self-teasing

Updated: May 25, 2025

When Antonio found himself alone in the laboratory, his mind would be haunted by one of these looks, or smiles, which he had received in passing. He would set it in every possible light, and argue on it with all the self-pleasing, self-teasing logic of a lover. The country around him was enough to awaken that voluptuousness of feeling so favourable to the growth of passion.

Washington Irving - Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists