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"His temples, last, with poppies were o'er-spread, That nodding seemed to consecrate his head." A couplet which Pope echoes in the "Dunciad": "Shadwell nods, the poppy on his brows." A similar allusion may be found in the character of Og: "Eat opium, mingle arsenic in thy drink," etc.
There is a well-known story told of Aponius Saturninus, who happening to fall asleep as he sat on a bench at the sale, Caius called out to the auctioneer, not to overlook the praetorian personage who nodded to him so often; and accordingly the salesman went on, pretending to take the nods for tokens of assent, until thirteen gladiators were knocked down to him at the sum of nine millions of sesterces , he being in total ignorance of what was doing.
There were grunts and nods. It was a wise idea. "As for you," said the captain, to the five Shawnees, "I can see that you have been put to a great deal of trouble, to carry the prisoner here. It is not right that you should have no pay. I will smooth your path by giving you rum and tobacco, or anything else, to the amount of one hundred dollars so that you may be happy while I am in Detroit."
The people, especially the women, approved his leniency with nods. Her testimony concluded the inquiry, and the coroner addressed the jury. "Gentlemen," he said, "you will take into consideration the evidence you have heard, and determine, if possible, the manner in which Isom Chase came to his death, and fix the responsibility for the same.
To see them coming down together, smiling to all those people at the doors who disturbed the gentle mind of Miss Wodehouse with mingled sentiments of sympathy and repulsion, bestowing nods of greeting here and there, pausing even to say a word to a few favoured clients, was a wonderful sight to the timid maiden lady at the corner of the street.
"We must try to think and say only kind things of Mignon if we are to succeed." Taking in the circle of girls with a quick, bright glance, she asked: "Then you are agreed to my plan? It is really a compact?" Four emphatic nods answered her questions. "Hurrah for the S. F. R. M.!" exclaimed Jerry. "Long may it wave! Only there's one glorious truth that I feel it my duty to impress on your minds.
The girls all thought Hannah very much altered; they could not understand her queer illusions, or her mysterious little nods, or in particular the way she used to stare at Jasmine, and say under her breath, "Yes, yes, as like as two peas. What a blind old woman I was not to see it when I clapped eyes on him." "I cannot make out what Hannah is always muttering," Jasmine said to her sisters.
But the two sayings are combined so as to deceive the ear and leave the impression of being one of those hackneyed sentences that are accepted as a matter of course. Hence our attention nods, until we are suddenly aroused by the absurdity of the meaning. These examples suffice to show how one of the most important types of the comic can be projected in a simplified form on the plane of speech.
He had recognized his superb Bellona in the lady by the garden window. For Brayder the men had nods and yokes, the ladies a pretty playfulness. He was very busy, passing between the groups, chatting, laughing, taking the feminine taps he received, and sometimes returning them in sly whispers. Adrian sat down and crossed his legs, looking amused and benignant. "Whose dinner is it?"
Toward this the eyes of the spectators were turned. "What is it, Mali?" Muriel whispered, her woman's instinct leading her at once to expect that something special was going on in the way of local festivities. And Mali answered at once, with many nods and smiles, "All right, Missy Queenie. Him a wedding, a marriage."
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