"Jesting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... early manhood and in all the exuberance of his rich vigorous nature, surrounded by friends for whom he kept open house, in high contentment with life, eager to respond to all the claims upon his energy. Here came artists and poets, in the pleasant summer days, jesting, dreaming, discussing, indulging in bouts of single-stick or game of bowls in the garden, walking through the country-side, quoting poets old and new, and scheming to cover the walls and cupboards of the rooms with the ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... he suffers his house to be scattered with profane and wicked Books, such as stir up to lust, to wantonness, such as teach idle, wanton, lascivious discourse, and such as has a tendency to provoke to profane drollery and Jesting; and lastly, such as tend to corrupt, and pervert the Doctrine of Faith and Holiness. All these things will eat as doth a canker, and will quickly spoil, in Youth, &c. those good beginnings that may be ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... general laugh, from his comrades, at the cheerful way in which Francis spoke. Only one of them had been an officer on the Pluto. The rest were, like Matteo, volunteers of good families. There was a good deal of light-hearted jesting over their meal. When it was over, ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... conceal it with a Corking-pin. Thus appointed, Ned led the Way, saying, the onlie Occasion on which a Gentleman needed not to excuse himself to a Lady for going first, was when they were to ride a Pillion. Noe more jesting when once a-Horseback; for, after pacing through a few deserted Streets, we found ourselves amidst such a Medly of Carts, Coaches, and Wagons, full of People and Goods, all pouring out of Town, that Ned had enough to do to keep cleare of 'em, and of the Horsemen and empty ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... of vulgar jesting on great subjects, which should stir us to admiration and reverence, and so debasing men's tastes. She had in her mind the class of persons who have the art of spoiling things that are noble or beautiful by their vulgar handling of them; ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... opinion, She were better progress to the baths at Lucca, Or go visit the Spa In Germany; for, if you will believe me, I do not like this jesting with ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... now that Floyd Grandon did not marry her for love, that he did not even profess to, and that in most marriages there is at least a profession of love at the beginning, and it is very sweet. Even such half-jesting love as these two young people make unblushingly before her face, in the naughty audacity of youth, is delightful. Mr. Grandon could never do or say such things; he ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... hell fire." In this element of mediaval life, this feature of mediaval literature, a terrible belief lay under the gay raillery. Here is betrayed, on a wide scale, that natural reaction of the faculties from excessive oppression to sportive wit, from deep repugnance to superficial jesting, which has often been pointed out by philosophical observers as a striking fact in the psychological history ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... affairs was thus:—In the early morning, and until the time of the filling of the market he did with a good will the business which was brought before him; but after this he passed the time in drinking and in jesting at his boon-companions, and was frivolous and playful. And his friends being troubled at it admonished him in some such words as these: "O king, thou dost not rightly govern thyself in thus letting thyself descend to behaviour so trifling; ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... 'Twas a town of wrecks and failures — they appreciated him. They would ask him who the Co. was — that queer company he kept — And he'd always answer vaguely — he would say his partner slept; That he had a 'sleeping partner' — jesting while his spirit broke — And they grinned above their glasses, for they took it as a joke. He would shout while he had money, he would joke while he had breath — No one seemed to care or notice how he drank himself to death; Till at last there came a morning when ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... foolish jesting, Julio. A man does not kill another without finding out with whom ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... idle minds, That know not, jesting, when to hush; Keep on our lips the word that binds, And teach ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall
... after midnight. In this narrow street, with its attractive shops filled with the highest-priced goods in the world, you can soon find anyone you wish to meet, because before long everyone who can reach it will pass through. In this street the happy, jesting, jostling crowd is in ...
— Brazilian Sketches • T. B. Ray
... were here, June 18th, William Rutter was mortally wounded. He had picked up a piece of corn-cake in the field back of the works. Some jesting remark was made about the cake and the rebel that made it, when he said he would go out and get some more. He was sitting in the pit beside me. He rose, still laughing, to carry out his purpose; but as his head and shoulders were exposed above the pit, there was ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... where el tesoro was supposed to be located. John Edwards stood in the house door watching him ambling over the waste, yellow plain, until Jim and his horse together appeared a mere speck in the distance, when he went to talk over with his sister the late transaction, and make some jesting remarks on the probability ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... quoth Alphonso, "what means this warlike guise? Ye know full well I jested—ye know your worth I prize."— But Bernard turned upon his heel, and smiling passed away— Long rued Alphonso and his realm the jesting of ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... familiar enough with my light, mocking way, Gabriella?" he cried, keeping pace with my accelerated steps. "Do not you know me well enough to understand when I am serious and when jesting? I have never professed fraternal regard, because I know a brother cannot feel half the—the interest for you that I do. I thought you knew it,—I dare not ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... talk this way!" she said in amazement. "Surely you are jesting. Take the effect on the polling places alone. Compare those of New York with those of Denver, and I have seen them in full operation in both places. In the first is the atmosphere of barrooms; in the second the manners and air of drawing-rooms. If I were a Colorado man I should ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... rescued from the mud, and their sacredness taught to children. A medical friend writes that he always taught his son that the vulgar sex names are really beautiful words of ancient origin, and that when we understand them aright we cannot possibly see in them any motive for low jesting. They are simple, serious and solemn words, connoting the most central facts of life, and only to ignorant and plebeian vulgarity can they cause obscene mirth. An American man of science, who has privately and anonymously printed some pamphlets on sex questions, also takes this view, and consistently ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Young man," remonstrated the senior severely, "think what you say; 'tis ill jesting with the man of art who brings his grey hairs and long study to heal you. A bear, quotha! Had you dissected as many bears as I, or the tithe, and drawn their teeth to keep your hand in, you would know that ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... principles; as, indeed, even in his written speeches, both political and judicial, we see him continually trying to show his learning by the way. And one may discover the different temper of each of them in their speeches. For Demosthenes's oratory was without all embellishment and jesting, wholly composed for real effect and seriousness; not smelling of the lamp, as Pytheas scoffingly said, but of the temperance, thoughtfulness, austerity, and grave earnestness of his temper. Whereas Cicero's love of mockery ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... The truth, half jesting, half in earnest flung; The word of cheer, with recognition in it; The note of alms, whose golden speech outrung The golden ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... forests and marshes just beyond the Elbe. This March of Brandenburg was won from the Slays in the first instance by the Saxons and Franks of the Saxon plain. When the burgrave, Frederick of Hohenzollern, came to take possession of his new territory he was received with the jesting remark: "Were it to rain burgraves for a whole year, we should not allow them to grow in the march." But Frederick's soldiers and money, and his Nuremberg jewels, as his cannon were called, ended by gaining complete control, a control in more powerful ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... of the suburbs, on finding their houses flooded in the darkness of night, lost the jesting calm which they had so boastfully displayed during the daytime. Now fear of the supernatural came over them, and with childish anxiety they sought protection of some Higher Power to avert the danger. Perhaps this ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... sat, stand at the Bar, with an Audience of Students over against him, putting of Cases, and debating so as suited their Capacities, and encouraged their Industry. And so in the Temple, he seldom moved without a Parcel of Youths hanging about him, and he merry and jesting with them. ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... baffle me with jesting answers as often as I sought to find out who and what she was. Nor had I better fortune with her mother, for whom I had small liking, and who had, as it seemed, no more for me. For she was short in her talk, and frowned to see ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... example of well-kept cemeteries, have combined, since the time of the last of the Georges, to effect an improvement in the general aspect of our churchyards, which was certainly very much needed. Culpable neglect, it may be added, was sometimes shown in the admission of jesting or profane epitaphs. The inscription on Gay's monument in Westminster Abbey is a well-known example. One other instance, in illustration, will be abundantly sufficient. Imagine the carelessness of supervision which could ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... ye all chaste, temperate, sober, meek: owe no man anything; give no reason for complaint. Avoid taverns and dancing, as occasions of evil. The women among you I charge to be modest in manners and apparel, to keep themselves free from foolish jesting and levity of the world, especially in respect of falsehood and oaths. Keep your maidens, and see that they wander not; beware of suffering them to deck and adorn themselves. 'We serve the Lord Christ.' ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... occasions answered in the same tone—"And who says I have not a lover?" So Cousin Betty's lover, real or fictitious, became a subject of mild jesting. At last, after two years of this petty warfare, the last time Lisbeth had come to the house Hortense's first ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... door flew open, and a beautiful, fair girl glided laughing into the room, and said "You have only been jesting, father, for ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... the state of the weather or the risks of war. The British soldier would have his game of "house" or "crown and anchor" even on the edge of the shell-storm, and his little bit of sport wherever there was room to stretch his legs. It was a jesting army (though some of its jokes were very grim), and those who saw, as I did, the daily tragedy of war, never ceasing, always adding to the sum of human suffering, were not likely to discourage that ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... God's death, my masters, you will find it ill jesting in this presence! What in the fiend's name! Think ye, Elizabeth of England may be tricked and cozened—made game of by a scurvy ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... passed, and I know not how many years after, the good knight was in a large town in Germany, about some business which drew him thither, and was lodged in an inn. As he was one night along with his servants, after supper, talking and jesting with them, he wished to retire, but as his servants were enjoying themselves he would not disturb them, so he took a candle and went alone. As he entered the closet he saw before him a most horrible and terrible monster, having large and long horns, eyes brighter than ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... geste show the way, anticipating in time, if not quite equalling in intensity, the Sagas and the Nibelungenlied. There is sometimes faintly mingled with this (as in the gabz of the Voyage a Constantinoble, and the exploits of Rainoart with the tinel) the spirit, half rough, half sly, of jesting, which by-and-by takes shape in the fabliaux. There is the immense and restless spirit of curiosity, which explores and refashions, to its own guise and fancy, the relics of the old world, the treasures of the East, the lessons of Scripture itself. Side by side with these there ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... He was in a strange city, visiting a friend whom he had not seen for years. The friend's sister was of that age when women are most susceptible. She was tall, a blonde, deliberate in motion, with blue eyes and fair hair. In a jesting way, St. Pierre, who had never seen her before, and knew nothing of her ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... out for the Land of Content, By the gay crowded pleasure-highway, With laughter, and jesting, I went With the mirth-loving throng for a day; Then I knew I had wandered astray, For I met returned pilgrims, belated, Who said, "We are weary and sated, But we found not the ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... will look at the connections, does not forbid jesting in the abstract; but jesting on immodest subjects—which are often designated in the New Testament by the phraseology there employed. I should give the sense of it—neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor indelicate jests. The kind of sprightly and amusing conversation ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... how pleased we is to see ye, and just tip us yer welwet purse, and we'll give it yer back when we're this way again." And not all the rigor of the attendant warders was enough to suppress such jesting. ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... through various landscapes, but it is the same river, and, at the last, it brings to us, as "the banks fade dimmer away" and "the stars come out" "murmurs and scents" of the same infinite Sea. Yes, there is only one Philosophy, as Disraeli said, jesting; and Matthew Arnold, among the moderns, is the one who has been allowed to put it into his poetry. For though, before the "Flamantia Moenia" of the world's triple brass, we are fain to bow our heads inconsolably, there come those moments when, a hand laid in ours, we think we know "the hills ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... seen to come down the broken path which leads to the shore; the latter all properly tackled for carrying their loading. Twenty fishing barks were pushed afloat at once, and crowded round the brig with much clamour, laughter, cursing, and jesting. Amidst all this apparent confusion there was the essential regularity. Nanty Ewart again walked his quarter-deck as if he had never tasted spirits in his life, issued the necessary orders with precision, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... but Barto Rizzo's wife refused to move a foot. The officers consulted. She, was brought before them. The soldiers swore with jesting oaths that she had been carefully searched for weapons, and only wanted a whipping. "She must have it," said Weisspriess. Vittoria entreated that she might have a place beside her in the carriage. "It is more than I would have ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... putting forth her best energies, and he was relieved to find that she disposed of her work so lightly; even her frequent calamities were a matter for jesting. They made a joke of the washing of the supper dishes: he insisted on helping her, and would don an apron and do the rougher part of it. He declared that he had never been so well fed before, and that her cooking showed real genius. It would be a dark day when ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... creature is not wholly pleased, that he seems as if made to feel a degree of inferiority. Such also is the case with children; and little Wilton felt that the Earl was making a sort of playful investigation of his mind, even while he was jesting with him. I have said felt, because it was feeling, not thought, that discovered it; and, therefore, though he loved the Earl notwithstanding all this, he was glad to go where he heard there were many ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... property. Kohlhaas pushed the pen and ink over for him to sign, and when the bailiff, who could not believe his senses, again inquired if he were really in earnest, and the horse-dealer asked, a little sensitively, whether he thought that he was only jesting with him, then took up the pen, though with a very serious face, and wrote. However, he crossed out the clause concerning the sum to be forfeited in case the seller should repent of the transaction, bound himself to a ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... and sway about very unsteadily, besides that every step was with a jolting motion. It kept Daisy in constant uneasiness. Dr. Sandford walked on just before with his gun; Alexander Fish came after, laughing and jesting ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... her that." The young man spoke quickly. His tone was half jesting, half earnest. He stood looking at the two faces, glancing from one to the other with a look of baffled resentment. "A living shame!" he ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... out spitefully and Wunpost curbed his wit for he saw where his jesting was leading to. When it came to her father this unsophisticated child would stand up and fight like a wildcat. And he began to perceive too that she was not such a child—she was a woman, with the experience ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... are talking about, Sally,' her husband replied good-humouredly, for he was a man of excellent temper, and a little given to jesting. 'But I suppose you thought it good for you last christmas, when ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... as far BACK," I cried, jesting; for she looked about twenty-four, and had cheeks like a ripe nectarine, just as pink ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... be entirely palatable to my feminine pride; but I was careful not to hint this to Miss Darrell, and she went on in the same light jesting way. ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... reason to idolize her, and that the easy freedom of her mind as well as of her behaviour with me was entirely owing to her innocence and to her purity. Her artlessness, her vivacity, her eager curiosity, and the bashful blushes which spread over her face whenever her innocent or jesting remarks caused me to laugh, everything, in fact, convinced me that she was an angel destined to become the victim of the first libertine who would undertake to seduce her. I felt sufficient control over my own feelings to resist any attempt against her virtue which ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... furniture? Especially a man who could not afford such extravagance? I knew the size of Vantine's fortune; it was large, but a hundred thousand dollars represented more than a year's income. And then I smiled to myself. Of course Vantine had been merely jesting when he named that limit. The cabinet could be bought for a tenth of it, at the most. And, still smiling, I left the cab, paid the driver, and mounted ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... from an excursion to Diodati, an occasion was afforded for the gratification of his jesting propensities by the avowal of the young physician (Polidori) that—he had fallen in love. On the evening of this tender confession they both appeared at Shelley's cottage—Lord Byron, in the highest and most boyish spirits, rubbing his hands as he walked about the room, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 - Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number • Various
... Satyrs who carried canisters and cornucopias full of several fruits in their hands, and danced with them at their public feasts, and afterwards reading Horace, who makes mention of his homely Romans jesting at one another in the same kind of solemnities, might suppose those wanton Satyrs did the same; and especially because Horace possibly might seem to him to have shown the original of all poetry in general (including the Grecians as well as Romans), ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... of criticism was as easy to the rude multitude as to the witlings of the Court, and its effects, when it spread to that multitude, were far more deadly. The King's judgment might condemn, but his facile love of jesting made him inclined to listen to, the empty and sordid chatter of frivolity that sounded through his Court. "Meanwhile," says Clarendon, "all men of virtue and sobriety, of which there were very many in the King's family, ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... is the fashion in the States to speak of "poor old Punch," and to affect astonishment at seeing in its "senile pages" anything that they have to admit to be funny. Doubtless a great deal of very laborious and vapid jesting goes on in the pages of the doyen of English comic weeklies; but at its best Punch is hard to beat, and its humours have often a literary quality such as is seldom met with in an American journal of the same kind. No American paper can even remotely claim to have added so much to the gaiety of ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... not less wise and comprehending than his fun was compelling! If his humor was American, it was also cosmopolitan, and had its laughing way not merely with our British kinsmen, but with alien peoples across the usually impenetrable barrier of translation. The fortune of his jesting lay not in his ears, but in the hearts of his hearers. It was at once appealing and revealing. It flashed its playful light into the nooks and corners of our own being, and wove close bonds with those at whom we laughed. There was ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... battle-ground than at home. Out there, though possibly mischance may suddenly extinguish the day for them, they will be with those who understand, with comrades who rarely discuss the war except obliquely and with quiet and bitter jesting. Seeing the world has gone wrong, how much better and easier it is to take the likelihood of extinction with men who have the same mental disgust as your own, and can endure it till they die, but who, while they live in the same torment with you, ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... did Mr. Brown say, but I was in no humor to talk, or even to listen; and yet I can now frankly confess that if he had not made light of my misfortune I should have suffered ten times the amount of mental agony that I did. His jesting style of treating the affair was alone sufficient to make me keep up my spirits, and imagine the matter as one of less ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... tired to walk any farther; it was dirty, and was crying bitterly. Tom stopped, spoke to the girl, and offered to carry the baby, who soon quieted down on Tom's shoulder. At the end of that walk Tom's light summer suit was ruined. I expected him to turn with some trivial, jesting remark, but he said nothing. I looked at him and saw that his face was set and hard and his eyes wet. Without looking at me, he said: ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown
... understood why he wore it, for Jack was not vain of his appearance, and did not seem to care for ornaments of any kind. Peterkin said "it was in memory of the girl he left behind him!" But as he never spoke of this girl to either of us, I am inclined to think that Peterkin was either jesting or mistaken. In addition to these articles we had a little bit of tinder, and the clothes on our back. These last were ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... we can give a positive reply to such grave matters. I content myself in assuring you, that I have for you as much confidence as respect, and should be very happy to obtain your protection." "My protection! Oh, heaven, madame, you are jesting. It is I who should be honored by your friendship." "It is yours; but as yet I am nothing at court, and can do nothing there until I have been presented. It is for my speedy presentation that ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... "And I'm not jesting," Jasmine added, with a forced smile. "But tell me what has gone wrong with all your plans. You don't mind what Tynemouth says. Of course you will do ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Ellerey's visit to me. He has quickly received the favor of one of the ladies of our Court, a favor for which I am in some measure responsible. When Captain Ellerey first came among us, he furnished us with subject for jesting by declaring that no woman had ever played a serious part in his life. I expressed a belief that such a statement would rouse feminine enthusiasm in Sturatzberg, and I have since often questioned him whether he could truthfully repeat the declaration. It was ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... any better than other folks, Una. But when anyone is dead you mustn't say anything of him but good or he'll come back and ha'nt you. Aunt Martha told me that. I asked father if it was true and he just looked through me and muttered, 'True? True? What is truth? What IS truth, O jesting Pilate?' I concluded from that ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... she, whilst her beautiful features were divided, if we may so say, between smiles and tears, "papa, Dunroe is only jesting; I am sure he is only jesting, and does not mean ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Simoun," interposed Basilio, changing to a jesting tone, "rather keep in mind the verses of my ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... you nothing at all," said Alette, as, with jesting defiance, she turned her pretty little head towards him; "because my last word is, in every case, a different kind of ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... Captain Crewe, brought her from India and gave her into my care," the speech proceeded, "he said to me, in a jesting way, 'I am afraid she will be very rich, Miss Minchin.' My reply was, 'Her education at my seminary, Captain Crewe, shall be such as will adorn the largest fortune.' Sara has become my most accomplished pupil. Her French ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... astonished if any one should say to him, 'Only fancy, my boy, the governor gives us forty sous for our breakfast;' 'Pshaw! it is impossible,' he would say. 'It is so possible that he has announced it to me, Chalamel, in my own person.' 'You are jesting.' 'I jest! This is the way it occurred: during two or three days which followed the death of Madame Seraphin, we had no breakfast at all. We liked that well enough, for no breakfast at all was better than that she gave us; but, on the other ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... Eddy's name in full. Perhaps the Angel of the Apocalypse likes this kind of piracy. I made this remark lightly to a Christian Scientist this morning, but he did not receive it lightly, but said it was jesting upon holy things; he said there was no piracy, for the angel did not compose the book, he only brought it—'God composed it.' I could have retorted that it was a case of piracy just the same; that the displayed texts should be signed with the Author's initials, and that to sign ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... French court poet, said that they had nothing of the pedagogue about them but the gown and cap. "Austere in face, and rustic in his looks," says David Buchanan, "but most polished in style and speech; and continually, even in serious conversation, jesting most wittily." "Roughhewn, slovenly, and rude," says Peacham, in his 'Compleat Gentleman,' speaking of him, probably, as he appeared in old age, "in his person, behaviour, and fashion; seldom caring for a better outside than a rugge-gown girt close about him: yet his inside ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... padlock of the door and sealed it. There was a stove in the room, and the maidens began to pack up their clothes there, an operation that lasted till eight o'clock; while Helen's friend stood there, talking and jesting with them, trying all the while to hide the files, and contriving to say to Helen: "Take care that we have a light." So she begged the old housekeeper to give her plenty of wax tapers, as she had many prayers to say. At last every one was ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... in November, 1879, gravely undertook to instruct Edison in the A B C of electrical principles, and then proceeded to demonstrate mathematically the IMPOSSIBILITY of doing WHAT EDISON HAD ACTUALLY DONE. This critic concludes with a gentle rebuke to the inventor for ill-timed jesting, and a suggestion to furnish ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... opportunity. It came on the morrow of All Saints. On that Day of the Dead, Arsenio, whose rearing had been that of a true son of Mother Church, was stirred by the memory of his earthly mother, who had died some three years before. He was silent and moody, and showed little responsiveness to Garnache's jesting humour. Garnache, wondering what might be toward in the fellow's ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... upon the word of such silly wretches as I and my fellows, who can hardly write or read." I then asked him why he had not calculated his own nativity, to see whether it agreed with Bickerstaff's prediction, at which he shook his head and said, "Oh, sir, this is no time for jesting, but for repenting those fooleries, as I do now from the very bottom of my heart." "By what I can gather from you," said I, "the observations and predictions you printed with your almanacks were ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... east, and of the theories to account for it where no campers had been. Yet underneath the rambling chatter Virginia was aware of something new in her consciousness, something delicious but as yet vague. In the gayest moment of her half-jesting, half-affectionate gossip with the Indian woman, she felt its uplift catching her breath from beneath, so that for the tiniest instant she would pause as though in readiness for some message which nevertheless delayed. A fresh delight in the present moment held her, a fresh ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... honourable Herr von Scholl left him in a private room, and soon returned with a posse of official Majors and Amtmen, the chief of whom advanced to Schubart, and declared him—an arrested man! The hapless Schubart thought it was a jest; but alas here was no jesting! Schubart then said with a composure scarcely to be looked for, that "he hoped the Duke would not condemn him unheard." In this too he was deceived; the men of office made him mount a carriage with them, and set off without delay for Hohenasperg. The Duke himself ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... of this, gentlemen," said Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz, "it is difficult to smile with an aching heart; it is ill jesting when our deepest sympathies are awakened. My client's hopes and prospects are ruined, and it is no figure of speech to say that her occupation is gone indeed. The bill is down—but there is no tenant. Eligible single gentlemen pass and repass—but there is no invitation ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... man laughed derisively. He had resumed his seat by the other's side. "Pho!" he said, "you'll be jesting. For the power, it's but a name. If he were to use, were it but the thin end of it, it would run into his hand! The boys would rise upon him, and Flavvy'd be the worst of them. It's in the deep bog he'd be, before he knew where he was, and never'd he ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... have demanded that you would have feigned, at least, some interest in the boy who championed my cause. I was wrong, even in merry jest, to touch on such a subject, but I thought that as French gentlemen you would understand that I was half serious, half jesting at myself for this girlish love of mine. He is not here to defend himself against your uncourteous remarks; but, Monsieur le Duc, allow me to inform you that the fact that the person who insulted me paid for it almost with his life was no proof ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... "I'm not jesting," I bawled; "I'm deadly serious. I knew Lucy before you did, and I kissed her and she kissed me years before she knew of your high existence; and if she had been a sensible woman she would have married me instead ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... this kind from me, for you have correspondents and messengers from home who report to you about your household. Moreover, so far as my concerns go, there is absolutely nothing new. There are two kinds of letters left which please me very much: one, of the informal and jesting sort; the other, serious and weighty. I do not feel that it is unbecoming to adopt either of these styles. Am I to jest with you by letter? On my word I do not think that there is a citizen who can laugh in these days. Or shall I write something ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... open the Bible at random and take your omen from the first words your eyes light on. Yet I never accused you of jesting with Holy Writ. Cannot God as easily determine the fall of ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... is the knowledge that it is for your advantage. But if that is not so, nothing can be more foolish than both the one and the other of us: me for not inducing you to come back to Rome—you for not flying thither. By heavens, our conversation, whether serious or jesting, will be worth more not only than the enemy, but even than our "brothers" the Haedui.[687] Wherefore let me know about everything as ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... not have been so vexed but for the ill-timed jesting of this same Bazzi. We had been asked to inspect the picture before it should be sent to the monks for whom it was painted, and while I stood entranced with its exceeding loveliness and my uncle himself was astonished by the skill displayed, ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... visited on his friends by an increasing irritability. The first few days of this state of Kwaiba were laughable. He spoke of O'Iwa San; not freely, rather with reticence. He made his references as of jesting expectation of her advent. Then he passed to boisterous tricks; springing out on the maids from dark corners or the turns in the corridors. Alarmed by these manifestations of the old man—not entirely strange, for he was a terror to the female element in ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... waggoner nodded drowsily; but, divine privilege of youth! the spirits of the lads and lasses only freshened as the long day waned and they neared the goal. They were dramatis personae on a moving stage, jesting like country folks going to a fair. Even Will Locke was roused and lively as he answered Dulcie's pertinacious, pertinent questions about the animal and vegetable life he loved so well; while Dulcie, ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... Jesting with an Epitaph? On her bones the turf lie lightly, And her rise again be brightly! No dark stain be found upon her— No, there will not, on mine honour— Answer that at least ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... be inferred from hence, that their conversation is dull and gloomy. There is often no want of sprightliness, wit, and humour. But then this sprightliness, never borders upon folly, for all foolish jesting is to be avoided, and it is always decorous. When vivacity makes its appearance among the Quakers; it is sensible, and it is uniformly in an innocent and ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... sympathy. Besides, the overpowering love he bore to the child seemed to demand fuller vent than tender words; it made him like, yet dread, to upbraid its object for the fearful contrast foretold. Still Squire Griffiths told the legend, in a half-jesting manner, to his little son, when they were roaming over the wild heaths in the autumn days, "the saddest of the year," or while they sat in the oak-wainscoted room, surrounded by mysterious relics that gleamed strangely ...
— The Doom of the Griffiths • Elizabeth Gaskell
... jesting, boy," broke out the Englishman. "I am a man of consideration in my own country. The lady here will bear me out. I offered you fifty pounds. I will give you five hundred if you will ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... a mood to be trifled with, and I again think it better to omit her response to this inconvenient jesting. What she did was to give Pilot his head, and she presently found herself as near the hounds as was necessary, galloping in a line with the huntsman straight for a three-foot wall, lightly built of round stones. That her ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... man, and had somewhat the air of a navy officer; but he tackled me with great solemnity. I could make fun of what he said, for I do not think it was very wise; but the subject does not appear to me just now in a jesting light, so I shall only say that he related to me his own conversion, which had been effected (as is very often the case) through the agency of a gig accident, and that, after having examined me and diagnosed my case, he selected some suitable tracts from his repertory, ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were solemn moments, too, when the people reverently listened to the grave words of God the Father, or to those, tender and loving, of Mary, the Virgin Mother. And when the shepherds neared the manger where lay the wondrous Babe, all jesting ceased. Here there was nothing but tender, ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... had received one hundred roubles at the same time for their expenses. They had concluded from this circumstance that the child was probably of high birth, but they had never supposed that he was of royal descent, and had thought that the boy was only jesting when he had called himself a prince. Then the farmer himself attended the king to the village where he had taken the youth as herd-boy, not, indeed, by his own wish, but at the request of the boy, ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... and saw At Sinai's foot the Giver of the Law. Less stern he seems, who sits in equal Mate On the twin throne and shares the empire's weight; Around his lips the subtle life that plays Steals quaintly forth in many a jesting phrase; A lightsome nature, not so hard to chafe, Pleasant when pleased; rough-handled, not so safe; Some tingling memories vaguely I recall, But to forgive him. God ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... disturbed. "Have you then put into execution the project—the plan you spoke of?" he faltered. "I thought you were only jesting." ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... have been either like our dumb-shows, or else a kind of extempore farces—a thing to this day a good deal in use all over Italy and in Tuscany. In a more particular manner, add to these that extempore kind of jesting dialogues begun at their harvest and vintage feasts, and carried on so rudely and abusively afterwards as to occasion a very severe law to restrain their licentiousness; and those lovers of poetry and good eating, who seem to have attended the tables ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... it?" said Richard. "Away, it cannot be. There is not even a scratch on thy face. It is ill jesting with a King—yet I will forgive thee ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds. |
