"Jest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... if 't ain't another book!" cried the good woman, as Prissy, quick to divine the meaning of the parcel, the like of which she had been made accustomed to before, sprang to her aunt's side within hearing of her exclamation. "If she ain't jest the feelingest and thoughtfullest—Well! open it yourself, child; there's no good of ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... and the old brute, tasting his sorry jest, turned and slapped me again, winking all the time with his formidable brows in a spasmodic and horrible manner, that was like ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... jest the company enjoyed the banquet and then were rowed to the shore, all shaking hands with Berinthia and congratulating her upon the successful launching of the ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... passionate wrath shot up in his eyes, but it was instantly suppressed, and he joined in the laugh against himself. Seeing, however, that the victim of the joke did not appear at all disturbed or hurt, other, better-natured fellows followed in the wake, and the jest of asking the major to patch a pair of breeches or mend a coat, became ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... hare-lipped," a man in the greatest distress, one day called on the rich Barmecide, who in merry jest asked him to dine with him. Barmecide first washed in hypothetical water, Schacabac followed his example. Barmecide then pretended to eat of various dainties, Schacabac did the same, and praised them highly, and so the "feast" went on to the close. The story says Barmecide was so pleased that ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... impossible to get Mr. Daly to laugh at an actor's joke; he was too generally at war with them, and he was too often the object of the jest. But he did laugh once at one of the solemn frauds perpetrated on me by ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... words as a joke?" said Handyside sadly. "That's very generous of you, Alan, if I may say so,—to quote Caw—but the Green Box is too hard and cold a fact to jest about." ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... church, Lady More returned the greetings of her friends with a stateliness not unseemly at that ceremonious time in one who was the lady of the Lord High Chancellor. At the conclusion of service, ere she left her pew, the intelligence was broken to her in a jest that she had lost her cherished dignity. "And whereas upon the holidays during his High Chancellorship one of his gentlemen, when the service of the church was done, ordinarily used to come to my lady his wife's pew-door, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... knew I couldn't, and he never said a word. Finally, my boy Tom and his wife, and Len and Josie and the children, they all drove by on their way to Pitcher's; and Len—he's a good deal older'n Chess, you know—he says to me, 'You'd oughter leave Chess come along with the rest of us, ma; jest because he's married ain't no reason he's forgot how to dance!' Well, I burst right out laughing, and I says, 'Why didn't he say he wanted to go?' and Chess run upstairs for his other suit, and off they ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... if "Princeton stood to win"; Or what they should invest; They told with gusto and with grin Some futile jest. ...
— Walt Whitman Yesterday and Today • Henry Eduard Legler
... sy so! It gives me a turn to 'ear anybody talk so presumptuous. Don't you do it, m'm. If 'e is a little better, it's enuff to make the Almighty tyke 'im, jest to ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... resist. He even sought to conceal his depth of feeling under a disguise of lightness. He admitted that in his present frame of mind he ought to be with her as much as possible, as then, if ever, he stood in need of a sure antidote for the blues, and with a half-hearted jest he closed the conversation, and after that call merely kept away from her. It was hard for him, and as hard for her; but if he had honor, she had pride. So ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... possibility of proof. Let that be as it may, the critical business grew and prospered. Aristophanes of Byzantium wrote glossaries and grammars, collected editions of Plato and Aristotle, aesthetic disquisitions on Homer—one wishes they were preserved, for the sake of the jest, that one might have seen an Alexandrian cockney's views of Achilles and Ulysses! Moreover, in a hapless moment, at least for us moderns, he invented Greek accents; thereby, I fear, so complicating and confusing our notions of Greek rhythm, ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... you bang it round; till at last you have bank-note paper, and write to the Queen of England on it, if you're a mind to, and she won't have none better. And take jute or shoddy, and the minute you touch to wash it, it cockles up, or drops to pieces, and it ain't no good to mortal man. Jest like folks, I tell ye! and May and her mother's pure linen clippin's, if ever I ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... charity towards the opinions of others, nor the advantages of Religious Liberty. Nor were they singular in this respect, as the Dissenting Party had plainly shown when the power was in their hands. Happily wiser counsels prevail now. When Defoe's jest was discovered, and his opponents found that the book was "writ sarcastic," they caused the unhappy author to be severely punished. Parliament condemned his book to the flames, and its author to the pillory and to prison. On his release he wrote other ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... she found it, this first time of meeting Mr. Thackeray, to decide whether he was speaking in jest or in earnest, and that she had (she believed) completely misunderstood an inquiry of his, made on the gentlemen's coming into the drawing-room. He asked her "if she had perceived the secret of their cigars;" to which she replied literally, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Miss MURIEL HINE'S latest book. The faun, I imagine, stands for Rollo, the middle-aged lover of the country, into whose happy life other, more human, loves break with such devastation. What the rabbits mean is a more difficult problem. I jest; but as a matter of fact I should be the first to admit that Miss HINE has written a story that, despite a certain crudity of colouring, is both unconventional and alive. The attitude of the characters towards their parents, for example, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 20, 1917 • Various
... the Constable, in reply; "thou art one of those wiseacres, I warrant me, that would fain be thought witty, because thou canst make a jest of those things which wiser men hold worthy of most worship-the honour of men, and the truth of women. Dost thou call thyself a minstrel, and hast ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... bulk and impetus charmed against peril in any collision. And I had ridden through too many hundreds of perils that were frightful to approach, that were matter of laughter to look back upon, the first face of which was horror, the parting face a jest—for any anxiety to rest upon our interests. The mail was not built, I felt assured, nor bespoke, that could betray me who trusted to its protection. But any carriage that we could meet would be frail and light in comparison of ourselves. And I remarked this ominous accident ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... the lady, being much rejoiced, began to cast about how she might perform that which she had promised him. Accordingly, calling Jeannette to her one day, she asked her very civilly, as by way of a jest, if she had a lover; whereupon she waxed all red and answered, 'Madam, it concerneth not neither were it seemly in a poor damsel like myself, banished from house and home and abiding in others' service, ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... man," then said Tucket, "jest look at that jack-of-spades. He got it in the physiognomy wus'n I did. 'Alas, the mother that him bare, if she had been in presence there, in his greased cheeks and greasier hair, she had ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... strode in to Frohman, and told him what Dillingham had said. Frohman laughed so heartily that he almost rolled out of his chair. After the Englishman left he went out and congratulated Dillingham on his jest. From that day dated a Damon and Pythias friendship between the two men. They ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... obscene; In morals most Wicked, most nasty in mien; By none ever trusted, yet ever employed; In blunders quite fertile, in merit quite void; A scold in the Senate, abroad a buffoon, The scorn and the jest of all courts but his own: A slave to that wealth that ne'er made him a friend, And proud of that cunning that ne'er gain'd an end; A dupe in each treaty, a Swiss in each vote; In manners and form, a complete Hottentot. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... about the difficulty of getting labour, penalties, and damage caused by cattle, even of Bismarck, the war of 1866, and Napoleon III., whom Kollomietzev called a hero. Kollomietzev gave vent to the most retrograde opinions, going so far as to propose, in jest it is true, a toast given by a certain friend of his on a names-day banquet, "I drink to the only principle I ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... the old face there came again that curious smile as if she carried in her heart some jest fit for the gods ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... daughter-in-law produced the packet which the old man had brought home and received the reward of 200 Rupees; and they were all delighted at making so much money by what the old man had brought home in jest. ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... notice the grimness of the jest. She was too busy thinking what a tangle she had made of her life. Gerhardt would not come now, even if they had a lovely home to share with him. And yet he ought to be with Vesta again. ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... App., 102, 103. Nemours, after his conspiracy was discovered, fled from court. He wrote, however, disclaiming any ulterior object in his invitations to the young Prince of Orleans, to whom he had in jest proposed to go with ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... stood the test, Belching like fifty craters, And (this is perhaps the cream of the jest) There was more than metal inside its chest, For ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... dreaming his own dream, pressed the boy's shoulder and laughed, and answered with the jest that covers so ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... this question, from a woman to whom I was practically a stranger, that I thought it best to treat it as a jest. ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... effectually, and why they should be feared. Here lies the critical point which most of all distinguishes this faith. Words took effect, not merely in default of a serious use, but exactly in consequence of that default. It was the chance word, the stray word, the word uttered in jest, or in trifling, or in scorn, or unconsciously, which took effect; whilst ten thousand words, uttered with purpose and deliberation, were sure to prove inert. One case will illustrate this:—Alexander of Macedon, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... Ah jest seen that these yere boys wuzn't no men. Ah wuz willin' to let Lopez take the boys and shet 'em up an' all that. But when hit come to puttin' of 'em aboard a bucko schooner, Ah says to mahse'f, Ah says: 'Doright, dat ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... Germany, there was no necessity for suppressing his remarks, for he had spoken his mind as freely on them elsewhere as in these letters. But any personal reflections written on the spur of the moment, in confidence or in jest, have been struck out, however strong the temptation sometimes of leaving them. Many expressions, too, of his kind feelings towards me have been omitted. If some have been left, I hope I may be forgiven for ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... his peeping-hole. "Now, I pretend to say, I wouldn't take a gold guinea for what we have got through that crack, nor two either, if our legs will carry us to the village and rally help quick enough to have that batch of tories nabbed before they are off. But let's jest edge along against the mother's room, and see if there is any discovery to be made there, ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... of serious value under the form of a jest. Your "Paraphrases" charm me: nothing can be more ingenious than these 24 Variations and the 16 little pieces upon the ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... though I often make a jest of comparing China with the present condition of European states, I am not a Chinaman, I am a French gentleman. If you entertain any doubts as to the financial side of this undertaking, I can prove to you that at this moment we have ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... all things in heaven or earth with a baffling lightness, turned philosophy into a witty jest and made a sort of slang of classical terminology. Amongst a clever set in London she reigned supreme when she chose; but a false note or a pose offended her immediately, and the poseur or the insincere person would generally receive one of her exquisite snubs which cut like acid into ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... war ter jest tie 'em up, or wrop 'em in a bit of canvas, they'd go straighter, and wouldn't scatter round so bad," remarked old Trull, who was not an uninterested spectator ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... an' syne as white's the aisse, an' luikit to be i' the awfu'est inside rage 'at mortal wessel cud weel hand. Sae yer gran'father, no 'at he was feart at 'im, for Is' be bun' he never was feart afore the face o' man, but jest no wullin' to anger his ain kin, an' maybe no willin' onybody sud say he was a respecter o' persons, heeld his tongue an' said nae mair, an' the markis hed the second best bed, for he sleepit in ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... Mr. Solmes aside. I heard him say, whispering, She must, she shall, still be yours.—We'll see, who'll conquer, parents or child, uncles or niece. I doubt not to be witness to all this being got over, and many a good-humoured jest made of ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... At this jest of his the unbelieving peasant burst into a loud guffaw, slapped his thighs, coughed, and almost ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... apologize to you, Gib, because I hurt your fealings. I also apologize to Bart for hurting the fealings of his dear friend. Speeking of hurts you and Gib hurt me awful with your kidden when you took the Chesapeake away from me so I jest had to put one over on you. To er is human but to forgive is devine. After what I done I don't expect you two to come back to work ever but for God's sake don't give me the dead face when we meat agin. Remember ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... be merry with them, and leave me at liberty to go to mine. I must go alone, I have no occasion for company; besides, I must needs tell you, the place to which I go is not one where you can be received." "You jest, sir," said he; "if your friends have invited you to a feast, what should prevent you from allowing me to go with you? You will please them, I am sure, by introducing to them a man who can talk wittily like me, and knows how to divert company. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... avenue shaded with sycamores, leading to the royal park. The vintagers were busy in the fields around, unloading the vines of their purple tribute, and many a laugh and jest among the merry peasants enlivened the toil. We assisted them in disposing of some fine clusters, and then sought the "Colossus of the Appenines." He stands above a little lake, at the head of a long mountain-slope, ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... you're not in earnest," he added to soothe himself. "I know you know me better; but even in fun it isn't right to jest lightly ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... come into town with some turnips, And my little Gabe come along,— No four-year-old in the country Could beat him for pretty and strong, Peart and chipper and sassy, Always ready to swear and fight,— And I'd larnt him ter chaw terbacker, Jest to keep ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... regular part of my morning studies for the first six weeks of my residence at Ratzeburg, to accompany the good and kind old pastor, with whom I lived, from the cellar to the roof, through gardens, farmyard, etc. and to call every, the minutest, thing by its German name. Advertisements, farces, jest books, and the conversation of children while I was at play with them, contributed their share to a more home-like acquaintance with the language than I could have acquired from works of polite literature alone, or even from polite society. There is a passage of hearty sound sense in Luther's ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... came, and as I went along the passage to go out I well remember dear Lizzie [His eldest sister, Mrs. Scott.], half in jest, half in earnest, throwing her shoe after me, as she said, for luck. She was alone, beside S., in the secret, and almost as anxious as I was. How I reached the examination room I hardly know, but I recollect finding myself at last with pen and ink and paper before me and five other beings, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... thought and passion, all confused; Still by himself abused, or disabused; Created half to rise, and half to fall; Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled: The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides, Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides; Instruct the planets in what orbs to run, Correct old time, and regulate ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... of Raffleshurst were accustomed to helping ourselves to everything we could lay our hands on, a jest which even though it was only too true seemed to strike ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... rejoined he. "You are fast recovering, I see. There is not much the matter with a midshipman when he is able to fling a sly jest in the face of his captain. But—midshipman? My dear Ralph, you are no longer such. How could I be so forgetful? Your commission has come out by the packet which arrived yesterday, and the admiral will hand it you the first time you call upon him. Now let me be the first to congratulate ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... the opportunity to try and undermine the faith of my betrothed, may I ask? Supposing you are saying this seriously and not as some ill-timed jest." ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn
... gymnasium and on the parade ground. My fellow recruits were thinking in the terms of drill only, and I was thinking in the terms of my new-found opportunity for an education. My awkwardness made me the subject of much ridicule and good-natured jest. It also earned for me a brief sojourn in the awkward squad. The gymnasium was open every evening for exercise and amusement. The first time I ventured in to get a little extra drill on my own account, ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... are making fun of me," said Eve; "but there is many a true word spoken in jest. You could be a better, parson, lawyer or doctor than nine out of ten, but they won't let us. They know we could beat them into fits at anything but brute strength and wickedness, so they have shut all those doors in us poor ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... sickened to touch, to see, threw himself in my way, and affected gibe and insult, nay even threat. But when he came near, he shrank before the mere glance of my eye, and I passed on unheeding him. The insult galled me; he had taunted my poverty, poverty was a favourite jest with him; it galled me; anger, revenge, no! those passions I had never felt for any man. I could not rouse them for the first time for such a cause; yet I was lowered in my own eyes, I was stung. Poverty! he taunt me! He dream himself, on account of a little yellow dust, ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... writing in jest. Absurd as it may appear to "sensible people," we two children were lovers, if ever ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... here, shall be mirth and jest, No sigh on the lips and no care in the breast, When the fiddle is tuned at the dancers' 'hest, ...
— The Feast at Solhoug • Henrik Ibsen
... her that a hot brick or a flatiron at her feet and another at the small of her back would help. It ain't comfortable jest at first, but she can have the hired girl wrap it in a piece o flannel, and after a while it feels real comfortin'. But I must be goin'. I see you're a lookin' at my bunnet, Mis' Beaumont. It don't look ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... was among the first arrivals. Whispers had passed around of his strange actions, and the surprise would not have been great had it been found that he had gone clean daft; but nothing in his manner indicated anything of that nature. He was as full of quip and jest as ever, and none was in higher or more buoyant spirits ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... of his tribe opposed to his very nose, while the Jester, at the same time, flourished his wooden sword above his head, the Jew recoiled, missed his footing, and rolled down the steps,—an excellent jest to the spectators, who set up a loud laughter, in which Prince John and ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... street-vendors around the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; stepping back into an archway to avoid a bag-footed camel, or a gaily caparisoned horse, or a heavy-laden donkey passing through a narrow street; exchanging a smile and an unintelligible friendly jest with a sweet-faced, careless child; listening to long disputes between buyers and sellers in that resounding Arab tongue which seems full of tragic indignation and wrath, while the eyes of the handsome brown Bedouins who use it remain unsearchable in their ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... fare away. The King rose up and looking at her, asked, "Why dost thou veil thy face when there is none in presence save the women and eunuchs who wait on thee and thy husband?" Answered she, "O King, this bird is no bird, but a man like thyself." He rejoined, "Thou liest, this is too much of a jest. How should he be other than a bird?"; and she "O King, by Allah, I do not jest with thee nor do I tell thee aught but the truth; for verily this bird is King Badr Basim, son of King Shahriman, Lord of the land of the Persians, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... Words will fail thee to confess all thy selfishness in thy most penitent prayer. Thy towering pride of heart also, and thy so contemptible vanity. As for thy vanity, I shall so overrule it that double-minded men about thee shall make thee and thy vanity their sport, their jest, and their prey. And I shall not leave thee, nor discharge Myself of My work within thee, till I see thee loathing thyself and hating thyself and gnashing thy teeth at thyself for thy envy of thy brother, thy envy concerning his house, his wife and his man-servant, ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... so vanish, ghost-like, from the page. Franz Mueller is studying in Rome, having carried off a prize at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, which entitles him to three years at the Villa Medici, that Ultima Thule of the French art-student's ambition. I hear that he is as full of whim and jest as ever, and the very life of the Cafe Greco. May I some day hear his pleasant laugh again! Dr. Cheron, I believe, is still practising in Paris; and Monsieur de Simoncourt, I have no doubt, continues to exercise the profession of Chevalier ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... on an elephant. The matter was so extraordinary that even those women who, being members of the Wahima tribe, recognized Kali as the lost heir to the throne, thought that he was jesting with them and were surprised that he wanted to jest at a time that was so heavy for the whole tribe and Fumba. When, however, after the lapse of a few hours they saw a gigantic elephant approaching the ramparts and on it a white palanquin, they fell into a frenzy of joy and received ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... Thunder! We are not here for a jest— For wager, warfare, or plunder, Or to put your power to test. This work is none of our wishing— We would stay at home if we might— But our master is wrecked out fishing, We ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... not ashamed to laugh at the jest, or to drink the toast, though they had mixed in familiar intercourse with Pollux, flattered and followed him, when he had basked in the sunshine of royal favour. One of the guests was calculating how he should now get possession of some coveted gem which he had seen sparkling on the girdle ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... we have!" said Flemming. "I could not help closing the discussion with a jest. An ill-timed levity often takes me by surprise. On all such occasions I think of a scene at the University, where, in the midst of a grave discussion on the possibility of Absolute Motion, a scholar said he had seen a rock splitopen, from which sprang a toad, who could not be supposed to have ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... "Oh, jest let me git at him, cap'n!" came from Bahama Bill, who was being held back by Fred and Songbird. "I'll show him wot I think o' sech a measly scoundrel!" And he shook his ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... of your mind?" he said at last, and frowning at her in a kind of perplexity. "'Pon my soul, Maude, I'm never quite certain whether you are in jest or earnest! If this is intended for a joke, permit me to tell you I consider it in ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... the dresses made in one night! It seems that when they began to set to work about noon yesterday, the Duchess of Milan could not contain her amazement at seeing my wife sewing with as much vigour and energy as any old woman. And my wife told her that, whatever she did, whether it were jest or earnest, she liked to throw her whole heart into it and try and do it as well as possible. Certainly in this case she succeeded perfectly, and the skill and grace with which she carried out her idea gave me indescribable ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... evidently in a bad way," says she, smiling faintly. She has recovered herself in part, but though she tries to turn his earnest words into a jest, one can see that she is ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... Irishman's heart was torn with conflicting feelings, and although, from the mere force of habit, he could jest with the old woman when she paid her daily visits, there was no feeling of fun in his bosom, but, on the contrary, a deep and overwhelming sorrow, which showed itself very evidently on his expressive face. He groaned ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... in the mood for joking?' he said, at last. 'Have you ever heard me jest on such subjects, Miss Garston? I thought we agreed ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... corpse had already been interred, they spared his remains but glutted their rage on his representations, calling him all sorts of names. But "Commodus" or "emperor" were two that no one applied to him. In stead, they termed him "wretch" and "tyrant," adding in jest titles like "the gladiator," "the charioteer," "the left-handed," "the ruptured man." To the senators, who had been excited most by fear of Commodus, the crowd called out: "Huzza, huzza, you are saved, you have conquered!" All the shouts that they had been accustomed to raise ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... get seasick in one o' my boats any more'n you could on land," averred the runner. "We jest go out around by the Sugarloaf—we're close inshore all ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish
... and slept upon the rug. He knew his friends, and valued them; but perhaps his most remarkable quality was his impartiality. He dispensed his favors with an even hand. He had few favorites, and called no man master. He never outstayed his welcome "and told the jest without the smile," never remaining with one person for more than two or three days at most. A calmer character, a more balanced judgment, a better temper, a more admirable self-respect,—in a word, a profounder ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... Opera, the last Academy or the next Horticultural. Beautiful beings are made, they feel, not to amuse, but to be amused. The one object of their enthusiasm is the "funny Bishop" who turns a great debate into a jest for the entertainment of his fair friends in the Ladies' Gallery. The object of their social preference is the young wit who lounges up to tell his last little story, and then, without boring them for a reply, lounges away again. ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... trousers so narrow you fear they will burst before your eyes, pockets placed in every position, buttons clustered together in a tight little row or reduced to one. And the worst of it is, few of our younger men know any better until they go abroad and find their wardrobe a subject for jest and derision. ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... he got it to buy quinine for 'th' ole 'ooman,' who was down with the break-bone fever. He is like Yorick, 'a fellow of infinite jest'—in the way of lying. He talks well, too. You ought to hear him discourse on politics. As he gets most of his revenue from the North, he is kind enough to express the friendliest sentiments. 'I wuz opposed to the wah's bein'' is his standard speech, 'an' now I'm opposed ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... too. It's money in our pocket to stop this thing right now, even if we pay big for it. No use jest sittin' around till ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... was his patient, uncomplaining endurance of a life of hardship and privation equalled only among seafarers. Drenched by rain or bitten by snow, scorched by heat or stiffened by cold, he passed it all off with a jest. Of a bitterly cold night he might casually remark about the quilts that composed his bed: "These here durned huldys ain't much thicker 'n hen skin!" Or of a hot night: "Reckon ole mammy must 'a stuffed a hull bale of cotton inter this yere ole huldy." ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... inches long, its height being just half that distance. When you look closer at those which are least worn away you will find them clearly enough carved to represent unmistakably in one instance the peculiar reverted eye of a dog gnawing something in jest, and ready to run away with it; in another, the wrinkled skin that is pressed over a cheekbone by an angry fist; in a third, the growth of wing ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... who begins his progress with a jest! That is the sort of aristocrat to rule in Aberalva! And all agree that evening, at the Mariners' Rest, that his lordship is as nice a young gentleman as ever trod deal board, and deserves such a yacht as he's got, and long may he ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... jest, the serious makes its entry. Impulses depend on the first chance word. The spirit of each is sovereign, jest suffices to open the field to the unexpected. These are conversations with abrupt turns, in which the perspective ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... died; she had another, and all went well. But a time came—mind me, a time always does come. A time came—it was some while after she and I and the child returned from America—when somebody she had confided her history to, told her my claim to her was a mockery, and made a jest of her belief in my right. After that she was never happy with me. She pined and pined, and socked and sighed. She said she must leave me, and then came the question of our child. Then a man advised me how to act, and I did it, for I thought it was best. I left her at Falmouth, and went ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... almost wrath against his inconsiderate companions. Even these latter were at length sensible that they had gone too far, and, as their better feelings returned, they sought to assure the offended object of their pleasantry that what they had uttered was merely in jest; but finding he received these disclaimers in moody silence, they renewed their attack, nor discontinued it until they separated for their ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... escaped the indiscriminate applause which he would never have valued, but he has remained a bibliographical rather than a literary rarity. Few except the people who collect first editions—not, as a rule, the public for a poet—have had the chance of possessing Death's Jest-Book (1850) and the Poems (1851). At last Beddoes has been made accessible, the real story of his death, that suicide so much in the casual and determined manner of ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... understand the irresistible attraction of fine, embroidered stockings, the exquisite charm of shades, the witchery of valuable lace concealed in the depths of their underclothing, the exciting jest of hidden luxury, and all the subtle delicacies of female elegance, never understand the invincible disgust with which words that are out of place, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... They looked into each other's faces with blank astonishment. Everything had been so strangely true, and so strangely false, up to this moment, that they could not comprehend this failure at the last moment. It was the strangest, saddest jest! It brought Middleton up with such a sudden revulsion that he grew dizzy, and the room swam round him and the cabinet dazzled before his eyes. It had been magnified to a palace; it had dwindled down to Liliputian size; and yet, up till now, it had ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... might be deep," said Belllounds, reflectively. "But men like thet, no matter how deep or cunnin' they are, always come to a bad end. Jest works out natural.... Had ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... but little in common with the ci-devant aristos who formed the hulk of the groups in the courtyard. He looked up; the soldier was regarding him with obvious amusement, and at sight of Armand's wild, anxious eyes he gave vent to a coarse jest. ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments; but they were arranged in a slovenly manner, covered with dust, and lost half their value, or at least their effect, from the manner in which they were presented to the eye. The table was loaded with huge folios, amongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst notes of unmercifully long orations, and essays on king-craft, were mingled miserable roundels and ballads by the Royal 'Prentice, as he styled himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification of Europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... he replied, "you insist, Mave; but I'll tell you what—I'll put Peggy in a coach yet, when I come into my fortune; an' so you'll insist, will you? Jest look at that wrist of yours," he replied, seizing hers, but with gentleness, "and then look at this of mine; an' now will you tell me that you'll insist? Come, Darby, we're bound for the Bank; there's not a beech there but's a hundred feet high, an' that's higher than ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... gore. Nay, such was their audacious impiety, that he with the rest of his bon companions, persecutors, would over their drunken bowls feign themselves devils, and those whom, they supposed in hell, and then whip one another as a jest on that place of torment. When he could serve his master this way no longer, he wallowed in all manner of atheism, drunkenness, swearing and adultery, for which he was excommunicated by the church after the revolution, and yet by the then powers was made justice of the peace sometime before 1714; ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... Within the limit of becoming mirth, I never spent an hour's talk withal: His eye begets occasion for his wit; For every object that the one doth catch The other turns to a mirth-moving jest, Which his fair tongue, conceit's expositor, Delivers in such apt and gracious words That aged ears play truant at his tales, And younger hearings are quite ravished; So sweet and ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... little girls for laughin' too loud or gettin' off the line or somethin' like that. An' them with long-tailed frocks an' choky kind of aperns an' big sunbonnets, lookin' right at my basket o' peanuts an' never tastin' a single one. Oh, jest catch me! I'll be a newspaper boy, first, but—but, Jane dear, do you s'pose anything—any single thing, such as bein' terrible hungry, or not gettin' paid for frames or singin'—could that make my grandpa ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... I'll jest have to go back, an' tell ye all about it. Ye see, we was all brought over from Africa, father an' mother an' I, an' a lot more of us; an' we was sold up an' down, an' hither an' yon; an' I can 'member, ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... know you lived here. We wouldn't have hurt a hair of your head if we had knowed who you was." Then he added somewhat shamefacedly, "I fetched ye a salmon. Maybe ye ain't never see a salmon jest out of the water. They're pretty-colored, ain't they?" And he held up to view the glistening ...
— Three Little Cousins • Amy E. Blanchard
... I know your secret, madame, and I can assure you we have been exceedingly diverted; for you may well believe that we regard this marriage as a mere jest, a real child's play: the benediction given by a priest not belonging to the parish, and without the knowledge of the parents, can never be valid. This marriage then will soon be broken, and with very little trouble, I ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... brought me here, a year ago now, and they cured me, and set me up stronger than ever. They was so wery kind to me, that I couldn't think of anythink else save bringing our little girl to 'em. I'm sure they'd take her in, if they only knew it was her. You jest say as it's Tony and Dolly, as everybody took such notice of, and they'll never turn her away, ...
— Alone In London • Hesba Stretton
... he turned over the page that the horror-struck Bernstorff saw that the King was playing a characteristic jest on him; and he realised that the intended recipient of the gift was his wife, the Countess von Bernstorff, "as a souvenir of my gratitude for the many agreeable hours passed under ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... exclaimed Dick, heroically, as the other boat came up beside him. "Jest you take yer ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... assassinated, and was arrested as an accomplice in that great crime. His numerous friends who had so often suffered from his practical jokes, would have been pleased no doubt, to see how he appreciated the jest, when his head was tied up in a feather pillow to prevent him from defrauding the law by committing suicide in the murderer's cell. The shrill sound of a whistle was heard in the theatre just before Booth committed the act; and when the Major was arrested ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... don't begin to realize the value of a thing tell we lose it. Now that we sort o' stand and gaze at Uncle Capen at a fair distance, as it were, he looms. Ef he only hed n't kep' so quiet, always, about them 'ere wonders. A man really ought, in justice to himself, to blow his own horn—jest a little. But that was a grand discourse, ...
— The New Minister's Great Opportunity - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... proceeds to treat a child as if it were an adult, he (or she) will find that though the plan will work much better at some points than the usual plan, at others it will not work at all; and this discovery may provoke him to turn back from the whole conception of children's rights with a jest at the expense of bachelors' and old maids' children. In dealing with children what is needed is not logic but sense. There is no logical reason why young persons should be allowed greater control of their property the day after they are twenty-one than the day before it. There is no ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... alone by the little hillock, whose contents he knew so well. "The grave seems to me a vile pitfall, put right in our pathway, and catching most of us,—all of us,—causing us to tumble in at the most inconvenient opportunities, so that all human life is a jest and a farce, just for the sake of this inopportune death; for I observe it never waits for us to accomplish anything: we may have the salvation of a country in hand, but we are none the less likely to die for that. So that, being a believer, on the whole, in the wisdom ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Gods: he only, for the sake of avoiding any unpopularity or punishment, is afraid to deny their existence; for when he asserts that the Gods are wholly inactive and regardless of everything, and that they have limbs like ours, but make no use of them, he seems to jest with us, and to think it sufficient if he allows that there are beings of any kind happy and eternal. But with regard to Balbus, I suppose you observed how many things were said by him, which, however ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... and stubborn resolution. Even in that extremity the general cry was "No surrender." And there were not wanting voices which, in low tones, added, "First the horses and hides; and then the prisoners; and then each other." It was afterwards related, half in jest, yet not without a horrible mixture of earnest, that a corpulent citizen, whose bulk presented a strange contrast to the skeletons which surrounded him, thought it expedient to conceal himself from the numerous eyes which ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... is that young chap often a-coming about here? They'd run pretty in a curricle, wouldn't they? Miss N. and Master N. Quiet, old woman! Jest look to that mare's ead, will you, Billy? He's a fine young feller, that is. He gave me a covering the other night. Whenever I sor him in the Park, he was always riding an ansum hanimal. What is he? They said in our 'all he was ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of China cannot jest in vain. An attentive scribe standing by said: "When the Son of Heaven speaks, the clerk takes down his words in writing; they are sung to music, and the rites are fulfilled." When, in 665 B.C., Ts'i had driven back the Tartars on behalf of Yen, the Prince of Yen accompanied the Prince ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... delicacies, the masterpiece of the cook, was a superb crucifix in angelica, with a crown of candied berries. These are strange profanations, which scandalize even the least devout. But, from the impudent juggle of the coat of Triers, down to the shameless jest of the shrine at Argenteuil, people, who are pious after the fashion of the princess, seem to take delight in bringing ridicule upon ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... to him," Philip said slowly. "I met him on the towing-path by the side of the canal. I spoke to him—about you. He answered me with a jest. I think that all the passion of those grinding years of misery swept up at that moment from my heart. I was strong—God, how strong I was! I took him by the throat, Beatrice. I watched his face change. I watched his damned, ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... me, O auspicious King, that the Caliph came upon Khalifah the Fisherman and gave him his own gown in jest wherewith the man fared home. Such was his case; but as regards Harun al-Rashid, he had gone out a-hunting and a-fishing only to divert his thoughts from the damsel, Kut al-Kulub. But when Zubaydah heard of her and of the Caliph's devotion to her, the Lady was fired with the jealousy ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... could run so fast as he could, None could dive so deep as he could, None could swim so far as he could; 205 None had made so many journeys, None had seen so many wonders, As this wonderful Iagoo, As this marvellous story-teller! Thus his name became a by-word 210 And a jest among the people; And whene'er a boastful hunter Praised his own address too highly, Or a warrior, home returning, Talked too much of his achievements, 215 All his hearers cried, "Iagoo! Here's Iagoo come among us!" He it was who carved the cradle Of the little ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... that there is a human creature in his senses arrived at maturity, that at some time or other has not been carried away by this passion (envy) in good earnest, and yet I never met with any who dared own he was guilty of it, but in jest."—Mandeville: Fable Of The Bees; ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... cruel are the Traitors, Who lye and swear in jest, To cheat unguarded Creatures Of Virtue, Fame, and Rest! Whoever steals a Shilling, Through Shame the Guilt conceals: In Love the perjur'd Villain With ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... have left scant memorials of their American empire. "Knickerbocker's History of New York" has effectually laughed them out of court; but, notwithstanding, they were mighty men, whose idiosyncrasies we readily catch at as a jest, but whose greatness breaks on us slowly, as great matters must. "Kill" was a Dutch word, meaning creek, a terminal appearing in many of the few words they have left us, such as Fishkill, Peekskill, Wynantskill, Catskill. Along the banks of streams, with names ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... their manner of life, and their situation is such in their own country, that to say they are happy is a jest. "But who are you, who pretend to judge[103] of another man's happiness? That state which each man, under the guidance of his maker, forms for himself, and not one man for another? To know what constitutes mine or your happiness, is the sole prerogative of him who created us, and ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson
... cares the budding artist? He plies his brush with zest; He is in downright earnest, Though she is but in jest. ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... had invited Teen Balfour to your estate; is she there yet?' he asked; and Gladys did not know whether he asked in scorn or in jest. ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... of us two of the tablets and drank some of the water; and I made jest with the Maid how that the tablets did be proper for strength, yet very lacking to fill the belly; though, indeed, I named ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... fifty minutes, but the beginning of new history was started in that time and the curtain was going up on the grand drama of war. All the time this was going on I could hear faintly his strains of 'Auf Wiedersehn,' together with the merry jest of the officers and the light laughter of the women. Brave men, braver women—soon their laughter was turned to tears and many of the officers who went out of the Tampa Bay hotel on that warm June night are now sleeping their last sleep, having ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... began to disappear—one could see that, by his face. Joan's earnestness was affecting him. It always happened that people who began in jest with her ended by being in earnest. They soon began to perceive depths in her that they had not suspected; and then her manifest sincerity and the rocklike steadfastness of her convictions were forces which cowed levity, and it could not maintain its self-respect ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... females trained to any more useful purpose: they are taught, by the very rewards which their nurses propose for good behaviour, by the first thing like a jest which they hear from every male visitor of the family, that a young woman is a creature to be married; and when they are grown somewhat older, are instructed that it is the purpose of marriage to have the enjoyment of pin-money, and the expectation ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... they go to dinner. After their meals they resume their domestic amusements, during which the flame of mutual affection spreads in every heart, and unites the rising generation with new and tender ties. The lively jest, without any ill-nature, the artless tale, the jocund dance and frugal supper, bring on the evening; and another visit to the river concludes the actions of the day. Thus contented with their simple way of life, and placed in a delightful ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... as liked do a swelter; I sorntered about on the snap. Rum game this yer Politics, Charlie, seems arf talkee-talkee and trap. Jest fancy old Bluebottle letting the 'multitood' pic-nic and lark, And make Battersea Park of his pleasure-grounds, ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... bishop of Albi. As we crossed the courtyard of the palace (in the Cite) he said: 'Seest thou not what I perceive above this roof?' I answered, 'I see only a second building which the king hath built.' He asked again, 'Seest thou naught else?' I weened he spoke in jest and did but answer—'If thou seest aught else, prithee show it unto me.' Then uttering a deep sigh, he said: 'I see the sword of God's wrath suspended over this house.'" Shortly after this conversation Chilperic having returned from the chase to his royal ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... upon trenchers, And dance upon dishes, My mother sent me for yeast, some yeast, She bid me tread lightly, And come again quickly, For fear the young men would play me some jest. ...
— The Only True Mother Goose Melodies • Anonymous
... novelist. "And you can jest after having committed that Judas-like act! To inform a child of her father's misdeeds, when she is ignorant of them!.... Never, do you hear, never any more will Monsieur de Montfanon and I set foot in your shop, nor Monseigneur Guerillot, nor any of the persons of my acquaintance. I will ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... his friends tried to persuade him he owed to his country. Hence, the physician and his wife would be under the white flag, it was supposed, and if remarks were made as to their share in the approaching hostilities, it was always with a frank and laughing admission on their part and a jest ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... telling her Stories of Nuns, and endeavouring to bring her to the Knowledge of the true God: But of all Discourses, Caesar liked that the worst, and would never be reconciled to our Notions of the Trinity, of which he ever made a Jest; it was a Riddle he said would turn his Brain to conceive, and one could not make him understand what Faith was. However, these Conversations fail'd not altogether so well to divert him, that he liked the ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... Indeed, if the report of a Congressional committee may be trusted, that old-fashioned kind of goblet has again come into use at the expense of our Northern head-pieces,—a costly drinking-cup to him that furnishes it! Heaven forgive me for seeming to jest upon such a subject!—only, it is so odd, when we measure our advances from barbarism, and find ourselves just here! [We hardly expected this outbreak in favor of war from the Peaceable Man; but the justness of our cause makes us all soldiers at heart, however quiet in ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... mind, the gentle ways, and winning smiles are the same as ever. She is somewhat more still and thoughtful, perhaps—more strict in the observances of religion. You will remember, I used to call her in jest our St. Amelie: I might call her that in earnest now, Pierre, and she would ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Gladden give her," Mrs. Maverick replied, "and it saves us jest so much, so you needn't growl; ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... on no ground. A silly fancy, Autumn, hast thou told, Which no philosophy doth warrantise, No old-received poetry confirms. I will not grace thee by refuting thee; Yet in a jest (since thou rail'st so 'gainst dogs) I'll speak a word or two in their defence. That creature's best that comes most near to men; That dogs of all come nearest, thus I prove: First, they excel us in all outward sense, Which no one of experience will deny: They hear, they ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... literature. But that day is evidently far off. I do not think that any jester of the older day—the day of Touchstone or of Rigoletto, with a rooted sorrow in his heart, could have been more pessimistic and more hopeless than Mark Twain. To change the words of Autolycus—"For the life to come, I jest out the ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... like to reflect that Cromwell had a wart on his nose; the thought makes me more contented with my own features. I like to think that he put sweets upon the chairs, to see finely-dressed ladies spoil their frocks; to tell myself that he roared with laughter at the silly jest, like any East End 'Arry with his Bank Holiday squirt of dirty water. I like to read that Carlyle threw bacon at his wife and occasionally made himself highly ridiculous over small annoyances, that ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... (I hope there is such a plant)—a rose or a violet will do. I am sure there is such a plant as that. And if they settle their debts justly, I shall very soon be master of the prettiest little conservatory in England. For, treat it not as a jest, reader; no case of timid practice is so fatally frequent.] Kate was ever lucky, though ever unfortunate; and the world, being of my opinion that Kate was worth saving, made up its mind about half-past eight ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... at him, to see if he was in jest or earnest. Her look staggered him a little, but he repeated his question. She cast her eyes down, and ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... princes and nobles should know. Long they played, and swiftly did the ball pass from one to another, when Manus drove the ball at his cousin, the son of Iarlaid. The boy, who was not used to be roughly handled, even in jest, cried out that he was sorely hurt, and went home with his foster brothers and told his tale to his mother. The wife of Iarlaid grew white and angry as she listened, and thrusting her son aside, sought the council hall where ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... "Baroski in love" for the amusement of her husband and her mamma. The former had his reasons for overlooking the attentions of the little music-master; and as for the latter, had she not been on the stage, and had not many hundreds of persons, in jest or earnest, made love to her? What else can a pretty woman expect who is much before the public? And so the worthy mother counselled her daughter to bear these attentions with good humour, rather than to make them a subject of perpetual alarm ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... those who speak slightingly of boyhood and its feelings, scoffing at the early yearnings of the heart, and finding only food for jest in those innocent and childish raptures and regrets. We do not envy such. That man's heart must be made of doubtful stuff, who jeers at the fresh dreams of youth; or rather, he must have no heart at all—above all, no sweet and affecting recollections. There is something touching in the very ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... reproachfully. "I cannot jest on so serious a matter," he said, resolving to make the attempt to re-establish his dignity with Alice. "I think, Miss Groff, that you perhaps hardly know how absurd your supposition is. There are not many men of distinction in Europe with whom my cousin is not personally ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... Atchievements, as downright silly and romantick. What the rest of the Audience felt, I cant so well tell: For my self, I must declare, that at the end of the Play I found my Soul uniform, and all of a Piece; but at the End of the Epilogue it was so jumbled together, and divided between Jest and Earnest, that if you will forgive me an extravagant Fancy, I will here set it down. I could not but fancy, if my Soul had at that Moment quitted my Body, and descended to the poetical Shades in the Posture it ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele |
