"Repartee" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... theatre; he listens in silence, never hisses, and applauds with measure. Does not the spectacle please him? He chews his buyo and goes out quietly, not to trouble those who may like it. He expects in his plays a combat every fifteen seconds, and all the rest of the time repartee between comic personages, or terrifying metamorphoses. The comedy chosen for this fete was "Prince Villardo, or the Nails Drawn from the Cellar of Infamy," comedy with ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... moralizing, besides its saving grace of imagery, was generally sequential and convincing; while his repartee, to use a word which seems almost a misfit in this rural setting, had a way of hitting the mark and striking fire, as when, in reply to the question from a forth-putting youngster on one occasion, "Where do you keep all your ...
— Daddy Do-Funny's Wisdom Jingles • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... odd) complained in riding, to our friend Scrope Davies, that he had a 'stitch' in his side. 'I don't wonder at it,' said Scrope, 'for you ride like a tailor.' Whoever has seen B. on horseback, with his very tall figure on a small nag, would not deny the justice of the repartee."] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... plausible reasoning, fallacious illustrations, etc. It gives to one a sort of mental illumination, quickening the perceptive faculties, and brightening up the reasoning and judging powers, and finally, giving a sharp edge to the powers of repartee ...
— The Human Aura - Astral Colors and Thought Forms • Swami Panchadasi
... reported to the empress that she improved every day. He had learned to conceive a very high idea of her abilities; and he dilated with especial satisfaction on the powers of conversation which she was developing; on her wit and readiness in repartee; on her originality, as well as facility of expression; and on her perfect possession of the royal art of speaking to a whole company with such notice of each member of it, that each thought himself the person to whom her remarks ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... lawyer and as judge of the Supreme Court of Vermont, he broke through the traditional manner of conducting trials, as is evidenced by many human, amusing anecdotes, illustrative of his wit and quick repartee. He was married to Mary Palmer, in 1794, and brought up a family of eleven children, a number of whom won distinction in the ministry, but none of whom followed their father's taste for playwriting. He mingled with the most intellectual society ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... a friendship with him; and Solon replying, "It is better to make friends at home," Anacharsis replied, "Then you that are at home make friendship with me." Solon, somewhat surprised at the readiness of the repartee, received him kindly, and kept him some time with him, being already engaged in public business and the compilation of his laws; which when Anacharsis understood, he laughed at him for imagining the dishonesty and covetousness of his countrymen could be restrained by written laws, which were ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... often avenge himself on her—or rather on the more obnoxious members of her following—by dint of a faculty for light and stinging repartee which would send her, flushed and biting her lip, to have her laugh out in private. But Langham for a long time was defenceless. Many of her friends in his opinion were simply pathological curiosities—their vanity was so frenzied, their sensibilities so morbidly developed. He ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... have cooled down. Then the Pharisees appear cautiously endeavouring to entrap him into admissions which might render him obnoxious to the Roman governor. He saw through their design, however, and foiled them by the magnificent repartee, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." Nothing could more forcibly illustrate the completely non-political character of his Messianic doctrines. Nevertheless, we are told that, failing in this attempt, the chief ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... the object is only to prevent my saying a bon mot, for there is not the least wit in my nature. I am a very matter-of-fact, plain-spoken being, and may blunder on the borders of a repartee for half an hour together without ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... and agile hand, and ready repartee—long may you flourish, mitigating the fierce summer thirst of many a parched palate; stimulating withered appetites till they hunger anew for the flesh-pots; warming the heart-cockles of departing voyagers till they laugh the keen breezes of ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... say, "Oh, that's very old." This has the same effect on a conundrum-maker as the most brilliant repartee. ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... conversation when Leslie was present which they missed when she was absent. Even when she did not talk she seemed to inspire others to brilliancy. Captain Jim told his stories better, Gilbert was quicker in argument and repartee, Anne felt little gushes and trickles of fancy and imagination bubbling to her lips under the ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to stay to dinner. The other members of the mess were trooping in, all his juniors, all obviously fond of him and boisterously irreverent of his rank. Dinner under his chairmanship was a sort of school for repartee. It was utterly unlike the usual British mess dinner. If you shut your eyes for a minute you couldn't believe that any one present had ever worn a uniform. I learned afterward that there was quite a little competition to ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... there was an attempt on all sides to be gay. Count Mirabel talked a great deal, and Lady Bellair laughed at what he said, and maintained her reputation for repartee. Her ladyship had been for a long time anxious to seize hold of her gay neighbour, and it was evident that he was quite 'a favourite.' Even Ferdinand grew a little more at his ease. He ventured to relieve the duke from some of his labours, and carve ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... large and lovely—and so cheap! They lay in one delicious heap, And added to the sumptuous feast For each and all in taste expert The acme of all fine dessert; So, singling out the very least As in itself an ample treat, While sparkling repartee and jest Exhilarated host and guest, Of rarity so delicate In dreamy reverie I ate, By magic pinions as it were Transported from this realm of snows To be a happy sojourner Away down where the orange grows; Amid the bloom, ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... caught up by the chorus in lilting strains that partook of the bounding, exhilarating motion of the little steamer. Why, here is material, thought King, for a troupe of bacchantes, lighthearted leaders of a summer festival. What charming girls, quick of wit, dashing in repartee, who can pick the strings, troll a ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... there were rosettes of the true-blue mingled with yellow at buttonholes; and there was fun on the line of march. Jokes plumped deep into the ribs, and were answered with intelligent vivacity in the shape of hearty thwacks, delivered wherever a surface was favourable: a mode of repartee worthy of general adoption, inasmuch as it can be passed on, and so with certainty made to strike your neighbour as forcibly as yourself: of which felicity of propagation verbal wit cannot always boast. In the line of procession, the hat of a member of the corps ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was something more than a man of virile temperament; he was gifted with other qualities than energy, determination, and common sense. He was not witty. He had no talent for repartee, and the most industrious collector of anecdotes will find few good things attributed to him. But he possessed a kindly humour which found vent in playful expressions of endearment, or in practical jokes of the most innocent description; and if these outbursts of high ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... angels, which, as it is not of a glaring kind, more commonly escapes observation; so little indeed is it remarked, that I want a word to express it. I must use negatives on this occasion. I never heard anything of pertness, or what is called repartee, out of her mouth; no pretence to wit, much less to that kind of wisdom which is the result only of great learning and experience, the affectation of which, in a young woman, is as absurd as any of the affectations of an ape. ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... Le Borgne mightily by sitting bolt upright and bidding him bring me a meal of buffalo-tongue or teal. With the stolid repartee of the Indian he grunted back that I had tongue enough; but he brought the stuff with no ill grace. After that he had much ado to keep me off my feet. Finally, I promised by the soul of his grandfather neither to spy nor listen about the doors of the inner cave, and he let me ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... "Of 1840 repartee?" He spoke with increasing pauses. "Yes. We do at least possess that. And some wine of about the ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... full of color and motion—laughter and repartee mingling with the adieux of the knights and seigneurs to their ladies, the notes of the hunting-horns, the snorts of impatient steeds, the short expectant bark of the dogs, as the Master of the hounds, the young Count of Jaffa, with his great army of hunters and attendants, moved before ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... wicked nobleman" N. B., O. W.) But this is no fault, and, indeed, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find fault with Mr. TREE'S Lord Illingworth. Mrs. TREE as Mrs. Allonby, is a very charming battledore in the game of repartee-shuttlecock, who with eight other principal characters in the piece, has nothing whatever to do with the plot. To the character of Lady Hunstanton, as written in the Mrs. Nickleby vein, and as played by Miss ROSE LECLERCQ, the success is mainly due; and "for this relief much thanks." It is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, May 6, 1893 • Various
... king Robert. The king, ever partial to men of mind and genius, took especial delight in Giotto's society, and used frequently to visit him while working in the Castello dell'Uovo, taking pleasure in watching his pencil and listening to his discourse; 'and Giotto,' says Vasari, 'who had ever his repartee and bon-mot ready, held him there, fascinated at once with the magic of his pencil and pleasantry of his tongue.' We are not told the length of his sojourn at Naples, but it must have been for a considerable period, judging ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... and that to get a free passage as idlers was our last wish and intention. To this, amid appreciating chuckles from the crew, the captain replied, that, so sneaks and stowaways always said; a taunt which was too vulgar as repartee to annoy me, though I saw Alister's thin hands clenching at his sides. I don't know if the captain did, but he called out—"Here! you lanky ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... here indeed was the very sister of his spirit. His words sprang into his mind as one thinks of a repartee. "But why shouldn't you come too?" ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... There was no awkwardness, no constraint. The assembly disengaged an impression of refined pleasure. On every hand, innumerable dialogues seemed to go forward easily and naturally, without break or interruption, witty, engaging, the couple never at a loss for repartee. A third party was gracefully included, then a fourth. Little groups were formed,—groups that divided themselves, or melted into other groups, or disintegrated again into isolated pairs, or lost ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... performer before a popular audience. His speech abounded with argumentative appeal and bristled with illustrative anecdote, and, when occasion required, with apt repartee. ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... religious differences, I have often heard her speak of the faiths and rituals of others, but never without the deepest interest and sympathy. She was young to the end; young in her enthusiasm, her sympathy, her boundless energy, her never-failing sense of humour, her gift of repartee, her ability always to strike the apt—even the corrosive—epithet. A visit to her was, to use one of her own phrases, "like a breath o' caller air to a weary body"—and in West Africa that means incomparably more ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... ridden away and forgotten his purse and that upon discovering this he had come back for the supplies of war. They joked him unmercifully, even Daisy,—who was manifestly incredulous about his explanation,—and he accepted their hilarious repartee with the ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... They achieve repartee the brilliance of which dazzles him to contemptible silence. If statistics were at hand we should doubtless learn that no man has ever talked to himself save by way of demonstrating his own godlike superiority, ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... dressed perfectly, but she was a vulgar little soul; drank everything, from Bass' ale to rum-punch, and from cherry-brandy to absinthe; thought it the height of wit to stifle you with cayenne slid into your vanilla ice, and the climax of repartee to cram your hat full of peach stones and lobster shells; was thoroughly avaricious, thoroughly insatiate, thoroughly heartless, pillaged with both hands, and then never had enough; had a coarse good nature when it cost her nothing, and was "as jolly as a grig," according to her ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... name! what a rustling of silks and waving of plumes! what a sparkling of diamond ear-rings and shoe-buckles! What bright eyes, (Ah, those were Waller's Sacharissa's as she passed!) what killing looks and graceful motions! How the faces of the whole ring are dressed in smiles! how the repartee goes round! how wit and folly, elegance and awkward imitation of it, set one another off! Happy, thoughtless age, when kings and nobles led purely ornamental lives; when the utmost stretch of a morning's study went no farther than the choice of a sword-knot, or the adjustment of a side-curl; ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... it's a repartee. If ye think so much of these Jackmans, build them a cottage yourselves; ye've ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... life of the party. Helen and Ruth had too recently bidden Tom Cameron good-bye to feel like joining with Jennie in repartee. Though it might have been that even the fat girl's repartee was more a matter of repertoire. She was expected to be funny, and so forced herself ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... offence, wrote his English friend Lord Something-or-other, who owned the yacht, and who was at Carlsbad, begging him to run up and see the "best ever" and "one of us"—and Malone never lost an opportunity to say how quick he was in repartee, or how he missed him. Stebbins kept his ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... could discover a repartee the door opened and a young man with a weak chin and bright yellow boots came out laughing, followed by a good-looking girl, who turned on the step to close the door behind her. Although in black, she ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... were added to Mary Lee's letter that night. She described everybody whom they had met at dinner, from her Queen Rose, as she called Molly Glendenning, to the courtly old Confederate general at the end of the table. She had been so absorbed in the repartee and bright speeches round her that she had not noticed that she and Travis were not included in the conversation. But Travis had noticed. There were many callers that night after dinner; men who took the girls away singly, in groups, and in pairs, ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... exactly, since it gave him a chance for observation; and certainly the little drawing-room, with its refined freedom, was a revelation to him. Conversation, repartee, and jest were unrestrained. While Lane was as gay as any present, Merwyn was made to feel that he was no ordinary man, and it soon came out in the natural flow of talk that he, too, was in the service. ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... favourite on the farm, where he played the part of the old jester, and made up for his practical deficiencies by his success in repartee. His hits, I imagine, were those of the flail, which falls quite at random, but nevertheless smashes an insect now and then. They were much quoted at sheep-shearing and haymaking times, but I refrain from recording them here, lest Tom's wit should ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... as does the satin of her gown. Ah! Lionel, much as we love you, we are happy in the thought that Vaura is your rest. Colonel Haughton notices that his niece often glances at him, and that beneath her gay repartee or brilliant converse, there underlies some powerful excitement which he attributes wholly to the expose ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... from a tracker's point of view, the local wit set the entire company in shrieks of laughter at his quick repartee. ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... and club companions, yet he himself was scarcely of their disposition. His attitude towards life was still serious, he carried always with him some suggestions of a past which must ever remain an ugly and fearsome thing. His sense of humour was unlimited—in repartee he easily held his own. He was agreeable to everybody, but he never sought acquaintances, and avoided intimacies. More especially was he averse to any ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... every night. W. liked the general very much and found him quite talkative when he was alone with him. At the big dinners he was of course at a disadvantage, neither speaking nor understanding a word of French. W. acted as interpreter and found that very fatiguing. There is so much repartee and sous-entendu in all French conversation that even foreigners who know the language well find it sometimes difficult to follow everything, and to translate quickly enough to keep one au courant is almost impossible. When they could they drifted into English, ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... and robbery. He arrived at Tyburn insolently drunk. He blustered and ranted, until the spectators hissed their disapproval, and he died vehemently shouting that he would act the same murder again in the same case. Unworthy, also, was the last dying repartee of Samuel Shotland, a notorious bully of the Eighteenth Century. Taking off his shoes, he 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 ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... reserved natures, she often failed to attract strangers at a first meeting. In general conversation she disappointed people, by not shining. Men and women, immeasurably her inferiors, surpassed her in ready wit and brilliant repartee. Her taciturnity in society has been somewhat ungenerously laid to a parti pris. She was one, it is said, who took all and gave nothing. That she was intentionally chary of her passing thoughts and impressions to those around her, is, however, ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... that is parochial. It is your profoundly interesting son I alluded to. Did you notice his supercilious departure? And his morbid celerity of repartee?" ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... he gives of these rejoinders and replies consist chiefly of obscene jokes, cheap puns on names or pointless witticisms. Here are two specimens of the better kind, relating to Gnathaena, who was famed for her repartee: ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... gleaming as though polished. If only they were all like this! Then perhaps five minutes later a smaller group came in, strongly enough. The first squad shouted ridiculing little jokes at them; and they shrieked back spirited repartee, whacking their loads vigorously with their safari sticks. These, too, would cause no anxiety. But then Kingozi sat up and began to take notice. The men drifted in by twos and threes. Kingozi scrutinized them closely, trying to determine the state of their ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... even seen, the penniless orphan of a penniless brother of his father, and who had been sent to sea; so that, after all, his mother was the only natural friend he had. This poor little boy would fly from that mother with a sullen brow, or, perhaps, even with a harsh and cutting repartee; and then he would lock himself up in his room, and weep. But he allowed no witnesses of this weakness. The lad was very proud. If any of the household passed by as he quitted the saloon, and stared for a moment at his pale and agitated ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... conversation, in ingenuity and ability of argument, this company would compare with any company of white gentlemen that we met in the island. In that circle of colored gentlemen, were the keen sallies of wit, the admirable repartee, the satire now severe, now playful, upon the measures of the colonial government, the able exposure of aristocratic intolerance, of plantership chicanery, of plottings and counterplottings in high places—the strictures on the intrigues of the special ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... difficulty in keeping it well in hand. There was a novelty, a difference, in the situation this time, a new and unexpected element in the event. She hesitated. Why was it no merry quip came to the lips usually so ready with repartee? ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... enough she had lost the touch for the kind of part. She, who had made one of her early successes as the spirit of Astarte in "Manfred," was known to a later generation of playgoers as the aristocratic dowager of stately presence and incisive repartee. Her son, Fuller Mellish, was also in the cast as Curio, and when we played "Twelfth Night" in America was promoted to the part of Sebastian, my double. In London my brother Fred played it. Directly he walked on to the stage, looking as like me as possible, yet a man all over, he was a ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... courage to confront mobs, or dictators, as he did also to meet an armed host in his country's service, he was not characterised by that presence of mind in public discussion, so necessary for effective repartee and popular power. He was in religion a Protestant, and a member of the Established Church; but it is obvious, from his various papers in connection with Irish affairs, that he was not a very earnest Protestant, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... picture. There was practically no restraint placed upon the girls. Most of the campers were well-bred young women who instinctively distinguished between brightness and boisterousness. There was plenty of gay laughter and bright repartee, in which the keen-witted college-girl guardians occasionally took part. These college girls were both an example and an inspiration to the younger girls of the camp. It was from one of these young women sitting near her that Harriet learned what "honors" meant in the camp. Every time a girl ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... church on one side—he lived jovially, giving chase to soiled doves as often as to hares, and other royal game. Therefore, the sorry scribblers who have made him out a hypocrite, showed plainly that they knew him not, since he was a good friend, good at repartee, and a jollier fellow ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... For he proved a very rational, honorable and eligible young Prince: modest, honest, with abundance of sense and spirit; kind too and good, hot temper well kept, temper hot not harsh; quietly holds his own in all circles; good discourse in him, too, and sharp repartee if requisite,—though he stammered somewhat in speaking. Submissive Wilhelmina feels that one might easily have had a worse husband. What glories for you in England! the Queen used to say to her in old times: "He is a Prince, that Frederick, who has a good heart, and whose genius is very small. ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... smile annoyed his companion, but the day was hot and she had no repartee ready. She only murmured as she threw away ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... curled up his lip, and showed his teeth, and began to bray, so tickled me, and was so much in keeping with what I had imagined to myself about his character, that I could not find it in my heart to be angry, and burst into a peal of hearty laughter. This seemed to strike the ass as a repartee, so he brayed at me again by way of rejoinder; and we went on for a while, braying and laughing, until I began to grow a-weary of it, and, shouting a derisive farewell, turned to pursue my way. In so doing—it was like going suddenly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said Fascination Fledgeby. Mrs Lammle thought it scarcely as warm as it had been yesterday. 'Perhaps not,' said Fascination Fledgeby, with great quickness of repartee; 'but I expect it ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... delight in a species of drawling, melancholy, church music. Their most favourite dramatic pieces are almost without incident, and the dialogue of their comedies consists of moral insipid apophthegms, entirely destitute of wit or repartee." While amusing himself with the sights of Paris, Smollett drew up that caustic delineation of the French character which as a study in calculated depreciation has rarely been surpassed. He conceives the Frenchman entirely as a petit-maitre, ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... afterwards became the law-partner of Gen. Felix Huston, and almost at a bound stood in the front rank of his profession in the State. "Boundless good-nature," to use the language of Dr. Lossing; "keen logic; quickness and aptness at repartee; overflowing but kindly wit; an absolute earnestness and sincerity in all he undertook to do, made him a universal favorite in every circle." In 1832 Mr. Prentiss removed to Vicksburg. John M. Chilton, a leading member of the bar ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... maiden's manner was lively, and we may add that her smile and repartee were ready. But her gaiety was assumed, as a quality essentially necessary to her trade, of which it was one of the miseries, that the professors were obliged frequently to cover an aching heart with a compelled ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... out the dramatis personae, taking care that you have plenty of supernaturals, genii, elves, gnomes, ghouls, or vampires, to make up a competent corps de ballet; work out your dialogue in slipshod verse, with as much slang repartee as you possibly can cram in, and let every couplet contain either a pun or some innuendo upon the passing events of the day. This in London is considered as the highest species of wit, and seldom fails to bring down three distinct rounds of applause from the galleries. I fear you may be trammelled ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... savages, they shew the greatest feats of agility. Their love of society is as remarkable as their curiosity is insatiable; and their hospitality to all comers, be their own poverty ever so pinching, has too much merit to be forgotten. Pleased to enjoyment with a joke, or witty repartee, they will repeat it with such expression, that the laugh will be universal. Warm friends and revengeful enemies; they are inviolable in their secrecy, and inevitable in their resentment; with such a notion of honour, that neither threat nor reward would induce them ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... notice, for example, even if he had had no personal interest in the chief actor. He was with some New York friends, in a gondola three or four boat-lengths away, and so absorbed was he in the little drama, that, when a remark was addressed to him that called for a retort, his gift of repartee quite failed him. ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... more than assurance. A French general having inconsiderately asked this stranger what we should find between Wiazma and Moscow, the Russian proudly replied, "Pultowa." This answer bespoke a battle; it pleased the French, who are fond of a smart repartee, and delight to meet with enemies worthy ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... long before he came in sight of them, the shrill yells with which sled load interchanged repartee with sled load; everlastingly there was the monotone of the singers. It was plain that the same spirit of gay adventure was inspiring ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... from every gesture of every person seated over the fire! One is plunged indeed into the dim, sweet, brutal heart of reality here, and the imagination finds starting places for its wanderings from the mere gammons of dried bacon hanging from the smoky rafters and the least gross repartee and lewd satyrish jest of the rustic Grangousier and Gargamelle who quaff their amber-coloured cider ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... so entirely en rapport with everybody. A casual occurrence, a little discussion involving, perhaps, a cunning attempt to enlist him on one side or the other, would prove the key to unlock a fund of anecdotes, repartee, bon-mots, and, best of all, word-pictures, for here Dr. Bemiss excelled every one I ever knew. My own relations with him were very pleasant, for he was my adviser and helper in using properly the Louisiana ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... well for her schemes, for the young people appeared to be getting on wonderfully together. There was a constant succession of jest and repartee. Grace was cordiality itself; and in Graham's eyes that morning there was coming an expression of which he may not have been fully aware, or which at last he would permit to be seen. Indeed, he was yielding rapidly ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... younger of the two—two sisters named Mary and Julia Bertram; Margaret Grant, who was tall, dark, and stately, and Olive Repton, everybody's favorite, a bright-eyed, bewitching little creature, with the merriest laugh, a gay manner, and with brilliant powers of repartee and a good-natured word for every one—she was, in short, the life of ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... guests. As for prepared or premeditated art, Mr. Mahaffy has a great contempt for it and tells us of a certain college don (let us hope not at Oxford or Cambridge) who always carried a jest-book in his pocket and had to refer to it when he wished to make a repartee. Great wits, too, are often very cruel, and great humourists often very vulgar, so it will be better to try and 'make good conversation without any large help from these brilliant but ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... didn't cheat themselves there wouldn't be no marriages," Mehitabel retorted, grinning, and retired in evident delight over her success in repartee. ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... might have stood for a sign. But the genius of the place, its omnipresent and all-pervading goddess, was Jovita! Smiling, joyous, indefatigable in suavity and attention; all-embracing in her courtesies; frank of speech and eye; quick at repartee and deftly handling the slang of the day and the locality with a childlike appreciation and an infantine accent that seemed to redeem it from vulgarity or unfeminine boldness! Few could resist ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... and dazzling, and full of startling paradoxes; he had considerable power of sarcastic repartee, and once or twice is reported to have encountered the imperious queen of Austrian society, Madame de Metternich, with her own weapons, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... the most epigrammatic. She had the happy gift of improvising in a lightning-flash epigrams and jeux de mots which would not have discredited the best wits even of France. I think her repartee, or rather jeu de mot, at the dentist's, which went the round of London, the best example I can take by way of illustration. Most people are dreary and depressed in a dentist's chair. Not so Mlle. de Peyronnet. ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... sided or jostled. Their air and dress asserted the parade. You left wide spaces betwixt you, when you passed them. We walk on even terms with their successors. The roguish eye of J——ll, ever ready to be delivered of a jest, almost invites a stranger to vie a repartee with it. But what insolent familiar durst have mated Thomas Coventry?—whose person was a quadrate, his step massy and elephantine, his face square as the lion's, his gait peremptory and path-keeping, indivertible from his way as a moving column, the scarecrow of his inferiors, the brow-beater ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... the football goes, do you mean that it stays?" queried Mrs. Jarley, who was a little tired herself, and could not, therefore, resist the temptation to indulge in a bit of innocent repartee. ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... of great power,—fluent and elegant in diction, bright and sparkling in thought, keen and quick in repartee. ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... rant by note, and through the gamut rage; In songs and airs express their martial fire, Combat in trills, and in a fugue expire: While, lull'd by sound, and undisturb'd by wit, Calm and serene you indolently sit, And, from the dull fatigue of thinking free, Hear the facetious fiddle's repartee: Our home-spun authors must forsake the field, And Shakspeare to the soft Scarletti yield. 10 To your new taste the poet of this day Was by a friend advised to form his play. Had Valentini, musically coy, Shunn'd ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... said to myself, In the self-same repartee, Look to thyself, Or not look to thyself, ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... better days he chose out and brought around him. We are told that he had marvellous powers of conversation, that he had a ready wit, and a keen insight into the humors and the weaknesses of those with whom he was compelled to associate. We are told that he could compete in repartee with the recognized wits of his time, and that he could shine as a talker even among men whose names still live in history because of their reputations as talkers. Of course it will naturally occur to the mind that the guests of the Prince Regent ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... almost say two personalities, in the kaiser. When he is himself he is the most charming companion that it is possible to conceive. His manners are as genial and as winning as those of his father and grandfather, both of whom he surpasses in brilliancy of intellect, and in quickness of repartee, as well as in a keen sense of humor. He gives one the impression of possessing a heart full of the most generous impulses,—aye, of a generosity carried even to excess, and this, together with a species of indescribable magnetism which appears to radiate ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... Tuscany, on the Irish benches, could not forbear to cheer their old opponent. Besides securing American gold for his country, he has transferred some American bronze to his complexion. If anything, he appears to have sharpened his natural faculty for skilful evasion and polite repartee by his encounter with Transatlantic journalists. In fact everybody is pleased to see him back except perhaps certain curious members, who find him even more chary of information than his deputy, ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... (Mil. 637 ff.) is marked by homely satirical wisdom. In the Ps. the badinage of the name-character is appreciably superior to most of the incidental quips. Pseudolus generously compliments Charinus on beating him at his own game of repartee (743). When Weise (Die Komodien des Plautus, p. 181) describes Ps. IV. 7 as "eine der ausgezeichnetsten Scenen, die es irgend giebt," his superlative finds a better justification ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... of a rooster-fight," retorted Reeves. In his triumph he was not unwilling to banter repartee with the hateful Hiram. "You fellers with what you call sportin' blood"—he sneered the words—"come along and think nobody else can't do anything right but you. You fetch along cat-meat with feathers on it"—he pointed at the vanquished ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... tug, and on this occasion the Duke was alone. He could not stand the atmosphere of tobacco and whisky in the cabin, and made his way along the side to the engine-room, leaving the Custom-House men to their smoke and their repartee. ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... Repartee is never Frank's forte. This is all that he now finds with which to wither me. However, even if he had any thing more or more pungent to say, I should not hear him, for I am beginning ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... wine or blood-red anemones: her lips are like coral and cornelian and the water of her mouth is sweeter than old wine, its taste would allay the torments of Hell. Her tongue is moved by abounding wit and ready repartee: her breast is a temptation to all that see it, glory be to Him who created it and finished it: and joined thereto are two smooth round arms. As says of her ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... wit had something of a professional tang. There are many like him in club-land and hanging about the stage; they catch up and remember all the satirical sayings, the comicalities, and quips that they hear, and they maintain a sort of factory for the production of puns. Their repartee explodes like an American boy's string of toy crackers, and involves, to set it going, no greater intellectual effort. They are not, in their first state, less intelligent than the common run of men—rather the contrary; but as soon as they have gone so far as to acquire a reputation ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... generously as to show every one of her fine white teeth, promptly told him that he had better be off and buy it, because perhaps he could buy at the same place some hugs and kisses too: at which sally and quick repartee they all laughed. Herr Sohnstein long had been the declared lover of Aunt Hedwig's, and long had been held at arm's-length (quite literally occasionally) by that vigorous person; who believed, because of her good heart, that her ...
— A Romance Of Tompkins Square - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... with her on the platform in bygone days, well remember her matchless powers as a speaker; and how safe we all felt while she had the floor, that neither in manner, sentiment, argument, nor repartee, would she in any way compromise the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... first speech in Parliament. Declines the Vice-Treasurership of Ireland. Courts the ultra-Whig party. His advocacy of reform. Becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer at twenty-three years of age. Pitt's speech and Sheridan's repartee. His visit to the Continent with William Wilberforce. Appointed First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. His difficulties and dangers. His power. Review of his merits and defects. His reported speeches. Character of ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... long distances, and who prided themselves upon being above every form of fishing lower than spinning, the truly knock-down nature of this blow can only be imagined by those who understand the subject. The captain, who is reckoned one of the worst men in the regiment to venture with in the way of repartee, was so amazed at the damsel's ignorance that he answered never a word, leaving some of her friends in muslin on the garden chairs around to explain the difference between fishing with and without a float—a ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... Then I started off again, and had just reached Walham Green (one does not speak of these places, but I may tell you that it is a station on the way to Putney, where I have a friend), when she responded with lightning-like swiftness that it couldn't be healthy to live in Glasgow. This bordered on repartee, so I countered rapidly with the brilliant suggestion that a good many people managed to live there, hoping she would not score by the obvious rejoinder that a good many people died there. If she had, I can't imagine how I should have extricated myself. Luckily she merely murmured, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914 • Various
... genial companions,—"for 'tis meet that noble minds keep ever with their likes"—his star was at its zenith. Then indeed, all rules were suspended; no point of order suggested—"The man and the hour had met." His marvellous narratives of quaint incidents and startling experiences, his brilliant repartee, sallies of wit, banter, and badinage have rarely been heard since the days of the Round Table or the passing of "the Star ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... much disappointed that, just as I got to the caustic part, the exigencies of his profession demanded that he should punch six tickets in rapid succession. My repartee was consequently drowned amid a perfect carillon of bells. But meanwhile ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 23, 1914 • Various
... people about it and learned that he was already known as a public character to everyone but his own dear mother. It was these here curls that got him attacked on every hand by young and old, and his natural vigour of mind had built him up a line of repartee that was downright blistering when he had time to stop and recite it all. Even mule skinners would drive blocks out of their way just to hear little Shelley's words when someone called him ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... into his ear Your own confiding grief; In vain you claim his sympathy, In vain you ask relief; In vain you try to rouse him by Joke, repartee, or quiz; His sole reply's a burning sigh, And "What a mind it is!" O Lord! it is the greatest bore, Of all the bores I know, To have a friend who's lost his heart A short ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... allowed to approach him. The defection of the brilliant scholar having been brought to the vicar's notice, he ventured to call one Saturday afternoon on the Buttons, but such was the contumely with which he was received that the good man hastily retreated. In lung power he was outmatched. In repartee he was singularly outclassed. He then sent the superintendent of the school, a man of brawn and zeal, to see what muscular Christianity could accomplish. But muscular Christianity, losing its head, ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... evening afterwards is the only true test of a dinner's success. Many a good dinner, enlivened with wine and made brilliant with repartee, has died out in gloom. The guests have all said their best things during the meal, and nothing is left but to smoke moodily and look at the clock. Our heroes were not of that mettle. They meant to have some sort of fun, and the various amusements ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... taken to calling her as a sort of play upon caravan,—for was she not a whole team in herself? he would say,—he and Clara had many a lively contest of words, and were well matched in their powers of wit and repartee. ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... tear. Sensitive natures shrink from letting the world see their exquisite sensibility. Besides, Murger's gayety was intellectual rather than physical. It consisted almost entirely in bright gleams of repartee. It was quickness, 'twas not mirth. No wonder, then, that the world was deceived; the mind retained its old activity amid all its fatigue; and besides, the world sees men only in their hours of full-dress, when the will lights up the leaden ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... plan outlined," he answered; "just generalities, with the salt of repartee to season." He pondered over this sudden transition from wrath to mildness. An Englishman? Very well; it might ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... all the printed information on the subject the London coster wears clothes covered up with pearl buttons and spends his time swapping ready repartee with his Donah or his Dinah. The costers I saw were barren of pearl buttons and silent of speech; and almost invariably they had left their Donahs at home. Similarly these gentlemen habitues of the Cave of the Innocents wore few or no velvet pants, and guzzled little or none of the absinthe. ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... languishing affair. Archer noticed that his wife's way of showing herself at her ease with foreigners was to become more uncompromisingly local in her references, so that, though her loveliness was an encouragement to admiration, her conversation was a chill to repartee. The Vicar soon abandoned the struggle; but the tutor, who spoke the most fluent and accomplished English, gallantly continued to pour it out to her until the ladies, to the manifest relief of all concerned, went ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... religion—hastily tried to pour tea on the troubled waters. But they had been troubled too deeply. For full eight minutes the top of the drag became a political platform for Marquis-Ministerial denunciations of Mr. Gladstone, to a hail of repartee from the ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... and lie there. It does, and the north side has recently met the trouble by putting down raw flints, and so converting what would be a lake into a sort of flint pudding. Consequently one drives one's car as much as possible on the south side of this road. There is a suggestion of hostility and repartee between north and south side in this arrangement, which the explorer's inquiries will confirm. It may be only an accidental parallelism with profounder fact; I do not know. But the middle of this high road is a frontier. The south side belongs to the urban district ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... her. It was in allusion to this rumour that he said, 'Whenever my name is coupled with that of a young lady in this manner, I make it a point of honour to say I have been refused.' To the last, we are told, Lady Morgan preserved the natural vivacity and aptness of repartee that had made her the delight of Dublin society half a century before. 'I know I am vain,' she said once to Mrs. Hall, 'but I have a right to be. It is not put on and off like my rouge; it is always with me.... I wrote ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... Willis was usually the life of the company he happened to be in. His repartee at Mrs. Gales's dinner in Washington is famous. Mrs. Gales wrote on a card to her niece, at the other end of the table: "Don't flirt so with Nat Willis." She was herself talking vivaciously to a Mr. Campbell. Willis wrote ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... celebrated round the country for the petulence of my remarks, and the quickness of my replies; and many a scholar five years older than myself, have I dashed into confusion by the steadiness of my countenance, silenced by my readiness of repartee, and tortured with envy by the address with which I picked up a fan, presented a snuff-box, or received an ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... little smell that is always astray in Mabel Place, she heard outside in the damp afternoon two rival barrow-men howling a cry that sounded like "One pound hoo-ray!" A neighbour in the garden was exchanging repartee with a gentleman caller. "Biby, siy Naughty Man, Biby, tell 'im what a caution 'e is." But there seemed little hope that the baby would. These sounds were provided with the constant Brown Borough background of shouts and quarrels ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... shows Lincoln's versatility at repartee. George Forquer, who had been a Whig, changed over to be a Democrat and was appointed Register of the Land Office. His house, the finest in Springfield, had a lightning rod, the only one that Springfield ...
— Life of Abraham Lincoln - Little Blue Book Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 324 • John Hugh Bowers
... professionally propelled the keels and flats of the Ohio, they were a class unto themselves—"half horse, half alligator," a contemporary styled them. Rough fellows, much given to fighting, and drunkenness, and ribaldry, with a genius for coarse drollery and stinging repartee. The river towns suffered sadly at the hands of this lawless, dissolute element. Each boat carried from thirty to forty boatmen, and a number of such boats frequently traveled in company. After ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... at the old homestead was a merry one. Mrs. James spread a feast that was fit for the halls of Lucullus. Laughter, jest, and repartee flew from lip to lip. Nobody appeared to notice that Robert ate little, said nothing, and sat with his form shrinking in his shabby "best" suit, his gray head bent even lower than usual, as if desirous of avoiding all observation. When the others spoke to him he answered ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... as a smart repartee instead of a rebuke. She sent up a strange little scream, which exploded in ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... the Patriarch Zosimus, with the slight sneer which was the nearest advance to a sarcasm that the etiquette of the Greek court permitted; for on all ordinary occasions, it would not have offended the Presence more surely, literally, to have drawn a poniard, than to exchange a repartee in the imperial circle. Even the sarcasm, such as it was, would have been thought censurable by that ceremonious court in any but the Patriarch, to whose high rank some license ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... elected by the Legislature for a full term. Appearing in the Senate at the important juncture when the annexation of Texas and the Mexican war were agitating the country, he soon took an active part in the discussions. He was particularly distinguished for his aptness in repartee, and for his keen and incisive humor. Politically he belonged to the conservative or Hunker wing of the Democracy. Entering the Senate just as Silas Wright was leaving it to assume the Governor's chair, he joined Secretary Marcy and the influences that moulded Polk's Administration, ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... observations. So she firmly resolved not to be so readily entrapped again, and was so bright and cheery during the next hour that Aunt Jane smiled more than once, and at one time actually laughed at her niece's witty repartee. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... this inquiring age, few have any chance of passing through life without being excited to examine the motives and principles from which they act: is it not therefore prudent to cultivate the reasoning faculty, by which alone this examination can be made with safety? A false argument, a repartee, the charms of wit or eloquence, the voice of fashion, of folly, of numbers, might, if she had no substantial reasons to support her cause, put virtue not only out of countenance, but out ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... the host coruscates. The young lady on your right suddenly develops into a charming girl, with becoming appreciation of your pet topics and an astounding aptness for repartee. The Gorgon thaws, and implores Mr. Snapshot, whose jests are popping as briskly as the corks, not to be so dreadfully funny, or he will positively kill her. Belle Breloques can always talk, and now her tongue rattles faster than ever, till the languid one arouses himself like a giant refreshed, ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... months after her marriage, and died two days after giving birth to a son, afterwards Edward VI. She was one of those passive women who make neither friends nor enemies. She indulged in no wit or repartee, like her brilliant but less beautiful predecessor, and she passed her regal life without uttering a sentence or a sentiment which has been ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... The quick repartee, which was another of the Queen's characteristics, was less likely to promote her popularity. "M. Brunier," says Madame Campan, "was physician to the royal children. During his visits to the palace, if the death of ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... therefore, was required, than by the addition of some circumstances, and the exaggeration of others, to make merriment supply the place of demonstration; nor was I so senseless as to offer arguments to such as could not attend to them, and with whom a repartee or catch would more effectually answer the same purpose. This being effected, there remained only "the dread of the world:" but Roxana soared too high, to think the opinion of others worthy her notice; Laetitia seemed ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... (entranced with the airy persiflage, but knowing her own to be no light hand at repartee). "Ask the others, ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... manners, indiscreet, and lacking flexibility in the management of men. The messages which he wrote as President were dignified and judicious, and his addresses were not lacking in power, but he was prone to indulge in unseemly repartee with his hearers when speaking on the stump. He exchanged epithets with bystanders who were all too ready to spur him on with their "Give it to 'em, Andy!" and "Bully for you, Andy!" giving the ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... the programme of mortification, and Endymion, hot and then cold, and then both at the same time, bereft of repartee, and wishing the earth would open and Montfort Castle disappear in its convulsed bosom, stole silently away as soon as practicable, and wandered as far as possible from the music and the bursts ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... stood the clerk's and solicitors' table, fenced by a rail from the vulgar crowd who pressed in, hot and excited, to see the criminals and hear justice done. There was a case arising from an ancient family feud, exploded at last into crime; one lady had thrown a clog at another as the last repartee in a little dialogue held at street doors; the clog had been well aimed, and the victim appeared now with a very large white bandage under her bonnet, to give her testimony. This swelled the crowd beyond its ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... change in Emma Lindsay!" was an exclamation frequent among her mother's friends. "Her pertness, repartee, and saucy witticisms are all gone. What have they been doing for her? This winning softness and grace of manner seems ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... that he seemed the only member of that little circus who was not of an amiable temper? But I do not blame him, and I think it much to have seen a clown once more who jested audibly with the ringmaster and always got the better of him in repartee. It was long since ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Fountain pass her; then come dashing up to him, and either pull up short with a piece of solemn information like an aid-de-camp from headquarters, or pass him shooting a shaft of raillery back into his chariot, whereat he would rise with mock fury and yell a repartee after her. Fountain found himself good company—Talboys himself. It was not the lady; oh ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... said I liked you," retorted the youth, with a touch of the broad repartee with which he was accustomed to hold his own among the girls ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... a crowd in the road waiting to see the result of Tony's manoeuvres. And then, as is usual on such occasions, a little mild repartee went about,—what the sportsmen themselves would have called "chaff." Ned Botsey came up, not having broken his horse's back as had been rumoured, but having had to drag the brute out of the brook with the help of two countrymen, and the Major was asked about his fall till he was forced ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... sister, Mrs. Middleton; he was exceedingly attractive; there was no denying the charm that existed in the rapid intelligence, the quick conception, and the ready humour that lit up his eyes and countenance, and sparkled in his repartee. His powers of captivation were as great as hers, but he knew that power, and even used it for an end; while in her it was spontaneous as the bubbling of a stream, as the song of the birds, or as the joy of ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... had the effrontery to tell me—I mean, to tell James—that what I—that is, he—knew about billiards wouldn't cover the pyramid-spot. James, who some hours later thought of a perfectly priceless repartee, which he has since forgotten, replied with dignity by challenging the other to an immediate game. Herbert accepted and, hastily finishing their lunch, the two repaired to the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... disputations. He came in a flutter to me, and desired I might come back again, for he could not bear these men. 'O ho! sir,' said I, 'you are flying to me for refuge!' He never, in any situation, was at a loss for a ready repartee. He answered, with quick vivacity, 'It is of two evils chooseing the least.' I was delighted with this flash bursting from the cloud which hung upon his mind, closed my letter directly, and ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... of public speakers by his long experience. So it was matter for surprise that he, famed for rapid repartee, should have refrained from taking any notice of an interrupter whose shout could have been turned on him; so thought a friend ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... in this plunge into the coarse homely atmosphere of the old popular theatre. Extemporaneous comedies were no longer played in the great cities, and Odo listened with surprise to the swift thrust and parry, the inexhaustible flow of jest and repartee, the readiness with which the comedians caught up each other's leads, like dancers whirling without a false step through the mazes of some ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... a clatter of dishes and a buzz of conversation, abounding in rough jests and repartee. The boys took their part in frank, good fellowship and were hearty in their praises of the hard riding they had seen that morning. The ranchmen deprecated this as only "part of the day's work," but were pleased none the ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... we swapped quite a little repartee, me and the Cap'n, or whatever he was. But, instead of his bein' soothed by it he gets more strenuous every minute. He had that shack rockin' ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... himself, so to speak, up a tree, And unable to think of a neat repartee, He wisely concluded (as Brian Boru did, On seeing his 'illigant counthry' denuded Of cattle and grain that were swept from the plain By the barbarous hand of the pillaging Dane) To bandy no words with a dominant foe, But to wait for a chance of returning the blow, And then let ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... to tell me what is the matter with you; so, I'm sorry to say, I am cut off from all the customary consolations. I can't say, "Think how much worse it would be if you had a broken leg!" when you may have the crushing repartee up your sleeve, "But it is my leg that is broken." This is a pity. But there are consolations. You are an Englishman (I believe); you are a man of letters; you have never been made C.B.; you hair was not red; you have played cribbage and whist; you did not play either the fiddle ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cheerfully to breakfast, to find that Phoebe, who was a delicate eater, had pushed her plate away scarcely touched, while Lady Ella sat at the end of the table in a state of dangerous calm, framing comments for delivering downstairs that would be sure to sting and yet leave no opening for repartee, and trying at the same time to believe that a third cook, if the chances were risked again, would certainly be ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... later was published in a slender volume entitled Do We Agree? On both occasions the crowd was enormous and many had to be turned away. All three men were immensely popular figures and all three were at their best debating in a hall of moderate size where swift repartee could be ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his knife at the stall in the market, I loiter enjoying his repartee and ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... appropriately to a solicitous warning from Cora to keep away from the cat. Indeed, it was half an hour later, and he was sitting—to his own consciousness too heavily—upon the back fence, when belated inspiration arrived. But there is no sound where there is no ear to hear, and no repartee, alas! when the wretch who said the first part has gone, so that Cora remained unscathed as from his alley solitude Hedrick hurled in the teeth of the rising ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... various stories of the pair having met at dinner almost on the eve of Danton's arrest, and parting with sombre disquietude on both sides. The interview, with its champagne, its interlocutors, its play of sinister repartee, may possibly have taken place, but the alleged details are plainly apocryphal. After all, 'Religion ist in der Thiere Trieb,' says Wallenstein; 'the very savage drinks not with the victim, into whose breast he means to plunge a sword.' Danton was warned that ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... probably, Washington never heard praise more genuine or more deserved. He had just passed his twenty-seventh year. In the House of Burgesses he had the reputation of being the silent member. He never acquired the art of a debater. He was neither quick at rebuttal nor at repartee, but so surely did his character impress itself on every one that when he spoke the Assembly almost took it for granted that he had said the final word on the subject under discussion. How careful he was to observe the scope and effects of parliamentary ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer |
