"Repartee" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in Landor's society a half-hour and not reap advantage. His great learning, varied information, extensive acquaintance with the world's celebrities, ready wit, and even readier repartee, rendered his conversation wonderfully entertaining. He would narrate anecdote after anecdote with surprising accuracy, being possessed of a singularly retentive memory, that could refer to a catalogue of notables far longer than Don Giovanni's picture-gallery of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... like the kangaroo or the wallaby, and his sprightliness and activity are the sprightliness and activity of a cast-iron pig. He is slow, but I scarcely think he is quite such an ass as the kangaroo. I have even found him indulging in repartee, as you shall see. Every single movement of any part of the wombat is deliberate and well considered; it is apparently debated at great length by all the other parts, and determined upon by a formal resolution, duly proposed, seconded, and carried by the complete animal properly assembled. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... professionally propelled the keels and flats of the Ohio, they were a class unto themselves—"half horse, half alligator," a contemporary styled them. Rough fellows, much given to fighting, and drunkenness, and ribaldry, with a genius for coarse drollery and stinging repartee. The river towns suffered sadly at the hands of this lawless, dissolute element. Each boat carried from thirty to forty boatmen, and a number of such boats frequently traveled in company. After the Indian scare was over, they generally stopped over ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... Filomena and Ingred, represented VA. in the hostel, was a brisk, up-to-date, go-ahead girl, full of fun and high spirits. She was a capital mimic, and had a turn for repartee that, quite good-naturedly, laid any adversary flat in the dust. If Nora and Fil were like rose and lily, she was decidedly the robin of the party. Her fair complexion seemed to add force to the brightness of her twinkling brown eyes, and her ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... Dublin or London, who numbered among their dinner guests such Irishmen as Sheridan or Lysaght, Mangan or Lever, Curran or Lover, Father Prout or Dean Swift, had as great a feast of wit and repartee as one will be apt soon to hear again; although it must have been Lever or Lover who furnished the cream of Irish humour, and Father Prout ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... came to the Court of France in 1429, from a small pig-breeding village on the marches of Lorraine, one whose manners were deemed of exquisite grace, propriety, and charm, by all who saw and heard her: of her manners and swift wit and repartee, the official record of her trial bears concordant evidence. Other untaught gifts she possessed, and the historic record is unimpeached as regards that child ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... actor-like person, of ascetic mien and resonant voice. "Checking free speech is an evil custom of this House," declares Ledebour. "Papa" Kaempf clangs his big hand-bell. He rules out "such improper expressions as 'evil custom' in this high House." Ledebour is the Reichstag's master of repartee. He rejoins smilingly:—"Very well, not an 'evil custom,' but not altogether a pleasant custom." Now the House is howling Ledebour down. He, too, has weathered such storms before. He waits, impassive and undismayed, for a lull in the cyclone. It comes. ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... each at other's breast, When the great Enemy, the common Foe, Though baffled, unsubdued, lays ever wait For some unguarded pass, to cheat the walls Not all his dread artillery could breach? How is each lunge, and ward, of tart reproof, And bitter repartee—painful to friends— By th' Adversary hailed with general yell Of triumph, or derision! O, my friends! Believe me, lines of loving charity Dishearten enemies, encourage friends, And woo enlistment to your ranks, more sure Than the best weapon of the readiest wit, Whose point is venomed ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... the pair having met at dinner almost on the eve of Danton's arrest, and parting with sombre disquietude on both sides. The interview, with its champagne, its interlocutors, its play of sinister repartee, may possibly have taken place, but the alleged details are plainly apocryphal. After all, 'Religion ist in der Thiere Trieb,' says Wallenstein; 'the very savage drinks not with the victim, into whose breast he means to plunge a sword.' Danton was ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... an orator of great power,—fluent and elegant in diction, bright and sparkling in thought, keen and quick in repartee. ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... adept in all boyish sports. At home, notwithstanding a variable disposition, and occasional fits of depression, he showed to greater advantage. He scribbled verses early; and sometimes startled those about him by unexpected 'swallow-flights' of repartee. One of these, an oft-quoted retort to a musical friend who had likened his awkward antics in a hornpipe to the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... general way they were restricted to weddings, and we have in the first Epithalamium of Catullus, [18] and some poems by Claudian, highly-refined specimens of this class of composition. The Fescennines owed their popularity to the light-hearted temper of the old Italians, and to a readiness at repartee which is still conspicuous at the present day in ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... touch him and not appreciate that the nerves of sensation vibrated and quivered. Droll and jocose in manner, he was constantly quoting from Shakespeare or the poets, of whom he had been a constant reader. He was witty, too, and did not disdain a pun, or repartee. ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... any girl could catch you in her grip and sweep you along with her. Your mad career generally ended in a crowd and a free fight of confetti. There was one fair masquer, however, to whom Aristide became peculiarly attracted. Her movements were free, her figure dainty and her repartee, below her mask, more ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... brilliant sally after sally, to which she responded with all an Irish girl's aptitude for repartee. ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... Combat in trills, and in a fugue expire: While, lull'd by sound, and undisturb'd by wit, Calm and serene you indolently sit, And, from the dull fatigue of thinking free, Hear the facetious fiddle's repartee: Our home-spun authors must forsake the field, And Shakspeare to the soft Scarletti yield. 10 To your new taste the poet of this day Was by a friend advised to form his play. Had Valentini, musically coy, Shunn'd Phaedra's arms, and scorn'd the proffer'd joy, It had not ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... was not often good at repartee. "I'm going to stick by you till it's over, Tom," she said, hopping up behind him on ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... pupils, and won therein his own great renown whilst laying the foundation for that of the abbey of Bee, which was destined to be carried still higher by one of his disciples, St. Anselm. Lanfranc was eloquent, great in dialectics, of a sprightly wit, and lively in repartee. Relying upon the pope's decision, he spoke ill of William's marriage with Matilda. William was informed of this, and in a fit of despotic anger, ordered Lanfranc to be driven from the monastery ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... hurting even one of the guests. As for prepared or premeditated art, Mr. Mahaffy has a great contempt for it and tells us of a certain college don (let us hope not at Oxford or Cambridge) who always carried a jest-book in his pocket and had to refer to it when he wished to make a repartee. Great wits, too, are often very cruel, and great humourists often very vulgar, so it will be better to try and 'make good conversation without any large help from these ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... as though he hadn't taught her her place. At the same time, when he looked at the picture, he discovered a remembrance of his feeling that she was a very difficult person to teach anything to. Her learning always had insulted his own meagreness of information and aptness in repartee. Next to not finding her, his big worry had ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... again, and had just reached Walham Green (one does not speak of these places, but I may tell you that it is a station on the way to Putney, where I have a friend), when she responded with lightning-like swiftness that it couldn't be healthy to live in Glasgow. This bordered on repartee, so I countered rapidly with the brilliant suggestion that a good many people managed to live there, hoping she would not score by the obvious rejoinder that a good many people died there. If she had, I can't imagine how I should have extricated myself. Luckily she ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914 • Various
... Mrs Lammle,' said Fascination Fledgeby. Mrs Lammle thought it scarcely as warm as it had been yesterday. 'Perhaps not,' said Fascination Fledgeby, with great quickness of repartee; 'but I expect it ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... personae, taking care that you have plenty of supernaturals, genii, elves, gnomes, ghouls, or vampires, to make up a competent corps de ballet; work out your dialogue in slipshod verse, with as much slang repartee as you possibly can cram in, and let every couplet contain either a pun or some innuendo upon the passing events of the day. This in London is considered as the highest species of wit, and seldom fails to bring down three distinct rounds ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... so far as to be capable of repartee until Joe had entered his own stairway. Then, with a bitter sneer, he seized a bad potato from an open barrel and threw it at the mongrel, who had paused to examine the landscape. The missile failed, and Respectability, after bestowing a slightly ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... committed as many crimes as th' late H. H. Holmes. If he'd been born in England he'd be a hero. Ye marry a woman who swears an' dhrinks an' bets on th' races an' ye quarrel with her. Th' r-rest iv th' play is made up iv hard cracks be all th' char-ack-ters at each others' morals. This is called repartee be th' learned, an' Hogan. Repartee is where I say: 'Ye stole a horse' an' ye say: 'But think iv ye'er wife!' In Ar-rchy r-road 'tis called disordherly conduct. They'se another play on where a man r-runs off with a woman that's no betther thin she ought to be. He bates her an' she ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... table below accommodated the attorneys who followed the judge in his circuit from county to county. "The relations between the Bench and the Bar were free and easy, and flashes of wit and humor and personal repartee were constantly passing from one to the other. The court rooms in those days were always crowded. To go to court and listen to the witnesses and lawyers was among the chief amusements of the frontier settlements."[150] In this little ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... I made no repartee, continuing to sit with my chin dependent upon my cravat, but with things not the same in my heart as formerly to the arrival of that grey pongee, the grey glove, and ...
— The Beautiful Lady • Booth Tarkington
... Scintillating repartee, covert side-thrusts, shrewd observations, subtle innuendoes, are all used to assist in the revelation of this egotism. One fair April morning, after his return to England from a three years' absence, ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... genius, by contrast, comparison, analogy, inference, and imagination, weaves around it a wealth of possibility: the dull-witted man sees the same, but his mind travels no farther than the actual vision. The quick mind supplies the apt repartee, while the dullard thinks of the appropriate reply next morning—if at all. The disadvantage of the latter mind is that it does not work easily, the danger of the former is that it may work too easily and get out of control. Where the central control does not suffice ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... as a particular charm. Yet, like all reserved natures, she often failed to attract strangers at a first meeting. In general conversation she disappointed people, by not shining. Men and women, immeasurably her inferiors, surpassed her in ready wit and brilliant repartee. Her taciturnity in society has been somewhat ungenerously laid to a parti pris. She was one, it is said, who took all and gave nothing. That she was intentionally chary of her passing thoughts and impressions to those around her, ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... was an attempt on all sides to be gay. Count Mirabel talked a great deal, and Lady Bellair laughed at what he said, and maintained her reputation for repartee. Her ladyship had been for a long time anxious to seize hold of her gay neighbour, and it was evident that he was quite 'a favourite.' Even Ferdinand grew a little more at his ease. He ventured to relieve the duke from some of his labours, ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... butcher-boy puts off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his knife at the stall in the market, I loiter enjoying his repartee and his shuffle ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... prove as congenial as you two," she said, after listening half an hour to their laughing repartee and their ridiculous discussions as to the arrangement of their pictures and bric-a-brac. "I've been looking forward all morning to her coming. Every time I think of her I have the same excited, creepy ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Their repartee was interrupted by another roar, louder than the first. But though they listened for a long time there was no repetition of the disturbing roar of the king ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... young gentleman of the Foreign Office was about to mince a repartee, when Vivian left his seat, for he had a great deal of business to transact. "Mr. Leverton," said he, accosting a flourishing grazier, "I have received a letter from my friend, M. De Noe. He is desirous of purchasing some Leicestershires for ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... twenty times a day, I presume,' observed the stranger, with a wink; 'no offence meant, sir,' as Villiers showed a disposition to resent this, 'merely a repartee. Good for a comedy, I ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... disengaged an impression of refined pleasure. On every hand, innumerable dialogues seemed to go forward easily and naturally, without break or interruption, witty, engaging, the couple never at a loss for repartee. A third party was gracefully included, then a fourth. Little groups were formed,—groups that divided themselves, or melted into other groups, or disintegrated again into isolated pairs, or lost themselves in the background of the ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... novice at repartee. He knew what should follow the entree. On the table was a roast sirloin of pork, garnished with shamrocks. He retorted with this, and drew the appropriate return of a bread pudding in an earthen dish. A hunk of Swiss cheese accurately thrown by her husband struck Mrs. McCaskey ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... the prisoners and the witnesses have far more self possession than in the tribunals in England; they are not so soon embarrassed by the brow-beating and examination of the counsel, and sometimes give such replies as turn the sting upon their examiners; having like the Irish a sort of tact for repartee, they are not often to be taken aback; the lower classes in Paris are naturally extremely shrewd and penetrating, they recognise a foreigner instantly, before he speaks, as a friend of mine found to his cost, who although an Englishman would anywhere in his own country be set down ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... take a "flash of wit"—repartee. Flash is the right word. It is out instantly. There is no time to arrange the words. There is no thinking, no reflecting. Where there is a wit-mechanism it is automatic in its action and needs no help. Where the wit-mechanism is lacking, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a great favourite on the farm, where he played the part of the old jester, and made up for his practical deficiencies by his success in repartee. His hits, I imagine, were those of the flail, which falls quite at random, but nevertheless smashes an insect now and then. They were much quoted at sheep-shearing and haymaking times, but I refrain from recording them here, lest Tom's wit should prove to be like that of many other bygone jesters ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... for conversation at receptions, dinners, ordinary social affairs, is merely chatter made up, of persiflage and repartee. One must be able to furnish it, however, for small talk is conversational "small change," without which it is not easy to "do business." Lacking it, one is like Mark Twain's man with the million dollar check and not change enough to ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... land you have willfully deserted. As well have stayed among us and talked—and you talk so much better than you write. "Tut! tut! That is nasty." Of course I do not deny that I shall miss the inspiration of your contradictions—or do you call it repartee? I scorn your arguments, and I hereby swear that you shall not worry ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... "Governor, I am very well, but there is no Mrs. Hughes; bishops in our church don't marry.'' "Good gracious,'' answered the governor, "you don't say so; how long has that been?'' The bishop must have thoroughly enjoyed this. His Irish wit made him quick both at comprehension and repartee. During a debate on the school question a leading Presbyterian merchant of New York, Mr. Hiram Ketchum, made a very earnest speech against separate schools for Roman Catholics, and presently, turning to Bishop Hughes, said, "Sir, we respect you, sir, but, sir, we can't ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... person always sees a "snake in the grass." He is afraid to trust his most intimate friend. He puts the worst construction upon the language and conduct of others that they will bear: hence he conceives himself grossly insulted, when no ill was designed; and a gentle rebuke, or a good-humored repartee, constitutes an unpardonable offence. He always looks on the dark side of human character, so that a single foible or one glaring fault will eclipse a thousand real excellences. He is always complaining of the degeneracy of the times, and especially of the corruption ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... impunity, we felt under the necessity of laying the matter before our imperial master. 'Had it been any of the other actors,' his highness also says, 'I wouldn't have minded if even one hundred of them had disappeared; but this Ch'i Kuan has always been so ready with pat repartee, so respectful and trustworthy that he has thoroughly won my aged heart, and I could never do without him.' He entreats you, therefore, worthy Sir, to, in your turn, plead with your illustrious scion, and request him to let Ch'i Kuan go back, in order that the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... clamped me by a flip. "Nixie the kindergarten!" murmurs she. "Gents," I replied out loud, "Get off the ship And walk, or else nail down that repartee. This yard of lace I'm holding, so to speak, Is pinned on tight - or will be ...
— The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor • Wallace Irwin
... been more favorably impressed with Zibeline's appearance than he cared to show. The generous action of this beautiful girl, her frankness, her ease of manner, her cleverness in repartee, were likely to attract the attention of a man of his character. He reproached himself already for having allowed himself to be influenced by the rancorous hostility of the Desvanneaux, and, as always happens with just natures, the sudden change of his mind was ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... and breeding will sometimes join in the laugh, which has been raised at his expence by an ill-natured repartee; but if it was very cutting, and one of those shocking sort of truths, which as they can scarcely be pardoned even in private, ought never to be uttered in public, he does not laugh because he is pleased, but because he wishes to conceal how much ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... young lady wanted to set off her person to the best advantage, asked her, what she would give to be 'as handsome as her mamma?' To which Miss replied; 'As much as your ladyship would give to be as young as me.' This smart repartee which was at once pungent and witty, very sensibly affected the countess; who for the future was less lavish in praise of her ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... very much and found him quite talkative when he was alone with him. At the big dinners he was of course at a disadvantage, neither speaking nor understanding a word of French. W. acted as interpreter and found that very fatiguing. There is so much repartee and sous-entendu in all French conversation that even foreigners who know the language well find it sometimes difficult to follow everything, and to translate quickly enough to keep one au courant is almost impossible. When they could they drifted into ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... hope not—for the sake of the rising generation," said Uncle Marmaduke, chuckling at his own powers of repartee. ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... answered Bach; "for it I have composed a concerto in seven flats." "You lie!" retorted the bluff monarch, "the Boehm flute has not yet been invented. Away with you, hayseed from Halle." Whereat the mighty Bach softly laughed, being tickled by the regal repartee, and stole home, and there he sat him down and composed a nine-part fugue for Boehm flute and jackpot on the word Potsdam, the manuscript of ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... may be pretty fairly paralleled with the ordinary anecdote terminating in a repartee or an Irish bull. Such a retort as the famous "je ne vois pas la necessite" we have all seen attributed to Talleyrand, to Voltaire, to Henri Quatre, to an anonymous judge, and so on. But this variety does not in any way make it more likely that the ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... Century, April, 1904): "The geisha is in no sense necessarily a courtesan. She is a woman educated to attract; perfected from her childhood in all the intricacies of Japanese literature; practiced in wit and repartee; inured to the rapid give-and-take of conversation on every topic, human and divine. From her earliest youth she is broken into an inviolable charm of manner incomprehensible to the finest European, yet she is almost invariably a blossom of the lower classes, with ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... a poet; there are yet remaining some of his lordship's poetry in a little book of poems writt by his Lordship and Sir Benjamin Ruddyer in 12o. ["Poems, written by William Earl of Pembroke, &c. many of which are answered by way of repartee, by Sir Benjamin Rudyard. With other poems by them occasionally and apart." Lond. 1660, 8vo.-J. B.] He had his nativity calculated by a learned astrologer, and died exactly according to the time predicted therein, at his house ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... The Dancing Girl. ("There is another and a worse wicked nobleman" N. B., O. W.) But this is no fault, and, indeed, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find fault with Mr. TREE'S Lord Illingworth. Mrs. TREE as Mrs. Allonby, is a very charming battledore in the game of repartee-shuttlecock, who with eight other principal characters in the piece, has nothing whatever to do with the plot. To the character of Lady Hunstanton, as written in the Mrs. Nickleby vein, and as played by Miss ROSE LECLERCQ, the success ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, May 6, 1893 • Various
... lost on Simpkins. "That's better," he said. "If a fellow has to condone murder to meet your standards of what's a perfect little gentleman, you can count me out. Now, just you make up your mind that repartee won't take us anywhere, and let's get down to cases. There may be, I believe there are, extenuating circumstances. Tell him the whole truth and you'll find Simp. your ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... the glee maiden's manner was lively, and we may add that her smile and repartee were ready. But her gaiety was assumed, as a quality essentially necessary to her trade, of which it was one of the miseries, that the professors were obliged frequently to cover an aching heart with a compelled smile. This ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... him, as he "sighs like furnace," while Neaera, to the accompaniment of her lyre, sings one of Sappho's most passionate odes—whispers something in the ear of the brilliant vocalist, which visibly provokes a witty repartee, with a special sting in it for Horace himself, at which the little man winces—for have there not been certain love-passages of old between Neaera and himself? The wine circulates freely. Maecenas warms, ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... impossible, in brief space, to indicate more than their general features. In the famous "war-dance,"—which was frequently danced, as it still is, for amusement,—speeches, exhortations, jests, personal satire, and repartee were commonly introduced as a part of the performance, sometimes by way of patriotic stimulus, sometimes for amusement. The music in this case was the drum and the war-song. Some of the other dances were also interspersed with speeches and sharp ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... literary man; no sooner, at least, had he taken pen in hand and embarked on the composition of the PROCES-VERBAL, than he became distinctly more uncivil and began to show a predilection for that simplest of all forms of repartee: "You lie!" Several times the Arethusa let it pass, and then suddenly flared up, refused to accept more insults or to answer further questions, defied the Commissary to do his worst, and promised him, if he did, that he should ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Le Borgne mightily by sitting bolt upright and bidding him bring me a meal of buffalo-tongue or teal. With the stolid repartee of the Indian he grunted back that I had tongue enough; but he brought the stuff with no ill grace. After that he had much ado to keep me off my feet. Finally, I promised by the soul of his grandfather neither to spy nor listen about the doors of the inner cave, and he let me up for ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... a wit and a writer that Swift is now chiefly famous. Many are the stories told of his readiness in repartee, his bright sallies in conversation, and of his skill in quick and caustic rhyming. It is said that one day, when traveling in the south of Ireland, he stopped to give his horse water at a brook which crossed ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... However this position might be found useful to her mistress, it must be admitted that it was a most unfortunate position for a young, thoughtless, and very pretty girl, moreover, who was naturally very lively, very smart in repartee, and very ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... the telephone exists largely as a vehicle for the jeux d'esprit of the Brass Lids. It is a one-way affair, working only from the inside out, for if you have a trifle of repartee to impart to the Brazen Ones the apparatus is either indefinitely engaged, or Na poo (as the French say). If you are one of these bulldog lads and are determined to make the thing talk from the outside in, you had better ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 8, 1917 • Various
... three or four hours in the day, as we shall see. The theme is always the same, but it is treated in an infinite variety of ways, and therein we see the instinct of mimicry, the abundance of grotesque ideas, the fluency, the quickness at repartee, and even the natural ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... of his constant attendants, who determined, if possible, to turn the king's thoughts in another direction, and prevent him from being influenced by the good advice which had been given. This man had many accomplishments; he was skilled in dancing, music, and singing; quick at repartee; a good story-teller; full of fun and jokes; but devoid of honour and honesty; false, slanderous, a receiver of bribes, a bad man in every way; yet, from his wit and humour, very acceptable to the king, ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... not come to the love part yet, Freda. He was a very quiet and unobtrusive person, but, my friends said, very amiable and sufficiently clever. I know that I used to take an unkind delight in teasing him, and that he was rather clever in repartee, and never spared me in return. I liked him as an amusing companion, and had no objection to his getting me books or flowers, or whatever lay within his reach that might be agreeable to me. Moreover, I pitied him, because I was told that ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... away the most popular of the Park speakers was the Antiguan. His arguments were so clever it was obvious that he was well and widely read. His absolute understanding of the crowd and his witty repartee used frequently to cause his opponents to lose their tempers, and that was always their undoing. The crowd as a rule was very fair and could easily distinguish arguments from abuse. Thus, on one Sunday the debate was as to whether nature was God. The atheist representative was a very loud-voiced ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... which she had mentioned the difficulties that surrounded her. At other times she seemed prepared to expostulate upon the subject. But either her courage failed, or some other sentiment impeded her seeking an e'claircissement. Her displeasure evaporated in repartee, and her expostulations died on her lips. We stood in a singular relation to each other,—spending, and by mutual choice, much of our time in close society with each other, yet disguising our mutual sentiments, and jealous of, or offended ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... yearning I felt was for something dark and quiet, and small and uncomfortable. She was rather pleased, but the boy put a string across the drawing-room door when I went out, and tripped me up. Then we had a little conversation—quite a short one—but full of repartee. That's my solitary experience." ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... intoxicate his senses as she might, there was a possibility that Jill Mariner was not the ideal wife for him. The idea came and went more quickly than breath upon a mirror. It passed, but it had been. There are men who fear repartee in a wife more keenly than a sword. Derek was one of these. Like most men of single outlook, whose dignity is their most precious possession, he winced ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... been exhilarating, full of color and motion—laughter and repartee mingling with the adieux of the knights and seigneurs to their ladies, the notes of the hunting-horns, the snorts of impatient steeds, the short expectant bark of the dogs, as the Master of the hounds, the young Count of Jaffa, with his ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... the words, that cut; but the marquis gave no sign. He was tired physically and felt himself mentally incompetent to play at repartee. Besides, he had already lost too much through his love of this ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... she, pertly, "why, the same as for the summer!" And pleased with her own readiness at repartee, without feeling the ignorance it betrayed, she tript ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... replied with ingenuousness, 'My life, I have nothing to say.' But, as the repartee did not occur to him, he contented himself with coming in from the balcony and standing at the side ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... personage, having, besides her great talents, conversation the least exigeante of any author-female, at least, whom I have ever seen among the long list I have encountered; simple, full of humour, and exceedingly ready at repartee, and all this without the ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... uppermost at the moment, whether it was literature, philosophy, art, politics, music, the last play, or the latest word of their friends. The talk was simple, natural, without heat, without aggressive egotism, animated with wit and repartee, glancing upon the surface of many things, and treating all topics, grave or gay, with the lightness of touch, the quick responsiveness that make ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... purse and that upon discovering this he had come back for the supplies of war. They joked him unmercifully, even Daisy,—who was manifestly incredulous about his explanation,—and he accepted their hilarious repartee with the proper amount ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... Besides, I remember now what I did say. I said that much as I enjoyed the pleasant give and take of friendly conversation, dearly as I loved even the irresponsible monologue or the biting repartee, yet still more was I attached to the silent worship of the valse's mazy rhythm. 'BUT,' I went on to say, 'but,' I added, with surprising originality, 'every rule has an exception. YOU are the exception. May I have two dances, and then ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... was in a greater rage, and the perfumer in greater despair than ever. He had made his little present of eau-de-Cologne. "Oh fie!" says the Captain, with a horse-laugh, "it SMELLS OF THE SHOP!" He taunted the tailor about his wig, and the honest fellow had only an oath to give by way of repartee. He told his stories about his club and his lordly friends. What chance had either against the ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... badinage and repartee, And humor quaint or bold, And stories that are stories, Not several ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... Associated Charities kept her tramping about the streets the rest of the time, until nightfall. She thought that she was hiding her secret so successfully that no one imagined she had one. She talked more than usual at the table, she laughed at the slightest excuse, she joined spiritedly in the repartee at dinner, a time when they nearly always had guests. But keen-eyed Mrs. Blythe saw several things in the course of the week. She noticed her lack of appetite, the long spells of abstraction that came sometimes after her merriest outbursts; the deep shadows under ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... having great talents, has conversation the least exigeante of any author, female at least, whom I have ever seen among the long list I have encountered,—simple, full of humour, and exceedingly ready at repartee; and all this without the least affectation of ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... humorous poet, Ruzzante, his very familiar friend, who lived and died in his house; but I do not know whether this design of the illustrious Cornaro was ever carried into effect. Giovan Maria was a fine talker, pleasant and agreeable in conversation, and very acute in repartee, insomuch that Cornaro used to declare that a whole book could have been made with his sayings. And since, although he was crippled by gout, he lived cheerfully, he preserved his life to the age of seventy-six, ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... being reminded of a witticism which I heard from my mother's lips, the author of which was Louisa Fairlie, a daughter of Major James Fairlie, who, during the War of the Revolution, served upon General Steuben's staff. She was, I have understood, a great belle with a power of repartee which bordered upon genius. During the youth of John Slidell he attended a dinner at a prominent New York residence and sat at the table next to Miss Fairlie. In a tactless manner he made a pointedly unpleasant remark bearing upon the marriage of her sister Mary to the distinguished actor, Thomas ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... home-team should go to a game prepared to take offense, no matter what happens. He should be equipped with a stock of ready sallies which can be used regardless of what the argument is about or what has gone before in the exchange of words. Among the more popular nuggets of repartee, effective on all occasions, ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... his limbs seemed to regain their joints, his hands ceased to swell, he complained less and less of the pains about his heart. When, of a morning, he was finished with, and "le grand-pere" was having his hands done, they would engage in lively repartee—oblivious of one's presence. We began to feel that this grey ghost of a youth had been well named, after all, when they called him Prosper, so lyrical would he wax over the constitution and cooking of "bouillabaisse," over the South, and the buildings of his native Aix-en-Provence. In all France ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... looked upon the acquisition as practical rebellion against the decrees of Providence. In Persis' presence, she said little, having a sincere respect for her ex-dressmaker's gift of repartee. But to Mr. Hornblower, she expressed ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... a great many men connected with the Turf, from the highest to the humblest; but although I have spent the most agreeable hours amongst them, there is little which, if written, would afford amusement: everything in a story, a repartee, or a joke depends, like a jewel, on its setting. At Lord Falmouth's, my old and esteemed friend, I have spent many jovial and happy hours. He was one of the most amiable of hosts, and of a boundless hospitality; ran many distinguished horses, and won many big races. I used to drive with ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... with her on the platform in bygone days, well remember her matchless powers as a speaker; and how safe we all felt while she had the floor, that neither in manner, sentiment, argument, nor repartee, would she in any way compromise the dignity of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... published in a slender volume entitled Do We Agree? On both occasions the crowd was enormous and many had to be turned away. All three men were immensely popular figures and all three were at their best debating in a hall of moderate size where swift repartee could be ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... personal revelation,—the revelation of such nobleness and such perfect mutual comprehension and tenderness of sympathy as are here revealed,—the pages are full of interesting literary allusion and comment, of wit, repartee, and of charm that defies analysis. It was a wise and generous gift when the son of the poets, Robert Barrett Browning, gave these wonderful letters to the reading public. The supreme test of literature is that which contributes ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... the hostess in the applause which recognized Wetmore's mischievous intent. "I'll not believe anything of the kind." From her this had the effect of repartee, and when she asked with the single-heartedness which Wetmore had praised among her friends as her strongest point, and advised her keeping up as long as she possibly could, "It isn't so, is it, Mr. Ludlow?" the finest ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... exchange of jokes and repartee had dwindled almost to silence, but silence in a cow camp generally ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... perfectly unassuming manners, made a great impression upon many of those who met her in London. Ticknor says of Maria Edgeworth: "There was a life and spirit about her conversation, she threw herself into it with such abandon, she retorted with such brilliant repartee, and, in short, she talked with such extraordinary flow of natural talent, that I don't know whether anything of the kind ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... not going to stand that," exclaimed Josie, her eyes sparkling with good natured repartee—"indeed the famous county of St. John has been the birthplace of men who ranked high in intellectual ability, proud attainments and held their own with the professionals, legislators and statesmen ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... thing beneath his notice which is not necessary to his advantage or enjoyment. It is very difficult to engage him in any labor of a purely mental character, but he often displays vivacity and ardor in matters that interest him, and is frequently quick and happy in repartee.[243] ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... of heart, and impulsive, all his qualities were gifts of nature; hardly any were the fruit acquired by labor and meditation. He had the spirit of the French race, superficial, rapid, spontaneous, and happy in the hazard of repartee, the smile kindly and communicative, the glance open, the hand outstretched, the attitude cordial, an ardent thirst for popularity, great confidence in his relations with others, a constancy in friendship rare upon the throne, true modesty, ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... answered myself, And said to myself, In the self-same repartee, Look to thyself, Or not look to thyself, The self-same ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown
... the Highway; but passed not The hostel. Within there Too mocking to Love's re-expression Was Time's repartee! ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... Davoust, who read in it something more than assurance. A French general having inconsiderately asked this stranger what we should find between Wiazma and Moscow, the Russian proudly replied, "Pultowa." This answer bespoke a battle; it pleased the French, who are fond of a smart repartee, and delight to meet ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... "As for Comedy, Repartee is one of its chiefest graces. The greatest pleasure of the audience is a Chase of Wit, kept up on both sides, and swiftly managed. And this, our forefathers (if not we) have had, in FLETCHER's Plays, to a much higher degree of perfection, than the ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe |
