"Witty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... turned his attention to the real problem, a respectable administration for the city—a practical end which could easily be accomplished by practical action. From day to day he kept this up, publishing a splendid series of articles, humorous, witty, satirical, eloquent, bold, with a dominant strain of sincerity and plain common sense. As his associates had predicted, a storm gathered and burst in fury about the News-Record. It was denounced by "leading citizens," including many of ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... Waters of Constantinople" draw quite as well, as regards both male and female visitors, as either Fairmount, Central or Hyde Park, or even the Bois de Boulogne, to which far-famed resort of all that is wise, wicked or witty in Paris these Turkish parks most ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... be a reflection of yourself. Be pithy, bright, and witty. Give the news and innocent gossip, but beware of making statements in letters which you can not substantiate. Above all, think twice before you pen a harsh or an unkind word, even if ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... would have been embarrassed to hear uttered, as he passed, these expressions of curiosity which were not always friendly. But the platform, the springing-board, well suited that nature which became bolder under the fire of glances, like those women who are beautiful or witty only in society, and whom the ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... she said, with triumph, "that is just it; the Serpent mentioned that very jest, and called it the First Chestnut, and said it was coeval with the creation." Alas, I am indeed to blame. Would that I were not witty; oh, would that I had never had that ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... produced in my bosom the intended effect, he seemed to chuckle in secret over the sting he had inflicted, and was characteristically disregardful of the public applause which the success of his witty endeavours might have so easily elicited. That the school, indeed, did not feel his design, perceive its accomplishment, and participate in his sneer, was, for many anxious months, a riddle I could not resolve. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... exceedingly droll to us from the turn of expression, and especially from its being the opening of the piece. Generally speaking, with respect to the ludicrous, Corneille lived in a state of great innocence; since his time the world has become a great deal more witty. Hence, after making all allowances for what he cannot justly be blamed for, what, namely, arises merely from his language having become obsolete, we shall still find an ample field remaining for our ridicule. Among the ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... with Nature goes on apace. The painters have long been talking of selecting, then of rejecting, or even, with Mr. Whistler, of supplanting. And then Mr. Oscar Wilde, in the witty and delicate series of inversions which he headed 'The Decay of Lying,' declared war with all the irresponsibility naturally attending an act so serious. He seems to affirm that Nature is less proportionate to man than is architecture; that ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... propriety and decorum, since from time immemorial genius has reckoned such escapades among its prerogatives. Wieland indulged this impulse when he sought to assimilate himself to the daring, extraordinary Aristophanes, and when he was able to translate his jests, as audacious as they were witty, though he toned them down with his own ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... or censured. We do not require to go far through his alphabet to see how futile the burnings and condemnations have been in their effect on the giants of literature. The first name of all is that of Abelard, and so going on we pick up the witty scamp Aretin, then pass on to D'Aubigne the great warrior and historian, Bayle, Beaumarchais, Boulanger, Catullus, Charron, Condillac, Crebillon, and so on, down to ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... brocade morning gowns were in him a sort of propriety at this season of his youth. It was a pleasure to persons of colder temperament to sun themselves in the warmth of his bright looks and generous humour. His laughter cheered one like wine. I do not know that he was very witty; but he was pleasant. He was prone to blush; the history of a generous trait moistened his eyes instantly. He was instinctively fond of children and of the other sex from one year old to eighty. Coming from the Derby once and being stopped on the road in a lock of carriages during which the people ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... 15, 1881, speaking of a letter just received from her, says: "Thirty years ago Mrs. Rose was in her prime—an excellent lecturer, liberal, eloquent, witty, and we must add, decidedly handsome—'the Rose that all were praising.' Her portrait, life-size and very natural, hangs in Investigator Hall, and her intelligent-looking and expressive countenance, and black glossy curls, denote intellect and beauty. As an anti-slavery lecturer, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... and confident, with hair powdered and tied in a queue." He stooped slightly, and did not move with the grace or ease one would have expected from so experienced a soldier, but he had "great authority of manner," and was uniformly "courtly, witty and charming." During one of those legal battles in which he had only one rival (Hamilton) it was reported of him that "Burr conducted the trial with the dignity and impartiality of an angel but with ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... the appearance of the American girl in books written about the United States, that of Charles I.'s head in Mr. Dick's memorial might perhaps be almost called casual. All down the literary ladder, from the weighty tomes of a Professor Bryce to the witty persiflage of a Max O'Rell, we find a considerable part of every rung occupied by the skirts appropriated to the gentler sex; and—what is, perhaps, stranger still—she holds her own even in books written by women. It need not be asserted that all the references to her are ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... similar sound, was at once the wit, the spendthrift and the humanitarian of the Fischelowitz manufactory, possessing a number of good qualities in such abundant measure as to make him a total failure in everything except the cutting of tobacco. Like many witty, generous and kind-hearted persons in a much higher rank of existence, he was cursed with a total want of tact. On the present occasion, having sliced through an unusually long package of leaves and having encountered an exceptional number of obstacles in doing so, he thought ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... even terrible to those who had never seen anything of the kind before, though the old sailors regarded it quite as a matter of course. Peaks had never been known to be so jolly and excited since he came on board. He was full of jokes and witty sayings; he seemed to be in his element now, and all his powers of body and mind were in ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... away!" Innes would declare, with his bright air of saying something witty; and immediately interrupt the general laughter which he had provoked much more by his air than his words, "Mind you, it's all very well laughing, but I'm not very well pleased. Poor Archie is a good fellow, an excellent fellow, a fellow I always liked. ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... however, depended largely upon the person who explained its pictures. If he were witty, and knew how to tell the good story of which each one was certain to remind him, all went well, and the fame of that panorama spread far and wide. If, on the other hand, he was prosy, and offered only dry explanations of his pictures, ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... finely moulded, the temples were ivory tinted and soft; and mettle and spirit, unquenched by age, flashed from the brilliant eyes. The Marquis had the Conde nose and the lovable Bourbon mouth, from which, as they used to say of the Comte d'Artois, only witty and urbane words proceed. His cheeks, sloping rather than foolishly rounded to the chin, were in keeping with his spare frame, thin legs, and plump hands. The strangulation cravat at his throat was of the kind which every marquis wears in all the portraits which adorn eighteenth century literature; ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... couch in a thrice-raised Turkish bath temperature, he lamented that he "could not catch cold" even in a state of nature or next to it. He no longer wondered at Sydney Smith's wish to sit in his bones, and thought that expression would have acquired additional force if the witty divine had added "packed ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... Bacchanalian song? Witty, certainly, but the recollection of the scores a little ghastly for the occasion, perhaps. You have yourself sung into silence, too, all possible songs of Bacchus, as the god and ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... Women very successfully. There is no Inhabitant of any standing in Covent-Garden, but can tell you a hundred good Humours, where People have come off with little Blood-shed, and yet scowered all the witty Hours of the Night. I know a Gentleman that has several Wounds in the Head by Watch Poles, and has been thrice run through the Body to carry on a good Jest: He is very old for a Man of so much Good-Humour; but to this day he is seldom merry, but he has occasion ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... he do to distribute his hours, Some to the Court, and some to the City, Some to the State, and some to Love's powers, Some to be vain, and some to be witty?"] —The Modern Lampooners, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... them, in different ways, and certainly they have given us some excellent hours in the Campagna, upon picnic excursions—they, and certain of their friends; for instance, M. Ampere, the member of the French Institute, who is witty and agreeable, M. Goltz, the Austrian minister, who is an agreeable man, and Mr. Lyons, the son of Sir Edmund, &c. The talk was almost too brilliant for the sentiment of the scenery, but it harmonized entirely with the mayonnaise and ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... fails.... When he contends, if he gets the better, it is a very little addition to a man of his literary reputation: if he does not get the better, he is miserably vexed." Boswell, nevertheless, admits that Goldsmith was "often very fortunate in his witty contests, even when he entered the lists with Johnson himself," and goes on to tell how Goldsmith, relating the fable of the little fishes who petitioned Jupiter, and perceiving that Johnson was laughing at him, immediately said, "Why, Dr. Johnson, this is not so easy as you ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... make a further effort to finish up the subject till he has finished up his audience as well. An attempt to fully discuss a topic, under such circumstances, is not successful once in a hundred times. The best course is to follow an apt story by some proverb, a popular reference, or a witty turn, and then to close. But no abruptness will be disliked by your hearers half so much, as the utterance of a string of commonplaces, after you have once secured their attention. The richness of the dessert should come at the ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... escalier at Versailles for impertinence, at the time when M. Dumourier was sent there by the Duc d'Acquillon, for knowing more than the minister. I assure you that I found him a most agreeable personage—very gay, very witty, and very much determined to pass his time in the pleasantest manner imaginable. But our companionship was too brief for a perfect union of souls," said he laughing; "for I was liberated within a week, while he was left behind for, I think, the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... Mezrimbi, who had not made his appearance that morning. At last he espied his rich dress, his mantle, his turban and jewelled scymitar, but his face was muffled up in a shawl, and the chief brahmin smiled at the witty conceit of his son, that of having his own beauteous person unmuffled as well as that of the now scarred Acota. And then silence was commanded by a thousand brazen trumpets, and enforced by the discharge of two thousand ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... Natalie now became seriously alarmed; and well she might. His complexion looked ghastly, his limbs shook, and his features bore an expression of indescribable horror and anguish. What could be the meaning of so extraordinary a change in the gay, witty, prosperous De Chaulieu, who, till that morning, seemed not to have a care in the world? For, plead illness as he might, she felt certain, from the expression of his features, that his sufferings were not of the body but of the mind; and, unable to imagine any reason for such extraordinary manifestations, ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... droll, laughable, farcical, witty, jocular, jocose, ludicrous, burlesque, facetious, risible, absurd, waggish, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... of tourists to gape at the "Froggies." Everything was cheap; and most things were nice. Paris really was La ville lumiere. Dull care had been given its marching orders. All that was required of a man was that he should be witty, and of a woman that she should be entertaining. The world of the boulevards—with its cafes and restaurants and theatres—was the accepted rallying point of the authors and poets, the painters and musicians, and the lights twinkling in the theatrical and journalistic firmaments, ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... the streets are paved with granite. So neat and clean And lots of pretty, witty girls, are always to be seen! With the brave old Mi-litia, Our foes to defy! And there they grow the Cabba-ges—Ten feet high! (All together, Gentlemen, please!) Yes, there they grow the Cabbages, there they grow the Cabbages, there they grow ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various
... she went down to dinner, felt quite revived by the sight of him. Here was something to dress for, and something to sing to; and although the young lieutenant's conversation was not a whit above the usual standard of his class, it appeared lively and witty when compared with that of his parents. His small colonial experiences were more interesting than Mrs Dunbar's domestic ones; and his account of a tiger hunt more exciting than his father's history of the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... were of the grave, elderly sort,—Jenny sat in a corner taking notes of the gay scene, while Ethel yawned. But the Mouse got many a crumb of good conversation as she nestled close to Mrs. Homer, drinking in the wise and witty chat that went on between the friends who came to pay their respects to the Professor and his interesting wife. Each night Jenny had new and famous names to add to the list in her journal, and the artless pages were rich in anecdotes, descriptions, and ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... are but stumbling-blocks in council; brilliant in conception, they fail in execution; fanciful designers, they are not "builders of bridges". They are boastful, sparkling, inventive, witty, garrulous, vain and supersensitive, outraging their friends by the extravagance of their schemes; embarrassing their enemies by the subtlety of ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... I talked with a blue-clad French soldier, calm, witty, but determined. He said, "My family comes from the East of France, my great grandfather was killed by the Prussians in 1814, my grandfather was shot in his garden by the Prussians in 1870, my father died of grief, in 1916, because my two sisters in Lille fell into Prussian ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... laughed loudly at this witty speech, and the poor man was about disappearing outside the door, when Col. Malcome prevented his exit by bidding him be seated, and ordering Sylva to drive Fido from the room. Quiet being restored, and Mr. Pimble having ventured to drop tremblingly ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... the king. And it is a strange evidence of the taste for knowledge which the most obviously worthless of the Stuarts shared with his father and grandfather, that Charles the Second was not content with saying witty things about his philosophers, but did wise things with regard to them. For he not only bestowed upon them such attention as he could spare from his poodles and his mistresses, but being in his usual state of impecuniosity, begged for them of the Duke of Ormond; and, that step ...
— On the Advisableness of Improving Natural Knowledge • Thomas H. Huxley
... They were both excellent classical scholars; they were both ingenious poets; and Campbell does not appear to have surpassed his companion either in his original pieces or his translations; they both exhibited great versatility of talent; they were both playful and witty; and seem to have been possessed of great facilities in sport. During his latter years, when detailing the history of those joyous days, Mr Paul dwelt on them with peculiar delight, and seemed animated with youthful emotion when recalling ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... soup of a sausage-stick. All said they had heard of it, but no one had ever tasted that soup, or knew how to prepare it. A health was proposed to the inventor, who, it was remarked, deserved to be superintendent of the poor. Was not that witty? And the old King of the Mice arose and declared that the one among the young mice who could prepare the soup in question most palatably should be his queen, and he would grant them a year and a day for ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... passed in front of him, he bestowed on her, together with a puff from his cigar, some apostrophe which he considered witty and mirthful, such as, "How ugly you are!—Will you get out of my sight?—You have no teeth!" etc., etc. This gentleman was known as M. Bamatabois. The woman, a melancholy, decorated spectre which went and came through the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... the world did Thackeray pick up the materials of that brilliant picture of James VIII., gay, witty, reckless, ready to fling away three crowns for a fine pair of eyes or a neat pair of ankles? His Majesty's enemies brought against him precisely the opposite kind of charges. There is a broad-sheet of 1716, Hue and Cry after the Pretender, which is either by Swift or by ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... Stewart's political creed in those points where at that time it met with most opposition. In 1812 it was, I think, that I saw him for the last time: and by the way, on the day of my parting with him, I had an amusing proof in my own experience of that sort of ubiquity ascribed to him by a witty writer in the London Magazine: I met him and shook hands with him under Somerset-house, telling him that I should leave town that evening for Westmoreland. Thence I went by the very shortest road (i.e. through Moor-street, Soho—for I am learned in many quarters of London) ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... had the same regulations while we were on campaigns. During the second campaign of Vienna, I recollect that the house deputy of Soupe Pierrugues was M. Eugene Pierrugues, frank, gay, witty, and much beloved by us all. An imprudence cost him dear, for in consequence of a heedlessness natural at his age he had his arm broken. We were then at Schoenbrunn. Those who have seen this imperial residence know that splendid avenues extend in front of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the charming novelist, the successful dramatist, and the witty essayist," wrote a popular history of Greece, in two volumes, 8vo, 1774, embracing a period from the earliest date down to the death of Alexander the Great. It is an attractive work, elegantly written, but is ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... puns, sacred and immemorial as the pulpit itself, started a brief programme of entertainment. A broad smile marked the beginning of his lighter mood. His manner seemed to say: 'Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you will give good heed, you shall see I can be witty on occasion.' ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... writer, Lucian, in one of his witty dialogues, refers to an island in the Atlantic, that lies eighty days' sail westward of the Pillars of Hercules—the extreme limit of the ancient world, as has already been seen. Readers of Henry Fielding and admirers of Squire Westers will remember how in the London of the eighteenth ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... handsome and accomplished young literary man had exercised magic in winning his elderly bride! The successful defense of Apuleius before his judges—a most diverting composition, so jaunty and full of witty impertinences that it is evident he knew the hard-headed Roman judges would dismiss the prosecution as a farce—is still extant under the name of 'The Apology; or, Concerning Magic.' This in after days became oddly jumbled with the story of 'The Golden ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Catherine's shelter. Then all the pride in her rushed to the rescue and held that swooning dismay at the heart of her in check. And forthwith she capped Langham's minute account of the scale-method of a famous Berlin pianist by some witty stories of the latest London prodigy, a child-violinist, incredibly gifted, dirty, and greedy, whom she had made friends with in town. The girl's voice rang out sharp and hard under the trees. Where, in fortune's ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... were his. After the train had started he wished he had had time to tell the porter how impossible it was that a man who owned a crate full of hens should fall over it. And then he thought that would have been neither witty nor convincing. He was one of those lucky people who say so little that they rarely have need to regret ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... of a type that prevails in the rural South and West. Unskilled in originating methods of amusing or in witty conceptions, he had hit upon a comical idea and clung to it reverently. It had seemed to Jimmy a very funny thing to have about his person, with which to amuse his friends, a tame horned frog with a red ribbon around its ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... the two daughters, though to the same discipline subjected. Grave was the elder born and thoughtful, even beyond her years, Night upon her tresses, but the star of morning in her heart. Exceeding fair was the younger, and witty, and full of grace, Winning with her sunny ringlets, the notice of all beholders. Different also were their temperaments, one loving like the Violet Shaded turf, where the light falls subdued through sheltering branches, The other, as the Tulip, exulting ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... same place twice, yet, though it fell to him to welcome the Association, it had also fallen to him to respond to this vote of thanks. He had asked Secretary Beard what he would say on this occasion, and was answered, in his witty way, "Tell us Godspeed, and we are glad to get rid of you." Dr. Seaver felt that the local people were the recipients, and the visitors the benefactors in what had been done. The President had inspired them with his spirit; he had not withdrawn his presence, and very late might he return to the ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... the waves are rolling his bleaching bones to and fro on that distant beach. I say that this dismal omen damped the spirit of us all. But nothing in this world can long dishearten the brave; we soon grow lighter, and, marching along in the crowd, blackguard effectively the witty or witless dogs that crack jokes at us and forebode hard ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... so much froth had been blown off. As Thomas Fuller says, there were 'fewer persons, but not fewer men,' after the poltroons had disappeared. The second test, 'a purgatory of water,' as the same wise and witty author calls it, was still more stringent. The dwindled ranks were led down from their camp on the slopes to the fountain and brook which lay in the valley near the Midianites' camp. Gideon alone ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... governments, write "relations," or even to manage "The Great Horse," the Grand Tour, as a form of education, gained upon society, especially at the end of the century, when even the academies were too much of an exertion for the beaux to attend. To dress well and to be witty superseded martial ambitions. Gentlemen could no longer endure the violence of the Great Horse, but were carried about in sedan chairs. To drive through Europe in a coach suited them very well. It was a form of travel which likewise suited country squires' sons; for with the spread of the fashion ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... and if you would be rid of the trouble of him, be not coy, nor witty; two things ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... (Those authors he so oft had named, For learning, wit, and wisdom, famed;) Was struck with love, esteem, and awe, For persons whom he never saw. Suppose Cadenus flourish'd then, He must adore such godlike men. If one short volume could comprise All that was witty, learn'd, and wise, How would it be esteem'd and read, Although the writer long were dead! If such an author were alive, How all would for his friendship strive, And come in crowds to see his face! And this she takes to be her case. Cadenus answers every end, The book, the author, and ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... Mrs. Partington.—Mr. Greene, the witty editor of the Boston (N.E.) Post, is believed to be the original of Mrs. Partington: at least he fathers all her sayings. He began to print them about twelve or ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 55, November 16, 1850 • Various
... and chaunce thou must of force endure, Fortune's fickle stay needs thou must sustaine: To grudge therat it booteth not at all, Before it come the witty wise be sure: By wisedom's lore, and counsell not in vaine, To shun and eke auoyde. The whirling ball, Of fortune's threates, the sage may well rebound By good foresight, before it ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... interesting than conclaves of kings or convocations of bishops. One would like to have been the waiter at the "Mermaid," and to have stood behind Shakspeare's chair. What was that functionary's opinion of his guests? Did he listen and become witty by infection? or did he, when his task was over, retire unconcernedly to chalk up the tavern score? One envies somewhat the damsel who brought Lamb the spirit-case and the hot water. I think of these meetings, and, in lack of companionship, frame for myself imaginary conversations—not ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... call their talk amusing? It's the stupidest stuff I ever did hear. I can't make head or tail of it; nor I don't believe they can. Sounds to me as if they were tryin' amazin' hard to be witty, and ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... book-writing, lecturing, propagandist population of England has been bitten by him; it re-writes and popularises him; it even talks his jargon when it is criticising him. It began by regarding him as a brilliant and witty writer whom no one could take seriously; it now regards him as a serious, and indeed responsible, thinker whose wit is a matter of harmless inspiration, ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... I shall affect plainness and sincerity in my discourse to you, as much as other lovers do perplexity and rapture. Instead of saying 'I shall die for you', I profess I should be glad to lead my life with you. You are as beautiful, as witty, as prudent, and as good-humoured as any woman breathing; but, I must confess to you, I regard all these excellences as you will please to direct them for my happiness or misery. With me, madam, the only lasting ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... versification of the World. She said she did not like the dead calm. She liked the breaking up into verses, like her songs. That is a good thing; it gives the reporter time to take breath and sharpen his pen, and think of some witty thing to say; for life is a hard battle anyway, and if we can laugh and sing a little as we fight the good fight of freedom, it makes it all go easier. "But, children, why did you not send for some of those wicked Democratic papers that abuse all ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... them, and the good people of that great State, misled by its press, its press in turn misled by the speculators, innocently discredited every report of distress, and amused themselves by little sly innuendoes and witty jokes on the ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... at once ascertained that the phenomenon which they were striving to account for,—which was the acknowledged basis and substratum, as it were, of their debates,—had no existence but in the invention of the witty monarch.[3] ...
— Historic Doubts Relative To Napoleon Buonaparte • Richard Whately
... thy whole magnanimity, thy whole generosity, to the living lights of thy sullen region of toil, trimming, and tribulation, of the dulness of dukes and the mountainous fortunes of pinmakers—is exactly L1200 a-year! and this to be divided among the whole generation of the witty and the wise, of the sons and daughters of the muse,—the whole "school of the prophets," the lustres of the poetry and the science of England! L1200 a-year for the only men of their generation who will be remembered for five minutes by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... Paris, to open one's salon and to assemble all the elite of society, presided over by a woman who is refined, polished, imposing as a queen, of illustrious descent, allied to the noblest families, witty, well-informed, and beautiful; there is a power of social domination. To enter into any struggle whatever with a woman in whom so much influence centers is—I tell you this in confidence—an act of insanity. Let there be neither servility, nor ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... of his composite genius were nearly all represented in these volumes. The Fable was a good-natured satire upon his fellow authors, in which he touched up in rollicking rhymed couplets the merits and weaknesses of each, not omitting himself, with witty characterization and acute critical judgment; and it is still read for its delicious humor and sterling criticism. For example, the lines on ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... passed for one of the wonders of Italy. The Duke's guest, the witty and learned Aretino, celebrated it in verse, his friend Cardinal Bembo in prose; Correggio painted the walls of one room, Guilio Romano the ceiling of another. It seemed that magnificence could go no farther, till the seventeenth century ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... caprice, save on the witty writer's part; for men who fast are not saved from bad temper, nor have the kindly necessarily discreet tongues. The Swiss may be brave and honest, and yet dull. Virtue is her own reward, and art her own. Virtue rewards the ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... a witty answer of a young English nobleman who was going to travel thorow France and Italie, whom his friends feared exceedingly that he would change his Religion, because he mocked at Religion. They thought that King James admonition to him might do ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... by the company he keeps, it is equally true that one is known by the stories he tells. Mr. Blaine was one of the best story-tellers I ever met. His was a bright sunny nature with a witty, ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... Temple, a very pretty, attractive girl, whom Fred always took to dances, and skated with on the river; her chum Cissie Anderson, a little addicted to slang, though witty, and "fetching," as Sid Wells was heard to admit many a time, even when she had rubbed it into him pretty hard; and last, but not least, that energetic sister of Sid's, Mame Wells, a girl who could play almost any game that boys did, and ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... witty fellow, your grace," said my lord cardinal aloud to the King. "Will your grace be pleased to hear ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... of the Stool, who made the speech on Ash Wednesday, when the senior Proctor called him up and exhorted him to be witty but modest withal. Their speeches, especially after the Restoration, tended to be boisterous, and even scurrilous. "26 Martii 1669. Da Hollis, fellow of Clare Hall is to make a publick Recantation in the Bac. Schools for his Tripos speeche." ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... know'st I have been always true to thee, and so will ever be; and I'll say that for thee, thou never deny'dst me yet to kiss and feel, when I'd a Mind to't. And I am glad to find thee art so witty: But thou art nothing but Charms; methinks I see the Lilly and the Rose (as heretofore they did 'twixt York and Lancaster) are once again contending in thy Cheeks; and thy Eyes sparkle like two Diamonds; Come, let me now embrace thee in my Arms; nay never fear, ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... well acquainted with two jovial and witty Irishmen. They were common laborers. One was a hodcarrier, and a strapping fellow. When he arrived at the institution, he was at once placed in the violent ward, though his "violence" consisted of nothing ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... the usual throng of under-graduates, fellows and professors who looked for the usual entertainment. Never was a crowd more deceived. "In preparing once more to preach to this congregation of worldly and witty folk, he had resolved to give them a sermon intended to exhibit Jesus Christ rather than John Cotton. This he did. His hearers were astonished, disgusted. Not a murmur of applause greeted the several stages of his discourse as before. They pulled their shovel ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... irritated at what he called the captive Pope's unreasonable obstinacy, Bonaparte conceived, and somewhat openly expressed, his notion of making France a Protestant country, and changing the religion of 30,000,000 of people by an Imperial decree. One or two of the good sayings of the witty, accomplished, and chivalrous Comte Louis de Narbonne have already been given in the course of these volumes. The following is another ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... pistol for a whole month, as I had sent mine to be mended; and would you believe it, Your Excellency, the first time I began to shoot again, I missed a bottle four times in succession at twenty paces. Our captain, a witty and amusing fellow, happened to be standing by, and he said to me: 'It is evident, my friend, that your hand will not lift itself against the bottle.' No, Your Excellency, you must not neglect to practise, or your hand will soon lose its cunning. The best shot that I ever ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... arriving at the corner of the street, his fluttering heart failed him. The thought of the cousin was a stumbling-block which he could not surmount. He had never met her before; he feared that she might be witty, or sarcastic, or sharp in some way or other, and would certainly make game of him in the presence of Katie. He had observed this cousin narrowly at the singing-class, and had been much impressed with her appearance; but whether this impression was favourable or unfavourable ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... enough to inspire fervor and homage and love in all masculine minds. She was witty and talented. Carmichael said she was one of the most beautiful women in Europe. Later he modified this statement by declaring that she was the most beautiful woman in Europe or elsewhere. Yet, often she went about as one in a waking dream. There was an aloofness which ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... somewhere about fifty of the critics, artists, and literary men of London. A card of invitation, stamped with a facsimile of the well-known autograph of Charles Dickens, and countersigned by the Messrs. Chappell and Company, had, with a witty significance, bidden them to that rendezvous for a "Private Trial of the Murder in Oliver Twist." The occasion, in point of fact, was a sort of experimental rehearsal of the last and most daring of all these vividly dramatic Readings ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... early—gentlemen, both Spaniards and Mexicans. Senor A—-z, decidedly the ugliest man I ever beheld, with a hump on his back, and a smile of most portentous hideosity, yet celebrated for his bonnes fortunes; Senor de G—-a, Ex-Minister of the Treasury, extremely witty and agreeable, and with some celebrity as a dramatic writer; Count C—-a, formerly attached to the bedchamber in Spain, married to a pretty Andalusian, and entirely Mexicanized, his heart where his interests are. He is very gentlemanlike and distinguished-looking, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... entirely at rest"; "Women in love more easily forgive great indiscretions than small infidelities"; "The reason we are not often wholly possessed by a single vice is that we are distracted by several." But is this not ultimately some degrees too witty to be true, and has our system of prescientific psychology the right to open the door to such glittering epigrams which are uttered simply to tickle or to whip the vanity of man? Or what psychologist would believe Lichtenberg when he claims: "All men are equal ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... house, he would ask him, if he designed to do anything that day in order to the accusation, and if Cato said no, he went away, relying on his word. When the cause was pleaded, Cicero, who was then consul and defended Murena, took occasion to be extremely witty and jocose, in reference to Cato, upon the stoic philosophers, and their paradoxes, as they call them, and so excited great laughter among the judges; upon which Cato, smiling, said to the standers ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... entered his office in Springfield ostensibly as a law student; but Mr. Lincoln was then a candidate for the Presidency, and Ellsworth read very little law that autumn. He made some Republican speeches in the country towns about Springfield, bright, witty, and good-natured. But his mind was full of a project which he hoped to accomplish by the aid of Mr. Lincoln—no less than the establishment in the War Department of a bureau of militia, by which the entire militia ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... what Dekker called the 'poetomachia' or war of the theatres as recent critics have named it. This play as a fabric of plot is a very slight affair; but as a satirical picture of the manners of the time, proceeding by means of vivid caricature, couched in witty and brilliant dialogue and sustained by that righteous indignation which must lie at the heart of all true satire—as a realisation, in short, of the classical ideal of comedy—there had been nothing ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... words accented on the last syllable, ending with a single consonant that is preceded by a single vowel, double that consonant when they assume another syllable that begins with a vowel; as, wit, witty; thin, thinnish; ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... Saavedra," was Doughty's idle comment. "He had great store of antiquated sentiments—like those in the chronicles of the paladins. I knew his nephew well—a witty fellow, but visionary. He laughed at the old cavalero, but he was fond of him, and our affections rule us and ruin us. A man should have no loves nor hates if he would get on ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... suitors," said courteous Mr. Engelman. "A most majestic person. Witty and accomplished. Possessed of an enviable little fortune, entirely ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... but that is not all your duty. Your part will be to mix in the life of Seville, and to watch those whom I bid you watch, to drop a word here and a hint there, and in a hundred ways that I shall show you to draw grist to my mill—and to your own. You must be brilliant and witty, or sad and learned, as I wish; you must make the most of your person and your talents, for these go far with my customers. To the hidalgo you must talk of arms, to the lady, of love; but you must ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... on that higher social level. One by one he drew out the poisoned shafts on his way home, talking aloud to himself, scoffing at the fools with whom he had to do, inventing neat answers to their idiotic questions, desperately vexed that the witty responses occurred to him so late in the day. By the time that he reached the Bordeaux road, between the river and the foot of the hill, he thought that he could see Eve and David sitting on a baulk of timber by the river in the moonlight, and went ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... sell those horses, they don't speak German; Brender will take care to mount you some way or other.' Prinoe Lichtenstein immediately put a price on my horses; and they were sold on the spot at three times their worth. The Prince of Orange, who was of this Dinner [slightly crook-backed witty gentleman, English honeymoon well over], said to me in a half-whisper, 'Monsieur, there is nothing like selling horses to ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... flow in upon us from the success of the worthy merchant's speculations. Our father was nearly as bad as ourselves; only that he affected not to be so much in earnest: expressing his bright hopes and sanguine expectations in jests and playful sallies, that always struck me as being exceedingly witty and pleasant. Our mother laughed with delight to see him so hopeful and happy: but still she feared he was setting his heart too much upon the matter; and once I heard her whisper as she left the room, 'God grant he be not disappointed! ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... as we conquer for them our awkwardness and our shyness? Let us pause for a moment, and try to be just. Let us contemplate these social ethics, which call for so much that is, perhaps, artificial and troublesome and contradictory. Society, so long as it is the congregation of the good, the witty, the bright, the intelligent, and the gifted, is the thing most necessary to us all. We are apt to like it and its excitements almost too well, or to hate it, with its excesses and its mistakes, too bitterly. We ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... so merry and witty, religion got a strong hold upon him, and at one time he thought of becoming a monk. But his friends persuaded him to give up that idea, and after a time he decided to marry. He chose his wife in a somewhat quaint manner. Among ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... Dinmont, James Davidson of 'Note o' the Gate,' sleeps sound under a green heap of turf. To trace the Teviotdale dynasty of song further in the female line, Mrs. Cockburn's niece, Mrs. Scott, was that 'guidwife o' Wauchope-house,' who addressed an ode to her 'canty, witty, rhyming ploughman,' Robert Burns, with an invitation to visit her on the Border—an invitation which the poet accepted, and on the way thither, as he relates, chanced upon 'Esther (Easton), a very remarkable ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... to see you like to read French," continued John; "and I can get you some delightful French stories, which are not only pretty and witty, but have nothing in them that tend to pull down one's moral principles. Edmond About's 'Mariages de Paris' and 'Tolla' are charming French things; and, as he says, they might be read aloud by a man between his mother and his sister, without a ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... all hearts, and charm all eyes, Though meek, magnanimous; though witty, wise; Polite, as all her life in Courts had been; Yet good, as she the world had never seen; The noble fire of an exalted mind, With gentle female tenderness combined. Her speech was the melodious voice of love, Her song the warbling of the ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... come out in a most unusual way. He possessed a fund of dry humour which he rarely produced, but when he did produce it, it was of a most satisfactory order. On this particular night it was all on view, greatly to the satisfaction of Ida, who was a witty as well as a clever woman. And so it came to pass that the dinner was a very ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... it is not. The last one was thin, this one is fat; the last one was tall, this one is tiny. The last one was stupid, this one is witty. Some men seek the source of the Nile, I the lace of a bodice. A new love is a voyage of discovery. What is her furniture like? What will she say? What are her opinions of love? But when you have been a woman's lover ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... talk is all very well," said Roger, "and I've no doubt you think yourselves very witty, but let that be as it may. As matters stand now, you've got the upper hand—though I wish you joy of working the ship. However, if you give us the long-boat and a fair allowance of water and bread, ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... that Mme. de Stael was too wise and witty to be acceptable to Napoleon; and many women repeated with unction that the conqueror of Europe was no match for this frowsy little woman. It is, perhaps, worth while to look into the facts, and to decide whether Napoleon was really of so petty a nature as to feel himself inferior to this ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... these general truths, that it is impossible to give rules which will enable you to compose. You might much more easily receive rules to enable you to be witty. If it were possible to be witty by rule, wit would cease to be either admirable or amusing: if it were possible to compose melody by rule, Mozart and Cimarosa need not have been born: if it were possible to compose pictures by rule, Titian and Veronese ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... they with happy gales are gone away, With your propitious presence grace our play; And with a sigh their empty seats survey: Then think, on that bare bench my servant sat; I see him ogle still, and hear him chat; Selling facetious bargains, and propounding That witty recreation, call'd dumfounding. Their loss with patience we will try to bear; And would do more, to see you often here; That our dead stage, revived by your fair eyes, 50 Under ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... he offered to continue him as viceroy of India for life; but on his refusal, Don Francisco de Cotinho, count of Redondo, was appointed his successor. This nobleman, who was no less distinguished for his witty sayings than for his conduct in peace and war, arrived at Goa in the beginning of September 1561. Nothing worth relating happened during his government of India, which lasted two years and five ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... Mr. Sandys. "I have a very strong sense of humour myself, or rather what might be called risibility. No one enjoys a witty story or a laughable incident more than I do. But I keep it in check. The indulgence of humour is a risky thing; not very consistent with the pastoral office. But that is a small point; and what I am leading up to is this, that dear Maud's restlessness, and even morbidity, ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... connections is to be found in the fact that when he, Strachey, went to Venice he took with him a letter of introduction from the poet, Dr. Donne, to the then Ambassador with the Republic, Sir Henry Wotton, also a poet. The letter is witty and trenchant. After noting that Strachey was "sometime secretary to Sir Thomas Gates," he adds, "I do boldly say that the greatest folly he ever committed was to submit himself and parts to so mean a master." The rest of the letter is pleasantly ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... regard to the last war of Paris, it deserves only to be hooted at. Methinks I see a crowd of schoolboys rising up in arms against their master, and afterwards whipped for it. Cardinal de Retz, who was witty and brave (but to no purpose), rebellious without a cause, factious without design, and head of a defenceless party, caballed for caballing sake, and seemed to foment the civil war merely out of diversion. The Parliament did not know what he intended, nor what he did not ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... be in time for dinner. I was, I must confess, anxious to see Miss Trevannion, for she had often occupied my thoughts during the cruise. She met me with great friendliness and welcomed me back. Our dinner was very agreeable, and Philip's sallies were much approved of. He was, indeed, a mirthful, witty lad, full of jest and humour, and with a good presence withal. Mr. Trevannion being called out just as dinner was ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... most commendable!' he said, sheathing his weapon, and laughing softly to himself. 'I love to draw spirit out of the young fellows. I am the steel, d'ye see, which knocks the valour out of your flint. A notable simile, and one in every way worthy of that most witty of mankind, Samuel Butler. This,' he continued, tapping a protuberance which I had remarked over his chest, 'is not a natural deformity, but is a copy of that inestimable "Hudibras," which combines the light touch of Horace with the broader mirth of Catullus. ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... might as well have tried to grasp a bundle of sunbeams or a handful of quicksilver. His report turned out a frightful bungle; the wretched Bond, made clumsy, fatuous, pointless, sodden, when he had meant to show himself as witty and brilliant as possible, was completely crushed. With Joyce going for next to nothing and Bond for worse than nothing, the Art Circuit could hardly be said to shine. It paled, it sickened, it drooped ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... tell you ... only fancy, that witty gentleman, about whom I wrote to you the other day, has made me a declaration of love, and in the most ardent terms. I thought at first he was laughing at me; but he finished up with a formal proposal—what do you think of ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... they gagged upon Collins's use of satire in religious controversy. As we have already seen, there were complex reasons for his choice of technique. He was a naturally witty man who, sometimes out of fear and sometimes out of malice, expressed himself best through circuitous irony. In 1724, when he himself considered his oratorical practice, he argued that his matter determined ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... witty, you rogue. I shall want your help. I'll have you learn to make couplets to tag the ends of acts. D'ye hear? Get the maids to Crambo in an evening, and learn the knack of rhyming: you may arrive at the height of a song sent by an unknown hand, ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... book is clear and direct, except in those parts where light and humorous narration is required. There it is bad, and seems to have been formed upon the style of the sporting newspapers and the local reporters, with now and then a hint from the witty passages of the circus, as in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... defective sanitary arrangements, which Master Swift had anxiously pointed out to the miller. The plague had begun in the village, and the schoolmaster trembled for Jan. But Master Lake was not to be interfered with, and, when the schoolmaster spoke of poison, thought himself witty as he replied, - ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... your opening paper in the Illuminated. It is very wise, and capital; written with the finest end of that iron pen of yours; witty, much needed, and full of truth. I vow to God that I think the parrots of society are more intolerable and mischievous than its birds of prey. If ever I destroy myself, it will be in the bitterness of hearing those infernal and damnably good old times extolled. Once, in ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... fellow, free-mouthed, quick-tempered, not bad-looking, able to take his own part, witty, sensitive to a slight, ready with life or death for a friend, fond of women, gambled, ate hearty, drank hearty, had known what it was to be flush, grew low-spirited toward the last, sickened, was helped by a contribution, ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... formed in 1773, nine years before his arrival. He became a member in 1785, and his wife in 1803. Not long after his coming, Rev. Mr. Roots, the pastor, died, and the widely known Rev. Samuel Haynes, a devout, able and witty man, became their pastor, and so continued for thirty years, until his dismission in 1818. Timothy Boardman's children were early taken to church, were trained and all came into the church under, the ministry of ...
— Log-book of Timothy Boardman • Samuel W Boardman
... Sitting in thorns is more for protection than penance. See Goldsmith's Animated Nature. It was a generally received opinion that the nightingale, to keep himself awake in the night, sat on a tree of thorn, so that if he nodded he would be pricked in the breast. The learned and witty Dr. Thomas Fuller thus alludes to it:—'I am sure the nightingale which would wake will not be angry with the thorn which pricketh her breast when she noddeth.' How useful would it be if a thorn could be so placed as to prick those who ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... was getting the supper, the travellers both began to talk very sociably with Philemon. The younger, indeed, was extremely loquacious, and made such shrewd and witty remarks, that the good old man continually burst out a-laughing, and pronounced him the merriest fellow whom he had ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... a rich man would have given a third of his income. Dukes and duchesses were fond of him; and certain persons, standing very high in the world, did not think certain parties were perfect without him. He knew how to talk enough, and yet not to talk too much. No one could say of him that he was witty, well-read, or given to much thinking; but he knew just what was wanted at this point of time or at that, and could give it. He could put himself forward, and could keep himself in the background. He could shoot well without wanting ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... no need to make you witty. M. de Mayenne, when you have submitted to the king, as you will one of these days, I shall have as delightful a kinsman as heart of man could wish. You and I will yet drink a loving-cup together. Till that happy hour, I am your good enemy. Fare you ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... very good blood in her veins, too; but commoner as she is, I have never met a peeress who was more than her peer, Mr. George; and if you will come to Fairoaks Castle you shall judge for yourself of her and of my cousin too. They are not so witty as the London women, but they certainly are as well bred. The thoughts of women in the country are turned to other objects than those which occupy your London ladies. In the country a woman has her household and her poor, her long calm days and ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... villainy resulting, but only as the outcome of argument and definition of principle and of that mixture of logic and rhetoric called by the French des mots. Alfieri was not a reasoning mind, he was not an eloquent man; above all, he was not a witty man; his satirical efforts are so many blows upon an opponent's head; they are almost physical brutalities; there is nothing clever or funny about them. In such a society as this Parisian society of the years '87, '88, '89, '90, he must have been at a continual ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... make. On holidays, when dozens of family parties came out by every train from town, he could hardly keep up with the demand for his potato chips. And with a waiting crowd around him our partner was at his best. He was as voluble as he was skilful, and as witty as he was voluble; at least so I guessed from the laughter that frequently drowned his voice. I could not understand his jokes, but if I could get near enough to watch his lips and his smile and his merry eyes, I was happy. That any one could ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... heard her, was fully aware what a good hand she had always been at witty things, and how she, more than any other, had an inexhaustible supply of novel and amusing rules of forfeits, ever stocked in her mind, so her suggestion not only gratified the various inmates of the family seated at the banquet, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... records, "He was very witty and thrifty, and got more by oppressing his tenants than did all the lords in 60 years before him. He was a justice of the peace, and raised a troop in the cause of the Parliament." It must have been in the army that Oliver Cromwell made his acquaintance, and in 1647 began the first proposals ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... a City,—neither large nor small, Its air and situation sweet and pretty; It matters very little—if at all— Whether its denizens are dull or witty, Whether the ladies there are short or tall, Brunettes or blondes, only, there stands a city!— Perhaps 'tis also requisite to minute That there's a Castle, and ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... in the front of the 'bus, just behind the driver, for he had often heard stories of the witty sayings of London 'busmen and he was anxious to hear a 'bus-driver's wit ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... people into the hand of the men of Israel. Were such a proposition presented to our consideration to-day, we can imagine what would be the comments of the Army and Navy departments, of Congress, of the editors of newspapers, of witty paragraphers, and of the man on the street. Possibly the churches themselves might hesitate before giving their support to such a plan of war: "We must take the biblical stories in a figurative sense!" But stout Joshua had seen the angel of the Lord, with his sword drawn, the night before; ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... of great strength and almost photographic intensity, that appeals to the lovers of sensational fiction; wise, witty, yet ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... that; but Francesca don't like America; she's forever saying something witty and sharp about our 'democratic institutions,' as she calls them; and, if you had looked this morning, you'd have seen that she didn't sing The Star-Spangled Banner with the rest of us. Her voice is splendid, and Professor Hale wanted her to lead, as she often does, but ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... taking out his knife, he cut off both his ears; and then, bringing him to the threshold, he chopped off his tail. And having thus effectually dishonoured the poor cur among his neighbours, he tied a string about his neck, and a piece of paper to the string, directed to his master, and with these witty ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... rejected him. Lily was too much occupied in managing her own feelings to divine Osgood's. The imperative necessity of concealment, which all tutored women feel, governed her. She laughed a great deal, though nobody said a witty thing, and kept her eyes going between Mrs. Formica and Barclay with a steadiness which equaled the movements of the wax women in the Broadway shop windows. Mr. Formica and Dr. Black added themselves to ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... important in the conversation. Let us suppose the real John to be old, dull, and ill-looking. But as the Higher Powers have not conferred on men the gift of seeing themselves in the true light, John very possibly conceives himself to be youthful, witty, and fascinating, and talks from the point of view of this ideal. Thomas, again, believes him to be an artful rogue, we will say; therefore he is, so far as Thomas's attitude in the conversation is concerned, an ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... Commission in regard to Bills of Credit, in 1720. He removed to Boston in 1722, and became the Attorney General and a member of the Council of Massachusetts. He was by far the most eminent lawyer in New England, and was called "the Pride of the Bar, Light of the Law, and Chief among the Wise, Witty and Eloquent." It was he who prepared the instructions to Lord Mansfield, the counsel for Connecticut in the great case of Clark vs. Tousey, in which was discussed the question whether the Common Law ...
— The Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of the Town of New Milford, Conn. June 17th, 1907 • Daniel Davenport
... take her away as his wife. In that sweet May-time, no heart was happier than George Marshall's, and no voice gladder, as it rang out in unrestrained laughter at the droll jokes and facetious comments of his witty friend Fred. ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... good poem was ever hurt by its parody:—the 'Paradise Lost' was not by 'The Splendid Shilling'—'The Last Man' of Campbell was not by 'The Last Man' of Hood—nor the 'Lines on the Burial of Sir John Moore' by their witty, well-known caricature; and if 'The Vision of Judgment' by Southey was laughed into oblivion by Byron's poem with the same title, it was because Southey's original was neither good nor great. Philip's poem, too, is the first of the kind; and surely we should ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... posterity what those authors would be thought if any memory of them or of their writings could endure so long as to another age. But these dull makers of lampoons, as harmless as they have been to me, are yet of dangerous example to the public. Some witty men may perhaps succeed to their designs, and, mixing sense with malice, blast the reputation of the most innocent amongst men, and the ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... are men who are born good just as others are born witty. What I mean is his nature. No simpler, more scrupulously delicate soul had ever lived in such a—a—comfortable envelope. How we used to laugh at Davidson's fine scruples! In short, he's thoroughly humane, and I don't imagine there can be much of any other sort ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... excursions to galleries, villas, and ruins; and when in the Sistine Chapel, on a memorable festival, they heard "the wrong Miserere," she yet found it "very fine, right or wrong, and overcoming in its pathos." M. Goltz, the Austrian Minister, was an acquaintance whom the Brownings found "witty and agreeable," and Mrs. Browning called the city "a palimpsest Rome," with its records written all over ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... at the Court, the witty and clever 'Billy' O'Hea, who, alas! died too early, took advantage of the appropriate sound of the word to apply it to rowdyism in general, and, next time Dalton repeated the phrase, changed the word from ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... arbor, there is plenty of room to move about there, we have had a dozen together in it many a time." She passed in under the arch as she spoke, and the others followed her. There in her own way which was not so very witty or wise, and yet was very charming, she held her little court, and the three men who had been in love with her at the beginning of the hour were still more in love at the end of it. And Elizabeth who watched her with ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various
... book; and above his pale, serenely noble face is a little black berretta. Saints attend him, as though attesting to his act of faith. Opposite kneels Ippolita, his wife, the brilliant queen of fashion, the witty leader of society, to whom Bandello dedicated his Novelle, and whom he praised as both incomparably beautiful and singularly learned. Her queenly form is clothed from head to foot in white brocade, slashed and trimmed with gold lace, and on her forehead is a golden ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... . . . and then to sit down and write. And this is called life! How is it nobody has described the agonizing discord in the soul of a writer who has to amuse the crowd when his heart is heavy or to shed tears at the word of command when his heart is light? I must be playful, coldly unconcerned, witty, but what if I am weighed down with misery, what if I am ill, or my child is dying ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... solitude would have been fatal; for to him life consisted in motion, sallies, witty conversations, free and easy parties, the little gay ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... all was the honesty and truth of a womanhood capable of courageous conduct, and despising all forms of meanness. That she was variously regarded was natural. Margaret Shippen said she cared only for dress and the men; and the witty Miss Franks, seeing further, but not all, said that Darthea Peniston was an actress of the minute, who believed her every role to be real. My wise aunt declared that she was several women, and that she did not always keep some of them in ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... of a half-hour in the fashion aforetime recorded—not very wise nor witty talk, if you will, but very pleasant to make. There were many pauses. There was much laughter over nothing in particular. There were any number of sentences ambitiously begun that ended nowhere. Altogether, it was just the sort of talk for ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... for to cry, What you lack? But that were not so witty: His cap and coat are enough to note That he is ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... increased by the winter, at night, amidst storms, and through isolation. The table no longer responded by a few words merely, but by sentences and pages. It was usually grave and magisterial, but at times it would be witty and even comical. Sometimes it had an access of choler. More than once I was insolently reproved for speaking to it irreverently, and I confess to not feeling at ease until I had obtained forgiveness. The table made certain exactions. It chose ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... notice of Chaucer, it should be remarked that no English poet has been more successful in the varied delineation of character, or in fresh and charming pictures of Nature. Witty and humorous, sententious and didactic, solemn and pathetic, he not only pleases the ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... kinds, to become a country gentleman, patriot, reformer, financier, and what not, always good-looking (he had been very handsome), pleasing, intelligent, cultivated, agreeable as a man can be who is not witty and who is rather pompous and slow, after many years of retirement, in the course of which he gave to the world his lucubrations on corn and currency. Time and the hour made him master of a large but encumbered ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... Witty Tom Nash was right enough when he called this kind of stuff, "that drunken, staggering kinde of verse which is all vp hill and downe hill, like the waye betwixt Stamford and Becchfeeld, and goes like a horse ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... through, shaking his wig. "Perhaps ... perhaps"—he whispered to himself, "I'd better leave it to the will of God. They might upset my own. I do not think They'd understand. Jocelyn might, perhaps; And Dick, if only they were left alone. But Rosalind never; nor that nephew of mine, The witty politician. No. No. No. They'd say my mind was wandering, I'm afraid." So, with a frozen face, reluctantly, He tossed his verses into the dying fire, And watched the sparks fly upward. There, at ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... Some of the sonnets were written to a woman, of the kind described in two or three of the plays, viz. a black-haired, black-eyed, white-faced, witty wanton, false to her marriage vows and the cause of similar falseness in Shakespeare himself, and in ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... acquisition to the T. and B. Society: a fine reader, a good declaimer, witty and quick at repartee, the Social Committee of the society soon learned his value, and a smile of welcome greeted him wherever ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... said the witty countess, "is a man who has grown tired of the jars and the cares and responsibilities of the household; out of patience with the family in general. He feels the necessity, inborn in every Russian, for roaming, for getting far away from people, into the country and the forests. So he ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... Gahagan, your ball has been so pleasant, and the supper was despatched so long ago, that myself and the ladies would be very glad of a little breakfast." And Mrs. Van giggled as if she had made a very witty and reasonable speech. "Oh! breakfast, breakfast by all means," said the rest; "we really are dying for a ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... at the lethargy of our correspondence. Let it now be renovated with increase of spirit, so that I may not only subscribe myself your sincere friend, but your witty companion, ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... himself by a witty interview later in the week with an emotional actress, and by a solemn article compiled after an hour's reading in Lafcadio Hearn and the Encyclopedia—on the ...
— Blix • Frank Norris |
