of feeling upon every jovial or innocent occasion is, in these Provinces, to be magnified into crime by the testimony of secret informers—if there can longer exist a political inquisition which shall scan the motives of every faithful servant of the public—if the authorities in Canada shall humble the independence of ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... arm; when she opposes his wishes as to Blifil, he will turn her into the street with no more than a smock, and give his estate to the "zinking Fund." Throughout the book he is qualis ab incepto,—boisterous, brutal, jovial, and inimitable; so that when finally in "Chapter the Last," we get that pretty picture of him in Sophy's nursery, protesting that the tattling of his little granddaughter is "sweeter Music than the finest Cry ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson

... market had commenced at a late hour, as it does now, but owing to the necessity of being late home, or the felt want of a jovial gathering at the market ordinary in times when the farmer himself worked and needed one day's relaxation, the fiat for change went forth on the 23rd October, 1782, and the hour was changed from 3 p.m. to 11 a.m.—an arrangement made possibly with a view to the pleasures of the market ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston

... was very quiet; not at all the jovial young man of the picnic properly following the boarding-house-district rule that males should be jocular and show their appreciation of the ladies by "kidding them." And he spoke with a quiet graciousness that was almost courtly, with a ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis

... borrowed for birthday presents, which means that I saw Mrs. H. E. Huntington's Vermeer, as well as the supreme Marquand example of that master; more than the regular wealth of Rembrandts, Manet's "Still Life," Gauguin's "Women by the River," El Greco's "View of Toledo," Franz Hals' big jovial Dutchman from Mr. Harry Goldman's walls, and Bellini's "Bacchanale"—to say nothing of the lace in galleries 18 and 19, Mr. Morgan's bronze Eros from Pompeii, and the various cases of porcelain ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas

... Kaskaskia and a little later Captain Leonard Helm, a jovial man, but past the prime of life, arrived at Vincennes with a commission from Col. Clark authorizing him to supersede M. Roussillon as commander, and to act as Indian agent for the American Government in the Department ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... the superiority of Life in London over every pleasure the country could afford. After copious libations to Bacchus, whose influence at length effected what oratory had in vain essayed, and silenced these contending and jarring elements, "grey-eyed Morn" peeped intrusively amid the jovial crew, and Somnus, (with the cart before the horse) stepping softly on tip-toe after his companion, led, if not by, at least accompanied with, the music of the nose, each ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... on right under the fence on the side farthest from the house, and close by where old Sam was contentedly digging, in perfect unconsciousness that the three great children were off to the bush for a jovial day, hunting for fat grubs, honey, snakes, and other picnic delicacies in ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn

... into the riot more, while pretending to try to get out, invading the Judge's back, and rubbing their clean wool into his whiskers, and the two neat servants, brought up like white children in his family, were not unaccustomed to either jovial handling or petting from their master, which he commonly concluded by a ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... Jovial Bill Witt had proved such a capital good fellow that Jack and Ted had taken a great liking to him. The three boys were great pals by this time and were always together in their leisure moments. Temperamental Jean Cartier, the smiling little Frenchman who had ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll

... face, nor a body without any offensive scent, nor the just proportion of limbs, can make a handsome man. I am, as to the rest, strong and well knit; my face is not puffed, but full, and my complexion betwixt jovial and ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... an epitome of the work. It is really a marvel of contrapuntal ingenuity, yet it is so full of bewitching melody and healthy animal spirits that an uncultivated hearer would probably think it nothing but an ordinary jovial finale. In the last act Verdi strikes a deeper note. He has caught the charm and mystery of the sleeping forest with exquisite art. There is an unearthly beauty about this scene, which is new to ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... United States Navy, Midshipman?" came the jovial question from a bronzed, broad-shouldered, bearded man of fifty who appeared at the quarter rail, offering Eph a hand ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham

... platters of venison and wild fowl, and he almost broke into geniality. "Here, Gillespie, to my right," he called, motioning me to the edge of the bench at his elbow. "Here, Grant, opposite Gillespie! Aye! an' is that you, Father Holland?" he cried to the stout, jovial priest, with shining brow and cheeks wrinkling in laughter, who followed Grant. "There's a place o' honor for men like you, Sir. Here!" and he gave the ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... Lord Byron, he found him more than ever preoccupied with his approaching departure for Continental Greece, and engrossed with a multitude of various occupations and visits. Byron, nevertheless, received him most graciously, and maintained that jovial humor which was one of his characteristics in conversation. Byron had reflected a good deal since his last interview with the doctor, but the direction which his thoughts had taken was not precisely that which the doctor ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... would be at right angles to Saturn. We shall probably, in spite of ourselves, swing a few degrees beyond the line, and so can get a bird's-eye view of some portion of the southern hemisphere." "All aboard for Saturn!" cried Bearwarden enthusiastically, in his jovial way. ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... load of skins and horns, got away early, in charge of Jan, the Hottentot driver, and then we all sat down to breakfast, as merry and jovial a party, probably, as any in South Africa that day, much of our amusement arising from the fact that my mother and Nell were continually thinking of some fresh commission which I was to be sure to execute ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... battle was displayed. She cackled in impotent anger. He bellowed with gratification. Not a fowl in the yard saw the joke, and all the little chicks in adjacent coops strained their necks to watch the battle and their voices in shrill comments. Having made not the slightest impression on the jovial little bull, "Scotty" retired, feinting and scolding, while he, still blue mouldy for a game, coaxed her by unmistakable gesticulation to one round more. Twice during the night "Scotty" dispelled the silences with loud exclamations of wrath and defiance. She was fighting her battle again in her ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... the soft grass—the green of which was absolutely delicious to the eyes after the long walk over the glaring ice—the jovial Professor, with a sandwich in one hand and a flask of vin ordinaire in the other, descanted on the world of ice. He had a willing audience, for they were all too busy with food to use their tongues in speech, except in making an ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... Rome. In all planets, if you could look into them, doubt not (oh, reader of ours!) that something exists answering to Greece and Rome. Odd it would be—curioes! as the Germans say—if in Jupiter—or Venus—those precedents should exist under the same names of Greece and Rome. Yet, why not? Jovial—and Venereal—people may be better in some things than our people (which, however, we doubt), but certainly a better language than the Greek man cannot have invented in either planet. Falling back from cases so low and so lofty (Venus an inferior, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... with snatches of jovial remonstrance, made itself heard from the bottom of the ladder. A voice called up through the hatch, "Here's your uncle, Squahre Jack," and a ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... about that sedate man, that this attempt at jovial good humour seemed harsh and grating—the hinges of that wily mouth wanted oil ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... clumsy, awkward, loose-jointed, and a bad shot. Nevertheless Henri was an immense favourite in the settlement, for his good-humour knew no bounds. No one ever saw him frown. Even when fighting with the savages, as he was sometimes compelled to do in self-defence, he went at them with a sort of jovial rage that was almost laughable. Inconsiderate recklessness was one of his chief characteristics, so that his comrades were rather afraid of him on the war-trail or in the hunt, where caution and frequently soundless ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... Vaughan was Lord Carlisle, who seems to have liked Morgan, in spite of his jovial "goings on" with his old buccaneer friends in the taverns of Port Royal, and in some of his letters speaks of Morgan's "generous manner," and hints that whatever allowances are made to him "he ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse

... went to get in a mysterious fashion at the post-office, and which, on his entrance, were hidden away under the sofa cushions. He regulated everything just as he liked, always charming, always good-natured, a jovial and all-powerful tyrant. ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... he has never set eyes on her; and, for that matter, the Lady Irene was handsome enough in all conscience, and a jovial young gentlewoman to boot. Ye gods! do you mind how she sighed for him and pursued him? It was a sight to please the goddess Aphrodite herself. But then, our good Asander, who had only to lift up his little finger, was so cold and positively forbidding, that I once came upon the ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris

... carriage—"Alone, unfriended, solitary, slow," I had made my way painfully, shifting from horse to cart, and sometimes compelled by the narrowness of a path to descend to a wheelbarrow. How I longed for the advent of the iron horse. Now I have with me a jovial company; and we may enjoy the mental stimulus of an uninterrupted session of the Oriental Society, while making more distance in an hour than I then ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin

... foam; O'er the Danish moorlands, From thy frozen home. Tired we are of summer, Tired of gaudy glare, Showers soft and steaming, Hot and breathless air. Tired of listless dreaming Through the lazy day: Jovial wind of winter Turns us out to play! Sweep the golden reed-beds; Crisp the lazy dyke; Hunger into madness Every plunging pike. Fill the lake with wild-fowl; Fill the marsh with snipe; While on dreary moorlands Lonely curlew pipe. Through the black fir-forest Thunder harsh and dry, ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... any more to sew for—" began the seamstress despairingly, but Miss Abigail would not listen, bundling her out of the garden gate and sending her trotting home, cheered unreasonably by the old woman's jovial blustering, "No such kind of talk allowed in ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... will see to me," he thought, and gave a timid rap with the great bronze knocker, which was a jovial griffin's head. ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... powerful man, of that rugged build and hairy aspect that might have suggested the idea that he would be difficult to kill. He was a fair man, with red hair, and a deeply sun-burned face, on which jovial good humor sat almost perpetually enthroned. At the moment when we introduce him to the reader, however, that expression happened to be modified in consequence of his having laid him down to sleep in a sprawling manner on his back—the place as well as the position being, apparently, ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne

... waxing greatness spanned, When the good Genius, frolicsome and gay, Was soothed at festivals with cups by day, Change spread to scenic measures: breadth, and ease, And freedom unrestrained were found in these: For what (said men) should jovial rustic, placed At random 'mid his ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... every man had dismounted, and the valley was ringing with the merriment of the jovial crew. The negroes led the horses down the stream, lightened them of saddle and bridle, and left them tethered to saplings beneath which the grass grew long and green. The rangers gathered fallen wood, and kindled two mighty ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... of the Parliamentary Army at Lostwithiel, on August 31, 1644, when Essex embarked the foot at Fowey and escaped by sea, and Sir William Balfour broke away with the horse. In describing it, Clarendon says that 'the notice and orders came to Goring when he was in one of his jovial exercises; which he received with mirth, and slighting those who sent them, as men who took alarms too warmly; and he continued his delights till all the enemy's horse were passed through his quarters, nor did then pursue them in any time' (vol. ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

... after reading the above George Douglas sat wrapped in thought, then bursting into a laugh as he thought how much the letter was like the jovial, light-hearted fellow who wrote it, he put it aside, and leaning back in his chair mused long and silently, not of Theo, but of Maggie, half wishing he were in Warner's place instead of being there in the dusty city. But as this could not be, he contented himself with thinking ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... minstrelsy, got up by some of the sailors. The gravity of the saturnine Hayashi was not proof against the grotesque exhibition, and even he joined in the general hilarity. It was now sunset and the Japanese prepared to depart, with quite as much wine in them as they could well bear. The jovial Matsusaki threw his arms about the Commodore's neck, crushing in his tipsy embrace a pair of new epaulettes, and repeating, in Japanese, with maudlin affection, these words, as interpreted into English: "Nippon and America, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne

... were seized and guarded. When the booty had been secured the prisoners were suffered to depart on foot; but their horses, sixteen or eighteen in number, were shot or hamstringed, to prevent pursuit. [331] The Portsmouth mail was robbed twice in one week by men well armed and mounted. [332] Some jovial Essex squires, while riding after a hare, were themselves chased and run down by nine hunters of a different sort, and were heartily glad to find themselves at home again, though with empty ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... man of pleasure like De Grammont. The court, the city, the country, were in his days gloomy, discontented, joyless: a proscribed nobility was the sure cause of the thin though few festivities of the now lugubrious gallery of Whitehall. Puritanism drove the old jovial churchmen into retreat, and dispelled every lingering vestige of ancient hospitality: long graces and long sermons, sanctimonious manners, and grim, sad faces, and sad-coloured dresses were not much to De Grammont's ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... bit low in his mind, the Candy Man's mood became positively jovial. When the sad grey man known to the children as the Miser, and invested with mysterious and awful powers, stopped to buy some hoarhound drops, he wished him a cheery ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard

... the comfortable home, at the big jovial doctor, and his charming little wife, and thought how delightful it would be to have a few days' rest. And his head was aching, and he was very stiff. Then he looked at the Supervisor, quiet and unflinching in anything that was to be done, working with him and helping him despite ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... frequenting. He probably finds some peculiar attractions there, but of this I know nothing. It happened a few days ago that he there met assembled together a party of civil and military officers in the service of the government, old acquaintances and jovial comrades of his own. Surprise and pleasure were expressed on all sides at this meeting. Their former good-fellowship was re-established; and after each in turn had related his own history up to the present time, Biondello was called upon ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... carried into effect without considerable difficulty. Mr. Harris, the manager, ordered a night rehearsal of the play, so that the author might judge of the success of the effects introduced. The spectre was to be personated by one Thompson, a portly jovial actor, whose views as to the treatment of the supernatural upon the stage were of a very primitive kind. He appeared upon the scene clad in the conventional solid armour of the theatre, with over all a gray gauze veil, as stiff as buckram, thrown about him. ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... orders of people sometimes resort for their cup of tea or of seau-tchoo (a kind of ardent spirit distilled from a mixture of rice and other grain) but such houses are seldom, if at all, frequented for the sake of company. They are no incitement, as those are of a similar kind in Europe, to jovial pleasures or to vulgar ebriety. From this odious vice the bulk of the people are entirely free. Among the multitudes which we daily saw, in passing from one extremity of the country to the other, I do not recollect having ever met with a single instance of a man being disguised ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... us away with a stick," said Irene. This was the way things should go. Also, the jovial, fat person with the roving eyes might ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton

... admired Kenwitz. Kenwitz was pale, curly-haired, intense, serious, mathematical, studious, altruistic, socialistic, and the natural foe of oligarchies. Kenwitz had foregone college, and was learning watch-making in his father's jewelry store. Dan was smiling, jovial, easy-tempered and tolerant alike of kings and ragpickers. The two foregathered joyously, being opposites. And then Dan went back to college, and Kenwitz to his mainsprings—and to his private library in the rear ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry

... accomplishments, his gay and jovial temper rendered him the life of the table. There was no resisting his droll faces, his droll stories, his jokes, his tricks, or his laugh—the most contagious cachination that ever was heard. Nothing in the shape of fun came amiss ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various

... plain to see that down our way everybody's work eased up between 3.30 and 5. Then everyone visited about, exchanged newspapers, gossiped over counters. We changed stewards at three. Kelly, the easy-going, jovial (except at times) Irishman, took himself off, and a narrow-shouldered, small, pernickety German Jew came on for the rest of my time. When we closed up at nine he went to some other part of the ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker

... "the chap was that smooth-spoken you might think he was after swallyin' a one of his own graisy dipts, on'y he'd liefer be chaitin' some poor body over the sellin' of it"—a perhaps not inexcusable preference. As for Peter, he contemplated humanity with a jovial cynicism, and rather enjoyed the society of the old blacksmith, despite the gruff sarcasms which sometimes made their womenkind turn the conversation apprehensively. He had been heard to say of Felix that ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane

... only like him better than Henry, Calvin, and the Church of Rome, who were bloody persecutors. Calvin was an execrable villain, and the worst of all; for he copied those whom he pretended to correct. Luther was as jovial as Wilkes, and served the cause of liberty without ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... voices of a party of revellers coming along, and I recognised among them that of my captain, who seemed to be in an especially jovial mood. ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... flashed upon a world glittering with dewy freshness. Sweet odours from the aromatic bush filled the air, and every living creature made what noise it could, to show its joy in being happy and free in the beautiful Bush. Rich and gurgling came the note of the magpies, the jovial kookooburras saluted the sun with rollicking laughter, the crickets chirruped, frogs croaked in chorus, or solemnly "popped" in deep vibrating tones, like the ring of a woodman's axe. Every now and then came the shriek of the plover, or the shrill cry of the peeweet; and gayer and more ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley

... was tall like his son, but here the resemblance ceased, for while Ballard the younger was round of visage and jovial, the banker was thin of face and repressive. He had a long, accipitrine nose which imbedded itself in his bristling white mustache, and he spoke in crisp staccato notes as though each intonation and breath were carefully measured by their monetary value. He paid out to me in cash ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... there, their shyness thawed; they became expansively merry, and singing, dancing, and sports were soon the order of the day. The countess, after looking at them and identifying them all, went back into the sitting-room, leaving her husband, whose jovial face encouraged them ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... of prosperity was to have its ebb. The jovial placeman was to feel the uncertainties of office; and on Lord North's resignation in 1782, and the celebrated Edmund Burke's appointment to the paymastership, Rigby found himself suddenly called on for a considerable arrear. It had been ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... and salt, their miserable-looking faces lit by the dim light of a rush-candle into the ghastly paleness of spectres. Again, he could catch glimpses of greater happiness; and if, on the one hand, the symptoms of poverty and distress were visible, on the other there was the jovial comfort of the wealthy farmer's house, with the loud laughter of its contented inmates. Nor must we omit the songs which streamed across the fields, in the calm stillness of the hour, intimating that they who sang them were in possession, ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... shaded Bosphorus coast, to Foundoucli and beyond, some peeping yali, snow-white palace, or old Armenian cot; and the Seraglio by the sea, a town within a town; and southward the Sea of Marmora, blue-and-white, and vast, and fresh as a sea just born, rejoicing at its birth and at the jovial sun, all brisk, alert, to the shadowy islands afar: and as I looked, I suddenly said aloud a wild, mad thing, my God, a wild and maniac thing, a shrieking maniac thing for Hell to laugh at: for something said with my tongue: 'This city ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel

... His jovial purple cheeks bristled with white hairs; and like Virgil's Silenus, who, his face smeared with the juice of berries, discoursed of Olympian Gods to the innocent shepherds of Sicily, he talked to Stevie of domestic matters and the affairs of men whose sufferings ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... was laid in the large barn, but it was kept waiting owing to the absence of the bridegroom. Father Phil, the kindly, jovial parish priest, who had come to help James and Matty "tie with their tongues the knot they couldn't undo with their teeth," had not broken his fast that day, and wanted the feast to go on. To the great surprise of the company, Matty backed him, and full of life and spirits, began ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various

... "The jovial rhymes, that still remain, Writ near a century ago, By the great Major Molineaux, Whom Hawthorne ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... lord was he, To grasp more than his folks could give; But, mild howe'er a king may be, His majesty, you know, must live; And no man e'er a bumper filled, Until the jovial prince had swilled His share! Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho! ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various

... on in Great Ormond Street was of a jovial, and sometimes uproarious, description. Even when the family was by itself, the school-room and the drawing-room were full of young people; and friends and cousins flocked in numbers to a resort where so much merriment was perpetually on foot. There were seasons during the ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... a call in the afternoon from our friends of the "Marquette" with another mail bag. I had one letter and an Aberdeen "Evening Express". Whyte and I returned with them and all had a very jovial dinner together. The latest news from H.Q. on the Cunarder "Andania" is that we are not to lose our post of honour after all. It was after nine when we started for our own ship and had a pleasant and noisy trip. We were challenged by "Lizzie" under whose stern we passed, ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson

... inanimate shape such as a prodigious wineglass which fixes the eye and excites the fancy. A mass of rock on which can be seen half sitting, half reclining, a monstrous stony shape with head hideously jovial, has ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... They would clasp hands, solemnly and silently, outside the door. The newcomer would question with his eyes, and the other would shake his head. And more than once Frederick noted the moisture in their eyes. Then the newcomer would enter and draw his chair up to Tom's, and with jovial voice proceed to plan the outfitting for the exploration of the upper Kuskokeem; for it was there Tom was bound in the spring. Dogs could be had at Larabee's—a clean breed, too, with no taint of the soft Southland strains. It was rough country, it was reported, but if sour-doughs ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London

... rule that every Sunday afternoon all the brethren should assemble in the Cloister at tea, and spend the hour until Vespers in jovial intercourse. He did not actually specify that the intercourse was to be jovial, but he look care by judicious teazing to see that it was jovial. In his anxiety to bring his farm into cultivation, Brother George was apt to make any monastic duty give way ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... almost yawn in their faces, are here of course. Besides these, by way of novelty, we fall in with the grave, much-bearded, long-faced bust, Epicurus underwritten on the pedestal. If it be that sage, then has not his face any vestige of the jovial "live while you live" expression which we might have expected, were he true to his own philosophy; but, on the contrary, a dignified Melancthon sadness, as if, like Solomon, he had had enough of pleasure, and had found ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... Rufus sat in the porch, blinking away positive sleep, with his pathetic face towards the road down which Master Swift must come. Unnecessarily pathetic, for there was every reason for his being the most jovial of dogs, and not one for that imposing melancholy which he wore. His large level eyelids shaded the pupils even when he was broad awake; an intellectual forehead, and a very long Vandykish nose, with the curly ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... he opened it, and put out his head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring cold; cold, piping for the blood to dance to; golden sunlight; heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... smoking a good cigar, he found a new interest in the letters and documents left there for his consideration. After all, life was a game. Even the early red men had their sport. Modern routine work without diversion was a treadmill, prisonlike existence. Delbridge was the happy medium. The jovial speculator had never heard of such a fine-spun thing as a conscience. What if Irene and Buckton were having their fun; could he not also enjoy himself? If the worst came, surely a man of the world, a stoical thoroughbred, who was willing to give and take ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben

... I have never before troubled you with a request. The saints whose ears I chiefly worry with my pleas are the most exquisite and maternal Brigid, Gallant Saint Stephen, who puts fire in my blood, And your brother bishop, my patron, The generous and jovial Saint Nicholas of Bari. But, of your courtesy, Monsignore, Do me this favour: When you this morning make your way To the Ivory Throne that bursts into bloom with roses because of her who sits upon it, When you come to pay your ...
— Main Street and Other Poems • Alfred Joyce Kilmer

... with a great sorrow in his eyes, and an air of weariness, almost of defeat. Then look at the magnificent Mr. Handel in Hudson's portrait: fashionably dressed in a great periwig and gorgeous scarlet coat, victorious, energetic, self-possessed, self-confident, self-satisfied, jovial, and proud as Beelzebub (to use his own comparison)—too proud to ask for recognition were homage refused. This portrait helps us to understand the ascendency Handel gained over ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman

... little beach they estimated that their progress had been more than that of a pack-train in a good day's travel. That night they had for supper some fresh grouse, or "fool-hens," which fell to Jesse's rifle out of a covey which perched in the bushes not far from their camp-site. They passed a very jovial night in this camp, well content alike with their advance and with the prospects which now they felt lay ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough

... at the jail. At the time referred to, that place would seem to have been as jovial and sociable as a club-room. The present marshal, not liking the arrangements, removed all the Federal prisoners to the Tombs, where they could be kept more securely and excluded from seeing improper visitors. The men who were engaged in the slave-trade ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Ladoucette and Roger. They are Territorials, men of from thirty-eight to forty, who, wearying of the depot and envying their juniors in the field, asked and obtained leave to rejoin the regiment at the Front. They fascinated me at once by their high spirits, their jovial chaff, and the cheerfulness with which they undertook the most laborious tasks. But I had not yet seen ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont

... convicted parrotry ought to prevent a man from repeating and republishing them. The very same thoughts, almost the words, are to be found of the early Christians; of the poor Quakers; of the Republicans; of the first Reformers.—Why need I say this? Does not every one know, that a jovial pot-companion can never believe a water-drinker not to be a sneaking cheating knave who is afraid of his thoughts; that every libertine swears that those who pretend to be chaste, either have their mistress in secret, or ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... which smacked of prairie and forest—venison, bear flesh, and {21} buffalo tongue. The club's resplendent glass and polished silver were marked with its crest, a beaver. After the toasts had been drunk, the jovial party knelt on the floor for a final ceremony. With pokers or tongs or whatever else was at hand, they imitated paddlers in action, and a chorus of lusty voices joined in a burst of song. It may be supposed that Lord Selkirk was impressed by what he saw at this ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood

... English earldom and was always on the verge of colossal fortune. With others of the Lampton kin, he was already settled in Missouri and had written back glowing accounts; though perhaps not more glowing than those which had come from another relative, John Quarles, brother-in-law to Mrs. Clemens, a jovial, whole-hearted optimist, well-loved by all ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine

... piece I do not remember. I had the pleasure about that time of initiating him as a member of the Knights of the Square Table,—always my favorite college club, for the reason, perhaps, that I was a sometime Grand Master. He was always a genial and jovial companion at our supper- parties ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... by daily converse and association with these great ones we take their breeding, their manners, earn their magnanimity, make ours their gifts of courtesy, unselfishness, mansuetude, high seated pride, scorn of pettiness, wholesome plentiful jovial laughter. ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... reddish-faced young man, with a jovial laugh, infinite capacity for being amused at things not intrinsically humorous, and manners that he had tried, fortunately with imperfect success, to model on those of a prize-fighter. Ayre liked him for what ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope

... one day so much, but he resented two. When he greeted Mickey that morning it was not with the usual salutation of his friends, so the boy knew there was something not exactly right. He was not feeling precisely jovial himself. He was under suspended judgment. He knew that when Mr. Bruce had time to think, and talk over the situation with Miss Winton, both of them might very probably agree with the woman who said the law would take Lily from him and send her to ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter

... known as J. J. Bossier, and better still as Jay-Jay—big, fat, burly, broad, a jovial bachelor of forty, too fond of all the opposite sex ever to have settled his affections on one in particular—was well known, respected, and liked from Wagga Wagga to Albury, Forbes to Dandaloo, Bourke to Hay, from Tumut to Monaro, and back again to Peak Hill, as a generous man, a straight ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... Buckhurst!" cried Mac, giving the jovial farmer a thundering slap on the back, and a hearty grasp of his hand; "and you shall drink the boy's health with Ned and me this day, or I'll know the reason why. Ned Blount, a'n't it glorious? Said ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... laugh at me, great man," returned Vauvinet, once more jovial and caressing; "you've turned La Fontaine's fable of 'Le Chene et le Roseau' into an elixir—Come, Gubetta, my old accomplice," he continued, seizing Bixiou round the waist, "you want money; well, I can borrow three ...
— Unconscious Comedians • Honore de Balzac

... without his consolations; Manning took care to see to that. His piercing eye had detected the secret way into the recesses of the Cardinal's heart—had discerned the core of simple faith which underlay that jovial manner and that facile talk. Others were content to laugh and chatter and transact their business; Manning was more artistic. He watched his opportunity, and then, when the moment came, touched with a deft finger the chord of the Conversion of England. There was an immediate response, ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... you no harm to kill it outright," said Miss Carr, laughing—such a loud, jovial peal of merriment, which rang so clearly from her healthy lungs, that Flora, in spite of her offended dignity, was forced ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... prolonged to the last moment, the van is getting ready to return; the old folks assist in stowing away the empty baskets and vessels; and an hour or so before sun-down, or it may be half an hour after, the whole party are remounted, and on their way home again, where they arrive, after a jovial ride, weary with enjoyment, and with matter to talk about for a month ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various

... Make the plant, for which we toil? Sighs must fan it, tears must water, Sweat of ours must dress the soil. Think, ye masters, iron-hearted, Lolling at your jovial boards, Think, how many backs have smarted For ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... the gallant Arethusa. And now we've driven the foe ashore Never to fight with Britons more, Let each fill his glass To his fav'rite lass; A health to our captain and officers true, And all that belong to the jovial crew On board ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various

... beauty and grandeur of its scenery. The occasional songs and poems in celebration of great personalities, —whether they were of high station and renown, or lowly and unfamed, —or for festivals, earnest or jovial, are nearly all conceived in the spirit of patriotism,—love of Norway, its historic past, its present, its future. They may be social songs memorial or political poems, ballads or lyrical romances,—all are inspired by and inspire ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... of the popular type—florid, fat, and jovial. His penances were light and easy to those who had it in their power to ask him to dinner, or to make gifts to his Order. It might be that they were all the harder to those from whom such favours were ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt

... also, there was an element of ill feeling, an often open expression of antagonism toward the boys, which probably the other guests all tensed unpleasantly, but which the contented, jovial host and his impetuous and volatile daughter hardly recognized or thought of. Thaddeus, the thin-faced, pale, stoop-shouldered, indolent, cigarette-smoking nephew, though often treated with slight courtesy, continually pushed himself to the front, compelling consideration apparently for the ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron

... mechanics in the dockyards of Bombay, and are described [499] as "A hardy race with muscular frames, thick lips and crisp black hair—the very last men whom you would wish to meet in a rough-and-tumble, and yet withal a jovial people, well-disposed and hospitable to any one whom they regard as a friend." In other parts of India the Siddis are usually beggars and are described as 'Fond of intoxicating drinks, quarrelsome, dirty, unthrifty and pleasure-loving, obstinacy being their leading trait.' They worship ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... had recommended Reeve to drink the water at Carlsbad, so to Carlsbad they went, and stayed there twenty-four days. The manner of life at Carlsbad may be very wholesome, but no one has ever ventured to speak of it as jovial. The Reeves thought it 'dull enough,' and left it with a feeling of release, on August 23rd. On the 24th they were at Dresden, and reached home on September 3rd. And then came a curious reaction; a disagreeable experience of the Carlsbad ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton

... the telegram at the Moonbeam had affected Ralph, who was now in truth the Squire, with absolute awe. He had returned late from a somewhat jovial dinner, in company with his friend Cox, who was indeed more jovial than was becoming. Ralph was not given to drinking more wine than he could carry decently; but his friend, who was determined to crowd as much enjoyment of life as was possible into the ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... would change me into a dog at the Temple in Mecca, so that I might bite every pilgrim in the leg," he is reported to have said. When he himself did once make the required pilgrimage, he did so in order to carry his loves up to the very walls of the sacred house. "Jovial, adventure-loving, devil-may-care," irreligious in all he did, yet neither the Khalif nor the whole Muhammadan world were incensed. In spite of all, they petted him and pronounced his wine-songs the finest ever written; full of thought and replete with pictures, rich in ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... we will, my jovial Gascon," replied Dick. "Come, Sir Giles! are we to have the young gentleman from you by ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... night the annual flitting of the angels had not yet come to pass, and notwithstanding the heat the last dance of the season was to take place at the Club House. The occasion was an exceptional one, as the jovial sounds that issued from the officers' mess-house testified. Round after round of cheers followed the noisy toast, filling the night with the merry uproar that echoed far and wide. A confusion of voices succeeded ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell

... image is neither mysterious nor suggestive. She is hardly pretty, and stands in the obsequious attitude of an advocate. Solomon looks like a jovial good fellow. The two effigies on the other side of the door might perhaps invite attention if they were not so completely crushed by the third. Again a question. By what right does the author of that admirable book 'Ecclesiastes' find ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... the conversation, addressed herself to him without constraint, smiled amiably (and adorably) upon the busy Eliza and her jovial spouse, and even laughed aloud over the latter's account of Zachariah and the silver-top boots. Gwynne remarked that it was a soft, musical laugh, singularly free from the shrill, boisterous qualities so characteristic of the backwoods-woman. She possessed the poise of refinement. He had seen ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... unhealthy pride. Of his accomplice he saw but little. They met, of course, in the business of the class; they received their orders together from Mr. K-. At times they had a word or two in private, and Macfarlane was from first to last particularly kind and jovial. But it was plain that he avoided any reference to their common secret; and even when Fettes whispered to him that he had cast in his lot with the lions and foresworn the lambs, he only signed to him smilingly to ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the office, and, putting his head among the morning-glories curtaining an open window, stated his errand to Hilliard, whose vast bulk was humped ludicrously upon a high stool. The big fellow stopped thumbing his ledger, greeted him with a jovial shout, and directed him toward a stratum of rock which ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther

... under one arm and of bacon under the other, he led the way up among the rocks until they reached Kate's "field hotel," as he called it. There they dumped their load under the ambulance. Pike whispered a jovial "Go to sleep, old girl. You're all safe" to the still trembling Irish woman, then down they went for another load. This time they came laden with a wonderful assortment. Coffee, sugar, condensed milk, canned corned beef, potted ham, ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King

... the proverb takes it up with, "A generous enemy is a friend on the wrong side"; and no one's to blame for that, save old Dame Fortune. So now a bumper to this jovial make-up between you. Lisbeth! you must ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... assembled; Then care and doubt were fled; With jovial laugh they feasted: The board was ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey

... Mother Mayberry's jovial voice, mingled with the shrill treble of the combined circus party, who were trying all at once to tell her the wonders of the adventure, could be distinctly heard in an increasing volume that told of their rapid approach. The situation was desperate, ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess

... Lippi can scarcely be conceived. The story of Filippo Lippi[29] is taken, like that of Andrea, from Vasari's Lives: it is taken as literally, it is made as authentically living, and, in its own more difficult way, it is no less genuine a poem. The jolly, jovial tone of the poem, its hearty humour and high spirits, and the breathless rush and hurry of the verse, render the scapegrace painter to the life. Not less in keeping is the situation in which the unsaintly friar ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... my faith, there are bouts-rims on a buttered muffin, made by her Grace the Duchess of Northumberland.' Walpole's Letters, vi. 171. 'She was,' Walpole writes, 'a jovial heap of contradictions. She was familiar with the mob, while stifled with diamonds; and yet was attentive to the most minute privileges of her rank, while almost shaking hands with a cobbler.' Memoirs of the Reign of George III, i. 419. Dr. Percy showed her Goldsmith's ballad of Edwin ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... attractions of physical comfort, indolence and idleness. No more lazy and opulent monks, occupied, like the Carthusians of Val Saint-Pierre, in overeating, stupefied by digestion and routine, or, like the Bernardines of Granselve[5305] turning their building into a worldly rendezvous for jovial hospitality and themselves taking part, foremost in rank, in prolonged and frequent parties, balls, plays and hunting-parties; in diversions and gallantries which the annual fete of Saint Bernard, through a singular dissonance, excited and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... quickened into a run; and Gershom, striding, in order to keep up with her, looked at her with the jovial laugh that she hated. "You're in a powerful hurry ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow

... in the direction of the voice, Barnabas perceived a head and face that bobbed up and down on the opposite side of the hedge. A red face it was, a jovial, good-humored face, lit up with quick, bright eyes that twinkled from under a prodigious pair of eyebrows; a square honest face whose broad good nature beamed out from a mighty bush of curling whisker and pigtail, and was surmounted ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... to which they contribute a few pence every week, and afterwards draw by lot the sum of one pound, which can at least be used for some substantial purchase, and many others. A not inconsiderable amount of sociable or jovial spirit is alive in all such societies and clubs, even though the "credit and debit" of each member are closely watched over. But there are so many associations based on the readiness to sacrifice time, health, and life if required, that ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin

... of Christmas by Mrs. Barton gave a contrast of seriousness that made us appreciate the frivolities all the more. How cheery the dining room was with its garlands of red berries and huge Christmas tree, swaying with the motion of the ship, and what fun when jovial and popular Captain Nelson, as Santa Claus gave a present to all. How surprised and happy the Captain, the officers and Mr. Grady were when Warren Shannon presented them with the beautiful gifts purchased ...
— The Log of the Empire State • Geneve L.A. Shaffer

... the application of his learning on this latter point. M. de Grosjoyaux was of quite another complexion, and appeared to regard his friend's theological unction as the sign of an inaccessibly superior mind. He was evidently doing his utmost, with a kind of jovial tenderness, to make life agreeable to Valentin to the last, and help him as little as possible to miss the Boulevard des Italiens; but what chiefly occupied his mind was the mystery of a bungling brewer's ...
— The American • Henry James

... My gay and jovial father (le beau Pasquier, for he was also tall and comely to the eye) was a Frenchman, although an English subject, who had been born and partly brought up in London; for he was the child of emigres from France during the Reign ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al

... delicate valetudinarians, now first tempted to lay aside their wintry clothing together with their fireside habits, whilst the whole rural environs of our vast city, the woodlands, and the interminable meadows began daily to re-echo the glad voices of the young and jovial awaking once again, like the birds and the flowers, and universal nature, to the luxurious happiness of this ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... moving, he leaned back and gazed with a curious abstraction at his antagonist. This was a fat, bearded Frenchman. The Frenchman considered the position, then broke suddenly into jovial expletives, and with an impatient gesture, gathering up the pieces, flung them into their box. He cursed Strickland freely, then, calling for the waiter, paid for the drinks, and left. Stroeve drew his ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham

... suppose," I added, moving up to his seat and addressing the proud occupant of the carver's chair. This fellow was Harrison, whom, next to Browne, we counted the oiliest fellow at Draven's. He could sing, and make puns, and though a long way behind Browne, was a popular, jovial companion. ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed

... Boards, of which he was now an influential member, by men who fifteen years ago hardly knew of his existence. He knew it by the numbers of invitations to the most fashionable houses which crowded his library table; by the familiar and jovial air with which presidents and magnates of big corporations, who could on a moment's notice change from warmth—temperate warmth—to ice, greeted him; and by the cajoling speeches with which fashionable mammas ...
— Santa Claus's Partner • Thomas Nelson Page

... so triumphant, the young King abandoned himself entirely to pleasure, and led a jovial life. But, thorns were springing up under his bed of roses, as he soon found out. For, having been privately married to ELIZABETH WOODVILLE, a young widow lady, very beautiful and very captivating; and at last resolving to make his secret known, and to declare her his Queen; he ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... hands, and talked and laughed right pleasantly. High revelry, also, did they hold that evening in Saint George's tent, and told each other of their adventures, exploits, and achievements. Jovially they quaffed full golden beakers of rosy in wine, and many a jovial song they sang, and many a tale they told. All inquired who the lady could be who had been seen on the summit of Saint Anthony's tent; when he confessed that the strong-minded Princess Rosalinde of Georgia had ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston

... paper was covered with hieroglyphics undecipherable even by M. Chuquet himself. He wandered among the ruins of ancient Rome, playing to perfection the part of cicerone to such travellers as were lucky enough to fall in with him; and often his stout and jovial form, with the satyric look in the sharp eyes and the compressed lips, might be seen by the wayside in the Campagna, as he stood and jested with the reapers or the vine-dressers or with the girls coming out, as they ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey

... be cited in contradiction of this assertion.] Complaints of his brutality, from time to time, reached his master's ears; but though Mr. Jefferies was moved to momentary compassion, he shut his heart against conviction: he hurried away to the jovial banquet, and drowned all painful reflections ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... Cheerfulness and Joy were household gods. I us'd to scatter pleasures when I came, And every servant shar'd his lord's delight; But now Suspicion and Distrust dwell here, And Discontent maintains a sullen sway. Where is the smile unfeign'd, the jovial welcome, Which cheer'd the sad, beguil'd the pilgrim's pain, And made Dependency forget its bonds? Where is the antient, hospitable hall, Whose vaulted roof once rung with harmless mirth, Where every passing stranger ...
— Percy - A Tragedy • Hannah More

... suddenly, and as if by a strong internal effort, she checked her outrageous resentment, and, putting the bottle to its more legitimate use, filled, with wonderful composure, the two glasses, and, taking up one of them, said, with a smile, which better became her comely and jovial countenance than the fury by which it ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... the realist and the idealist which Dickens possessed to a remarkable degree, together with his naturally jovial attitude toward life in general, seem to have given him a remarkably happy feeling toward Christmas, though the privations and hardships of his boyhood could have allowed him but little real experience with this day ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... the landlady who has seen better days, of whom something has been said already, commonly speak, in the same jovial journalese, about her household goods as her household gods. They would be much startled if they discovered how right they are. Exactly what is lacking to the modern materialist is something that can be what the household gods were to the ancient ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton

... an old chronicler, "and their tables were removed, they continued drinking till the evening." And another tells how drinking and gaming went on through the greater part of the night. Chaucer's one solitary reference to Christmastide is an allegorical representation of the jovial feasting which was the characteristic feature of this great festival held in "the colde frosty season ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... further into midstream than either realized. Less keen observers than Norvil Thayre now spoke of their frequent meetings. Club conversation intimated that not only financial stress was responsible for the silencing of Len Haswell's jovial laughter. ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... mentioned to him writing to Italy, he said-"To Italy! no: before the courier can get thither, I shall be out again." it absolutely makes one laugh: as serious as the consequences might be, it is impossible to hate a politician of such jovial good-humour. I am told that he ordered the packet-boat to be stopped at Harwich till Saturday, till he should have time to determine what he would write to Holland. This will make the Dutch receive the news of the double revolution at the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... the monk, who was a jovial fellow with a ready wit, "I should not have eaten you, but I should have spitted you, and put you down to roast—that is what I should have ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various

... probably more in jest than earnest, promptly agreed to the proposition; for he remembered Mary Owens as a tall, handsome, dark-haired girl, with fair skin and large blue eyes, who in conversation could be intellectual and serious as well as jovial and witty, who had a liberal education, and was considered wealthy—one of those well-poised, steady characters who look upon matrimony and life with practical views ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... a sudden loss Of quiet!—Look, adown the dusk hill-side, A troop of Oxford hunters going home, As in old days, jovial and talking, ride! From hunting with the Berkshire deg. hounds they come. deg.155 Quick! let me fly, and cross Into yon farther field!—'Tis done; and see, Back'd by the sunset, which doth glorify The orange and pale ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold

... Snow, do benumb things below, We Chirp as merry as Larks; Our Sack and our Madness, consumes cold and sadness, And we are the Jovial Sparks. ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various

... [Footnote 6: This jovial monarch is mentioned in a legal decree of 1392. He retires into obscurity during the English Occupation, and is restored, curiously enough, by the sombre Louis XI. in 1461, and freed from all taxes and subsidies. ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook

... from cooing Italian. At last one of them asked me in Italian what had ailed me, to which I replied, in an incoherent manner, something about Mumbo Jumbo; whereupon the fellow, one of the bluffest of the lot, a jovial, rosy-faced rascal, lifted up his right hand, placing it in such a manner that the lips were between the forefinger and thumb, then lifting up his right foot and drawing back his head, he sucked in his breath with a hissing sound, as if to imitate one drinking a hearty draught, and then slapped me ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... colloquy was going on Carriazo had harnessed the ass, jumped on his back, and set off to the river, leaving Avendano highly delighted at witnessing his jovial resolution. ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... overgrown jovial boy was melancholy and sensitive. He died young from heart disease, which was aggravated by grief over the death of his mother from whom ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens

... lodge-gates just as the church clock was striking half-past seven. A couple of minutes more, and the warm glow of the lighted hall was flooding out upon the gravel, a hearty grasp was on my hand, and a clear jovial voice was bidding me ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various

... a stout swarthy fellow, jovial and musical withal, for he was singing a stave as he flourished his staff, and at the end of each refrain down came the staff on the quarters of the donkey. The Tinker went behind and sung, the donkey went ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... squire will not hear of such a thing. He sends them to their own rooms, and sees to the fastening of doors and windows—a thing Honor has never known him to do in all his life before—and then he sits down in the large empty dining-room—the scene of many a jovial feast—to wait for the morning light, and the news that must come ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford

... shoulders and his lithe muscles slipped and rippled under his white skin in a rhythm of harmony. His broad chest was bare as his arms, and his chubby apple-red cheeks shone with perspiration which oozed from his every pore. He was singing to himself in happy unconcern about his being a jovial monk contented with his lot. Two horses were tied inside the shop waiting to be shod, chafing ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson

... lips, and the more sober monks were sometimes scandalized at the noise and uproar he created in the convent refectory. Moreover, it was useless to exhort Timothy to cease jesting and study his Mass-book, for the simple reason that the jovial monk ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman

... the city, they passed through the crooked streets, sometimes so narrow that the geese were packed from wall to wall. Oft some jovial soldier sent a jest or a query to them across the now gray backs of the geese. But Gretchen looked ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath

... put upon his parole. The affair, however, passed off. Finally, I decided on the advice of a new acquaintance of mine—a Capuchin named Grigolet—to seek the Jews' quarter, where at any rate I would receive gold and not promises to pay. This Capuchin, who was a jovial soul, obligingly said he would accompany me, as he himself had a little business there, in connection with the conversion of a young Jewess, whose eyes, he said in confidence, were brighter than any diamond. I accepted ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... for a beverage. After partaking of a dinner of this kind, the rest of the day's journey was looked forward to with no unpleasant emotions. The stage happened to be lightly loaded, and we rolled along with steady pace, and amidst jovial talk, till we reached the thriving, but to me not attractive, town of Watab. Three houses had been put up within the short time since I had stopped there. We got into Mr. Gilman's tavern at sundown. I was rejoiced to find a horse and carriage waiting for me, which had been kindly sent ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews

... Superintendent, we decided to make a night of it, and so we all assembled in the common room after dinner. I can picture to myself the cheerful faces of all the students present on that occasion in the well lighted Hall. So far as I know only one of that group is now dead. He was the most jovial and the best beloved of all. May he ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji

... waiting for him, had been forced to post over from Roxham. Apparently his father had been expecting his arrival, for the moment the servant opened the door he appeared from his study, and addressed him in a tone that was as near to being jovial as ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... in my—I mean, I prefer to speak in English. Please tell him to go to a hospital," she said confusedly. Baldos gave a few jovial instructions, and then the raggedest courtier of them all handed Beverly into the carriage with a ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... and then a gallop; and she rode up the gulch till the trail started into rough ground. Then turning, she went back, down under the pines and by the cabins, to where the gulch narrowed its outlet into the wide valley. Here she met several dusty horsemen driving a pack-train. One, a jovial ruffian, threw up his ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey

... these, but in the thin straight lips which closed like the shears of Fate. A cruel smile gathered about the lips as he answered the questions of the court. There was something peculiarly incongruous in the jovial, happy-go-lucky name to which ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller

... made him ill. But he was so soft-hearted that anyone could impose upon him. If he, as he said, 'forgot himself' and swore before grandmother, he went about depressed and shamefaced all day. They were both of them jovial about the cold in winter and the heat in summer, always ready to work overtime and to meet emergencies. It was a matter of pride with them not to spare themselves. Yet they were the sort of men who never get on, somehow, ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather

... oil and wine of a merry meeting, and there is no jovial companionship equal to that where the jokes are rather small ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... enough to the task: but then, to choose the next in official rank to the senator, was an affront to the senator himself. While deliberating between the merits of the others, he caught the mirthful glance of Sallust, and, by a sudden inspiration, named the jovial epicure to the rank ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... the savage state of fancy. According to Kohl,(1) "Every sorrowful or joyful emotion that opens the Indian's mouth is at once wrapped up in the garb of a wabanonagamowin (chanson magicale). If you ask one of them to sing you a simple innocent hymn in praise of Nature, a spring or jovial hunting stave, he never gives you anything but a form of incantation, with which he says you will be able to call to you all the birds from the sky, and all the foxes and wolves from their caves and ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... his confrere by his Christian name. Secretly he despised him as a "damned Dutchman," to his face he flattered him; for he was a useful and willing tool, and during the three or four years they had sailed together had materially assisted the "good-natured, jovial" supercargo in his course of steady peculation. Yet neither ...
— Tessa - 1901 • Louis Becke

... the postillion, with big boots, long-tailed coat, and heavy whip, was sure to bestride this one, who struggled feebly along, head down, coat muddy and rough, eye spiritless and sad, his very tail a mortified stump, and the whole beast a picture of meek misery, fit to touch a heart of stone. The jovial mule was a roly poly, happy-go-lucky little piece of horse-flesh, taking every thing easily, from cudgeling to caressing; strolling along with a roguish twinkle of the eye, and, if the thing were possible, would have had his hands in his ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various

... you." Janet dropped her eyes, recalling the day upon the Hills. Devant had met her repeatedly since that morning and had always been jovial and easy in his manner, but the recollection intruded itself at ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock

... well, paid to Miss Menie Gray. He saw from his lofty stand all the dumb show of gallantry, with the comfortable feelings of a famishing creature looking upon a feast which he is not permitted to share, and regarded every extraordinary frisk of the jovial Laird, as the same might have been looked upon by a gouty person, who apprehended that the dignitary was about to descend on his toes. At length, unable to restrain his emotion, he left the ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott

... at this performance, Karaiti, somewhat favours his Butaritarian majesty in shape and feature, being like him portly, bearded, and Oriental. In character he seems the reverse: alert, smiling, jovial, jocular, industrious. At home in his own island, he labours himself like a slave, and makes his people labour like a slave-driver. He takes an interest in ideas. George the trader told him about flying-machines. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... heard on the hall floor, and there advanced through the parlour door a well-shod foot and a handsome leg, belonging to a well-formed though somewhat compressed figure, which carried gracefully a twenty-year-old head, of a jovial, comely appearance, with the hair dressed after the newest mode. It was the Candidate. He cast a glance first at his foot, and then at the lady of the house, whom he approached with the most unconstrained self-possession, exhibiting the ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer



Words linked to "Jovial" :   joviality, gay, joyous, jocund, mirthful



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