"Jest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... out of Germany long ago to the effect that all the males there, with the exception of decrepit old men and small children, have been called to the army. The peculiar "crisis in men" in Berlin has frequently served as a subject of jest in the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... Capuchin," as the soldiers were accustomed to designate Eugene, through fondness. At such times, he smiled, nodded, and, when his officers would have chided the men for their familiarity, besought them not to reprove them for a jest so harmless. ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... it a jest: it was the truth. Daniel did regret even the worst days of his mission. At that time his grave responsibility, overwhelming fatigues, hard work, and daily danger, had procured him at least some hours of oblivion. Now idleness left him, without respite or time, face to ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... thought, apparently to impress us with the conviction of her perfect happiness; for it is a great point of honour amongst girls similarly situated to look as cheerful and gay as possible; the same feeling, though in a different degree, which induces the gallant highwayman to jest in the presence of the multitude when the hangman's cord is within an inch of his neck, the same which makes the gallant general whose life is forfeited, command his men to fire on him; the same which makes ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... no one could enjoy more than Corwin himself; for he was not only an impassioned orator, but a delightful humorist. He could put a principle or a reason in the form of a jest so that it would go farther than even eloquence could carry it with the whimsical Western people; and perhaps nothing more effective was said against the infamous Black Laws which forbade the testimony of negroes in the courts than Corwin put in the form of self-satire. He was ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... followed her young mistress in with the carriage-cloak, giggled into her hand as at a royal jest and ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... slaves marry? She replied, "Ah jest don't 'member seeing any marry 'cause ah wuz so small. Ah wuz jest eleven years old de time of de war but ah' members hearing some of dem say dat when two slaves wanted to git married dey would hafta ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... could not choose but believe in him. The sun shone brightly, the crops ripened, the hum of the threshing-machine droned on the wind—all was life and happiness. In the summer evenings pleasant groups met upon the lawn; the song, the jest went round; now and then an informal dance, arranged with much laughter, whiled away the merry hours till the stars appeared above the trees and the ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... sacred ties were severed by the cruellest mistrust. The husband trembled at his wife, the father at his son, the sister at the brother. The dishes remained untouched, and the wine at the dinner, which a friend put before his friends; and there where formerly jest and mirth had reigned supreme, savage glances were now spying about for the masked murderer. Fathers of families were observed buying provisions in remote districts with uneasy looks and movements, and preparing them themselves in the first dirty cook-shop they ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... between them fell now upon one and now upon the other. At every repetition of the horrid contact each instinctively repelled it with the greater haste; and the process, natural although it was, began to tell upon the nerves of the companions. Macfarlane made some ill-favoured jest about the farmer's wife, but it came hollowly from his lips, and was allowed to drop in silence. Still their unnatural burden bumped from side to side; and now the head would be laid, as if in confidence, upon their shoulders, and now the drenching sack-cloth would flap ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which they coveted. They brought home three less valuable, but remunerative, prizes. Don Pedro Sarmiento de Genaboa, Governor of the Straits of Magellan, and other captives were worth heavy ransoms. Ralegh repeats in the History, 'a pretty jest' told him 'merrily' by the worthy Don Pedro, on whom he clearly did not allow thraldom to weigh heavily, how the draftsman of the chart of the Straits invented an island in them at his wife's instance, that she might have ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... of her heart, she kept her voice light, and Gerald, all unsuspecting, answered, as if it were a harmless jest they were bandying, 'What a horrid score! But, yes, it's quite true; I want my time for hunting and farming and studying a bit, and then you mustn't forget that I enjoy dabbling at my painting in my spare moments and have the company of my wise ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... range of ridicule, which takes "every creature in, of every kind." No fastidious delicacy spoils their sports of fancy: though ten times told, the tale to them never can be tedious; though dull "as the fat weed that grows on Lethe's bank," the jest for them has all the poignancy of satire: on the very offals, the garbage of wit, they can feed and batten. Happy they who can find in every jester the wit of Sterne or Swift; who else can wade through hundreds of thickly-printed pages to ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... later, the old professor could have bitten out his tongue for his unholy jest. His penitence was in no wise lessened by the quality of Scott's answering laugh. Best leave those fellows to their ministerial sackcloth, without questioning the quality of the flax from which it was spun. A man of Scott Brenton's calibre would do no harm by his preaching. What was the sense ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... sayings from of old Ranging and ringing thro' the minds of men, And echo'd by old folk beside their fires For comfort after their wage-work is done, Speak of the King; and Merlin in our time Hath spoken also, not in jest, and sworn Tho' men may wound him that he will not die, But pass, again to come; and then or now Utterly smite the heathen under foot, Till these and all men ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... Committee are well aware that the matters submitted to them have been, and still are, the subject of ridicule and jest; but they are also aware that ridicule and jest never yet effectually put down either truth or error; and that the development of our times and the progression of our age is such, that many thoughts laughed at to-day ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... nymph, and bring with thee Jest and youthful jollity, Quips and Cranks and wanton Wiles, Nods and becks and wreathed Smiles, Such as hang on Hebe's cheek And love to live in dimple sleek; Sports that wrinkled care derides And Laughter holding ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... 45'.] When the people of the prize were allowed to depart, the pilot's boy told the admiral, that the English ship ought now to be called the Cacafuego, not theirs, as it had got all their rich loading, and that their unfortunate ship ought now to be called the Cacaplata, which jest excited much mirth.[29] ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... success with it, I quite got out of the way of concealment, and spoke of myself openly as her slave. She used to laugh at me, pretend to think me an absurd boy; and now and then threatened (and that half in jest) to tell her husband. I know very well that she never did. The padron, we used to call him to each other, having taken the name from old Nonna. It was one of our little foolish jokes to pretend the house an inn, he the landlord, and ourselves travellers ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... solo speaking Members still feel an avidity; If they burn to make orations of most uncommon zest, Let them just take our precaution against intense stupidity! Let them study PUNCHINELLO and learn how to make a jest; But away with dreams chimerical and projects vain, though clever! The power of tongue's proportionate to wondrous length of ear; The beast that carried BALAAM is as garrulous as ever, And still the lobby listener ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... old feller, ain't he?—wouldn't think it, jest to look at him! Face looks like an ear of last summer's sweet corn, all dried up; but I tell ye he's got the juice in him yit! Aunt Polly's gittin' old, ain't she? They say she can't walk half the time—lost the use of her limbs; but it's all gone to her tongue. That's as good as a razor, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Miss Aline," the Princess answered. "I remember that when my father made a joke—it was always a good, old, time-honoured favourite—he would look about to see that all the servants were smiling at the jest. They had heard it a hundred times before, but he always liked to see that they were enjoying it ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... the affair the Knights of the Round Table launched many a quip and jest, but that simply proved the fineness of their sentiments toward a certain delicate human relation which forms mankind's single awful approach to the creative and ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... to be lifted to a higher standard on these matters. The subject of marriage is too sacred to jest about, and people in general think it no harm to toy with the word and all that pertains to it ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... metters: Some canderdates air dead an' gone, an' some hez ben defeated, Which 'mounts to pooty much the same; fer it's ben proved repeated A betch o' bread thet hain't riz once ain't goin' to rise agin, An' it's jest money throwed away to put the emptins in: But thet's wut folks wun't never larn; they dunno how to go, Arter you want their room, no more 'n a bullet-headed beau; Ther' 's ollers chaps a-hangin' roun' ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... It was no jest of Valmond's that he would, or could, have five hundred followers in two weeks. Lagroin and Parpon were busy, each in his own way—Lagroin, open, bluff, imperative; Parpon, silent, acute, shrewd. Two days before the feast of St. John the Baptist, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... beneath the tempest's frown Round his tir'd limbs to wrap the purple vest; And mix'd with nails and beads, an equal jest! Barter for food, the jewels ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... connection with, those chaste and pretty, not to say gorgeous little bowers, sketched by a masterly hand, in the highly varnished lithographic plan hanging up in the agent's counting-house in the city of London: that this room of state, in short, could be anything but a pleasant fiction and cheerful jest of the captain's, invented and put in practice for the better relish and enjoyment of the real state-room presently to be disclosed:- these were truths which I really could not, for the moment, bring ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them. This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... back his head and burst into sardonic laughter. It pleased him, this devastating jest which he was about to perpetrate upon ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... intellectual appreciation. Thus, Nero made a pun on the name of Seneca, when the philosopher was brought before him for sentence. In speaking the decree that the old man should kill himself, the emperor used merely the two Latin words: "Se neca." We admit the ghastly cleverness of the jest, but we do not ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... ringin' as if the world wouldn't stand another minnit? Next time you want to get in, Haneran, you jest come down the aree! And me ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... we'll hope it is," he said affably, and to the quartermaster: "Ellison, this gentleman'll, maybe, take a finger of whisky to his own health—and ours," he added, with a relaxation of his grim face at his jest. "Ye'll find a bottle ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... at him, to see if he was in jest or earnest. Her look staggered him a little, but he repeated his question. She cast her eyes down, and ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... know, vile slave! quoth he, How impious 'tis to jest With sacred things, and to profane The office of ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... making some impatient reply, but discretion restrained him. He turned to Eve's own affairs, questioned her closely about her life in the tradesman's house, and so their conversation followed a smoother course. Presently, half in jest, ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... last word—"two minutes more in which to recover from your merriment. At the end of that time I shall expect you to be quiet and orderly and ready to begin this recitation." He drew his watch from his pocket and laid it on the desk. "So that you may enjoy this—this brilliant jest to the full, I'll ask the nine young gentleman in the front rows to stand up and face you. If you please, Hall, Stearns, Draper, ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... caused to be imported from farther in the country some straight poles with their tops cut off, which they called Sugar-Maples; and, as I remember, after they were set out, a neighboring merchant's clerk, by way of jest, planted beans about them. Those which were then jestingly called bean-poles are to-day far the most beautiful objects noticeable in our streets. They are worth all and more than they have cost,—though one of the selectmen, while setting ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... This land suffers from a constant and pressing need of reenforcements, on account not only of its unhealthful climate, but of the many emergencies which continually arise when I must send aid. These occasions now are not so much a matter of jest as they have been hitherto; for the Chinese and Japanese are not Indians, but people as valiant as many of the inhabitants of Berberia [Barbary], and even more so. I entreat your Majesty to give careful attention to this, and to order that in all vessels as many men as possible be sent; ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various
... the expression of a doubt, but he regards the doubt as gratuitous; "I think nobody can, in earnest, be so skeptical as to be uncertain of the existence of those things which he sees and feels." As we have seen (section 12), he meets the doubt with a jest. ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... out to me (not by Henry Irving, but by others concerned) that although I was too old for Margaret, I might play Martha! Well! well! I didn't quite see that. So I redeemed a promise given in jest at the Lyceum to Frank Benson twenty years earlier, and went off to Stratford-upon-Avon to play in ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... said, "Learn of me how gold is to be made; I do it by painting, you by serving his majesty—diligence in business is the only true alchemy." The officers departed somewhat crest-fallen, neither relishing the jest, nor likely to reap ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... as well to carry it off as a jest? So his hat came off with a flourish, and he said jocosely as he took the next heap, 'Keeping-apples, Mr. James. I'll put it ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... didn't play poker in Siwash would get run out by the Faculty. You ought to see our president put up his pile and draw to a pair of deuces. What!—a Reverend! I beg your pardon, friend. 'S all right. Jest name the game you're strong at and we'll try to accommodate you later on. Here, you fellows, watch my chips while I show the Reverend around our diggin's. You nip one like you did last time, Turk Bowman, and there'll be the all-firedest row that this shack has ever ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... was a remark which was confined to the drawing-rooms. The populace, which perceives no jest in holy deeds, was ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... that it was the quickest scheme for extinguishing life ever invented—patented Anno Christi Eighteen Hundred Ninety-five. Verily we live in the age of the Push-Button! And as I sat there I heard a laugh that was a quaver, and the sound of a stout cane emphasizing a jest struck against ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... says dat Ah should see if yo'all is heah yet and does yo'all want anythin'. Lucy, she's bin a-livin' heah, dat is, her mammy and pappy and her pappy's mammy and pappy has bin heah since befo' old Massa Ralestone done gone 'way. So Lucy, she jest nachely am oneasy 'bout yo'all ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... "I'll jest bet yer a million dollars ter a piece o' custard pie yer don't," said Bud Morgan, rising from the lounge where he had been resting after a strenuous day in the ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... then; a thousand compliments," exclaimed De Guiche, upon whose lips a courtier's jest was already fitting, but to whom the word "affianced," addressed by Malicorne with respect to Mademoiselle de Montalais, recalled ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... beckonings, she saw him smiling down at her with the same radiant, beseeching, worshipping smile. In Helen's ears Latimer's commands to the sailorman rang as clearly as though Latimer stood before her and had just spoken. Only now they were no longer a jest; they were a vow, a promise, an oath of allegiance that brought to her peace, and ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... literature begins, still it will not do to ignore them as mere buffoons, or even to predict that their humors will soon be forgotten. It is true that no literary fashion is more subject to change than the fashion of a jest, and that jokes that make one generation laugh seem insipid to the next. But there is something perennial in the fun of Rabelais, whom Bacon called "the great jester of France;" and though the puns of Shakspere's clowns are detestable the clowns themselves ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... and the State could give. When an earth-shock makes the soil under your feet quiver, and gape, and mutter, you feel that unnatural forces are being hurled against you, you feel that you are the mere sport and jest of an unjust deity. This was ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... no time. She is already under a sentence of death, and will die. Go! go! Great God! what a death. Oh that I might die for her! The Ephesians gathered together to make sport—to make sport of Saronia the beautiful, my love! Polluted by the touch of a coarse gaoler. A sight to gratify the Romans, a jest for the rabble of Ephesus, and a cruel death ending all. She who has wielded the sceptre of power, highest and brightest among the women of Ionia, commanded spirits in legions from the underworld, stopped the eagles in their flight, turned the courses of the clouds, baring the face ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... ourselves. Us our bulk and impetus charmed against peril in any collision. And I had ridden through too many hundreds of perils that were frightful to approach, that were matter of laughter to look back upon, the first face of which was horror, the parting face a jest—for any anxiety to rest upon our interests. The mail was not built, I felt assured, nor bespoke, that could betray me who trusted to its protection. But any carriage that we could meet would be frail and light in comparison ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... stay with my wife, I took coach again, and to the King's playhouse again, and come in the fourth act; and it proves to me a very silly play, and to everybody else, as far as I could judge. But the jest is, that here telling Moll how I had lost my journey, she told me that Mrs. Knepp was in the house, and so shews me to her, and I went to her, and sat out the play, and then with her to Mrs. Manuel's, where Mrs. Pierce was, and her boy and girl; and here I did hear Mrs. Manuel ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the thoroughfares meet at an angle Of ninety degrees (this angle is right), You may hear the loafers that jest and wrangle Through the sun-lit day and the lamp-lit night; Though day be dreary and night be wet, You will find a ceaseless concourse met; Their laughter resounds and their Fife tongues jangle, And now and ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray
... "Don't jest all the time," said Toni, really angry now. "It's only in your presence he's so silent; when we're alone he can ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... same as Murad (Le Desire, or the wished-for one). Scott, in his genteel life of Bonaparte, says that "when Murat was in Egypt, the similarity between the name of the celebrated Mameluke Mourad and that of Bonaparte's Meilleur Sabreur was remarked, and became the subject of jest amongst the comrades of the gallant Frenchman." But the writer of the novel of Bonaparte did not know that the names were one and the same. Now which was the best pedigree, that of the son of the pastry-cook, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... would bring disagreeable consequences to Mr. Montfort and to all concerned. What was Margaret to do? The absurdity of the whole thing presented itself to her keenly, and she would have been glad enough to turn it all into a jest, and take it as the "story" with which Rita had tried to rouse her cool-blooded cousins; but that could not be. Rita had meant every word she said, and more; that was evident. What was Margaret to do? Her first thought was of Mrs. Cheriton; ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... one asks the "who" or "why"; Where no one doth the sinner ply With his embarrassments of guile; Where's ne'er a frown but brings a smile, And cares are crimes,—'tis sin to sigh, 'Tis wrong to let a jest go by, And hope is truth, and life is nigh, The bourns of the Enchanted Isle— In ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... obeyed. The smile faded gradually as he listened, and an expression of anxious astonishment took its place. He shook his head as she proceeded, and twice ventured a faint suggestion that she was only speaking in jest. Convinced at last, against his will, he walked ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... 'le ipu o VAILIMA' and it was explained that he had 'taken his chief-name'! a jest at which the plantation still laughs. Kava done, I made a little speech, Henry translating. If I had been well, I should have alluded to all, but I was scarce able to sit up; so only alluded to my guest of all this month, the Tongan, Tomas, and to ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I also discovered that they had been having an argument, in jest, about money-matters, as they rode along to our cottage. Mrs. Knifton had accused her husband of inveterate extravagance, and of never being able to go out with money in his pocket without spending it all, if he possibly could, before ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... almost impossible to get Mr. Daly to laugh at an actor's joke; he was too generally at war with them, and he was too often the object of the jest. But he did laugh once at one of the solemn frauds perpetrated on me by this same ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... his pint, came up to me and, with a serious air, pulling out his old gold watch, with a gold dial plate, gravely said to me, while he inwardly laughed—"Pray sir what is the time of the day by your watch,—let us see, do our watches agree, sir:" I blushed.—"Nay, said he, I do but jest with you my child—you must not be angry with me. Come, come; if you have not a gold watch, you shall have a silver seal to tie to your riband," saying which he brought me home and, taking one from the drawer of a black inkstand, gave it ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... friend a man ever had," said Hone gently. "It's an old story, and I can't tell you all. It was just a game, you know; it began in jest, but it ended in grim earnest, as some games do. It happened that time we travelled out together, eight years ago. I was supposed to be looking after her; but, faith, the monkey tricked me! I was a fool, you see, Teddy." A faint smile crossed his face. "And she gave me an elderly ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... ghost," I began, when the other bade me in God's name not to jest. There were some things, he said, not to be broached ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... congregation the loan of two barias (ounces of gold), he proceeded to read to the whole assembly instead the Lord's Prayer and the Apostle's Creed in Romany. Happening to glance up, he found not a gypsy in the room, but squinted, "the Gypsy fellow, the contriver of the jest, squinted worst of all. ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... forgotten some particular, for Sister Hyacinthe, a glance from whom had foreshadowed the doctor's jest, now softly prompted her "And what was it you said to Madame la Comtesse, the superintendent of your ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... you're not in earnest," he added to soothe himself. "I know you know me better; but even in fun it isn't right to jest lightly ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... go up there jest yet," the woman whispered. "He did get away from us yesterdy and had a terrible time over there." She hitched her shoulders in the direction of Stoney Island Avenue. "We ain't found out till he'd been gone 'most ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... a pasear up hyer to explain this, and to thank you for yore kindness. Fac' is, Mr. Morse, it would have jest about killed me if anything had happened to my little 'Lissie. I want to say that if you had a-be'n her brother you couldn't ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... keeping anticipation on the alert, which is half the secret of dramatic construction. To forecast, without discounting, your effects—that is all the Law and the Prophets. In the first act of Children of the Ghetto, for instance, we see the marriage in jest of Hannah to Sam Levine, followed by the instant divorce with all its curious ceremonies. This is amusing so far as it goes; but when the divorce is completed, the whole thing seems to be over and done with. We have seen some people, ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... watch the unfolding of a play— Nor this, nor that was King Admetus' way, For neither midst the sweetness of his life Did he forget the ending of the strife, Nor yet for heavy thoughts of passing pain Did all his life seem lost to him or vain, A wasteful jest of Jove, an empty dream; Rather before him did a vague hope gleam, That made him a great-hearted man and wise, Who saw the deeds of men with far-seeing eyes, And dealt them pitying justice still, as though The inmost heart of each man he ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... if ever, was the golden opportunity for remaining silent and looking intelligent; but Wunpost forgot his early resolve and gave way to an ill-timed jest. ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... solemn, and, in the next, with the anxiety of his own parent, while laboring, under age and infirmity, to wean him from a course of dissipation and vice. Little indeed did he suspect that his virtuous offspring was absolutely enacting his part, for the purpose of having a good jest to regale Norton with in the course of their ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... loneliness. He knew now that he had grown to love the man; Blake's quick resourcefulness had overcome many of the obstacles they had met with, his whimsical humor had lightened the toilsome march, and often when they were wet and worn out be had banished their dejection by a jest. Now it looked as if they would hear his cheerful laugh no more; and Harding felt that, if the worst came, he would, in a sense, be accountable for his partner's death. It was his sanguine expectations that had drawn Blake into ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... unspilt,—the cup unbroken. Then laughed out the thunderer Elias: "O my brother! O thou holy Nicholas: Often drank we cooling wine together; But it was our duty not to slumber. Not to drop the cup—And tell me, brother, Why to-day does slumber's power subdue thee?" Him thus answer'd Nicholas the holy: "Jest not thus with me, thou sainted thunderer! For I fell asleep, and dreamt three hundred, Dreamt three hundred friars had embark'd them In one vessel on the azure ocean; Bearing offerings to the holy mountain, Offerings,—golden wax, and snowy incense. From the clouds ...
— Serbia in Light and Darkness - With Preface by the Archbishop of Canterbury, (1916) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... loud laugh at his own jest. Then they proceeded to count their booty, and while so engaged it seemed to me that I had better escape before my position became more exposed, as it would be sure to be as soon as the business of carrying the guns through the recess began. So I took advantage of the darkness, when they were engaged ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... an' syne as white's the aisse, an' luikit to be i' the awfu'est inside rage 'at mortal wessel cud weel hand. Sae yer gran'father, no 'at he was feart at 'im, for Is' be bun' he never was feart afore the face o' man, but jest no wullin' to anger his ain kin, an' maybe no willin' onybody sud say he was a respecter o' persons, heeld his tongue an' said nae mair, an' the markis hed the second best bed, for he sleepit in ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... the host than he, Black of hue as a shrivelled pea; He believes not in Holy Mary's Son; Full many an evil deed hath done. Treason and murder he prizeth more Than all the gold of Galicia's shore; Men never knew him to laugh nor jest, But brave and daring among the best— Endeared to the felon king therefor; And the dragon flag of his race he bore. The archbishop loathed him—full well he might,— And as he saw him he yearned to smite, To himself ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... a becoming jest for such serious personages? M. Le Blanc went into the midst of the people with great firmness, and made a speech to them; he afterwards had Law escorted home ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... not so bad, and miniatures can be handled very easily," answered Tim Crapsey. His small eyes began to twinkle. "Jest you let me git my hands on 'em, and I'll show you wot I kin do. I know a fence in New York who'll take pictures jest ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... orter be punished. But doan't ye kill him, gintlemen! Guv it ter him 'cordin' ter his natur an' his merits.' Just luk at him. Hev ye ever seed sech a face, an' sech an eye as thet, in ary human bein'? Why, his eye ar jest like a snake's; an' its natural, ye knows, fur snakes ter crawl; the' karn't do nuthin' else, an' the' hain't ter blame fur it. No more ye karn't blame Mulock for bein' whot he ar. So guv him a coat uv tar—a ride on a rail—a duckin' in th' pond—arything thet's 'cordin' ter his ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... done; and to have done mischief, is of some importance. He sets his invention to work again, and produces a narrative of a robbery or a murder, with all the circumstances of time and place accurately adjusted. This is a jest of greater effect and longer duration: if he fixes his scene at a proper distance, he may for several days keep a wife in terrour for her husband, or a mother for her son; and please himself with reflecting, that by his abilities and address some addition is ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... tuh a feller? Zing, zing, zing—I hate your old heat a-singin' in my ears all the gosh-blamed time! Why don't yuh do something? Huh? Yuh don't make it so's anything kin live. Yuh don't give no water, yuh don't give no grass, yuh don't do nothin'! Yuh jest ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... such a man before! She actually said to Caroline Lee, who was trying to jest with her a little, that Fisher was one of the most pure-minded, honourable ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... Miss Cross, with Horden, spoke the prologue to D'Urfey's Don Quixote, Part III. In the cast, however, when she enacted Altisidora, she is described as Mrs. Cross, A Miss Howard acted Kitty in Motteux's Love's a Jest(1696) and, 'in page's habit,' spoke the epilogue to Dilke's The Lover's Luck the same year. After that date 'Miss' instead of the heretofore ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... Some, who knew Foster's quiet but resolute disposition, bantered and teased Hall, which wrought him to such a pitch of excitement that, on meeting James Foster a little while after in front of the tavern, he made the demand of him. Foster at first treated it as a jest; then, when he found Hall was in earnest, decidedly, but civilly, refused; and in such a manner as to put at rest all further conversation. Enraged, Hall instantly turned, swearing to the laughing politicians that surrounded the tavern steps, and who had witnessed ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... doubt that he was quite in earnest, and would enjoy the holiday vastly. She was used to such kind offers and knew how to laugh at them, though she was very well aware that they were not made in jest. ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... of love," she said, half reproachfully, "as if it were so common a thing! You know it is sacred—why will you speak as if it were all a jest?" ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... only serves to make us grieve With oft and tedious taking-leave, 45 Like some poor nigh-related guest, That may not rudely be dismist; Yet hath outstay'd his welcome while, And tells the jest without the smile. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... criticism on Milton, if not hostile, is apologetic, and it is considered quite correct to say we "do not care" for him. Partly this indifference is due to his Nonconformity. The "superior" Englishman who makes a jest of the doctrines and ministers of the Established Church always pays homage to it because it is RESPECTABLE, and sneers at Dissent. Another reason why Milton does not take his proper place is that his theme is a theology ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... wid dis train, gen'lemens an' ladies," came in the porter's important voice. "Jest nothin' at all's happened. It's done happened up ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... prudence in some persons. I hear only of a monstrous sum already named; and if others, do not soon hear of it too, and hear of it with a vengeance, then am I a gentleman of less sagacity, than myself and very few besides, take me to be. And the jest will be still the better, if it be true, as judicious persons have assured me, that one half of this money will be real, and the other half only Gasconnade.[22] The matter will be likewise much mended, if the merchants continue to ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... Grandmother's engagement ring and she was heart-broken. Although they searched everywhere no trace of it could they find, but as they were walking up the hill a week or so afterwards they thought they saw Mattie Hastings through the trees. They called as a jest, "We've seen you and you're discovered—come out!" Whereupon someone shrieked, and proceeding to the spot they found Mattie lying upon the ground. She had walked in the sun and had started to run and had fallen over some stumps. Instantly they saw that she had been prostrated by the heat, ...
— Ethel Hollister's Second Summer as a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson
... how high he goes,' The Bat exclaimed with glee, 'But yet he never says he owes His rise in life to me. No, no, that's not his way at all; And though I do my best, His graceless growls at every fall Are something past a jest.' ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... advertisement, of a certain American typewriting machine commences by informing the public that "The —— typewriter is founded on an idea." When I saw this phrase I secured it for my collection, for I felt that, without jest, it contained the kernel of a true philosophy of Nature. The forms, the phainomena, of Nature are innumerable, multifarious, interwoven, and infinitely perplexing, and you may spend a happy life in unravelling their relations ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... they are. At least, I've come out here to see. You'll forgive my jest, Mr. Scott, in writing my name under that of your party on the register, won't you? As Mademoiselle Lannes has doubtless told you, I carried the letter from her brother, directing her to join him in Chastel, and, ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... I was most afeard of," said the borderer, with a hasty glance skyward. "Down on your hunkers, Chief, and help me read this sign afore the good Lord takes to sending His rain on the jest and the unjest," and therewith these two fell to quartering all the ground like trained dogs ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... to give the incident a subtlety that struck Miss Nevil's fancy. "It reminds me," he said in her hearing, "of ole Kernel Frisbee, of Robertson County, one of the purlitest men I ever struck. When he knew a feller was very dry, he'd jest set the decanter afore him, and managed to be called outer the room on bus'ness. Now, Bob Rushbrook's about as white a man as that. He's jest the feller, who, knowing you and me might feel kinder restrained about indulging our appetites afore him, kinder drops out easy, ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... are often resorted to by pic-nic parties in the moonlit evenings; and one can easily fancy that to have a dusky dead body float against one's boat and sway slowly round alongside in the midst of a gay jest or of a light song of serenade, as is said to have happened not unfrequently here, is not an occurrence likely to heighten the spirits of revelers. Occasionally, also, the black, ugly double snout of the magar (or ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... probably some up in the foothills, and around the Pike. They had a better chance to git among rocks. We hed jest made up our minds to go hunting for 'em when we ketched sight o' you, and then we concluded to stay and see ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... makin' out one of them yellow-covered books, sech as the summer boarders bring out here to read; always chock full of doin's that never would come to pass in this or any other Christian country. You jest lay down and snuff your camphire, an' I'll go out an' pump that boy drier ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a rude jest of Nature, that tempest of yesterday. But if you have taken it in good part, you are all the more ready for her caressing mood to-day. And now you must be off to get your dinner—not to order it at a ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... destructives was a-beatin' old Mrs. Norris to death they hid in the fence-hedge. An' they both of 'em might agot clean off, only the littlest one screamed when they tore the skelp off'n the old woman; an' he run off, but a Tory he chased him an' ketched him by the fence, an' he jest held the child's legs between his'n, an' bent him back an' cut his throat, the boy a-squealin' something awful. Then the Tory skelped him an' hung him acrost the fence. The only Norris what come out of it ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... as Millamant herself, is an eternal type. His little exclamations, his assurance of sympathy, his terror of the commonplace—surely one knows them well? His tolerance of any impertinence, lest he should be thought to have misunderstood a jest, is a great distinction. But Congreve's gibe in the dedication at the critics, who failed 'to distinguish betwixt the character of a Witwoud and a Truewit,' is hardly fair: as Dryden said of Etherege's Sir Fopling, he is 'a fool so nicely writ, The ladies ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... we are?" asked his sister, with something of the antagonistic tone which both in jest and earnest is too ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... me to the test, Mr. Trollop. But let's drop the matter. I have had my joke and you've borne the infliction becomingly enough. It spoils a jest to harp on it after one has had one's laugh. I would much ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... last week's ashes And pray for coal and sedulously "rest," Where rain and wind contemn the empty sashes, And blue lips frame the faint heroic jest, Till some near howitzer goes off and smashes The only ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 19, 1917 • Various
... policeman is looking at him fixedly from the other side of the street, his nightstick twirling in a very prepared sort of way. For an instant Oliver sees himself going over and asking that policeman for his helmet to play with. That would be the cream of the jest—the very cream—to end the evening in combat with a large blue policeman after having all you wanted in life break under you suddenly ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... perfectly right, madam. This is no place for me. I have been sported with. My good name has been treated as a jest. ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... with whom he seemed to be acquainted, amongst whom was the man Bartot. He waved his hand to others further down the room. His circle of acquaintances, indeed, seemed unlimited. Then, with a long hand-shake and some parting jest, he took leave of Monsieur Carvin and disappeared. Somehow or other one seemed to feel the breath of relief which went shivering through the room as he departed. Louis answered then ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... smiled at the grim jest. "He will never see the rope, Mark, you may be sure of that. But there will be no more murdering. The situation of the Ministry is bad enough as it is. His Excellency looked very much perturbed—for a diplomat—before I was done with him. There is nothing more certain than that he ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... Tarquins from Rome—and that Cava brought the Moors to Spain—that an insulted husband led the Gauls to Clusium, and thence to Rome—that a single verse of Frederick II.[369] of Prussia on the Abbe de Bernis, and a jest on Madame de Pompadour, led to the battle of Rosbach—that the elopement of Dearbhorgil[370] with Mac Murchad conducted the English to the slavery of Ireland that a personal pique between Maria Antoinette and the Duke of Orleans precipitated ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... Mr. Clarkson, "that an obsolescent jest is, like middle-age, occasionally vapid, possessing neither the interest of antiquity nor ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... unmistakably such an aura or atmosphere about in Trinity College, Cambridge, during the last of the twenties and the first of the thirties of the nineteenth century—a spirit of literature and humour, of seriousness and jest, of prose sense and half mystical poetry—which produced things as diverse as The Dying Swan and Clarke's Library of Useless Knowledge, Vanity ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... his ministers within the city. Which, by Jupiter and all the gods, you can not and will not do! You have arrived at such a pitch of folly or madness or—I know not what to call it: I am tempted often to think, that some evil genius is driving you to ruin—for the sake of scandal or envy or jest or any other cause, you command hirelings to speak, (some of whom would not deny themselves to be hirelings,) and laugh when they abuse people. And this, bad as it is, is not the worst: you have allowed these persons more ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... the foe in thine own soul, The sloth, the intellectual pride; The trivial jest that veils the goal For which our fathers lived and died; The lawless dreams, the cynic Art, That rend thy ...
— The Lord of Misrule - And Other Poems • Alfred Noyes
... some sager sing) The frolic wind that breathes the spring Zephyr, with Aurora playing, As he met her once a-Maying— There, on beds of violets blue And fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew Fill'd her with thee, a daughter fair, So buxom, blithe, and debonair. Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful jollity, Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek; Sport that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter holding both his sides:— Come, and trip it as you go ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... the Spain of 1860, immemorially old, immutably the same, splendidly frank, acquainted with grief and sin, shameless and free; like some brown gipsy wench of the wayside, with throat and half her bosom bare, who would laugh and show her teeth, and be free with her jest; but if you touched her honour, ignorant that she had one, would stab you without ruth, and go her free way, leaving you carrion in the ditch. Such was the Spain which Mr. Manvers visited some ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... Bessie's question, but, looking down at her with grave, searching eyes, she said,—'Dear Bessie, it was a very foolish jest. I know it is not in your nature to mean unkindly to anyone, least of all to me, to whom you have been an angel of light; but all practical jokes of that kind are liable to inflict pain and humiliation upon the victim—however innocently meant. Whose idea ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... earn his living," said Mrs. Corey, refusing her husband's jest. "There's still enough for ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "I jest knowed them fellows wasn't what they allowed they was," said he. "In course I seed 'em, an' they told me they was a-lookin' for deserters themselves. They went off that way, toward the old Brazos trail," added the squatter, pointing ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... she cried affectionately, "you jest set to it to spoil your old mother." Then her eyes fell on the figure on the kitchen table. "La sakes, boy, what's—what's this?" Then as she bent over the unconscious child. "Oh, ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... about excessive impedimenta. Lord Derby, Minister of War and a bluff and honest aristocrat, sat near me and he whispered to me—"That's me." "Yes," I said, "that's you," and the group about us made merry at the jest. The meaning of this is, they now joke about what was the most solemn thing in life ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... you, and you, Happiness crowned the night; I too, Laughing and looking, one of all, I watched the quivering lamplight fall On plate and flowers and pouring tea And cup and cloth; and they and we Flung all the dancing moments by With jest and glitter. Lip and eye Flashed on the glory, shone and cried, Improvident, unmemoried; And fitfully and like a flame The light of laughter went and came. Proud in their careless transience moved The changing ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... who speak slightingly of boyhood and its feelings, scoffing at the early yearnings of the heart, and finding only food for jest in those innocent and childish raptures and regrets. We do not envy such. That man's heart must be made of doubtful stuff, who jeers at the fresh dreams of youth; or rather, he must have no heart at all—above all, no sweet and affecting recollections. ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... pen against the duke of Grafton, the earl of Bute, and the princess of Wales. He had just despatched one of his political diatribes to the Middlesex Journal, when he sat down on Easter Eve, I7th April 1770, and penned his "Last Will and Testament," a strange satirical compound of jest and earnest, in which he intimated his intention of putting an end to his life the following evening. Among his satirical bequests, such as his "humility" to the Rev. Mr Camplin, his "religion" to Dean ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... only once, when a day or two later he drove up by our hotel in Magnolia toward the cottage where his secretary was lodging. He saw us from his carriage, and called us gayly to him, to make us rejoice with him at having finally got that commemorative poem off his mind. He made a jest of the trouble it had cost him, even some sleeplessness, and said he felt now like a convalescent. He was all brightness, and friendliness, and eagerness to make us feel his mood, through what was common to us all; and I am glad that this ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... world, this is, old man, It's a purty good world this is; For all its follies and shows and lies, Its rainy weather, and cheeks likewise, And age, hard hearing, and rheumatiz; We're not a faultin' the Lord's own plan; All things jest At their best, It's a puny ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... now, missis," said the Mopoke; "you jest mind what yer about, or I 'll let daylight ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... she goes a-lopin', stranger, Khaki-gowned, with flyin' hair, Talk about your classy ridin',— Wal, you're gettin' it right thar. Jest a kid, but lemme tell you When she warms a saddle seat On that outlaw bronc a-straddle She is one that ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... epitome; Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was everything by starts and nothing long; But in the course of one revolving moon, Was chymist, fiddler, statesman and buffoon.... Beggar'd by fools, whom still he found too late, He had his jest, but they had ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... people who were shovelling away on the housetops were jovial and full of glee, calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball—better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest—laughing heartily if it went right, and not less heartily if it went wrong. The poulterers' shops were still half open, and the fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... the month's Six Selling Best The Bookman scored with elephantine Jest, Have sold a half a Million in a Year, Yet no one ever heard ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Cayenne • Gelett Burgess
... valuable institution for any member of it who has no distinction, neither character, talents, nor estate. But a peer who possesses all or any of these great qualifications, would find himself an immeasurably more important personage in what, by way of jest, ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... and lauds, all remained in their private cells, where they read the holy scriptures, and some copied books. All met in the church at the canonical hours of tierce, sext, none, and vespers, but returned to their cells, none being allowed to speak, to jest, or to be one moment idle. The time which others spend a table, or in diversions, they employed in honoring God; even their meal took up very little time, and after a short sleep, (according to the custom of hot countries,) {236} they resumed their exercises, conversing not with ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... that I had gone too far, for to jest at the expense of the family pride was an unpardonable offence, so I ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... hoarsely to Sara one night when she had crept into the attic—"'twarn't for you, an' the Bastille, an' bein' the prisoner in the next cell, I should die. That there does seem real now, doesn't it? The missus is more like the head jailer every day she lives. I can jest see them big keys you say she carries. The cook she's like one of the under-jailers. Tell me some more, please, miss—tell me about the subt'ranean passage we've ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Jenkins, if it was like this they felt! But was it her fault? No man could say she had led him on—except, perhaps, the Hon. Reginald, and towards him her intentions were honourable, she told herself smiling. But the jest carried itself farther and more stingingly. Could he make an "honourable" she told herself her? Ah, God, was she worthy of him, of his simple manhood? And would he continue proposing, if she told him she was Nelly O'Neill? And what of his ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... a man, nevertheless; had a humorously wrinkled mouth, and an eye that twinkled responsive to a jest; and was the best judge of wine in Oxford. On the strength of this undeniable gift the dons had long since elected him steward of Common-room; and he valued the responsibility, abstaining from tobacco—which he loved—to keep pure his taste for vintages, and preserve ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... "Is this some jest to punish me, my dear?" But then a new and graver trouble kindled in his face, and his eyes narrowed, for there was something odd about his ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... punishment;—which remains, though we do not recognise the fact, solely because it has been in vogue all these centuries, and is a habit hard to break with. History would go; yes;—but a mort of pernicious lies would go with it. Well, well; one speaks of course in jest (partly). But when all is said, China was not unfortunate in having a strong giant of a man, a foreigner withal, at her head during those crucial decades. Ts'in Shi Hwangti guarded China through most of that perilous intermission between the cycles. It was the good ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... not ask, when back on Blighty's shore My frozen frame in liberty shall rest, For pleasure to beguile the hours in store With long-drawn revel or with antique jest. I do not ask to probe the tedious pomp And tinsel splendour of the last Revue; The Fox-trot's mysteries, the giddy Romp, And all such folly I would fain eschew. But, propt on cushions of my long desire, Deep-buried in the vastest of armchairs, Let ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 11, 1917 • Various
... skunk wanted it for an ornament, and he took it, too, and thinks more of it than any out of his hundred and more. Arter getting yer home among his people, and arter he'd found out thar's a good show fur a big ransom from yer father, jest as like as not he'd make up his mind that the best thing he could do would be to knock ye on ther head and raise yer ha'r, and he'd do ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... sheep you was, too, my lads, to run through a gap that way. And now look here, you, jest recklect all this; you've both got your necks in nooses, and Mr Brymer here's got hold o' the other ends of the ropes, so as he can pull 'em any time he likes, and he will too if you don't stick pretty close to your dooty. ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... engine, a baggage car, express car and two sleepers. The first train down jumped the track twice, and the up train from Salt Lake was wrecked and nearly thrown into the Snake River. Then the trains ran from four to six hours behind time, and the people and the papers began to jest about the 'Mormon Flyer,' and ask for a return of the old Salisbury coach line. The manager complained from time to time, and said it was all the fault of the engineers; said that we did not know our business, and that he would get some ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... suspected a jest: but on my repeated assurances took the letter thankfully, and at parting, on our release, pressed on me the end of his sausage wrapped in a piece of newspaper. I ate the sausage moodily and was about to throw the paper away when my eye caught sight of an advertisement in the torn ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... into Bantu, and added: "A jest is a jest, Macumazana, though often there is meaning in a jest, and you shall see Mameena if you will. I come here to ask you to do my people a service for which you shall not lack reward. We, the White Kendah, the People of the Child, are at ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... these things made a great impression on the young girl. Jenkins became immediately her friend, confidant, a vigilant and kind guardian. Occasionally, when, in the studio, somebody—her father most likely of all—uttered a risky jest, the Irishman would contract his eyebrows, give a little click of the tongue, or ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... tormented himself with this idea; the more convinced that he was right in his conjecture, because she almost always posted her reply with her own hands, when going out for her daily walk, or sent it by her faithful Chloe; but one day, venturing a jest upon the subject, she answered him, with a merry laugh, "Ah, you are no Yankee, Mr. Egerton, to make such a guess as that! I have a number of correspondents, it is true; but the daily letter I am so eager for comes from ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... ponies was known as the Merry Jest. He had a terrifying but harmless trick. The moment the saddle was cinched, down went his head and he began to buck in the most vicious style. This he would keep up until further orders. In order to put an end to the performance all one had ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... our land is ill-furnished of carles, so that we women, high and low, go afield and do many things, as crafts and the like, which in other lands are done by carles.' In sooth it seemed of them that they were both of stouter fashion, and defter than women are wont to be. So the champions, part in jest, part in earnest, bade them do on the armour of the slain Burgers, and take their weapons, and fell to teaching them how to handle staff and sword and bow; and the women took heart from the valiant countenance of their new lovers, and deemed it ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... was over late to reach the town, but that there we hoped to come next day. And she said she would fain see those two, "and maybe Grendel also," smiling again a little to please me. And I knew how much that little jest cost her to make, and loved her the more for her thought for me. Then she was ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... creepy satisfaction in living the scene over again. "It was kinder dark in the other room, and there he was, laying in his night-gownd, with his face turned towards me, so, looking mighty severe-like, jest as if he was a-going to say, 'It's late with the milk ye are, ye hussy!'—a way ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... attachment to the true cause: these are assembled to shape-out a plan. They sanctioned what was past; shaped as they could what was to come. They were scornfully called Barebones' Parliament, the man's name, it seems, was not Barebones, but Barbone—a good enough man. Nor was it a jest, their work; it was a most serious reality—a trial on the part of these Puritan Notables how far the Law of Christ could become the Law of this England. There were men of sense among them, men of some quality; men of deep piety I suppose the most of them were. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... odd one. I mind her when she was a girl—a saucy, black-eyed baggage she was! Handsome, some folks called her. I never c'd see it. Her people were a queer crowd and Min was never brung up right—jest let run wild all her life. Well, Rod Palmer took to dancin' attendance on her. Rod was a worthless scamp. Old Palmer was well off and Rod was his only child, but this Rose lived there and kept house for them after Mis' Palmer died. She was a quiet, well-behaved ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... This broad Neapolitan jest, spoken with an aristocratic good manner, made Emilio smile; he allowed the Duke to take his arm ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... Bolingbroke and Prior set out for France last Saturday. My lord's business is to hasten the peace before the Dutch are too much mauled, and hinder France from carrying the jest of beating them too far." ("Journal to Stella," August 7th, 1712. See vol. ii., p. 381 of present edition). The result of Bolingbroke's visit was the signing, on August 19th, of an agreement for the suspension of arms for four months. Torcy's reception of Bolingbroke was so managed ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... fog, we went on deck to find the ship lying inside a long breakwater bristling with cannon, which looked formidable enough: but the whole thing, I was told, was useless against modern artillery and ironclads: and there was more than one jest on board as to the possibility of running the Channel Squadron across, and smashing Cherbourg in a single night, unless the French learnt to keep a better look-out in time of war than they did in time ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... praising were his usual themes; And both, to show his judgment, in extremes: So over violent, or over civil, That every man with him was God or Devil. In squandering wealth was his peculiar art: Nothing went unrewarded but desert. 560 Beggar'd by fools, whom still he found too late; He had his jest, and they had his estate. He laugh'd himself from court; then sought relief By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief: For, spite of him the weight of business fell On Absalom and wise Achitophel: Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft, He left not faction, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... thoughtlessness of youth' indulgently, I had infinitely rather hear of thoughtless old age, and the indulgence due to that. When a man has done his work, and nothing can any way be materially altered in his fate, let him forget his toil, and jest with his fate, if he will; but what excuse can you find for wilfulness of thought, at the very time when every crisis of future fortune hangs on your decisions? A youth thoughtless! when all the happiness ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... And now themselves shall make our pageant, And common soldiers jest [244] with all their trulls. Let them take pleasure soundly in their spoils, Till we prepare our march to Babylon, Whither ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe
... proposed to elect, instead of either Medici or Colonna, the son, some say of a weaver, others of a brewer of Utrecht, of whom no one had ever thought till then, and who was for the moment acting head of affairs in Spain, in the absence of Charles the Fifth. The jest prospered in the ears of those who heard it; all the cardinals approved their colleague's proposal, and Adrien became ...
— The Cenci - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... "the matter is this; it is very likely that we shall win his money. The Piedmontese, though otherwise good fellows, are apt to be suspicious and distrustful. He commands the horse; you know you cannot hold your tongue, and are very likely to let slip some jest or other that may vex him. Should he take it into his head that he is cheated, and resent it, who knows what the consequences might be? for he is commonly attended by eight or ten horsemen. Therefore, however he may ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton |
