"Jest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... new species," said Mr. Wadreds to him one day, "right out of the same trap you're haulin'. And sometimes, when there has been a long-continued storm and the wind's settin' in from the southeast, the traps have jest had ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... audaciously said, "the reason her cousin did not marry was because she would not lose the power of compelling men to make love to her." Perhaps the memory of this jest made it easier to sign ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... and 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
... Madam, to smile at the jest which plants a Thorn on another's Breast is to become ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... Sir, the court, In troth, stays for you. I am mad, a mule That never read Justinian, should get up, And ride an advocate. Had you no quirk To avoid gullage, sir, by such a creature? I hope you do but jest; he has not done it: 'Tis but confederacy, to blind the rest. You are ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... thou wert the first to fling Thy virgin flag of freedom to the breeze, The first to humble, in thy neighboring seas, The imperious despot's power; But long before that hour, While yet, in false and vain imagining, Thy sister nations would not own their foe, And turned to jest thy warnings, though the low, Deep, awful mutterings, that precede the throe Of earthquakes, burdened all the ominous air; While yet they paused in scorn, Of fatal madness born,— Thou, oh, my Mother! like a priestess bless'd With wondrous vision of the ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... makes a poet's skill a jest, revealing to the soul inexpressible feelings by the aid of inexplicable sounds! A blast of thy trumpet, and millions rush forward to die; a peal of thy organ, and uncounted nations sink down to pray. ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... Binford, and intimated that if B. should be elected, he (James) would resign rather than serve with such a colleague. Hearing this, Binford went to the house of James to demand an explanation. Mrs. James remarked, in a jest as Binford thought, that if she was in the place of her husband she would resign her seat in the Senate, and not serve with such a character. B. told her that she was a woman, and could say what she pleased. She replied that she was not in earnest. James then looked B. in the face and said ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... She had a high sense of her responsibilities, and therefore, at various times, endeavoured to further the spread of philanthropy and literature and theosophy and art and temperance and education and other laudable causes. Mr. Kennaston, in his laughing manner, was wont to jest at her varied enterprises and term her Lady Bountiful; but, then, Mr. Kennaston had no real conception of the proper uses of money. In fact, he never thought of money. He admitted this to Margaret with a ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... a little later, they go to dinner. After their meals they resume their domestic amusements, during which the flame of mutual affection spreads in every heart, and unites the rising generation with new and tender ties. The lively jest, without any ill-nature, the artless tale, the jocund dance and frugal supper, bring on the evening; and another visit to the river concludes the actions of the day. Thus contented with their simple way of life, and placed in a delightful country, they are free ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... the thronged thoroughfare, obstructed by crowds who came to gaze upon the pageant, many a significant sneer or half-uttered jest would convey to Haman a sense of his degradation in appearing as the groom ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... plenty of time," said the old frontiersman. "You jest lay around in the sun, an' you'll feel better ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... Marble! 'T ain't anythin' but baked clay; split all to pieces prob'ly—but ye can't tell. I've heard ye can shoot a taller candle through an inch plank—and that's consid'able softer than a marble. And that pesky cat's jest as ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... and a pondering upon things; even his rustic wariness is innocent in its way. Early that autumn he found the turf on the roof of the stable was beginning to slip down inside. Isak chewed at his beard for a while, then, smiling like a man who understands a jest, he laid some poles across to keep it up. Not a bitter word did he say. And another thing: the shed where he kept his store of provisions was simply built on high stone feet at the corners, with nothing between. After a while, ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... Girodon have left them the French seem to be less confident. When Bailloud entered our Mess he said, in the presence of four or five young Officers, "If the Asiatic side of the Straits is not held by us within fifteen days our whole force is voue a la destruction." He meant it as a jest, but when those who prophesy destruction are gros bonnets; big wigs; it needs no miracle to make them come off—I don't mean the wigs but the prophecies. Fortunately, Bailloud soon made a cheerier class of joke and wound ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... boat came surging in on the foam, these manly children waded out to meet her, throwing water at each other, and skylarking as they went. They treated the whole business in fact as a rather good jest, and although they toiled like heroes, they accompanied their work with such jovial looks, and hummed such lilting, free-and-easy airs the while, that it was difficult to associate their doings with ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... he had formed the habit of being robbed, and later on he was drugged; but no one could conjecture what he would next add to his repertory. His troubles were amusing, his difficulties were humorous, his failures were laughable, and his sorrows were the cause for jest. He had a growing paunch, and when he stood he leaned back slightly as though his rotund front found ease in exhibition. As a law student he had aimed a severe blow at justice, and failing as an attorney, he had served his country a good turn. As a reporter he wrote with a torch, ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... Chris, who was plucky enough when he understood the nature of the threatened danger. "Golly, I jest reckon dis nigger got to stay and look out for ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... each other. This seemed a heartless jest indeed! And it wasn't a bit like their father to tease them when they were in trouble. And real ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... "Twisted it across his shoulders, and let it drag behind him." 54 "Every beaver now made a mad rush for the canal." 58 "It was no longer a log, but a big gray lynx." 62 "He caught sight of a beaver swimming down the pond." 72 "'Or even maybe a bear.'" 90 "He drowns jest at the place where he come in." 96 "Hunted through the silent and pallid aisles of the forest." 102 "A sinister, dark, slow-moving beast." 106 "He sprang with a huge bound that landed him, claws open, squarely on the wolverene's hind quarters." 110 "It was not until the moon appeared ... that ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... life in it. She suffered him to put her hand upon his arm, and then she began to feel a strange pride in his being tall and handsome, and hers. But she kept thinking as they walked, "I hope he'll never he sorry," and she said it again, half in jest. He pressed her hand against his heart, and met her look with one of protest and reassurance, that presently melted into something sweeter yet. He said, "What beautiful eyes you have! I noticed the long lashes when I saw ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... for his comeliness; but at her honeyed words the youth, quite abashed, sat silent, saying nothing. The Queen at last questioned him if his heart was set on any maid or dame, to which he replied that it was not, that love was a serious business and not to be taken in jest. ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... hell, auld wheezie bellows," replied one woman coarsely, adding a rough jest at his breathlessness, whilst the others laughed loudly, adding, each one, another sally to ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... resist. He even sought to conceal his depth of feeling under a disguise of lightness. He admitted that in his present frame of mind he ought to be with her as much as possible, as then, if ever, he stood in need of a sure antidote for the blues, and with a half-hearted jest he closed the conversation, and after that call merely kept away from her. It was hard for him, and as hard for her; but if he had honor, she had pride. So they drifted apart, ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... value of these ideas (we trust and hope) by their bulk. The reader indeed—that great idea!—is very often a more important person towards the fortune of an essay than the writer. Even 'the prosperity of a jest,' as Shakespeare tells us, lies less in its own merit than 'in the ear of him that hears it.' If he should happen to be unusually obtuse, the wittiest jest perishes—the most pointed is found blunt. So, with regard to ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... Wotton is credited with the statement that "an ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to lie for the commonwealth", a definition half in jest but not without a touch of seriousness. The feeling is making itself manifest which will soon become universal, that an ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to represent the people of his own country ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... the puncher made motions of going through the performance a second time. The joke never staled. It always got a hand, no matter how often it was repeated. At each encore the Utes stamped their flatfooted way round the room in a kind of impromptu and mirthful dance. The baptismal jest never ceased to be ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... revealed to your own mind, and to the assembled jury of the universe? Will your thinking, or saying, that the whole is a fiction, make it so? Will your scoff at God's revelation of the future prevent the dead from rising, or the Judge from appearing? Will a foolish jest, or a proud callousness, or a subtle argument, or a brave indifference to what others fear, enable you, on the resurrection morning, to shut your ears against the sound of the last trump, or to disobey the summons of the Son of God to rise from the tomb, and to appear before Him? ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... from earlier generations. Far as we think we are from our uncivilized ancestors, much of what they did and thought has come into our doing and thinking,—with many changes perhaps, under different religious forms, and sometimes in jest where they were in earnest. Still, these customs and observances (of which All-hallow Eve is only one) may be called the piers, upon which rests a bridge that spans the wide past between us and the generations ...
— Our Holidays - Their Meaning and Spirit; retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... the expression of the others it was patent that to them also the jest appealed. Only Judas did not seem to have heard; he sat bolt upright, fumbling Mary with his ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... now," said Simon. "It's a railway station, and I see that 'ere willain there, jest as cunnin' as ever. He's a gettin' in the ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... he said. "I seem to be the only one who doesn't know what's going on in my ship. Is this part of the jest?" ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... instead of correcting the vices of the age, have done all they could to inflame them. Marriage has been one of the common topics of ridicule that every stage scribbler hath found his account in; for whenever there is an occasion for a clap, an impertinent jest upon matrimony is sure to raise it. This hath been attended with very pernicious consequences. Many a country squire, upon his setting up for a man of the town, has gone home in the gaiety of his heart and beat his wife. A kind husband hath been looked upon as a clown, and a good wife as a domestic ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... 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, and in my manhood, I derived ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... for he was refreshed, and restored. Forthwith, as soon as I could speak with him (and I could, so soon as he was able, for I never left him, and we hung but too much upon each other), I essayed to jest with him, as though he would jest with me at that baptism which he had received, when utterly absent in mind and feeling, but had now understood that he had received. But he so shrunk from me, as from an enemy; and with a wonderful ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... exclaimed Ned, with a sudden flash of ferocity; "ay, bad enough in all conscience, and the worst of it is, that it makes me ready to jest about anything—in heaven, earth, or ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... was 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
... sea! But, as I say, Dante never heeded my jeers, and sat there very quiet and silent, very much as if he had forgotten our existence, and was thinking only of that gracious child he spoke of. And I, my laughter being somewhat abashed by his gravity, and the edge of my jest being blunted by his indifference, as well as by the reproof on Guido's face, stood there awkwardly, not knowing whether to abide with him or leave him, when there came, to break my embarrassment, the presence of ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... I had to come east on business. There was some property to be settled up in Beulah, so I thought I'd jest step down here an' ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... was at this time a young officer, and he and I, leaving the two seniors to proceed in their chat as they pleased, never once opened our mouths either to them or each other. The Pragmatic Sanction happened unfortunately to become the theme of their conversation, when Constable said in jest, "Now, John, I'll wad you a plack that neither of these two lads ever heard of the Pragmatic Sanction."—"Not heard of the Pragmatic Sanction!" said John Davidson; "I would like to see that;" and with a voice of thunder he asked his son the fatal question. As young ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... of the elaborate ritual, pleasantly punctuated with cups of raisin wine, passed peacefully by, and the evening meal, mercifully set in the middle, was reached, to the children's vast content. They made wry, humorous mouths, each jest endeared by annual repetition, over the horseradish that typified the bitterness of the Egyptian bondage, and ecstatic grimaces over the soft, sweet mixture of almonds, raisins, apples, and cinnamon, vaguely suggestive of the bondsmen's mortar; they ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... forehead, and her face grow ashen and perturbed. And this was not mended by the levity with which the young ladies, with whom the spectre had lost his influence, familiarity, as usual, breeding contempt, had come to talk, and even to jest, about it. ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... think exactly as I spoke, strive as I might to believe the man in jest. Too much solemnity and sorrow both were discernible in his worn and rugged features, hewn grandly as if from granite, to admit of a hope like this. His words were earnest, and some great calamity was in store, I could not doubt, or at least he apprehended such. For ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... dropped the jewel-case? Was it because I was startled by the jocular remark which identified the mysterious man with the person who had disturbed the steersman? That remark was made in mere jest. Yet I could not help thinking that it contained the truth. Nay, I knew that it was true; I knew by instinct. And being true, what facts were logically to be deduced from it? What aim had this mysterious man in compelling, by his strange influences, the ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... nobles a weeke, then, I will give thee, For this merry jest thou hast showne unto me; And tell the old abbot, when thou comest home, Thou hast brought him a ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... a Man that laugh'd to death. This is the traditional end of l'unico Aretino. On hearing some ribald jest he is said to have flung himself back in a chair and expired of sheer merriment. Later days elucidate his fate by declaring that overbalancing himself he broke his neck on the marble pavement. Sir Thomas Urquhart, the glorious translator of Rabelais, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... Hamilton's trailin's? Stopped agin—that's before Somerville's shanty. What's gone o' them now? Maybe they've lost the trail and got onto Gray's slide through the woods. It's no use lookin'; ye couldn't see anything in this nigger dark. Hol' on! If they're comin' through the woods, ye'll hear 'em again jest off here. Yes! ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... then," replied the crew, opening his mouth from ear to ear in one of his cheerful smiles. "She calls me Monkey, jest as other folks do. When I give her this dollar she'll be satisfied. Won't she open her ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... am not jesting, Lieutenant Mathers. I never jest. Obviously, I am not of the military. It would be quite impossible for me to gain such an award. But you are the ...
— Medal of Honor • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... John would have maintained his ground she besought him not to jest in that direction, with eyes so ready for tears ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... of San Marco and San Teodoro,—every inch of the vast Piazza, without the circle of soldiery, occupied by eager spectators. Over this vast assemblage, amid the impending thoughts which the incidents of the hour and the memory of the Past inspired, reigned a profound silence; no laugh or jest, such as bespeaks a holiday, no heartless curiosity, such as accompanies a mere public show, no vulgar excitement was evident; on many faces dwelt an expression of awe and pity,—on others an indignant ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... "Jest drove off that way; Mrs. Flynn's baby's in a fit," cried a stout lady from the piazza, never ceasing to rock, though several passers-by paused to hear the news, for she was a doctor's wife, and used to the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... and jest we were worrying away the leaden-winged hours, when suddenly thug, splash, and like a huge turtle we were floundering in the mud. 'No moving,' said the captain, 'till the tide comes up;' and so for three mortal ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... girl could do. He cared no more about her than he did about whatever woman cleaned his rooms. She was not angry, but a feeling of weariness came upon her. (It is odd that one can be so in earnest when one is in jest.) Once or twice she shook her head at the moon, and as she stared, moody and quiet, it seemed that the moon had slid beyond her vision and she was looking into great caverns of space, bursting with blackness. ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... was trying to make a jest of it; but Samuel was in deadly earnest. "I hope," he said, "that you are not dependent upon the money of ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... the cottage eaves, when, at the close of day, Kind-hearted mirth and social ease the toiling hour repay; Though coarse the fare, though rude the jest, that cheer that lowly board, There loving hearts and honest ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... to the sensitive "novus homo." With Pompey, though he trusted him politically as he never trusted Caesar, Cicero was never so intimate. They had not the same common interests; Cicero could laugh at Pompey behind his back, but hardly once in his correspondence does he attempt to raise a jest about Caesar. ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... that sots and knaves should be so vain, To wish their vile remembrance may remain And stand recorded at their own request, To future days a libel or a jest." ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... emancipation. She persuaded old nurse to teach her to be useful, and Margaret used to declare that she witnessed scenes as good as a play in her room, where the little dexterous scholar, apparently in jest, but really in sober, earnest, wiled instruction from the old woman; and made her experiments, between smiles and blushes, and merrily glorying in results that promised that she would be a notable housewife. ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... her hands. Macalister had bought him two hundred and fifty shares and sold them at the half-crown profit he had suggested. The commission note was to follow next day. For one moment Philip was furious with Mildred for her cruel jest, but then he could only think ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... contrast with the faces on each side and in front of her—faces of rude intelligence, faces of fathomless stupidity, faces degraded into something less than human. But all were listening, all straining towards her. There were a few whispers of honest admiration, a few of vile jest. She ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... little rim of cold steel pressed against his temple. With that touch all Evan's agony rolled away. After all, what was life but a jest? Thank God! he was ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... the young soldier: to have taken no notice of it might have been considered as cowardice. Oglethorpe, therefore, keeping his eye upon the Prince, and smiling all the time, as if he took what his Highness had done in jest, said 'Man Prince,—'(I forget the French words he used, the purport however was.) 'That's a good joke; but we do it much better in England;' and threw a whole glass of wine in the Prince's face. An old General who sat by, said, 'Il a bien fait, mon Prince, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... to know whether Labat (tom. iv. p. 53—57) be in jest or in earnest, when he supposes that Anagni still feels the weight of this curse, and that the cornfields, or vineyards, or olive-trees, are annually blasted by Nature, the obsequious handmaid ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... in the mood for joking?' he said, at last. 'Have you ever heard me jest on such subjects, Miss Garston? I thought we agreed on ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... "Jest see how she throwed dirt an' water on them boots," said another, extending an enormous ugly boot. "Them boots ain't ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... "Found there wasn't a glass-blower in all Californy. Bought 'n old machine, put up to the mines with it, blew all sorts 'f jigmarigs 'n' thingumbobs, 'n' sold 'em to the miners 'n' Injuns. Them critters is jest like sailors ashore; they'll buy anything they set eyes on. Besides, I sounded my horn; advertised big, so to speak; got up a sensation. Used to mount a stump 'n' make a speech; told 'em I'd blow Yankee Doodle in glass, any color they ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... had been adorned at the expense of different emperors he inscribed his own name, and that, not as if he were the restorer of old works, but their founder. This same fault is said to have characterized the emperor Trajan, from which the people in jest named him "The Pellitory ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... good-nature, with comparatively little brilliancy, quietly and unobtrusively take the helm. There is the excellent talker who, by his talents and his acquirements, is eminently fitted to delight and to instruct, yet he is so unable to repress some unseemly jest or some pointed sarcasm or some humorous paradox that he continually leaves a sting behind him, creates enemies, destroys his reputation for sobriety of thought, and makes himself impossible in posts of ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... "Jest as you say, then," the other John replied. "But if anything happens, don't blame me. I've a notion we ought to climb ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... Richmond; Sherman was marching tump-tump through Georgia. I was a stripling lad den and boy-like I got to see and hear everything. One day more than all, de overseer sent my pappy to Ashepoo junction to get de mail. I gone 'long wid him. Seem like I jest had ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... can't yeh give a poor feller a couple of cents t' git a bed? I got five, and I gits anudder two I gits me a bed. Now, on th' square, gents, can't yeh jest gimme two cents t' git a bed? Now, yeh know how a respecter'ble gentlem'n feels when he's down on his luck, ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... brilliant, daring girl; Mary, witty and playful, though frank and warm-hearted; but it made me love them more than ever. The gaiety and audacity of the one was forgotten in the presence of the thoughtful, timid Lily: and the other checked the merry jest which trembled on her lips, and sobered that roguish eye beside the earnest, sensitive girl; so that, though we were together almost daily, dear Lily did not understand the character ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... There, darling of the lotus eye, I see thee, and 'tis vain to fly, Wilt thou not speak, dear love? I see Thy form half hidden by the tree. Stay if thou love me, Sita, stay In pity cease thy heartless play. Why mock me now? thy gentle breast Was never prone to cruel jest. 'Tis vain behind yon bush to steal: Thy shimmering silks thy path reveal. Fly not, mine eyes pursue thy way; For pity's sake, dear Sita, stay. Ah me, ah me, my words are vain; My gentle love is lost or slain. How could her tender bosom spurn Her husband on his home-return? Ah no, my ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... "You jest put your hand on me, you big, overgrown sawney! That's all I'm a-waitin' for. You 'tack me and I'll have you in the caboose, sure's my name's Gedney Raffer. ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... great Council in London doth dvell; Jest vot they are arter 'tvould floor me to tell. They're qvite a young body—not seving years old— But they've spent a large fortin in silver and go-o-old. Singing, Ills ve vill cure ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... is the camp-fire represented as a rude humorist? It causes faces and forms that are haggard and care-worn to appear fresh and healthy, thus playing a grim jest ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... 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, in whom as yet we take no particular ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... superior ingenuity—as having been "done," in short. So, if a lark succeeded, the authorities aforesaid were decidedly done, and laughed at accordingly; if it failed, why the other party were done, and there was still somebody to laugh at. No doubt, the jest was richer in the first case supposed; but, in the second, there was the additional gusto, so dear to human philanthropy, of having the victim present, and enjoying his discomfiture, which, in the case of the dons being the sufferers, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... "That's jest what this is goin' to be. We're lettin' you off of a poundin' so's to show what can be done, an' if you say so much as a word to old Donovan we'll pretty near ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... watch that Ball, 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
... the tail: it is done every season. Nothing can put them beside this, and they insist that, take a horse tired in traces and put him to work by the tail, he will draw better: quite fresh again. Indignant reader, this is no jest of mine, but cruel, stubborn, barbarous truth. It is ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... Mr. Charles Dudley Warner. This humorist (like Alceste) was once "funnier than he had supposed," when he sat down with a certain classical author, to study the topography of Epipolae. But his talent is his own, and very agreeable, though he once so forgot himself as to jest on the Deceased Wife's Sister. When we think of those writers to whom we all owe so much, it would be sheer ingratitude to omit the name of the master of them all, Oliver Wendell Holmes. Here is a wit who is a scholar, and almost a poet, ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... purloining Father Pandoza's shoes, when the soldiers in their fury about the ammunition destroyed the Mission. At the time of its destruction a rumor of this nature was circulated through camp, started by some wag, no doubt in jest; for Ord, who was somewhat eccentric in his habits, and had started on the expedition rather indifferently shod in carpet-slippers, here came out in a brand-new pair of shoes. Of course there was no real foundation for such a report, but Rains was not above small things, as ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... give ocular demonstration in such cases before so many beautiful women; but that if all of them would retire, except the young lady to whom I pointed, (selecting the youngest and handsomest,) I would satisfy her curiosity. The ladies enjoyed the jest, and went away laughing heartily; and the young damsel herself, to whom I had given the preference, (though she did not avail herself of the privilege of inspection,) seemed no way displeased at the compliment; for she soon afterwards sent ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... instrument to be sent for at any minute, stood among a strange body of semi-feudal retainers below, where he was soon singled out by the duchess's chasseur, a Styrian, who, masking his fury under jest, in the South-German manner, endeavoured to lead him up to an altercation. But Beppo was much too supple to be entrapped. He apologized for any possible offences that he might have committed, assuring the chasseur that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... His hands above her hair — the same black hair That once he made a jest of, praising it, While Martha's busy eyes had left their work To flash with laughing envy. Nothing of that Was to be theirs again; and such a thought Was like the flying by of a quick bird Seen through a shadowy doorway in the twilight. For now she felt his hands ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... were merely furnishing me with a fresh subject of arousing attack, and of pointing out more clearly that I have not found in your books any subject of laughter which is not in itself intensely ridiculous; and that in making a jest of your moral maxims, I am as far from making a jest of holy things as the doctrine of your Casuists distant from the holy doctrine of the Gospel? In truth, sirs, there is a vast difference between laughing at religion and laughing ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... without a struggle, and on the way out grew plaintive. "Jinnie, gal," he kept saying, "I'm liable to get dry before mornin', I shore am; ef you'd only jest let me had one ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... jest was applied to Mr. Pitt's brother. When first lord of the Admiralty, people calling on him as late as even 10 or 11, P.M., were told that his lordship was riding in the park. On this account, partly, but more pointedly with a malicious reference to the contrast between his languor and the fiery activity ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... Nat was up here early and took his hat off to the ground to C. "Came to thank you for what you send me yesterday, Sar—much obliged to you, Sar (with another flourish and scrape). I well sat-is-fy, and jest as long as the Lord give me life and dese ole arms can do so (imitating the motion of hoeing), I work ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... revolution, and, retiring from the field, grow old in poverty, wretchedness, and contempt? Can you consent to wade through the vile mire of dependency, and owe the miserable remnant of that life to charity which has hitherto been spent in honour? If you can—go—and carry with you the jest of tories, and the scorn of whigs;—the ridicule, and, what is worse, the pity of the world. Go,—starve and be forgotten. But if your spirit should revolt at this; if you have sense enough to discover, and spirit enough to oppose, tyranny ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... play with their fellows in an ever-widening circle of social activity. "Baby's Hush-a-byes" in cradle or mother's lap will now give place to the quiet cribside talks called "The Palace Bed Time" and "The Queen Mother's Counsel"; and in the story hour "The Palace Jest-Book" will furnish merriment for the youngsters who laughed the year before over the simpler nonsense of ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... one decisively. "Couldn't mistake it. Didn't that owl hoot sharp and short fur an owl? Jest like Tom Ross. Don't waste any words that he kin help, an' makes them that he has to use ez short ez ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... her wholly immersed in wedding-clothes and fashions. What a remarkable, many-sided woman she is! a perfect queen of all society, and an admirable one at that. Everything she says is fresh and crisp, and her little jest well told and well chosen. The professor beams and smiles, though he is no great lady's man. She might be a bon camarade, so free is she from the airy little nothings of society that puzzle scholarly men. There ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Aguirre; the denomination of the river is therefore erroneously attributed to the nickname of maranos (hogs), which this adventurer gave his companions in going down the river Amazon. Was not this vulgar jest rather an allusion to the Indian name of the river?) He called this river Rio Dolce—a name which, since Ribeyro, was long preserved on our maps, and which has sometimes been given erroneously to the Maroni and ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... "I jest want a (decorated) word wiv you. See?—just a friendly word or two. Just to clear up any blooming errors. That's all I want. No need to be so (richly decorated) proud, if you are the noo bloke at Potwell Inn. Not a bit ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... the East, did tell us of the war as they waged it in France. Also, it introduced Bairnsfather to us. "The Better 'Ole" became almost an institution; we could speak with authority on "'oles." And "When the 'ell's it goin' to be strawberry?" was the unfailing jest at meal-times, as we scraped the layer of flies from the top of the ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... Crossthwaite off; for what was jest to the soldiers, I saw, by his face, was fierce enough earnest to him. We walked on a ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... and I know that it is one which cannot fade. Are there any sorrows like these sorrows of our youth? Can any bitterness equal the bitterness of such good-byes? I know but one of which I was fated to taste in after years, and that shall be told of in its place. It is a common jest to mock at early love, but if it be real, if it be something more than the mere arising of the passions, early love is late love also; it is love for ever, the best and worst event which can befall a man or woman. I say it who am old and who have ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... song, another began; his tune was different as to the composition, but had the same serious style which strongly marked the general turn of the people. They were indeed seldom seen to laugh so heartily, and jest so facetiously, as the more polished nations of the Friendly and Society Islands, who have already learnt to set a great value on these enjoyments. On the afternoon of this day, our friends importuned us to sing to them again. We readily complied with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... his name became a by-word And a jest among the people; And whene'er a boastful hunter Praised his own address too highly, Or a warrior, home returning, Talked too much of his achievements, All his hearers cried: "Iagoo! Here's Iagoo ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... of Aphrodite's good will, and in revenge the goddess turns Phaon's affection away from Sappho, back to Thalassa, the mother of his children. Sappho's infatuation for Phaon, the slave, seems a cruel jest of Aphrodite, who fills Sappho with a wholly blind and unreasoning passion. In all three of Swinburne's Lesbian poems, Aphrodite's anger is mentioned. This is the sole theme of Sapphics, in which poem the goddess, displeased ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... principle, is confined to those small cases of personal assault which meet with but slight punishment at the hands of the law, or even none at all, for de minimis non,—mere trivial wrongs, committed sometimes only in jest. The consequence of this limited application of the principle is that it has forced itself into an exaggerated respect for the value of the person,—a respect utterly alien to the nature, constitution or destiny of man—which it has elated into a species ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... beans and seed-pods in the baskets of the street-vendors around the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; stepping back into an archway to avoid a bag-footed camel, or a gaily caparisoned horse, or a heavy-laden donkey passing through a narrow street; exchanging a smile and an unintelligible friendly jest with a sweet-faced, careless child; listening to long disputes between buyers and sellers in that resounding Arab tongue which seems full of tragic indignation and wrath, while the eyes of the handsome brown Bedouins who use it remain ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... 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 two hours, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... sister Mrs. Able, and had passed about four weeks in New Salem, after which she returned to Kentucky. Three years later, and perhaps a year after Miss Rutledge's death, Mrs. Able, before starting for Kentucky, told Mr. Lincoln probably more in jest than earnest, that she would bring her sister back with her on condition that he would become her—Mrs. Able's—brother-in-law. Lincoln, also probably more in jest than earnest, promptly agreed to the proposition; for he remembered Mary Owens as a tall, handsome, dark-haired ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... for the loan of it, For one year shall you pay— You may do me a good turn Before my dying day; But we will have a merry jest, For to be talk[^e]d long; You shall make me a bond," quoth he, "That shall be ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... a reasonable interval, long enough for it not to seem that she was too much elated over it, she remarked, "An', by-de-way, Mr. Peters, I must tell you what a lovely Christmas gif' I have just received by de hand of Mr. Pier. He has jest presented me with his yaller-wheeled buggy, an' I sho' is proud of it." Then, turning to Pierre, she added, "You sho' is a mighty generous gen'leman, Mr. Pier—you ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... Jackson—which was the name of the pup—Andrew Jackson would never let on but what he was satisfied, and hadn't expected nothing else—and the bets being doubled and doubled on the other side all the time, till the money was all up; and then all of a sudden he would grab that other dog jest by the j'int of his hind leg and freeze to it—not chaw, you understand, but only just grip and hang on till they throwed up the sponge, if it was a year. Smiley always come out winner on that pup, till he harnessed a dog once that didn't have no hind legs, because ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... the Allan an' Darling team," exclaimed Mart Barclay with vicious conviction. "It's that there cur leader they got—Baldy. There's enough Scotch stubbornness in Allan t' try to make a leader outen a cur jest becus folks said he couldn't. Up in Dawson I heered once he trained a timber wolf t' lead a team o' McKenzie huskies; but he'd find that a heap easier 'n puttin' the racin' sperit inter that low-down Golconda ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... upstairs at our tea; in he comes drunk, and says many things we had to look at one another and excuse. Presently he tells us all that he has made a mistake; he has wedded Patty, and I'm the one he likes the best. But I thought the fool was in jest; but Patty she gave a cry as if a knife had gone through her heart. Then my blood got up in a moment. 'That's an affront to all three,' said I: 'and take your answer, ye drunken sow,' said I. I took him by the scruff of the neck and just turned him out of the room and sent him to the bottom of ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... a quarrel between Harry Esmond and his comrade, good-natured, phlegmatic Thomas Tusher, who never of his own seeking quarrelled with anybody: by quoting to the latter some silly joke which Harry had made regarding him—(it was the merest, idlest jest, though it near drove two old friends to blows, and I think such a battle would have pleased her)—and from that day Tom kept at a distance from her; and she respected him, and coaxed him sedulously whenever ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... began to think it was all a joke; someone's spite, the jest of some wag; and besides, if she were dead, one would have known it. But no! There was nothing extraordinary about the country; the sky was blue, the trees swayed; a flock of sheep passed. He saw the village; he was seen ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... Laugh, jest, and dance ruled the fleeting hours in the halls of the old country-house that night, and the presiding genius of the revel was still the beautiful hostess—never more beautiful, never so winning before. No one noticed that, by her orders, ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... 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 to me. What ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... Tall and thin, with a face pale as marble, but full of intelligence, he looks, when bending on his gold-headed cane, the very beau ideal of a physician of la Vieille Cour, and he still retains the costume of that epoch. His manner, half jest and half earnest, gives an idea of what that of the Philosopher of Ferney must have been when in a good humour, and adds piquancy to his narrations. Madame C——, who is an especial favourite of his, and who can draw him out in conversation better than any one else, ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... jest-word; but its sound their labour slew at last, And swift his father caught it up, as from his mouth it passed, And stayed him, by the might of God bewildered utterly. 119 Then forthwith: "Hail," he cried, "O land that Fate hath owed to me! And ye, O House-gods of our Troy, hail ye, O ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... voyaged in a skinless coracle, Cambro-British Saints, pp. 186, 499), they were ferried over in safety, no water finding its way into the boat. Then follows the episode of the cloak, omitting, however, Senan's jest of carrying it secretly. A glossator has added in LA the marginal note "Priests formerly wore cowls." There are slight discrepancies between the versions as to the precise garment given by Ciaran and restored ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... waggery, burlesque, humor, playfulness, waggishness, drollery, jest, pleasantry, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... a bit taken aback. He had burnt his bridges—he could not return to Concho—yet he wanted a definite wage. "I kin pack—make and break camp—and sure cook the frijoles. Pop learned me all that; but he was payin' me a dollar a week. He said I was jest as good as a man. A dollar ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... if ye put jest the tip of yer finger between them slats, that 'ere ol' rooster 'll bite it almost off'n yer!" he remarked, "I know, 'cause I ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... poor Jock steadiness appeared renunciation of all "jest and youthful jollity," and religion seemed tedious endurance of what might be important, but, like everything important, was to him very wearisome and uninteresting. To him all zest and pleasure ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... rejected the result of poor JONES's three months' hard labour at the Joe-Millery mill. This, however, was no joke to JONES, who straightway decided that this time he would give the inimitable ARTHUR something quite new in the way of a jest; and so, dropping the dialogue, he came to "the action," which, in this instance, was an action-at-law. Whatever Mr. ROBERTS may have thought of the words, he will hardly have considered the result of this case as "good business" ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 18, 1891 • Various
... are the Traitors, Who lye and swear in jest, To cheat unguarded Creatures Of Virtue, Fame, and Rest! Whoever steals a Shilling, Through Shame the Guilt conceals: In Love the perjur'd Villain With ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... while Sue, at the foot, near the overturned boat, built a fire and prepared their first cooked meal out of doors. In the failing light, Sue got out her rifle and gave Sam his first lesson in marksmanship, his awkwardness making the lesson half a jest. And then, in the soft stillness of the young night, with the first stars coming into the sky and the clean cold wind blowing into their faces, they went arm in arm up the hill under the trees to where the tops of the trees rolled and pitched like the stormy waters ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... upon the case, returns, capias, alias capias, demurrers, venire facias, replevins, supersedeases, certioraries, writs of error, actions of trover and conversion, trespasses, precipes, and dedimus. This was matter of jest to the learned in law; however Hocus and the rest of the tribe encouraged John in his fancy, assuring him that he had a great genius for law; that they questioned not but in time he might raise money enough by it to reimburse him ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... flappin' caps all the time scoldin' them poor little girls for laughin' too loud or gettin' off the line or somethin' like that. An' them with long-tailed frocks an' choky kind of aperns an' big sunbonnets, lookin' right at my basket o' peanuts an' never tastin' a single one. Oh, jest catch me! I'll be a newspaper boy, first, but—but, Jane dear, do you s'pose anything—any single thing, such as bein' terrible hungry, or not gettin' paid for frames or singin'—could that make my ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... well-ordered home which would have been nothing to a properly trained girl were unendurable to me. I resisted from sheer perverseness and dislike of control. I do not mean to say that I was always ill-tempered; I was lively and merry enough, and your uncle used to tease me, and jest with me, which I enjoyed very much, and ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... hurled them into the crowd, with a smirk of delight. 'My father and mother often told me,' he cried, 'that I should die with my shoes on; but you may all see that I have made them both liars.' A great man dies not with so mean a jest, and Tyburn was untouched to mirth ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley |
