"Jester" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... accomplished, not forgetting to carry along with him the three personages who chiefly ministered to his amusement, and whom he sent on before him in a separate waggon, to wit, his favourite greyhound, his gipsy jester, and his parasitical poet, all three of whom made a ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... Therefore, if my friend—did you call him Death?—was there, I was there, if you were there I was there and it was my hand that drew yonder great black bow of yours and my eye that guided the straight shaft which laid the foulmouthed jester low. Why, did you not say as much yourself when your master here bade farewell to his father in the ship at Calais? What were the words? Oh, I remember them. You wondered how One I may not name," and he bowed his solemn head, "came to make that black bow and yours and you 'the death ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... on all self-respecting bookshelves, pointed to with pride as a proof of culture, and never read. They will perhaps one day be the Rogers's statuettes of 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
... heard of the matchless "Lord of Misrule" (also known as the "Abbot of Unreason" and the "Master of Merry Disports"), who, attended by his mock court, king's jester and grotesquely masked revelers, visited the castles of lords and princes to entertain them with strange antics and uproarious merriment. His reign lasted until Twelfth Night, during which period he was treated as became a genuine monarch, being feted and feasted, with all his train, ...
— Myths and Legends of Christmastide • Bertha F. Herrick
... the bed to pieces with his sword, when Margaret Bisset, one of the Queen's ladies, who was sitting up reading a book of devotions, heard the noise; roused the guard, and he was secured. There, too, was the half-witted jester, who, we are sorry to say, was a chaplain, with whom the King and his brother Aymer were seen playing like boys, pelting each other with apples and ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... hand, and said he hoped I should esteem him as he did me, and begged me to take a Pheasant pye to a gentleman who had been his constant shooting companion." Records, Sicily, vol. 97. Ferdinand was the last sovereign who habitually kept a professional fool, or jester, ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... remembrance of merit or success. So the person making a speech of presentation must mingle the two feelings as he and the audience experience them. Taking his cue from the tone of the occasion he must fit his remarks to that mood. He may be as bright and sparkling and as amusing as a refined court jester. He may be as impressive and serious as a judge. The treatment must be determined by ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... years, while he obtained the king's ear. Nor was this all; for he became notorious for a wicked profligate life and conversation; a thing common with apostates:—a Sabbath-breaker, gaming on the Lord's day, a profane swearer and blasphemer, a jester on scripture and things religious, one time saying to prelate Sharp, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. He perjured himself in Mr. Mitchel's case, promising in council he should be indemnified to life and limb, and then swearing before the ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... says Nimms. "'E was attired as a court jester, sir; in motley, you know, sir, and cap ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... claim to much significance. The servant- world—the crafty valet, the stern house-steward, the old vigilant tutor, the rural slave redolent of garlic, the impertinent page—forms a transition to the very numerous professional parts. A standing figure among these is the jester (-parasitus-) who, in return for permission to feast at the table of the rich, has to entertain the guests with drolleries and charades, or, according to circumstances, to let the potsherds be flung at his head. This was at that time a formal trade in Athens; and it is certainly no mere poetical ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Giovanni, retreating to a narrow alley to brush mud off his doublet, was aware that a man with keen observant eyes was regarding him from the doorway of a wine-shop. The man wore the cap and bells of a jester, and his fantastic costume was gorgeously colored and ornamented. He was drinking a cup of wine, and when that was finished he poured another for himself and began to sip it slowly. Catching Giovanni's ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... jolly old fellow was King Marshmallow As ever wore a crown! At every draught of wine he quaffed, And at every joke of his jester he laughed, Laughed till the tears ran down— O, he laughed Ha! Ha! and he laughed Ho! Ho! And every time that he laughed, do you know, The Lords in waiting they ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... argued, by critics of any new idea, that the eugenist, in his concern for the race, is blind to the natural interests and needs of the individual; that "we are all to be married to each other by the police," as an irresponsible jester has declared; that the sanctities of love are to be profaned or its imperatives defied. Even serious and responsible persons assume that there is here a necessary antagonism between the interests of the race ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... multiplication table to scintillate and glow. The person who lacks imagination is unable to invest with interest and charm even the mountain, the river, the landscape, or the poem. The gossip, the scandal-monger, or the coarse jester proves his lack of imagination and his consequent inability to hold his own in real conversation. We hope, of course, that some of our pupils may become inventors, but this will be impossible unless they possess imagination. A sociologist states ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... air. But here fresh amusements awaited them, and the splendour of Beatrice's wardrobe and the treasures of her camerini filled the Ferrarese visitors with wonder and envy. On the 6th of March, Bernardo Prosperi wrote to tell Isabella that our Madonna had been conducted by the jester Mariolo over Beatrice's "guardaroba," and had seen all the splendid gowns, pelisses, and mantles which had been made for her during the last two years, about eighty-four in all, "besides many more," adds the writer, "which your sister the duchess has in Milan." The costliness of the materials, ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... other courtiers following SHUMAKIM, a hump-backed jester, in blue, green and red, a wreath of poppies around his neck and a flagon in his hand. He walks unsteadily, and stutters ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... prepared; and they called for so many ingredients, that the doctor had nearly expired when the list was presented to him. In addition to all these, arrived the king's band of singers and musicians, and the Luti Bashi (jester in chief) accompanied by twenty lutis, each with a ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... would steal it from him that very night. So at the witching hour of midnight, the knight approached the palmer's couch, and gently abstracted the cockle hat and staff, placing in their stead, the jester's cap and bells, and bauble. Next morning when it was pitch dark, for it was the shortest day, up jumped the palmer, and prepared to resume his journey. Now it chanced that the day before, the lady had ordered that the fool should be whipped, for mocking her, ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... other friends, how strange and unnatural they seemed. Their most intimate friends would scarcely have recognized them. Margaret was a fat, jolly Falstaff, stuffed out to immense proportions. Edith was entirely disguised as a jester and enjoyed her own quips immensely when she tapped a visitor on the shoulder with her bauble and said, "Good morrow, fair maid, art looking ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... the prudence not to appear touched with the sarcasm of a jester, they subject themselves to his power, and the wise man will have his folly anatomised, that is dissected and laid open by the squandring glances or random ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... Jester and jolly fellow, he keeps on good terms with all political opinions, and is patriotic to the bottom of his soul. A capital mimic, he knows how to put on, turn and turn about, the smiles of persuasion, satisfaction, ...
— The Illustrious Gaudissart • Honore de Balzac
... be forgotten. It is true that no literary fashion is more subject to change than the fashion of a jest, and that jokes that make one generation laugh seem insipid to the next. But there is something perennial in the fun of Rabelais, whom Bacon called "the great jester of France," and though the puns of Shakespeare's clowns are detestable the clowns themselves have not lost their power ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... more natural had they been a paler shade of scarlet. Thus disguised, he crept softly down the Opera House Building stairs and ran full into Billy Getz, Riverbank's best example of the spoiled only-son species, and the town's inveterate jester. Mr. Getz put a hand on Mr. ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... hedge of myrtle. By a sun-dial stood a little man, robust, though aged, rather stout, and of a very cheerful countenance; his attire plain and simple, a pelisse of dark silk, and a turban white as his snowy beard; he was in merry conversation with his companion, who turned out to be his jester. In the background, against the myrtle wall, stood three or four courtiers in rich dresses—courtiers, for the little old man was their princely ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... Mayence was chosen for his piety and learning, but many remembered him as the wheelwright's son, who had once worked at his father's trade. As the Archbishop passed in stately procession to the Cathedral, some jeered him, and one jester had chalked white cartwheels on all the walls on either side of the procession. When the Archbishop was enthroned in the Cathedral, he saw, hanging above his head, a shield which was to bear his arms. ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... I spend the brief hours of leisure which are vouchsafed to me in annotating my editions. And yet, my dear Duke, unfortunate as my situation is, I would not exchange places with my old self, a hired jester at rich men's tables, selling myself for a dinner which I could not digest, nor with that wretched monarch, in whose cause we all suffered, who left his gallant gentleman to die for his cause while he pursued his selfish pleasures. If it were ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... Vaihasaka, i.e., one who provokes laughter) is a person only acquainted with some of the arts who is a jester, and ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... and Nox, was the god of pleasantry and wit, or rather the jester of the celestial assembly; for, like other monarchs, it was but reasonable that Jupiter too should have his fool. We have an instance of Momus's fantastic humor in the contest between Neptune, Minerva, and Vulcan, for skill. The first had made a bull, the second a house, and the third ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... friends," seems to me a thoroughly humorous application of the exaggeration principle. So, too, is the description of a man so terribly thin that he never could tell whether he had the stomach-ache or the lumbago. But the jester who expects you to laugh at the tale of the fish that was so large that the water of the lake subsided two feet when it was drawn ashore simply does not know where humour ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... across her slim trim waist and announces severely that New York's "Best" is, in her opinion, very "bad" indeed. But this is because Puritan America, as well as the general public, mistakes the jester for the queen. ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... caricature. As to the personages actually ridiculed in "Every Man Out of His Humour," Carlo Buffone was formerly thought certainly to be Marston, as he was described as "a public, scurrilous, and profane jester," and elsewhere as the grand scourge or second untruss [that is, satirist], of the time (Joseph Hall being by his own boast the first, and Marston's work being entitled "The Scourge of Villainy"). Apparently we must ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... are not for children: Chaucer was a jester. You had better take my book. It has beautiful pictures." The young Percy took the little breviary, and, going down the path as though they sought the shade, they both quietly disappeared from ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... and his officers, the doctor continuing as reserved as ever, and thinking of nothing but his expedition. Dick seemed a good deal moved, but was unwilling to betray it; while Joe was fairly dancing and breaking out in laughable remarks. The worthy fellow soon became the jester and merry-andrew of the boatswain's mess, where a berth had been kept ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... beard. This extraordinary physiognomy was covered with a high cap, which had a tassel and bells. He wore also a party-coloured waistcoat, huge full breeches of all the colours of the rainbow, hose of yellow, and long shoes with rosettes of vast size. He stood forth a veritable clown or jester of bygone days. ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... Interlude of Godly Queen Esther, printed in 1561, we have a Miracle-Play going still further out of itself. One of the characters is named Hardy-dardy, who, with some qualities of the Vice, foreshadows the Jester, or professional Fool, of the later Drama; wearing motley, and feigning weakness or disorder of intellect, to the end that his wit may run more at large, and strike with the better effect. Hardy-dardy offers himself as a servant ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... conventional dress of the court fool, or jester, of the Middle Ages, and, after him, of the stage clown, consisted of the "fool's cap" and suit of motley, ornamented ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... wit of Buckingham, at least, such a piece is printed in his Miscellanies; and for that of Shadwell, in his epilogue to Bury-fair. But Shadwell was now poet-laureat, and his satire was privileged, like the wit of the ancient royal jester. Our author was suspected of disaffection, and liable to misconstruction: For which reason, probably, he declined this sarcastic prologue, and substituted that which follows, the tone of which is submissive, and conciliatory towards the ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... along with those of time and place; the scene was shifted for a monologue of three lines or a dialogue of six; tragic and comic were interwoven; the stage was thronged with a motley variety of figures, humors, and conditions—knights, citizens, soldiers, horse-boys, peasants; there was a court-jester; songs and lyric passages were interspersed; there were puns, broad jokes, rant, Elizabethan metaphors, and swollen trunk-hose hyperboles, with innumerable Shakesperian reminiscences in detail. But the advice of Herder, to whom he sent his manuscript, and the example of Lessing, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... was Paul who had seemed overwrought, Babbitt who had been the protecting big brother, Paul became clear-eyed and merry, while Babbitt sank into irritability. He uncovered layer on layer of hidden weariness. At first he had played nimble jester to Paul and for him sought amusements; by the end of the week Paul was nurse, and Babbitt accepted favors with the condescension one always ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... the watery wastes I fled Where'er dim desolation led Beneath sad sun and moon! For faith was dead, and joy was dead, And love was where the phantoms tread, And bitterness was passion's bread: "Grant, jester Death," I, laughing, said, "Thy haggard ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... throat; and for the same reason of expediency: for these were refinements of affectation which had not then been introduced; and a man who thus compassed his neck, could no more have been elected to an office, than if he had worn the cap and bells of a Saxon jester. The shirt-bosoms of modern days were in the same category; and starch was an article contraband to the law of public sentiment—insomuch that no epithet expressed more thorough contempt for a man, than the graphic word "starched." A raccoon-skin cap—or, as a piece of extravagant ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... Critic of the craft, As stage tradition tells; And yet—perhaps 'twill only be The jester with ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... attacked escaped Erasmus' satirical pen. The book is a mixture of the lightest humor and the bitterest earnestness. As one turns its pages one is sometimes tempted to think Luther half right when he declared Erasmus "a regular jester who makes sport of everything, even of religion and Christ himself." Yet there was in this humorist a deep seriousness that cannot be ignored. Erasmus was really directing his extraordinary industry, knowledge, and insight, not toward a revival of classical literature, but to a renaissance ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... di corte. This word has been another grievous stumbling block to the French and English translators of Boccaccio, who render it literally "courtier." The reader need hardly be reminded that the minstrel of the middle ages was commonly jester, gleeman and story-teller all in one and in these several capacities was allowed the utmost license of speech. He was generally attached to the court of some king or sovereign prince, but, in default of some such permanent appointment, passed his time in visiting the ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Orion, Belted as to his blade. But the roots of the mountains mingle with mist. And raving skeletons run thereon. I shall not go hence, For here is my Priest, Who hath broken me in the waters of Disdain. Here is my Jester, Who hath mended me on the wheels of Mirth. Here is my Champion, Who hath confounded mine ancient Enemy ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... ridicule Hateetah. The Prince said, "Yâkob, place yourself under the sword of Hateetah, and go out with him and fight a hundred Shânbah." "Oh, he's an ass," replied Bel-Kasem. Such was their style of ridicule. Bel-Kasem is a well-meaning little fellow, but a sort of fool or jester of the Sheikh's. Khanouhen allows him to say anything and do anything, but laughs at him all the time. Bel-Kasem always brings the Sheikh some pretty present, and Khanouhen throws around him his powerful arm of protection. The slavish merchant and faithful sycophant always ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... company of mouth-organ musicians was having a great success in the war zone. But, apart from all those organized methods of mirth, there was a funny man in every billet who played the part of court jester, and clowned it whatever the state of the weather or the risks of war. The British soldier would have his game of "house" or "crown and anchor" even on the edge of the shell-storm, and his little bit of sport wherever there was room to stretch his legs. It was a jesting army (though some of its ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... habit peculiar to many walkers, which Punch, some years ago, touched upon satirically, but which seems to have survived the jester's ridicule. It is that custom of stopping friends in the street, to whom we have nothing whatever to communicate, but whom we embarrass for no other purpose than simply to show our friendship. Jones meets his friend ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... of yore, ere they for ever lost the gay uniform of the Lord High Commissioner, the gold lace of his dragoon officers, and the glitter of his pages in silver and scarlet. 'We are two of the humblest servants of Mother Church,' said the Prior and his companion to Wamba, the jester of Rotherwood. 'Two of the humblest servants of Mother Church!' repeated Wamba; 'I should rather like to see her seneschals, her chief butlers, and her ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... he directs that one of the skulls thrown up by the first clown shall have a tattered and mouldy fool's-cap adhering to it, so that it may attract attention, and be singled out from the others, as "Yorick's skull, the king's jester." These are little things; but it is of a thousand little things that a dramatic performance is composed, and without this care for detail—which must be precise, logical, profound, vigilant, unerring, and at the same time always unobtrusive and seemingly involuntary—there ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... summed up in brief; we may extinguish emotion, and so live to old age, or we may choose to die young as martyrs to contending passions. And yet this decree is at variance with the temperaments with which we were endowed by the bitter jester ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... "walk up," let us march in the train of the great Mime, until he takes his ease in his inn,—the Black Jack aforesaid,—and laugh at his jibes and flashes of merriment, before the Mad Wag shall be silenced by the great killjoy, Death, and the jester's boon companions shall lay him in the graveyard in Portugal Fields, placing over him a friendly ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... of nothing but ladies?" says Feste the Jester to poor Malvolio. He might have said the same to Horace; for of the Odes in the first three Books one third part is addressed to or concerned with women. How many of the pretty female names which musicalize his love songs, in syllables that breathe of the sweet south and ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... ascetic and suffering aspect with the gay revellers about him. The people are preparing for a festival, and splendidly and fantastically robed, some bringing wreaths of flowers. Bowing with mock reverence, a jester gibes at Dante. An indolent sentinel is seated at the porch, and looks on unconcernedly, his spear lying across his breast. A young man, probably acquainted with the writing of Dante, sympathises with him. In the centre and just before the feet of Dante, is a beautiful child, ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... their share of the expenses. They would buy the tickets for the theatre or squabble between themselves for the dinner check. It had seemed fitting; Dick, with his naivete and his astonishing fund of information about himself, had been a diverting, almost juvenile, figure—court jester to their royalty. But this was no longer true. It was Dick who always had money; it was Anthony who entertained within limitations—always excepting occasional wild, wine-inspired, check-cashing parties—and it was Anthony who ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... chapters as this; but the calling of a player alone has the grotesque element of fiction, with all the fantastic accompaniments of sham splendor thrust into close companionship with the sordid details of poverty; for the actor alone the livery of labor is a harlequin's jerkin lined with tatters, and the jester's cap and bells tied to the beggar's wallet. I have said artist life in England is apt to have such chapters; artist life everywhere, probably. But it is only in England, I think, that the full bitterness of such experience is felt; ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... of the age of Elizabeth, still excite the admiration of every student attached to the early literature of our country. Amongst other frivolous charges brought against him on his trial, it was mentioned that he kept an Italian jester, thought to be a spy, and that he loved to converse with foreigners and conform his behaviour to them. For his personal safety, therefore, it was perhaps unfortunate that a portion of his youth had been passed in a visit to Italy, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... companion is acting his part. It is a business he hath undertaken, and we are to suppose he is paid for his day's work. I only quarrel when in select and private meetings, where men of wit and learning are invited to pass an evening, this jester should be admitted to run over his circle of tricks, and make the whole company unfit for any other conversation, besides the indignity of confounding men's talents at ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... of the sextons to follow her in haste, but the lady was too quick for him. A carriage was in waiting, which a gentleman with hat over brow, and muffled about throat, speedily drove off, almost before the lady was seated; they were soon lost in the maddening crowd, for humanity held high revel; the jester was abroad, and theatre, with amusement and music hall, poured forth their devotees, though the ball, both in palace and street, would be kept rolling all night. The emissaries of the church learned ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... disagreeable bluntness, which would recommend itself by an unshaven face and black teeth; while it desires to be termed pure freedom and true sincerity. Virtue is the medium of the two vices; and equally remote from either. The one is over-prone to complaisance, and a jester of the lowest, couch, he so reverences the rich man's nod, so repeats his speeches, and catches up his falling words; that you would take him for a school-boy saying his lesson to a rigid master, or a player ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... naval victory at Sluys, in which well-nigh the whole French fleet was absolutely destroyed. It was by the English archers that the day was won. So complete was the victory that no one dared to tell the ill news to Philip, till his jester called out to him, "What cowards those English are!" "Because," he explained, "they did not dare to leap into the sea as our ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... be a merit to add to the gaiety of nations, then Frank Reynolds, on that count alone, deserves of his fellow men more than a passing approbation. He is something more than a mere jester, however: his humour but flavours, as it were, a serious study of human nature. Ignoring, for a moment, the skill and charm of his technique, one feels it to be an accident only that his vehicle of expression is pictorial and not literary. ...
— Frank Reynolds, R.I. • A.E. Johnson
... first of our own Church, for whose candour and paternal sentiments I have the highest veneration, fell into the same mistake in the very same case: —"He could not bear," he said, "to look into the sermons wrote by the King of Denmark's jester." Good, my Lord said I; but there are two Yoricks. The Yorick your Lordship thinks of, has been dead and buried eight hundred years ago; he flourished in Horwendillus's court;—the other Yorick is myself, who have flourished, my Lord, in no court.- ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... good deal—of the piquancy of the later is not yet apparent; but its absence implies, and is more than compensated by, the concomitant absence of those airs and flings, those interludes as of an academic jester, in cap and gown and liripipe instead of motley, which have been charged, not quite unjustly, on the Arnold that we know best. There is hardly in English a better example of the blending and conciliation of the two modes of argumentative writing referred to in ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... interminable tragedy and engage in a broadsword combat or dance a hornpipe, I can understand the necessity for his having to be a swordsman and a dancer. But I do not see the use of those accomplishments now. In these days a man need not, like Mr. Gilbert's "Jester," always climb an oak to say "I'm up a tree." In these days we prefer the actor who thinks to the actor who dances. The institution of an Academy of Acting would do one thing, and one thing only. It would ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... reason, as unaccountable as the reverse, a wave of popularity for Americans was breaking against the oak doors, and he was carried in on the crest. The result was not ennobling. The dormant instinct of satire leaped to life and the idealist became the jester. ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... every one according to their dignity. Now when all those that sat with him had laid the bones Of the several parts on a heap before Hyrcanus, [for they had themselves taken away the flesh belonging to them,] till the table where he sat was filled full with them, Trypho, who was the king's jester, and was appointed for jokes and laughter at festivals, was now asked by the guests that sat at the table [to expose him to laughter]. So he stood by the king, and said, "Dost thou not see, my lord, the ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... were represented as meeting at every crossroad or entering the church door side by side. So the most solemn Miracles were scandalized by humorous Interludes, and into the most tragic of Shakespeare's scenes entered the fool and the jester. A Greek playwright might object to brutalizing scenes before a cultured audience, but the crowds who came to an Elizabethan play were of a temper to enjoy a Mohawk scalp dance. They were accustomed to violent scenes and sensations; they had witnessed the rack and gibbet in ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... said I, to be a jest, than a jester!—But now, Bella, turn the glass to you, and see how poorly sits the robe upon your own shoulders, which you have been so ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... Haroun el Raschid (who was the friend of the great Charlemagne,) entertained Ebn Oaz at his court in the quality of jester, he desired him one day, in the presence of the Sultana and all her followers, to make an excuse worse than the crime it was intended to extenuate: the Caliph walked about, waiting for a reply. Alter a long pause, Ebn Oaz skulked behind the throne, and pinched his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various
... honour!" "I forgive you, Sir Knight," says the heroine in the Romance, "I forgive you as a Christian." "That means," said Wamba, "that she does not forgive him at all." Mr. Kingsley's word of honour is about as valuable as in the jester's opinion was the Christian charity of Rowena. But here we are brought to a further specimen of Mr. Kingsley's method of disputation, and having duly exhibited it, I shall ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... great model was Rabelais. His books are full of digressions, breaks, surprises, innuendoes, double meanings, mystifications, and all manner of odd turns. {210} Coleridge and Carlyle unite in pronouncing him a great humorist. Thackeray says that he was only a great jester. Humor is the laughter of the heart, and Sterne's pathos is closely interwoven with his humor. He was the foremost of English sentimentalists, and he had that taint of insincerity which distinguishes sentimentalism from genuine sentiment, like Goldsmith's, for example. Sterne, in life, was selfish, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... till that of his rendezvous arrived. Tormented by a thousand doubts and anxieties, not the least of these arose from the probability that the assignation came not whence he hoped, and was, perhaps, the work of some mischievous jester, to send him on a fool's errand to the distant church of St James. Above all things, he wished to see his friend Geronimo; but although he passed the day in invoking his presence, and heaping curses on his head, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... commentator, critic, jester, revived my childish ambition towards authorship. My first stirrings in this direction I cannot rightly place. I remember when very small falling into a sunk dust-bin—a deep hole, rather, into which the gardener shot his rubbish. The fall twisted my ankle so that I could not move; and the time ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... will praise the Wizard in the street With loyal songs, with humors grave and sweet— This Jingle-man, of strolling players born, Whom holy folk have hurried by in scorn, This threadbare jester, neither wise nor good, With ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... lion's feeding time, and the food had evidently been good and satisfying. The music too in the minstrels' gallery had been sweet and pleasant to the ear. The Court jester had for a wonder excelled himself in his strong endeavours to put the King in a good humour, and uttered no less than three samples of his wit which had made the King roar, inasmuch as in the tail of each joke there was a slightly poisoned sting which had gone home to the three noblemen for ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... victim's head-gear, even more boisterously than usual. He bore it at first with an inviting patience; but upon one of the students proceeding to an unpardonable freedom, plucked out his knife and suddenly plunged it in the belly of the jester. This gentleman, I am pleased to say, passed months upon a bed of sickness, before he was in a position to resume his studies. The second incident was that which had earned Pinkerton his reputation. In a crowded ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... complaints and griefs against this infernal Cabrion, this magistrate, after looking at and laughing—yes, laughing—I say, laughing indecently—over the sign and portrait which I produced as justificatory of my complaint, replied, 'My good man, this Cabrion is a funny fellow—a jester—pay no attention to his jokes. I advise you now, in a friendly manner, to laugh at them, for really there is cause.' 'To laugh!' cried I; 'to laugh! but grief is devouring me—my existence is imbittered by those ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... attended by his servants and suite of Mamelukes leaving the Caliph marvelling at this and saying to Ja'afar, "Sawest thou Khalif, with his mule and dress, his white slaves and his dignity? But yesterday I knew him for a buffoon and a jester." And they marvelled at this much. Then they mounted and rode, till they drew near Khalif's house, when the Fisherman alighted and, taking a bundle from one of his attendants, opened it and pulled out therefrom a piece of tabby silk[FN297] and spread it under the hoofs of the Caliph's she-mule; ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... to the durbar to wait upon the king, where I met the Persian ambassador with the first muster of his presents. He seemed a jester or juggler, rather than a person of any gravity, continually skipping up and down, and acting all his words like a mimic player, so that the Atachikanne was converted as it were into a stage. He delivered ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... officer's wisdom should become tiresome, the Duke's other shoulder was occupied by his HOFF-NARR, or court-jester, called Jonas Schwanker, who made almost as much noise with his fool's cap, bells, and bauble, as did the orator, or man of talk, with his ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... said: "Now that they have seen the Queen they will go to bed well pleased. And there isn't a single police agent there, I'm sure. Ah! to be loved, to be loved!" Plainly enough his distress of spirit was coming back, and so, turning towards the gallery again, he tried to play the jester. "Attention, my dear Abbe, we mustn't miss their Majesties' entry. That will be the finest part of ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... club, just trying its dramatic wings in charades, and when May-time came these younger girls of twelve to fifteen gave a very successful representation of an old English May-day with Robin Hood and his merry band, a Jester, a Dragon, a Hobby-horse and Jack in the Green, Maid Marian and the Lord and Lady of the May on the ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... silence, the whole company, as if an injunction had been laid upon them by some superior power. But presently there came a knocking on the door! Philippus the jester bade the doorkeeper (25) announce him, with apologies for seeking a night's lodging: (26) he had come, he said, provided with all necessaries for dining, at a friend's expense: his attendant was much galled with carrying, nothing but an empty bread-basket. (27) To this announcement ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... joysome wit, spiced with anecdotes of prison cells and the torture chamber. Oh, a very delicate wit! I have tried it on many a prisoner, and there have been some who smiled. Now it is not easy to make a prisoner smile. And it should not be difficult to be a good jester, seeing that ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... sent to summon the Wazir and bade him betroth the man to a woman of righteous conduct and come of decent folk. Now the Minister had with him an old nurse, and he commanded her to find a match for the Sultan's Jester; whereupon she rose and went out from him and engaged for the man a beautiful woman. And presently the marriage-tie was tied between these twain and he went in unto the bride and she tarried with him a while of time even half a year ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... killed, with two of their admirals: the loss of the English was inconsiderable, compared to the greatness and importance of the victory.[*] None of Philip's courtiers, it is said, dared to inform him of the event; till his fool or jester gave him a hint, by which he discovered the loss that he ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... said the Jester; "but how call you the sow when she is flayed, and drawn, and quartered, and hung up by the ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... and thought Barton a miserable jester. He caught at the epithet "Noble," and asked if any one, lawfully entitled to it, would be so degenerate as to rebel against ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... leader was again demonstrated. An incident common to the warfare of that age was, however, the immediate cause of the victory. Master John de Maupas, a burgher of Dundalk, believing that the death of the Scottish leader would be the signal for the retreat of his followers, disguised as a jester or fool, sought him throughout the field. One of the royal esquires, named Gilbert Harper, wearing the surcoat of his master, was mistaken for him, and slain; but the true leader was at length found by de Maupas, and struck down with the blow of a leaden plummet or slung-shot. ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... should set a woman's brow aflame, Became at last (oh, shame of womanhood!) A thing to frown at with a covert smile; Anything to smile at with a decent frown; A thing to steal a grace from, as I feigned The innocence of deaf unconsciousness. And I became a jester. I could jest In a wild way on sacred things and themes; And I have thought that in his better moods My husband shrank with horror from the work Which he had wrought ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... of a court jester," returned her companion, with sarcasm. "But never mind, Adrien will find out his mistake for himself one day. Certainly, I am not going to attempt to strip the mask off his friend's face. Give him rope enough, and he will hang ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... small caste of story-tellers and buffoons. The name is derived from the Sanskrit Bhanda, a jester, and the caste are also known as Naqqal or actor. Only a trifling number of Bhands are shown by the census as belonging to the Central Provinces. Mr. Crooke remarks: "The Bhand is sometimes employed in the courts of Rajas and native gentlemen of rank, where he amuses the company ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... glance, we fancy we comprehend them. But the more we think, the more we reflect, the more the difficulty opens on us of doing full justice to the mind of Hood. We soon discover that we are dealing, not with a mere punster or jester, not with a mere master of grimace or manufacturer of broad grins, not with an eccentric oddity in prose or verse, not with a merry-andrew who tickles to senseless laughter, not with a spasmodic melodramatist who writhes in fictitious ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... Cellarer," but rather, "the sold one." Mr. MONKHOUSE, whose name and personality go to prove that a cowl does not preclude its occasional occupation by a wag, is most amusing as Gosric. Mr. ALBERT JAMES is a lively jester, whose quips and cranks might have been of considerable value to Mr. JOSEPH MILLER when that literary droll was engaged in compiling his comic classic. Miss D'ARVILLE and Madame AMADI both work with a will, and find a way to public favour. The ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various
... as a serious compliment; but Cedric, who better understood the Jester's meaning, darted at him a severe and menacing look; and lucky it was for Wamba, perhaps, that the time and place prevented his receiving, notwithstanding his place and service, more sensible marks of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... woeful shock to the gleeman MacConglinne, could that friend of kings have beheld him in prophetic vision from the pillar stone at Cork. And yet though the short cloak and the leather wallet were no more, he was a true gleeman, being alike poet, jester, and newsman of the people. In the morning when he had finished his breakfast, his wife or some neighbour would read the newspaper to him, and read on and on until he interrupted with, "That'll do—I have ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... enough to make a clerk go about banging doors and expressing himself emphatically upon many points; but no, Eleseus only grew the steadier for it firmer and more upright; a man indeed. Even Sivert, the jester, could not put him out of countenance. Today the pair of them were lying out on boulders in the river to drink, and Sivert imprudently offered to get some extra fine moss and dry it for tobacco—"unless you'd rather smoke it ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... somewhat pronounced opposition to a 'prelatical cut', Owen had been in his way a disciplinarian. He had arrested with his own hands, pulling him down from the rostrum and committing him to Bocardo prison, an undergraduate who had carried too far the wit of the 'Terrae Filius', the licensed jester of the solemn Act. ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells
... he advanced with his listless gait, like a weary workman, turning his face, as smooth as an apple, with its ball-like nose, from side to side; and when he entered the dining-room, he cast a glance round at the furniture and fixed his eyes on a small picture of Rigoletto, a hunchbacked jester, and made a ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... Folly's worshippers. So day by day life's bitter bread is earned With lips that smile and frame the mirthless joke, And frailer grows the soul that once was strong,— The joyless soul of one whose trade has turned Life's tragic mantle to a jester's cloak, Life's diapason ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove
... is," he muttered. "It's Wamba, son of Witless, the Jester of Ivanhoe. I've been trying to catch him for seventy-two years, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... in 1483. He was a learned scholar, a physician, and a philosopher. He was called "the great jester of France," by Lord Bacon. Many buffooneries are ascribed to him unjustly, and he was a greater man than certain modern writers make ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... succeed as a jester, you'll need To consider each person's auricular: What is all right for B would quite scandalise C (For C is so very particular); And D may be dull, and E's very thick skull Is as empty of brains as a ladle; While F is F sharp, and will cry with a carp, That he's known ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... clothing for themselves, but Claude had nothing but the garb in which he had swum ashore. The two women contrived, by taking to pieces some of the stoutest of their own outdoor garments, to patch him up a homely suit. Rough, indeed, it was, and Claude felt like the King's jester when he put it on; but no gay gallants of France were there to see him, and he was even able to smile at the sorry figure ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... Lady Lelita was left with a dying dwarf as her knight. If the plot of The Revels of Orsera is a little unsatisfying the elaboration of scenic description and mediaeval pageantry is conscientious in the extreme, and the laughter which followed the malicious pranks of Gangogo, the professional jester of the tourney, must, if I am to take the author's word for it, have made the glaciers ring. There is a great deal in the way of philosophy and psychology that is very baffling in this book, but of one thing I feel certain, and that is that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 8th, 1920 • Various
... they knew not whom; and every Citizen bringing his Oystershell into the market place, written with the name of him he desired should be banished, without actuall accusing him, sometimes banished an Aristides, for his reputation of Justice; And sometimes a scurrilous Jester, as Hyperbolus, to make a Jest of it. And yet a man cannot say, the Soveraign People of Athens wanted right to banish them; or an Athenian the Libertie to Jest, or ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... and kings too. The mountebank is wanted in the streets, the jester at the Louvre. The one is called a Clown, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... generously bestowed on both. Waller, the most specious flatterer of flattering courts—the early worshipper of Charles the First—the pusillanimous betrayer of his friends—the adulator of Cromwell—the wit and the jester of the second Charles—the devotional whiner of the bigot James—had not, however, sufficient power to keep the lady from her slumbers long. She was soon in the refreshing sleep, known ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... killed. This interpretation was probably the result of a confusion with the old legend of the fight between Horus and Set, the rulers of the two kingdoms of Egypt. The possibility also suggests itself that a pun made by some priestly jester may have been the real factor that led to this mingling of two originally separate stories. In the "Destruction of Mankind" the story runs, according to Budge,[195] that Re, referring to his enemies, said: ma-ten set uar er set, "Behold ye them (set) fleeing into the mountain (set)". ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... the Middle Ages and even to the last century dwarfs were seen at every Court. Lady Montagu describes the dwarfs at the Viennese Court as "devils bedaubed with diamonds." They had succeeded the Court Jester and exercised some parts of this ancient office. At this time the English ladies kept monkeys for their amusement. The Court dwarfs were allowed unlimited freedom of speech, and in order to get at truths other men were afraid to utter one ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... thanks?' asked De Stancy. 'I wish I deserved a reward; but I must bear in mind the fable of the priest and the jester.' ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... lord's jester) took upon himself to 15 marshal the guests. And wild work he made of it; good Days, bad Days, all were shuffled together. He had stuck the Twenty-first of June next to the Twenty-second of December, ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... end of the Upper Sandgate Road so interesting. His is the one with the Flemish gables and the Moorish portico, and it is in the little room with the mullioned bay window that he works when he is down here, and in which of an evening we have so often smoked and talked together. He is a mighty jester, but, besides, he likes to talk to me about his work; he is one of those men who find a help and stimulus in talking, and so I have been able to follow the conception of the New Accelerator right up from a very early stage. Of course, ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... hearth. Once returned from the abysms of the utter North to that little house upon the outskirts of Meudon, it was not the philosopher, the daring observer, the man of iron energy that imposed himself on his family, but a fat and even plaintive jester, a farceur incarnate and kindly, the co-equal of his children, and, it must be written, not seldom the comic despair of Madame Lavalle, who, as she writes five years after the marriage, to her venerable mother, found "in this unequalled intellect whose name I bear ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... The Prince Bishop's Jester, on punning intent, As he view'd the whole thirty, in jocular terms Said "They put him in mind of a Council of Trente Engaged in reviewing ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... this corpse, that bears for winding-sheet The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew, Between the mourners at his head and feet, Say, scurrile jester, is ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... laughter is a "correction." Whether one considers the jests uttered, the feelings of the jester, or of him at whom one jests, laughter appears from the point of view of morality as a correction most often undeserved, unjust—or at least disproportionate to the fault—pitiless, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... a quarter of an hour, to make me guess what he was doing in the picture of "Napoleon" before it had been exhibited, giving me hint after hint in a rough way. But I could not guess, and he wouldn't tell me!' It is hard after this to censure so amiable a jester as the late Mr. a'Beckett, for burlesquing the strange picture called 'Hurrah for the whaler Erebus—another fish!' in the words proposed to be substituted—'Hallo, there—the oil ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... ready to impale the tailor, the sultan of Casgar, wanting the company of his crooked jester, asked where he was; and one of his officers told him; "The hunch- back, Sir, whom you inquire after, got drunk last night, and contrary to his custom slipped out of the palace, and went strolling about the city, and this morning was found ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... Party" may be adorned with a picture of a fools cap and bells or a Jester. One form ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... I understand solidarity in retribution, too; but there can be no such solidarity with children. And if it is really true that they must share responsibility for all their fathers' crimes, such a truth is not of this world and is beyond my comprehension. Some jester will say, perhaps, that the child would have grown up and have sinned, but you see he didn't grow up, he was torn to pieces by the dogs, at eight years old. Oh, Alyosha, I am not blaspheming! I understand, of course, what an upheaval of the universe it will be, when everything in heaven ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... a perch. The horses, therefore, being harnessed, solemnly his imperial majesty ascended his new English throne under a flourish of trumpets, having the first lord of the treasury on his right hand, and the chief jester on his left. Pekin gloried in the spectacle; and in the whole flowery people, constructively present by representation, there was but one discontented person, and that was the coachman. This mutinous individual ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... hear the grasshoppers From the parched grass rehearse, And with drowsy note prolong Evermore the same thin song. I shall hear the crickets tell Stories by the humming well, And mark the locust, with quaint eyes, Caper in his cloak of gray Like a jester in disguise Rattling by ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman
... or 'a voyage upon the Rhine;' to wake up a notary in the middle of the night, and send him in great haste to draw up a will for a client, whom he finds in good health; these and a thousand other silly pranks of the same nature, are the stock in trade of a jester; and no one knew them better ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... matter on his attention, he shows no consciousness of this position. He muses in the graveyard on the nothingness of life and fame, and the base uses to which our dust returns, whether it be a court-jester's or a world-conqueror's. He learns that the open grave over which he muses has been dug for the woman he loved; and he suffers one terrible pang, from which he gains relief in frenzied words and frenzied action,—action which must needs intensify, if that were possible, the fury of the man whom ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... am the king, and come to claim my own From an impostor, who usurps my throne!" And suddenly, at these audacious words, Up sprang the angry guests, and drew their swords; The angel answered with unruffled brow, "Nay, not the king, but the king's jester; thou Henceforth shalt wear the bells and scalloped cape, And for thy counsellor shalt lead an ape: Thou shalt obey my servants when they call, And wait upon ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... we find an instance of our author's masterly skill in giving life to the dry bones of a rhetorical definition. The Vidushaka is a stock character who has something in common with a jester; and in Maitreya the essential traits of the character—eagerness for good food and other creature comforts, and blundering devotion to his friend—are retained, to be sure, but clarified and elevated by his ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... At the Gate of Samaria A Study in Shadows Simon the Jester Where Love Is Derelicts The Demagogue and Lady Phayre The Beloved Vagabond The White Dove The Usurper Septimus Idols The ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... out that the pilgrim was Rahere's man, and that Rahere was the King's jester. There was Latin ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... be heard. When it was over it was announced that Hal Macy had carried off the role of the poor, neglected son, which was in reality the male lead. The Crane was selected for the king, while freckle-faced Daniel Seabrooke was chosen for the jester, greatly to his delight and surprise. There was an emphatic round of applause when Professor Harmon announced that Constance Stevens had been selected to sing the Princess. Ellen Seymour captured the role of the ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... "The Cabinet's jester, in whom twenty years ago the country lost an excellent clown without gaining a statesman, was in ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... was the recognised jester of the fleet, his extraordinary attempt to announce his vessel's name was received as a characteristic joke, and it served to laugh at until something better offered. Under the actual circumstances of the two squadrons, however, it was soon temporarily forgotten in graver things, for few believed ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... whereupon the King asked him whether he meant the damsels or the posies. But the jester, rolling on his nag after a merry fashion, till the bells in his cap rang again, answered him: "Nay, Nunkey, would you tempt a Christian to walk on the ice? An if I say the damsels, I shall get into trouble by reason of your strict morality; but if I say the posies, I shall peril my poor ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a gaze there was, and valour, and fear, And the jest that died in the jester's ear, And preparation, noble to see, Of all-accepting mortality; Tranquil Necessity gracing Force; And the trumpets danc'd with the stirring horse; And lordly voices, here and there, Call'd to war through the gentle air; When suddenly, with its voice of doom, Spoke the cannon 'twixt glare and gloom, ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... from their seats, and drew their swords. They would have killed the crazy man who insulted their king; but he raised his hand and stopped them, and with his eyes looking into Robert's eyes he said, "Not the king; you shall be the king's jester! You shall wear the cap and bells, and make laughter for my court. You shall be the servant of the servants, and your companion shall ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... a little significant of Webster's relation to literature that he moved outside of the knot of men known in our literary history as the Hartford wits. So many recent claimants for the position of democratic jester have engaged the public attention that the Hartford wits who amused our grandfathers rest their fame now rather upon tradition than upon any perennial liveliness. By their solitude in the pages of American literature their very ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... New Raid The New Name A Workman's History of England The French Revolution and the Irish Liberalism: A Sample The Fatigue of Fleet Street The Amnesty for Aggression Revive the Court Jester The Art of Missing the Point The Servile State Again The Empire of the Ignorant The Symbolism of Krupp The Tower of Bebel A Real Dancer The Dregs of Puritanism The Tyranny of Bad Journalism The Poetry of ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... many moods, known him as dreamer, jester, counsellor, and philosopher, always with an air of unreality in what he did and said, always "Mad Martin," yet with strange wisdom and cunning in his madness at times. In this mood she had never seen him before. His face, indeed, the whole man, ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... an enormous success with "Peter Pan," Miss Adams now turned to her third boy's part. It was that of "Chicot, the Jester," John Raphael's adaptation of Miguel Zamaceis's play "The Jesters." This was a very delightful sort of Prince Charming play, fragile and artistic. The opposite part was played by Consuelo Bailey. It was a ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman |
