"Gist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with Aristotle's further suggestion that poetry involves "a strain of madness," a statement which we are wont to interpret as meaning that the poet is led by his passions rather than by his reason. This constitutes the gist of the whole dispute between the romanticist and the classicist, and our poets are such ardent devotees of love as their muse, simply because, in spite of other short-lived fads, the temper of the last century ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... idler. Any scheme looking to abolishing money is only making affairs more complex, for we must have a measure. That our present system of money is a satisfactory basis for exchange is a matter of grave doubt. That is a question which I shall talk of in a subsequent chapter. The gist of my objection to the present monetary system is that it tends to become a thing of itself and to block instead of ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... content to stand on their own strength, They try to hire the enginry of Heaven. I am no theologian, but I laugh That men can be so grossly logicless, When war, defensive or aggressive either, Is in its essence pagan, and opposed To the whole gist of Christianity! ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... though it would have been agreeable to see him weakened by the loss of some southern provinces. Mr. Pooley gives a good account of the actions of Japan during the Chinese Revolution, of which the following quotation gives the gist[62]:— ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... The gist of all these reforms, actual and projected, was that the Bishops were enormously increasing their own power and patronage at the expense of the Deans and Chapters. Sydney Smith, as a member of a Chapter, protested, and then the friends of ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... want the gist of the matter go to Sappho, Catullus, Villon when he is in the vein, Gautier when he is not too frigid, or if yon have not the tongues seek ...
— Ezra Pound: His Metric and Poetry • T.S. Eliot
... the article by Mr. Bernard Shaw, the gist of the matter can be compressed in fewer words. The ideas expressed are not the exclusive property of Mr. Shaw. The Old World for indefinite ages has been controlled and directed by what he calls the "Junker" class, the rich ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... style is one abounding in sentences that are singly striking or memorable, apart from the context; the word may be used invidiously of that which is pretentiously oracular. A pithy utterance gives the gist of a matter effectively, whether in ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... He shows conclusively that the whole demeanor of the freed slaves has done them infinite credit, and that the key to their successful management is simply to treat them with justice. That this justice includes equal rights of citizenship he fully asserts, and states the gist of the matter in one of the most telling paragraphs of the book. "God, who made the liberation of the negro the condition under which alone we could succeed in this war, has now, in His providence, brought about a position of things ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of Negroes developed at Sandy Lake in Northwestern Pennsylvania[14] and there was another near Berlin Cross Roads in Ohio.[15] A group of Negroes migrating to this same State found homes in the Van Buren Township of Shelby County.[16] A more significant settlement in the State was made by Samuel Gist, an Englishman possessing extensive plantations in Hanover, Amherst, and Henrico Counties, Virginia. He provided in his will that his slaves should be freed and sent to the North. He further provided that the revenue from his plantation ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... goods temporary for goods eternal. Adopting for the love of God a voluntary poverty, and distributing her goods to the poor, she took upon her the rule of obedience in this celebrated convent of Santa Croce, the work of her own hands, in the year 1344, on the gist of January of the twelfth indiction, where, living a life of holiness under the rule of the blessed Francis, father of the poor, she ended her days religiously in the year of our Lord 1345, on the 28th of July ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... he even went the length of saying with some warmth that life was not worth having if a man were to be robbed of everything. I did not breathe a word, of course, but neither did I stop my ears. The gist of the affair, which became clear to me gradually, was in this, that he regarded himself as entitled to some money in exchange for the girl. He had brought her up. Somebody else's child. Great trouble and pains—old ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... word be either sweet-sounding or not sweet-sounding? Sound is a something which has no taste, and sweetness is a something which makes no noise. Now the very gist and crux of this whole question of Language consists in confounding or not confounding a case like this with mere Onomatopoieia, or the direct and simple imitation of one sound by another. All that Professor Mueller says against the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... been deceived by a false report that his Majesty was disposed to allow them liberty of conscience and the free choice of religion, now, etc." Fresh "transplanting" of English and Scotch settlers on the lands of the Irish was the gist of his answer to the "false reports." So again the war of surprise, ambush, raid, and foray went on in a hundred places at once, but the result was that the English power was even more firmly seated ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... The gist of what he said (upon art) was condemnatory of the Pre-Raphaelite modern school of painters, of whom he seemed to spare none, and of their works nothing; though he allowed that the old Pre-Raphaelites had some exquisite merits, which the moderns entirely ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... detestable thing on earth. So Apsley Manor went over to her and I came up to live in London. I don't know really that I regret it so very much. This life suits me in a way, though sometimes it's a bit lonely. That's, at any rate, the gist of the whole business. We see each other sometimes; but her continual efforts to get me to don the uncomfortable garments of social respectability make the meetings as uninviting as when you go to be fitted at a tailor's. I suppose that's a sort of thing you like—you're ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... the young ardent mind, instinct with pious nobleness, yet driven to the grim deserts of Radicalism for a faith, his speculations had a charm much more than literary, a charm almost religious and prophetic. The constant gist of his discourse was lamentation over the sunk condition of the world; which he recognized to be given up to Atheism and Materialism, full of mere sordid misbeliefs, mispursuits and misresults. All Science had become mechanical; the science not ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... colonies. Those at Flushing, Long Island, collected news of converts from New York as far east as the Connecticut River, while the Yearly Meeting at Newport, Rhode Island, heard from all members east of that river. The custom of exchanging yearly letters, giving the gist of these three annual meetings, was soon instituted. After the establishment of the London Yearly Meeting, the frequent exchange of letters with the colonial Quakers, begun in 1662, was reinforced by the exchange of English and ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... when Pao-yue and Tai-yue felt guilty in their consciences; and by the time they heard all she said, they were quite flushed from shame. Lady Feng did not, it is true, fathom the gist of what had been said, but at the sight of the expression betrayed on the faces of the three cousins, she readily got an inkling of it. "On this broiling hot day," she inquired laughing also; ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... principally engaged in rooking or trying to rook one another for nominal sums in what was called "college paper." We had class hours, indeed, in the morning, when we studied German, French, book-keeping, and the like goodly matters; but the bulk of our day and the gist of the education centred in the exchange, where we were taught to gamble in produce and securities. Since not one of the participants possessed a bushel of wheat or a dollar's worth of stock, legitimate business was of course impossible from the beginning. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Trier, Civilis and Classicus sent 75 a letter to Cerialis, the gist of which was that Vespasian was dead, though the news was being suppressed: Rome and Italy were exhausted by civil war: Mucianus and Domitian were mere names with no power behind them: if Cerialis desired to be emperor of All ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... under discussion I have got from books and conversations are as general and vague as the foregoing. I therefore shall not weary the reader with them. What Elsner's view of teaching was may be gathered from one of his letters to his pupil. The gist of his remarks ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... attend industrial authority—all these evils became attached to the notion of sweating. The word has thus grown into a generic term to express this disease of City poverty from its purely industrial side. Though "long hours" was the gist of the original complaint, low wages have come to be recognized as equally belonging to the essence of "sweating." In some cases, indeed, low wages have become the leading idea, so that employers are classed as sweaters who pay low wages, without consideration of hours or other conditions of employment. ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... came back from Mr. Pinhorn, accompanied with a letter the gist of which was the desire to know what I meant by trying to fob off on him such stuff. That was the meaning of the question, if not exactly its form, and it made my mistake immense to me. Such as this mistake was I could ...
— The Death of the Lion • Henry James
... "perspicuity and the way of right reasoning." The charge of Socinianism was frequently brought against him, but, as Tillotson thought, "for no other cause but his worthy and successful attempts to make the Christian religion reasonable." His creed, and the whole gist of his argument, is expressed in a single sentence, "I am fully assured that God does not, and therefore that men ought not to, require any more of any man than this, to believe the Scripture to be God's word, and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... part of Pennsylvania in which Pittsburgh is situated, Washington came there as the agent of Governor Dinwiddie to treat with the Indians. With an eye alert for the dangers of the wilderness, and with Christopher Gist beside him, the young Virginian pushed his cautious way to "The Point" of land where the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers forms the Ohio. That, he declared, with clear military instinct, was the best ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church
... which he had himself brought before the senate only a short time before, and on which he really continued to feel strongly.[14] Cicero's most elaborate defence of his change of front is contained in a long letter to P. Lentulus Spinther, written two years afterwards.[15] The gist of it is much the same as the remark to Atticus already quoted. "Pompey and Caesar were all-powerful, and could not be resisted without civil violence, if not downright civil war. The Optimates were feeble and shifty, had shewn ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... a little, and made us a speech. I forget his words, but remember the gist of them. He was pleased to welcome us within his army, and trusted to our honor and loyalty. He made an allusion to the power of the press, and promised us facilities for seeing and writing, within the bounds of censorship. ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... it was just the way he had expected him to take the matter. It made him rather ashamed of the weakness and uncertainty to which he had confessed. Of course they could do nothing with a woman; it wasn't a shooting business—yet. But there was a debatable future, if the gist of the note on the table ran true to their unspoken analysis of it. Promise of something like that was ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... to then pending Constitutional amendment (the 14th) Mr. Johnson referred to Congress as "a set of individuals." Mr. Manager Boutwell declared this expression to be "the gist of the offense of this particular ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... roughly ordered, after she had given him a gist of her suspicions. He turned off the lights, stepped out, and shut the gates with a furious bang. "And stick to the corner! I'll ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... Esau. If we are to try the experiment of democracy fairly, it must be tried in its fullest extent, and not half-way. The theory which grants political power to the ignorant white foreigner need not be squeamish about granting it to the ignorant black native, for the gist of the matter is in the dark mind, and not the more or less dusky skin. Of course we shall be met by the usual fallacy,—Would you confer equality on the blacks? But the answer is a very simple one. Equality cannot be conferred on any man, be he white or black. If he be capable of it, his ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... That was the gist of it and it took a long time to say; a long time during which Cochise told Jeffords many things and Jeffords spoke with Cochise of many subjects outside the direct line of discussion. For that was the Indian manner; ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... Hasan, son of Nur al-Din Ali, the Egyptian; and the thousand dinars were also there. No sooner had Shams al-Din read this than he cried out with a loud cry and fell to the ground fainting; and as soon as he revived and understood the gist of the matter he marvelled and said, "There is no God, but the God, who All-might is over all things! Knowest thou, O my daughter, who it was that became the husband of thy virginity?" "No," answered she, and he said, "Verily he is the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... ten feet of water; but I fortunately saved myself by catching hold of one of the raft-logs. Notwithstanding all our efforts, we could not get to either shore, but were obliged, as we were near an island, to quit our raft and make to it. The cold was so extremely severe that Mr. Gist had all his fingers and some of his toes frozen, and the water was shut up so hard that we found no difficulty in getting off the island on the ice in the morning, and went ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... distributing them as a duty for the safety of the nation. The pamphlet was printed in the smallest type, and consisted of extracts from various prophetical authors, pointing out the enormity of the Babylonian Woman, of the City of Scarlet, or some such thing; the gist being the bitterest—almost scurrilous—attack on the Church of Rome. The jogger told me, with tears of pride in his eyes and a glorified countenance, that only a few days before, in the waiting-room of a railway station, he ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... The gist of the "Darrell case", when you got right down to it, was a quarrel over property; it was the snarling of wolves who had been disturbed at their feeding. Darrell had denounced wealth and the exploiters of wealth, and now he had married a woman of wealth; and was he to get away with his prize? That ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... visor-cap wreathed with nabiscus blossoms, his case-hardened countenance lighted with conviviality. Following an interminable period of eating and drinking came a long speech by Baahaabaa which, like most after-dinner speeches, meant nothing to me. Captain Triplett replied. The gist of Triplett's remarks, memorized from the "Argus," were taken from the 1916 report of the New Bedford Board of Trade. When he proclaimed that "besides cotton goods, 100,000 pianos were turned out yearly and 8,500 derby hats every day," his audience, ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... through eight closely-written pages of this sort of stuff —the outpourings of a sentimental young lady? I see nothing in it except the very eccentric handwriting, and the fact that this Frances Eden—girl or woman—doesn't put the gist of the matter into ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... I'll have to be excused from repeating what he said, in the way he said it, but the gist of it was that he was going through. He said he would use some kind of flowage, and hoped that when the lawyers got done talking in court it would be decided that the aforesaid nat'ral flowage was the kind that had ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... to historical research; and as to professed scholars, it is from their masters' lessons that they have learnt to know and handle the tools of their trade, leaving out of consideration the fact that the method of history is the same as that of the other sciences of observation, the gist of which can be stated in ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... has always said to me, then, "My dear little chicken, I am not a man to do violence to your opinions, but in return give way to me as regards some of your pious practices." I only give you the mere gist of it; it was said with a thousand delicacies, which I suppress. And I have agreed by degrees,... so that, while only paying very little attention to the outward observances of religion, I have remained, as I told you, a bar of iron as regards ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... of Shakspere well understood the true meaning of Hamlet's words: [62]—'What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven?' [63] They easily seized the gist and point of the answer given to the King's question: [64]—'How fares our cousin ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... darkness of the night of the gist, Crook was brought across Cedar Creek and hidden in a clump of timber behind Hupp's Hill till daylight of the 22d, when, under cover of the intervening woods and ravines, he was marched beyond the right of the Sixth Corps ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 4 • P. H. Sheridan
... papers passed whole from hand to hand, and their holders read the news aloud. I think the entire crowd had grasped the gist of it inside of four minutes; and their exclamatory comments ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... was the gist of the story of Bellward's arrest. The report laid great stress on the fact that no one outside half a dozen Intelligence men had any knowledge (a) of Bellward being an unnaturalized German, (b) ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... mair noise aboot it than it's a' worth! My certy, but she has a brazen face. The auld wizzened, upsettin limmer that she is. Set them up, indeed wi' red nicht-caps." Now, this was the last member of Mrs. Callender's philippic, but it was by no means the least. In fact, it was the whole gist of the matter—the sum and substance, and, we need not add, the real and true cause of her present amiable feeling towards her worthy neighbours, John Anderson and his wife. Adjusting her mutch now on her head, and spreading her apron decorously before her, Mrs. Callender intimated her intention ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... follows, for it is the gist and moral of my little story about this conjuror, and about two other miracle workers whom I have to ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... all-powerful.' Here some indifference was manifested on the part of the English aristocracy present, which, causing a momentary suspension of the speech, produced a very unexpected calm, much to the astonishment of Flum's own dear self. 'Well, I apprehends the gist on't—democracy don't go down, no way, this side the big pond. But, if John is old, and has got his noddle so full of antiquated nonsense that he can't get an idea into his head suited to the exigencies of the times, democracy, with its all-elevating power, will stand by him, ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... colouring is not the same, but the same deadly peril menaces me. For the love of Heaven hold out your hand to save a lonely and desperate woman whose only crime is that she is rich and beautiful. Providence had placed in my hands the gist of your heroine's story. Hence this masquerade; hence the fact that you are here to-night. I have helped you—help ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... type were current in the portions of England in which the Hroar-Helgi story would naturally circulate? We think, of course, immediately of Havelok the Dane. Deutschbein has shown that Havelok is founded on historical events that occurred in the first half of the tenth century.[133] The gist of the story is that an heir to the Danish throne is deprived of his heritage, suffers deep humiliation, but finally regains his heritage and, through marriage, the crown of Norfolk in England in addition. The story was of a nature to make a ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson
... perhaps, to many people—such news as there is; but it is hardly worth while to pay three cents to be sure of that. An intelligent man can be sure of it for nothing. He has been sure of it every morning for years. It's the gist of most of the newspapers he reads. From the point of view of what can be called truly vital information, in any larger sense, the only news a daily paper has is the date at the top of the page. If a man once makes sure of that, if he feels from the bottom of his heart what really good ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... of the Anglican Church, and so forth—are already as questionable as they are confident, he puts them with a certain modesty, a certain [Greek: epieikeia], which was perhaps not always so obvious when he came to preach that quality itself later. About the gist of the book it is not necessary to say very much. He practically admits the obvious and unanswerable objection that his French Eton, whether we look for it at Toulouse or look for it at Soreze, is very French, but not at all Eton. He does not really attempt to meet ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... any great haste to open the letter, being aware that the true gist of it could only be discovered in private, and her father was studying his own likewise in silence. It was from Sir Ralf Sadler to request that Mistress Cicely might be permitted to become a regular member of the household. ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in the foregoing extract brings the whole gist of the important discovery within the compass of a few paragraphs, and it will be readily seen from this clear description of the new-found lake that the source of the Mississippi is at last correctly located. Many others ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... once coined by Lord Aberdeen in the period of the Crimean War. 'Turkey is a sick man,' he said, and added something which gave great offence then about the advisability of putting Turkey out of his misery. I do not pretend to quote correctly, but that was the gist of it. Nor do I challenge the truth of Lord Aberdeen's phrase at the period when he made it. It possibly contained a temporary truth, a valid point of view, which, if it had been acted on, might have saved a great deal of trouble afterwards, but it missed then, and more than misses now, ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... Livesey's evidence, the Coroner announced to the jury that, having had the gist of the witness's testimony communicated to him earlier in the day, he had sent his officer to request Mr. Gabriel Chestermarke's attendance. The officer, however, had returned to say that Mr. Chestermarke was away on business, and that it was not ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... The gist of the matter is this: Every impression that comes in from without, be it a sentence which we hear, an object of vision, or an effluvium which assails our nose, no sooner enters our consciousness than it is drafted off in some determinate direction or other, making connection with the other materials ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... favorable in every way—your end of it, and the circus end is all right. But there's another end. That is it. I reckon you'd better get the gist of the trouble by reading ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... horror on seeing American women of refined sensibilities and position dressed in the gowns of the declasse street-women of Paris. The somewhat sensational nature of the articles attracted the attention of the American newspapers, which copied and commented on them; the gist of them was cabled over to Paris, and, of course, the Paris couturiers denied the charges. But their denials were in general terms; and no convincing proof of the falsity of the charges was furnished. The French couturier simply resorted to a shrug ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... hard bargain with their landlords which they wish the legislature to modify, is to shut our eyes to the feelings of the people, feelings which it will be difficult and also dangerous to disregard. The very gist and point of the whole claim of the tenants is that their moral right (as they regard it) is as sacred, and ought to be as much protected by law, as the landlords' legal right, and that it is a distinct grievance to a man to be prevented from ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... just now. There are thousands of people in London who are different from that and ever so much nicer; but I don't see them, I don't know how to get at them; and after all, poor dear man, what power have you to help me?' That was in the last analysis the gist of what she had ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... we had adopted a certain lip salve, just one shade darker than the way lips come, explaining, to save our reputations, that we were keeping our lips from chapping. Rouge too had come coyly, back—but—and here's the gist of the whole matter—in polite society paint was put on ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... these seven reasons for the forward motion, in the gist of them, which I have marked by italics, that the reader may better judge of their collective value. The bird is carried forward, according to ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... MR. MARSHAM,—You know best what share you had in the Herald article. You certainly did not write it. But to my mind it very faithfully reproduced the gist of our conversation on a memorable evening. And, moreover, I believe and still believe that you intended the reproduction. Believe me, Yours faithfully, ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the gist of which escaped me, he constituted himself a reception committee of one and started for the ladder's foot. But our doughty Teuton was a resourceful person. Roused to the urgency of his plight, he looked wildly up at me, down at the officer, and, hastily pushing ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... falling out of the universe; there are other things in the world of more importance, the deuce take it. Norway must be splendid just now. Come back soon and set to work. Good-by," and so forth. I do not repeat it word for word, but such was the gist of the letter. It impressed me unpleasantly, first because I had not asked Sniatynski to lend me his yard-measure to measure my sorrow with; secondly, I had thought him a sensible man, and supposed he understood that his "more important things" are merely empty words unless ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... are nations; so in fact is Italy: but Austria is only a Court and Army, not a nation." Here is practically the gist of the whole matter, as far as Francis Newman is concerned. Throughout all his writings one comes again and again upon this note. "The People! The People!" is his ever-recurring thought. What are "the People" suffering; what are their needs, their wrongs which call for justice? The People is the ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... and mystify me, I confess. Come, let me write down your wishes, and the matter can be arranged formally, which is always best in any case. There, I think I have the gist of your idea," he said a few moments later, as he pushed over to me a slip of paper to read and sign, which done, I shook hands with him cordially, preparing to go. "But your receipt—you have forgotten to take ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... decorations, if the whole establishment, are excellent, should there be a failure in the highest and most sublime part of the entertainment—in the food. The food, my dear sir, and a well-ordered table, is the gist of a festival, and should there be the least failure in that, the whole is profaned and desecrated, and must be covered with a mourning-veil. Take my words to heart, signor; let us have a table covered with ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... gets an inward response as to the general gist and unifying purport of the sixteen revelations. "Wit it well; love was His meaning. Who showed it thee? Love. Wherefore showed He it thee? ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... I bitterly, "and the old flag-will be hauled down for the first time in the records! But consider, sir; there is nothing else to be done! Carteret has given you the gist at the matter. And think ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... Malietoa's party; he himself declares that he helped both; and, at any rate, the offence appears a novel one, and the accusation threatens to introduce fresh dangers into Red Cross work. He was on the beach that night in the exercise of his profession. If he was with Malietoa's men, which is the real gist of his offence, we who are not Germans may surely ask, Why not? On what ground is Malietoa a rebel? The Germans have not conquered Samoa that I ever heard of; they are there on treaty like their neighbours, and Dr. Knappe ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... who was not pleased to have Mr. Bartlett for a partner. His winnings, so he said, he gave annually to charitable objects, though whether the charities he selected began at home was a point on which Miss Mapp had quite made up her mind. "Not a penny of that will the poor ever see," was the gist of her reflections when on disastrous days she paid him seven-and-ninepence. She always called him "Padre," and had never actually caught him looking over ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... a long conversation; but, alas! the gist of his father's conversation was this, that it behoved him, Frank, to marry money. The father, however, did not put it to him in the cold, callous way in which his lady-aunt had done, and his lady-mother. He did not bid him go and sell himself to the first female he could find possessed of wealth. ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... Satchells could either invent or glean from tradition the gist of Buccleuch's diplomatic remonstrances, first with Salkeld, for Scrope was absent at the time of Willie's capture, then with Scrope. Buccleuch, in fact, wrote that the taking of Willie was "to the touch of the King," a stain on his honour, ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... "Cy-gist Alexandre, moyne de ceste eglise, qui fist mettre en argent le menton de Saint-Vincent et de Saint-Amant et le pie des Innocens; qui toujours en son vivant fut preud'homme et vayllant. Priez pour l'ame ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... the two short stories mentioned above be regarded as exceptions—in which romance and morality are welded into a single perfect whole, nothing that can be put beside The Scarlet Letter or The Marble Faun for deep insight and magic fancy joined in one. Hence his essays, containing as they do the gist of his reflective wisdom, are ranked by some critics ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh
... understand the ejaculation to be Om. And there are very curious physical exercises; you have to hold your ear with one hand and your toes with the other, and you may strain yourself unless you do it properly. That was the general gist of it." ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... from various legal authorities instances and opinions bearing upon the subjugation of weak wives by strong husbands, the gist of them being that confessions of guilt obtained by such husbands from such wives are not entitled ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... of the duchy of Arezzo, impelled by a like curiosity, consulted a learned clerk of Milan, one Cosmo Raimondi of Cremona. The following is the gist of ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... he had been clerically disposed, would, I am sure, have written short sermons; and I think that his hearers would have carried away the gist ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... those of Norway. The interests of the Union demanded that Norway, without further parley, got what its national sensitive feeling was pleased to decree as the Sovereign Norway's right. That is about the gist of the matter. The Norwegian policy has by degrees become blind to the fact, that the interests of the Union ought to demand a subordination of the inclination to decide arbitrarily on points touching the Union, both for the ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... This was the gist of the story in all the papers. There were various suggested explanations. One paper hinted that men had been known to sign papers when they had ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... he was a grouser. He was devilish bothered by the drill-manual. 'It isn't worth while to learn the drill instruction,' he said, 'they're always changing it. F'r instance, take the department of military police; well, as soon as you've got the gist of it, it's something else. Ah, when will this war be ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... prompt return of our partisan to the head waters of Cooper river, in all probability, preserved that neighborhood from the foragers. With the tidings of their progress up the Combahee, the American light brigade, under General Gist, was ordered to oppose them. It was here that one of those events took place which furnished a conclusive commentary upon the ill-judged resolution by which the cessation of hostilities was rejected, ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... all included in a party of eighty. We were addressed in English by a German officer. The gist of his remarks was that we were to be marched to our destination, and that any man who tried to escape would be incontinently shot, also that any man who did not ...
— The 23rd (Service) Battalion Royal Fusiliers (First Sportsman's) - A Record of its Services in the Great War, 1914-1919 • Fred W. Ward
... few things in the shack. Now, I'm going to the store and buy what I want, and I'm going to fix it so Myrtle can draw the money when she wants it, and then I am going to the shack, and"—Christopher's voice took on a solemn tone—"I will tell you in just a few words the gist of what I am going for. I have never in my life had enough of the bread of life to keep my soul nourished. I have tried to do my duties, but I believe sometimes duties act on the soul like weeds on a flower. They crowd it out. I am going up on Silver Mountain to get once, on this ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... so nervous, Arethusa, jumping up and down that way behind me, I could scream! Can't you walk!" Then she added, half to herself and rather irrelevantly too, considering the gist of the foregoing conversation. "I must say that I question very strongly the ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... containing advice which the bride's mother is supposed to give her on this occasion, in which the desire imputed to the caste to make money out of their daughters is satirised. They are no doubt libellous as being a gross exaggeration, but may contain some substratum of truth. The gist of them is as follows: "Girl, if you are my daughter, heed what I say. I will make you many sweetmeats and speak words of wisdom. Always treat your husband better than his parents. Increase your private money (khamora) ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... of your ologies here," snarled Judge Witberg. "It is a plain question. Answer it plainly. Is it true or not true that you were drunk? That is the gist of the question." ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... remain FIVE PERFECT COUNTS WITH FIVE PERFECT FINDINGS, in the opinion of all the judges and of all the law lords; those five counts containing the gist of the whole charge against O'Connell and his confederates—those five findings establishing that the defendants were guilty of the offences so laid to their charge. Blot out, then, altogether from the record the six counts objectionable on the above-mentioned grounds, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... contained the gist of the whole matter; the other things were put in just to prevent the notice from being conspicuously sensible. Next morning, when the Grand Vizier took up his newspaper, he could not help knowing he was the person addressed; and at the appointed hour ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... Lord Clarendon) suggested that they should be interviewed as to what had passed. The following is a bit of the debate as it was taken down; as Sir John did not write shorthand, he was naturally able to give only the gist of ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... proceed to Venango and Waterford, a distance of more than four hundred miles, through forests and over mountains, with rivers to cross and hostile Indians to beware of; and it was the middle of November when he set out, with the most inclement season of the year before him. Kit Gist, a hunter and trapper of the Natty Bumppo order, was his guide; they laid their course through the dense but naked forests as a mariner over a sullen sea. Four or five attendants, including an interpreter, ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... to the gist of my letter. I know Thursday is a half- holiday in the Rue Fossette: be ready, then, by five in the afternoon, at which hour I will send the carriage to take you out to La Terrasse. Be sure to come: you may meet some old acquaintance. Good-by, my ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... well as I do," I said; "but if you will have it, it was that you are not as other human women are, and that he who would treat you as such, must suffer; that was the gist of it." ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... foremost in the political agitation at which Mr. Froude so flippantly sneers. An emphatic denial may be opposed to his pretence that "they did not complain that their affairs had been ill-managed." Why, the very gist and kernel of the whole agitation, set forth in print through long years of iteration, has been the scandalous mismanagement of the affairs of the Colony—especially under the baleful administration of Governor Irving. The Augean Stable, miscalled by him "The Public Works Department," and whose ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... remained of that gallant army which scarce six hours before was by friend and foe alike deemed invincible. With little interruption the march was continued through that night and the ensuing day, till at 10 P.M. on July 10th they came to Gist's plantation; where early on the 11th some wagons and hospital stores arrived from Dunbar for their relief. Despite the intensity of his agonies, Braddock still persisted in the exercise of his authority and the fulfilment of his duties. From Gist's he detailed a party to return toward the Monongahela ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... way, until the sun went altogether behind the clouds and she could signal no more. Not a glimmer of an answering twinkle could she win from the peak. The most she did was to stimulate old Mike to the point of mumbling wild harangues to the uneasy pines, the gist of which was that folks better look out how they went spyin' around after him, an' makin' signs back and forth with glasses. They better look out, because he had good eyes, if Murphy didn't have, and they couldn't run over him and tromp ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... is too late. Come to me some idle time to-morrow, and I'll tell you about it, if all's well. But the gist of it is, children, that you should at least know two Latin words; recollect that "mors" means death and delaying; and "vita" means life and growing: and try always, not to mortify yourselves, ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... been unceasing in his endeavours to get the Bannerworth family out of it; that he has offered them their own price to become its tenant, and that the whole gist of his quiet and placid interview with Flora in the garden, was to supply her with a new set of reasons for urging her mother and brother to leave Bannerworth Hall, because the old ones were certainly ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... the gist of the first two morning calls, and there were many more such periods of penance, for the bride and bridegroom were not modern enough in their notions to sit up to await their visitors, and thankful they were to those who would be at the expense of finding conversation, though this ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... despair of conveying in a few rough paragraphs the gist of this quaint, fanciful, brooding charm. There is something fey about much of the book: it peers behind the curtains of twilight and sees strange things. In its love of children, its inspired simplicity, its sparkle of whim ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... The gist of the philosophical objections urged by the two Boston reviewers against an hypothesis of the derivation of species—or at least against Darwin's particular hypothesis—is, that it is incompatible with the idea of any manifestation of design ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... (i. e. sayings of the Fathers), the name given to a collection of aphorisms in the manner of Jesus the Son of Sirach by 60 doctors learned in the Jewish law, representative of their teaching, and giving the gist of it; they inculcate the importance of familiarity with ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Sultan of those most distant lands knew that the Creator of All had contrived a device so vastly to his delight his merriment knew no bounds. On a sudden he spake and said, and this was the gist of his saying, that upon that line of boundary or limit that divided the North from the South a palace be made, where in the Northern courts should summer be, while in the South was winter; so should he move from court to court according ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... my Father and his patient, the gist of which I could not get, absorbed as I was with the face inside the patch-work quilt. We went out silently, after I had taken a last, long look into the bundle.—Lisbeth had come ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... recognized Mrs. Crane in the woman described; and, if surprised, he was rejoiced. For, much as he disliked that gentlewoman, he thought Sophy might be in worse female hands. Without much need of sagacity, he divined the gist of the truth. Losely had somehow or other become acquainted with Rugge, and sold Sophy to the manager. Where Rugge was, there would Sophy be. It could not be very difficult to find out the place in which Rugge was now exhibiting; and then—ah then! Waife whistled ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... I read pretty nigh as follows; not that I give the whole of it, but only the gist and ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... lay, perhaps, the gist of the whole matter. To hitch one's wagon to a star was to be, primarily, a plain person, to go in for truth, patriotism, fineness of soul, long hours of labor, little exercise and no vacations, pies and doughnuts, ugliness of physical surroundings, and squeaky feminine voices. ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... ground and gist of a noble friendship is the cultivation in common of the personal inner lives of those who partake in it, their mutual reflection of souls and joint sharing of experience inciting them to a constant betterment of ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward
... but they've poor mouths for it," said Miss Cornelia. "Well, the gist of what you tell me is that the thing is settled and there's no use in talking. If that's so I'll hold my tongue. I don't propose to wear MY teeth out gnawing files. When a thing has to be I give in to it. But I like ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... house lying on the ground. One servant stood by the bed holding the sage's head and fanning him, and another was engaged in rubbing his feet. Herutataf addressed a highly poetical speech to Teta, the gist of which was that the old man seemed to be able to defy the usual effects of old age, and to be like one who had obtained the secret of everlasting youth, and then expressed the hope that he was well. Having paid these ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... brought report. Before her slaves, Under set eyes of melancholy cast, She hid her inner chuckle at the events That have been brought to pass—too well for her, But for this house and hearth most miserably,— As in the tale the strangers clearly told. He, when he hears and learns the story's gist, Will joy, I trow, in heart. Ah, wretched me! How those old troubles, of all sorts made up, Most hard to bear, in Atreus's palace-halls Have made my heart full heavy in my breast! But never have I known a woe like this. For other ills I bore full patiently, But as ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Such was the gist of the communication, and Theodore, hardened by his father's severity, and unable to bear the privations of a narrow income, absented himself more and more from their wretched lodgings, and tried to drown his cares by drinking himself ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... changeless dignity of her carriage, but her self-assured pre-eminence was offensive, and her drawling deliberation far more objectionable than Mrs. Wylder's abrupt movements, or the rough and ready speech that accompanied her eager dart at the gist of a matter. Even the look that would kill a man if it could, never roused such hate as sprang to meet the icy stare of her passionless ladyship. Many a man with no admiration of the florid, would have sought refuge in Mrs. Wylder's ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... Dunbar's Camp, nearly 45 miles behind, to order wagons forward with provisions and hospital stores and to transport the wounded back to Wills Creek. A number of these wagons met the retreating army on July 11, at Gist's Plantation; then, after wounds were dressed, they returned to Dunbar's Camp. There most of the wagons were gathered with the stores and burned in order to keep them from the hands of the enemy. The survivors continued ...
— Conestoga Wagons in Braddock's Campaign, 1755 • Don H. Berkebile
... practice. I take such radical ground, however, going to the very root of the matter, that the general practitioner will do well to give my thesis his careful consideration; he should at least glance at the following Introduction for the gist of my claim. ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... theft, to imbue the folk of this parish with the very ideas of Right to which you have just given utterance. For truly, God does not estimate theft by the value of the thing stolen, He looks at the thief. That has been the gist of the parables which I have tried to adapt to ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... have the gist of the whole affair—what makes the Frenchman instinctively consider the German to be a barbarian, what makes modern Germany the menace of the entire world. It is not its militaristic ideals, its ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick |
