"Jest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of a proud, sensitive spirit, and had miscalculated her strength when she thought she could bear dishonor. After that duel with which Austria rang, in which the best schlager in his brigade fell, horribly mangled, the day after he had whispered a jest about Caroline Mannering, men were very cautious how they even looked askance at her; but the women—who could bridle their tongues or blunt their scornful glances? Briareus, armed to the teeth, would not affright our ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... comes to a rattler curled up in the grass, and shakin' his tarnal buzz-tail at him. He steps back, and casts about him for some sort of we'pon; he hadn't a thing in his fist but a roll of paper, and if ever a chap hankered arter a stick or a stun, they say he did. But it was all jest perairie grass; nary rock nor a piece of timber within three mile. Snake seemed to 'preciate his advantage, and flattened his head and whirred his rattle sassier 'n ever. Surveyor chap couldn't stan' that. So what does he dew, like a blamed fool, but jest off with ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... he turned the key on the whole company, and he heard their answering laughter as he went away, for they accepted the jest, and ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... discourse Devised adroitly; spoke of common things At first—of days when his good mother lived, If 't were to live, to pass long dolorous hours Before his father's effigy in church; Of one who then used often come to hall, Ever at Yule-tide, when the great log flamed In chimney-place, and laugh and jest went round, And maidens strayed beneath the mistletoe, Making believe not see it, so got kissed— Of one that joined not in the morrice-dance, But in her sea-green kirtle stood at gaze, A timid little ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... and story, with laugh and jest and shout, We heed not dropping mercury nor storms that rage without, But pile the huge logs higher till the chimney roars with glee, And banish spectral ...
— The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond
... scheme while yet uncertain whether horse-power or stationary steam-engines would be the best acting force. It was opened as far as Ellicott's Mills as a horse-road, the idlers and beauties of Baltimore participating in the excursion as a novel jest. In 1830, Baron Krudener, the envoy from Russia, rode upon it in a car with sails, called the AEolus, a model of which he sent to the emperor Nicholas as something new and hopeful. Passing the Monocacy, we roll ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... she was one of your real high sort, when her blood was up. I tell you, she squeezed up her child in her arms, and talked, and went on real awful. It kinder makes my blood run cold to think of 't; and when they carried off the child, and locked her up, she jest went ravin' mad, and died in a week. Clear waste, sir, of a thousand dollars, just for want of management,—there's where 't is. It's always best to do the humane thing, sir; that's been my experience." And the trader leaned back in his chair, and folded ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... say, o' the Springfield Convention? Thet's precisely the pint I was goin' to mention; Resolves air a thing we most gen'ally keep ill, They're a cheap kind o' dust fer the eyes o' the people; A parcel o' delligits jest git together An' chat fer a spell o' the crops an' the weather, 50 Then, comin' to order, they squabble awile An' let off the speeches they're ferful'll spile; Then—Resolve,—Thet we wunt hev an inch o' slave territory; Thet President Polk's holl perceedins air very tory; Thet the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... aim ter leave this yere ranch afore sun-up. Jest you speak up an' out. If yer folks has sent you here"—his eyes hardened and flashed—"to borrer money, why, you kin tell 'em I ain't ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... "Don't jest, master poet," he said, "but ply your suit with proud Kate, for I swear if you fail, you shall hang to-morrow. Now leave me, for I must work while you play," and he bent over a chart and seemed to forget all else in ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the cuffs; trousers so narrow you fear they will burst before your eyes, pockets placed in every position, buttons clustered together in a tight little row or reduced to one. And the worst of it is, few of our younger men know any better until they go abroad and find their wardrobe a subject for jest and derision. ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... the distance and the 'sections,' the votes had been long in counting, but they had been counted, and not found wanting. One of these bringers of good tidings might have sat or stood for a statue of William the Conqueror preparing to make France pay dearly for the jest of the French King anent his colossal bulk. He was a man in the prime of life, but he cannot possibly have weighed less than 400 pounds. Yet he moved about alertly, and he had driven over in a light wagon at full speed (the ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... well," he said at last. "And I wonder how long I may be able to jest thus. Now, I will give you the ship we took from Heidrek, and Bertric will be shipmaster, for this is his affair also. You shall have crew enough, at least, to make sure that Gerda's men will join you without fear. And ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... trusting, which their love had called into life. So, dimly, she had dreamed in the radiant days of old. Almost she could feel his hand upon her shoulder, hear his voice full of tenderness that expressed itself only in tone, not in word, taking refuge from too great feeling in jest. She closed her eyes against the vision that made ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... welcomed this allusion to my misconduct of the preceding night, for I began to feel easier under the perception that the whole affair was thus treated in jest, instead of the anger and scorn I had anticipated. With ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... priest you are!" exclaimed the robber. "You kill men, and jest about it!... But I am really in earnest. Here is my robe; and here is the money;—and let me have the head... What is the ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... "Jest the place!" endorses Cully. "Kedn't be a better gallis if the sheriff o' Pike County, Massoury, had rigged it up hisself. We'll gie 'em a tree apiece, as they war about to do wi' thar innocent prisoners. Takin' their places'll be turn an' turn ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... thoughtful, and caught the Roman's, and held it while he replied, "Yes, five years. I remember the parting; you went to Rome; I saw you start, and cried, for I love you. The years are gone, and you have come back to me accomplished and princely—I do not jest; and yet—yet—I do wish you were the ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... marquis of Camerino and Spoleto, [13] supported the rebels of Beneventum; and his wanton cruelty was not incompatible in that age with the character of a hero. His captives of the Greek nation or party were castrated without mercy, and the outrage was aggravated by a cruel jest, that he wished to present the emperor with a supply of eunuchs, the most precious ornaments of the Byzantine court. The garrison of a castle had been defeated in a sally, and the prisoners were ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... unable to rudely tear away the veil of phantasy in which the truth is shrouded, so we present the reader with a draped figure, and his own judgment must discriminate between the clothes and the body. A truth's prosperity is like a jest's, it lies in the ear of him that hears it. Some may see our lucubration as we saw it; and others may see nothing but a drunken dream, or the nightmare of a distempered imagination. To ourselves it as the speaking with unknown tongues to the early ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... raiment and decked with her goodliest adornments. When she saw him, she came to meet him, laughing and said, "A blessed night! But hadst thou slain my father and my husband, it had been more to my mind." And he said, "There is no help but I slay them." Then she made him sit down and began to jest with him and make show of love caressing him and smiling in his face so that his reason fled; but she cajoled him with her coaxing and cunning only that she might get possession of the ring and change ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... have not tried. Pandanus fruit is made, in the Gilberts, into an agreeable sweetmeat, such as a man may trifle with at the end of a long dinner; for a substantial meal I have no use for it. The rest of the food-supply, in a destitute atoll such as Fakarava, can be summed up in the favourite jest of the archipelago—cocoa-nut beefsteak. Cocoa-nut green, cocoa-nut ripe, cocoa-nut germinated; cocoa-nut to eat and cocoa-nut to drink; cocoa-nut raw and cooked, cocoa-nut hot and cold—such is the bill of fare. And some of the entrees are no doubt ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tease you, then, old Simon," answered James Starr. "Far be it from me even in jest to depreciate the New Aberfoyle mine by an unjust comparison! I only meant to say one thing, and that is that we ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... "Jest what I expected of you, chief," Peter said warmly. "I thought as how you'd manage to git speech with 'em somehow. If there's a feast to-night, it's hard ef we don't manage to ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... penalties of the law; allowed them to build a church at Constantinople, respected the miracles of their saints, invited their bishop Acesius to the council of Nice; and gently ridiculed the narrow tenets of his sect by a familiar jest; which, from the mouth of a sovereign, must have been received with ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... Prissy! if 't ain't another book!" cried the good woman, as Prissy, quick to divine the meaning of the parcel, the like of which she had been made accustomed to before, sprang to her aunt's side within hearing of her exclamation. "If she ain't jest the feelingest and thoughtfullest—Well! open it yourself, child; there's no good of ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... with Monsieur de Ronquerolles' sister, the Comtesse de Serizy. That lady, the one who detested German sentimentality, was all the more exacting in the matter of prudery. By one of those inexplicable fatalities, Auguste now uttered a harmless jest which Madame de Serizy took amiss, and her brother resented it. The discussion took place in the corner of a room, in a low voice. In good society, adversaries never raise their voices. The next day the faubourg Saint-Germain and the Chateau talked over the affair. Madame de Serizy was warmly ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... word Rock is evidently the same as the German Rocken distaff). It was the day when the women resumed their spinning after the rest and gaiety of Christmas. From a poem of Herrick's it appears that the men in jest tried to burn the women's flax, and the women in return poured water on ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... "Jest you let Capt'in Kinzer handle dis yer boat," almost crustily, interposed Dick Lee. "He's de on'y feller on board ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... they passed along Cornhill in their coaches, with a guard of horse, the Earl of Lauderdale was addressed by a by-stander—"Oh, my lord, you are welcome to London! I protest, off goes your head as round as a hoop!"(1061) The ill-timed jest, which the earl passed off with a laugh, was wanting in fulfilment, for he lived to witness the Restoration and to earn the universal hatred of ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... between you and me, old man, there's always no tellin' what might turn up over in this yer monarchy. Things of course are different over our way. But jest now Malcolm will be satisfied to take the title and property ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... has done; and to have done mischief is of some importance. He sets his invention to work again, and produces a narrative of a robbery, or a murder, with all the circumstances of the time and place accurately adjusted. This is a jest of greater effect and longer duration. If he fixes his scene at a proper distance, he may for several days keep a wife in terror for her husband, or a mother for her son; and please himself with reflecting, that by ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... all vice—SELFISHNESS. Young as he was he became the fashion, and he fattened upon the plunder of his equals, who desired the honour of his acquaintance. Now, I had seen my uncle cheat, but I had never imitated his example; when the man of fashion cheated, and made a jest of his earnings and my scruples—when I saw him courted, flattered, honoured, and his acts unsuspected, because his connections embraced half the peerage, the temptation grew strong, but I still resisted it. However, my father always said ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... passed beyond their simplicity. They were stern enough to look upon her death, had that been the sentence, without a murmur at its severity, but had none of the heartlessness of another social state, which would find only a theme for jest in an exhibition like the present. Even had there been a disposition to turn the matter into ridicule, it must have been repressed and overpowered by the solemn presence of men no less dignified than the Governor, and several of his counsellors, a judge, a general, and the ministers of the ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... men trooping beside or after her, paced leisurely westward by a path little frequented and overgrown with herbage and flowers, which, as they caught the sunlight, began one and all to unfold their petals. So fared she on with her train, while the quirk and the jest and the laugh passed from mouth to mouth; nor had they completed more than two thousand paces when, well before half tierce,(1) they arrived at a palace most fair and sumptuous, which stood out somewhat from the plain, being situate upon a low eminence. On entering, they first ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... you. The Chisera is not a subject for jest or the favor of men; she is an advocate with the ...
— The Arrow-Maker - A Drama in Three Acts • Mary Austin
... in her aspect, that composure in her motion, that complacency in her manner, that if her form makes you hope, her merit makes you fear. But then again she is such a desperate scholar, that no country-gentleman can approach her without being a jest. As I was going to tell you, when I came to her house I was admitted to her presence with great civility; at the same time she placed herself to be first seen by me in such an attitude, as I think you call the posture of a picture, ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... could just as soon bow down and worship the generalised conception of a "wilderness of apes." Surely we are not going back to the days of Paganism, when individual men were deified, and the hard good sense of a dying Vepasian could prompt the bitter jest, "Ut puto Deus fio." No divinity doth hedge a modern man, be he even a sovereign ruler. Nor is there any one, except a municipal magistrate, who is officially declared worshipful. But if there is no spark of worship-worthy divinity in the individual twigs of humanity, ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... employed, "Non pinxit Alfaro." Years after, Palomino became sufficiently intimate with Alfaro, to ask him what he thought of Castillo's sarcastic inscription. "I think," replied the unabashed object of the jest, "that it was a great honor for me, who was then a beardless boy, to be treated as a rival by so ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... conviction of her perfect happiness; for it is a great point of honor among girls similarly situated to look as cheerful and gay as possible—the same feeling, though in a different degree, which induces the gallant highwayman to jest in the presence of the multitude when the hangman's cord is within an inch of his neck; the same which makes a gallant general, whose life is forfeited, command his men to fire on him; the same which makes the Hindoo widow ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... you? It may be I sat up To make my Lady merry with this Jest, But now, forsooth, I'm grown too Old to please her. You are her favourite—what, come again? O, do not stare so at ...
— The Fatal Jealousie (1673) • Henry Nevil Payne
... all the dirt that surrounds them, because it is a sign of success in the main object of their voyage. The men in a clean whale ship are never happy. When everything is filthy, and dirty, and greasy, and smoky, and black—decks, rigging, clothes, and person—it is then that the hearty laugh and jest and song are heard as the crew work busily, night and day, at their ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... harvest-field or the threshing-floor had doubtless passed into a mere pretence long before the classical era, and was probably regarded by the reapers and threshers themselves as no more than a rough jest which the license of a harvest-home permitted them to play off on a passing stranger, a comrade, or even on ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... seen Done at the Mermaid, heard words that have been So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, As if everyone from whence they came Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, And had resolved to live a fool the rest Of his dull life; then when there hath been thrown Wit able enough to justify the town For three days past; wit that might warrant be For the whole city to talk foolishly Till that were cancelled; and when that was gone, We left an air ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... tyrannical superstition of the medicine-man than decades of preaching and reasoning would have done. No man living could have done the thing with like effect, nor any woman save one of her complete self-possession and natural authority. The younger villagers chuckle over the jest of it to this day, and the old witch-doctor himself was crouching at her feet and, as one may say, eating out of her hand, within ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... and declared that it would be so tied up that Mark would gain nothing but a dull, plain little wife. Not thus deterred, Mark only asked of him discretion; and when, trying to cloak his earnest under faltering jest, he declared that he had a regard for the Brandons, and should get into a scrape with his father, his friend held out the allurement of freedom from his difficulties, but was obliged to touch on this lightly, for Arthur's honour ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was no one found bold enough - with his head thus in the lion's mouth - to swerve from his obedience to Pizarro; and every man took the oath prescribed, which was administered in the most solemn and imposing form by the licentiate. Carbajal, as usual, made a jest of the whole proceeding. "How long," he asked his companion, "do you think these same oaths will stand? The first wind that blows off the coast after we are gone will scatter them in air!" His ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... and you jest not well, How could the hand be enemy of the arm, Or seed and sod be rivals! How could light Feel jealousy of heat, plant of the leaf, Or competition dwell 'twixt lip and smile? Are we not part and parcel of yourselves? Like strands in one great braid ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... ruins, certain old men, pariahs, animated lumps of dirt and rags. They are so uncouth and unclean, so utterly non-human, that one wonders whether they are really of the sons of Adam, and not rather goblins, or possibly some freak, some ill-natured jest on the part of the vegetable or mineral kingdoms. Day after day they come and burrow for orts among the dust-heaps, or brood motionless in the sunshine, or trace cabalistic signs with their fingers in the sand—the future, they tell you, can be unriddled out ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... disappearin' right along. Sometimes I think it's a mink that's gettin' 'em, but they ain't any signs of sech a critter around; 'cause you know a mink'll kill as many as a dozen fowls in one night, and jest ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... the jest and drew herself up. "You have no right to say that, Asticot. I would sooner be the Master's servant than the mistress or even the wife of any man living. He is everything to me, my little Asticot, everything, do you hear? although he loves me just as he loves ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... hiding-place, expecting what should be there. It was empty! They looked into each other's faces with blank astonishment. Everything had been so strangely true, and so strangely false, up to this moment, that they could not comprehend this failure at the last moment. It was the strangest, saddest jest! It brought Middleton up with such a sudden revulsion that he grew dizzy, and the room swam round him and the cabinet dazzled before his eyes. It had been magnified to a palace; it had dwindled down to Liliputian size; and yet, up till now, it had seemed to contain in its diminutiveness all ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... kept close to the Omnibus, so close that John could see the white faces of Wharton and Carstairs and their hands clenching the sides. But he remembered his own original experience, and he was not disposed to jest at them now. ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... younger than her cousins, was also less of her age. She was pretty and sweet-tempered, but timid and without energy of character. Her timidity and her littleness made her the jest of her companions, and in their play-hours she had often cause to feel and acknowledge their superiority in age and size; but as their teasing of her proceeded more from unchecked liveliness than real ill-nature, and as she was too gentle to retort upon ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown
... newspapers is preparing an article on the 'Antiquity of Modern Humor.' With your kind permission, Mrs. Smithers, I'll take down your remark and hand it over to Mr. Scribuler as a specimen of the modern antique joke. You may not be aware of the fact, but that jest is to be found in the rare first edition of the Tales of Bobbo, an Italian humorist, who stole everything he ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs
... Yes, it would, too! Jest you listen to me! Now if so be we were to go and publish about Marian's fortune, we'd have a whole herd of fortune hunters, who don't care a cent for anything but fortune, running after and worrying the life out of her, and maybe one of them marrying of her, and ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... schoolboy's vain parade, Of books and cases—all his stock in trade— The pert conceits, the cunning tricks and play Of low attorneys, strung in long array, The unseemly jest, the petulant reply, That chatters on, and cares not how, or why, Strictly avoid—unworthy themes to scan, They sink the speaker and disgrace the man, Like the false lights, by flying shadows cast, Scarce seen when present ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... Raleigh, He cursed the mild cigar, He traced to pipe and cabbage leaf Consumption and catarrh; He railed at simple bird's-eye, By freshmen only tried, And with rude and bitter jest assailed The ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... cloud of smoke. Serving-women, hired for the occasion, gaily coifed and be-ribboned, holding bottles and glasses elbowed their way to the men who shouted the loudest for drink, and, catching the jest in the air, gave one as good or as bad in exchange. The scene was one for another Teniers to paint, although there were no costumes to give a local colour to the picturesque. Most of the older men wore the ugly short blouse—generally black in this part of France; but ambitious ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... surround you with beauty and comfort, furnish you with friends, and make every thing delightful so far as another could do for you, what kind of feelings ought you to entertain toward the good spirit? If you should forget him in your enjoyments, should abuse his gifts, should make him the subject of jest and sport, and blaspheme his name, would you not, in your thoughtful moments, despise yourself for your ingratitude? And yet this good spirit, in the supposed case, would not do for you a tithe your heavenly Father is doing for you every day; for life, and breath, ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... sermons; but Namu's sermons are his own, and I cannot deny that I have found them means of grace. Moreover, he has a keen curiosity in secular things, does not fear work, is clever at carpentering, and has made himself so much respected among the neighbouring pastors that we call him, in a jest which is half serious, the Bishop of the East. In short, I was proud of the man; all the more puzzled by his letter, and took an occasion to come this way. The morning before my arrival, Vigours had been sent on board the Lion, and Namu was perfectly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the facts of the sexual life, from the age of ten onwards. He insists much on this subject in his great treatise, the Elementarwerk (1770-1774). The questions of children are to be answered truthfully, he states, and they must be taught never to jest at anything so sacred and serious as the sexual relations. They are to be shown pictures of childbirth, and the dangers of sexual irregularities are to be clearly expounded to them at the outset. Boys are to be taken to hospitals to see the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... said, "I wish I wuz in your place for an hour or two. They've jest got to wait on you. Nobody ever believes me when I say I'm sick, though I'm took pow'ful bad sometimes, an' they don't care whether I'm tired or not. Now, Paul, take all the advantages o' your position. Don't you reach ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... her husband's a kinder Barrin or some sorter furrin noble,—she was in Paris, not mor'n two weeks ago! Said she was dyin' to come back to the ol' place agin, but she wa'n't none too well, and didn't guess she c'd manage it. Ef ye said ye seen her here las' night—why—well, I'd jest think ye'd bin dreamin'. P'raps ye're a little under the weather—bin ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... been to them first a gazing stock, and afterwards were their laughing stock, and, perhaps, not unlikely their mockery; they had been their admiration, their buffoons, their wonder and their scorn, a by-word and a jest. Else why this double dealing, this deceit, this chicanery, these hollow professions? "Why," as Richard Lander says, "did they entrap us in this manner? Why have they led us about as though we had been blind, only ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... anythin', old man, but I 'll scout 'round thar a bit, jest ter ease yer mind, an' see ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... into town with some turnips, And my little Gabe come along, - No four-year-old in the county Could beat him for pretty and strong, Peart and chipper and sassy, Always ready to swear and fight, - And I'd larnt him to chaw terbacker Jest to keep his ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... boys. I've be'n hearin' quite considerable 'bout what ye was adoin' over here, an' I thort as how I'd jest drap in to see ye all; sorter like returnin' yer call, so to speak!" he said, again allowing a humorous look to appear ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... f'r th' pris'ner,' says Matther Blamange. 'Get out ye'ersilf,' says Matther Blamange. 'I'm as good a man as ye ar-re. I will ask that gintleman who jest wint out the dure, Does it pay to keep ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... or is it else your pleasure, Like pleasant travellers, to break a jest Upon the company you ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... Antony invited her to supper, and was very desirous to outdo her as well in magnificence as contrivance; but he found he was altogether beaten in both, and was so well convinced of it that he was himself the first to jest and mock at his poverty of wit and his rustic awkwardness. She, perceiving that his raillery was broad and gross and savored more of the soldier than the courtier, rejoined in the same taste, and fell into it at once, without any sort of reluctance or reserve, for ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... "keep watch upon your tongue, for there are things that should not be said even as a silly jest. See you, I love my cousin here better than aught ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... A jest upon the nouns of Time would, perhaps, be somewhat ill timed: we hope, however, to ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh
... them all the oaths of a free company. So much wine, and no more, should they have; when they frowned, I let them see that their frowning and their half-drawn knives mattered no doit to me. It was their whim—a huge jest of which they could never have enough—still to make believe that they sailed under Kirby. Lest it should spoil the jest, and while the jest outranked all other entertainment, they obeyed as though I had been indeed that fierce ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... calmly puffing at a cigarette given him by the bearers, and attempts to raise himself on his elbow that he may gaze at the curious scenes taking place around him. Others just stagger along, their pinched faces showing signs of suppressed pain, yet all have a quip or a jest on their lips as they smoke the inevitable cigarette. The sight is truly a wonderful one! The courage and calm that these wounded display in the midst of their sufferings is beyond words, but they are "Greatheart's all." Reinforcements are passing all this time on their way up to the battle ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... somethin' 'bout how we served God. Um, um, child, I tell you jest how we use to do. We use to worship at different houses. You see you would git a remit to go to dese places. You would have to show your remit. If de Pattyrollers, caught you dey would whip yo'. Dats de wa' dey done in dem da's. Pattyrollers, is a gang of white ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States, From Interviews with Former Slaves - Virginia Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... volume which I had taken up was the Mad Trist of Sir Launcelot Canning[25]; but I had called it a favorite of Usher's more in sad jest than in earnest; for, in truth, there is little in its uncouth and unimaginative prolixity which could have had interest for the lofty and spiritual ideality of my friend. It was, however, the only book immediately at hand; and I indulged a vague hope that the ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... despite of depressing influences, the escort were lightening the journey with chat and jest, when they were called to ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... to be brothers," said he, with the grin of one too well accustomed to knavery to trust any thing opposed to his own observation. "I suppose them's things happens in Canada as elsewhere," said he, laughing, and hoping the jest might turn her flank. Meanwhile the press-leader never took his eyes off me, as I arranged plates and folded napkins with all the skill which my early education in ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... do no good, your apologizin'. Jest lay down and get to sleep in a hurry, or I'll know ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger
... with my book ready, I was at last quite tired of the contest, and shutting it, 'I perceive,' cried I, 'that none of you have a mind to be married.'" We should like to have seen the dinner-party, and the two Miss Flamboroughs ready to die with laughing. "One jest I particularly remember: old Mr Wilmot drinking to Moses, whose head was turned another way, my son replied, 'Madam, I thank you.' Upon which the old gentleman, winking upon the rest of the company, observed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... they do not lie, they are not affected. When they love they are not tasting a forbidden fruit, but are binding themselves for their whole life. Thus understood, love becomes almost a holy thing; the spectator no longer wishes to be malicious or to jest; women do not think of their own happiness, but of that of the loved ones; they aim not at ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... meant, as it would seem, for a jest. Compare the description of Giants in Dante, Inf. XXI and XXII. Perhaps Leonardo had the Giant Antaeus in his mind. Of him the myth relates that he was a son of Ge, that he fed on lions; that he hunted in Libya and killed the inhabitants. He enjoyed the peculiarity of renewing his strength ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... falsehood spoken by me before, O blessed lady, even in jest. What need then be said of (such a solemn occasion as) preparing sanctified food with the aid of Vedic formulae after igniting the fire? It was ordained of yore by Destiny, O amiable one! I have ascertained it all by ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... there is any poorhouse in Chicago," thought Walter, not wholly in jest. "It is not the sort of home I should prefer, but it is ...
— Walter Sherwood's Probation • Horatio Alger
... had read that, looked at Braceway out of tortured eyes. This turning of his tragedy into jest defied his strength. ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... notwithstanding, most heartily and sincerely sorry, for my own sake and the sake of thousands, who may now go and whistle for a theatre—at least, such a theatre as you gave them; and I do now in my heart believe that for a long and dreary time that exquisite delight has passed away. If I may jest with my misfortunes, and quote the Portsmouth critic of Mr. Crummles's company, I say that: "As an exquisite embodiment of the poet's visions and a realisation of human intellectuality, gilding with ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... wits had already applied this threadbare jest to himself. Taking it into their heads that this villa (which was also, I believe, a Casa Saluzzo) had been the one fixed on for his own residence, they said "Il Diavolo e ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... sight of one soldier overturning a full cream tub and slamming it down on the head of another, whilst on his return from Worcester he spent a day hawking in the fields near Aylesbury. 'Oliver,' we hear, 'loved an innocent jest.' Music and song were cultivated in his family. If the graver Puritans did not admit what has been called 'promiscuous dancing' into their households, they made no attempt to prohibit it elsewhere." In the spring of 1651 appeared the "English ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... streets of Athens offered nothing more attractive than the keen discussions, the piercing satire, and the calm philanthropy of Socrates. But now it is politics which rules the city and the country; the times of deep reflection, of slowly maturing thought, are past; and now that erudition is a jest, ancient learning an exploded chimera, and elaborated eloquence known chiefly by recollection, the ample gazette runs its daily career, and heralds, in ephemeral language, the deeds of the passing hours. The age of accumulated learning is past, and ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... not yet having found his lost temper, became exceedingly angry at this poor jest; so he rushed at the dog and ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum
... excited by the bright sayings that fell from her lips, the youth put forth some platitude, dim as the lamp in the expiring fire-fly. When he slipped in grammar she saw malice under it, when he retailed a borrowed jest she called it a good one, and when he used —as princes sometimes will —bad language, she discovered ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... Bettie'll have somethin' fur de occasion—it's a shame dat doctah won't let Captain Gordon hab no pie nor nuthin', but makes him eat jest dem beat biscuits, when he likes de soft ones so much de best. I'll be ready, chile, on de day 'fore Christmas, so don' you worry ...
— Grandfather's Love Pie • Miriam Gaines
... adult, he (or she) will find that though the plan will work much better at some points than the usual plan, at others it will not work at all; and this discovery may provoke him to turn back from the whole conception of children's rights with a jest at the expense of bachelors' and old maids' children. In dealing with children what is needed is not logic but sense. There is no logical reason why young persons should be allowed greater control of their property the day after they are twenty-one than the day before ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... afternoon, I met her near the Casino, my heart almost made me faint, it beat so violently. She too could not live without me, for had she not said that she had NEED of me? Or had that too been spoken in jest? ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... traitress, where's the jest Of wearing orange on thy breast, When underneath that bosom shows The whiteness of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... the scaffold one must have committed some crime—stolen, or committed murder, or done something dreadful; and it is not likely I shall do that. It was a jest, ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... truths environ us that it may safely be said that few men can be found, of the wickedest even, who have not for counsel and guide a grave and respectable truth. Yes, it is a truth—the vastest, most certain of truths, if one will—that our life is nothing, and our efforts the merest jest; our existence, that of our planet, only a miserable accident in the history of worlds; but it is no less a truth that, to us, our life and our planet are the most important, nay, the only important phenomena in the history of worlds. And of these truths ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... one or two hundred thousand francs represented nothing to his mind, and he had heard that certain dissolutions of marriage had cost as much as half a million. So, by way of response, he could only find a jest: "Give them my ring as well," said he; "give them everything, my dear, and we shall still be happy in this old palace even if we have to sell ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... jest; we talked incessantly all the time. I do not know what I said, I was so happy. She told me that she had seen me once before, a long time ago, in the theatre. I had then comrades with me, and I behaved ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... air! Coming, going, ever fair! In thy talk and in thy toying, In thy jest and in thy joying, In thy kissing, in thy coying. I am sore distressed for thee. Such a woe has come on me That I trow not to win free, ...
— Aucassin and Nicolette - translated from the Old French • Anonymous
... general," replied Mirabeau, "since you will have it so, let her live! A humbled queen may be fit for something, but a queen with her throat cut is only good as the subject of a bad tragedy!" This atrocious remark, which treated the bloodshed of a woman as a jest, was subsequently known by the queen, who however forgave Mirabeau, and did not allow it to interfere with her liaisons with the great orator. But the cold-blooded infamy must have found its way to her heart as an ominous warning of ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... take a jest. "Let us talk seriously," he said to Prince della Mirandola. "Tell me what merit one can have in telling God that one is persuaded of things of which in fact one cannot be persuaded? What pleasure can that give God? Between ourselves, saying that one believes ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... the French or the jest: he floundered for his words: he did not know whether to be angry or not. The innkeeper's wife took ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... see but jest a house," remarked President, as I held out my hand, "an' girls ain't ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... Massa," grinned Chris, who was plucky enough when he understood the nature of the threatened danger. "Golly, I jest reckon dis nigger got to stay and ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the result of a terrible inward struggle. He did contrive to accomplish this if he was waiting for her observation; but she sometimes took him unawares, starting a subject in which he was interested. Then, forgetting his character, he would talk eagerly or jest with her across the strip of water, until with a start he remembered what he had become. He would seek to recover himself after that; but of course it was too late to create a really lasting impression. Even when she left him alone, watching him, I fear, over the top ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... the canon on mule-back,—down, down, over four thousand feet,—and the jeering Scot went with us, sitting his mule uncompromisingly, and indulging in many a jest at the expense of the terrified women who felt, when too late to retreat, that it would have been better to heed his advice. Still, after the descent, and then the ascent, were safely accomplished, ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... it, in spite of you, and I know to whom to apply. Do you think you can play fast and loose with me and my love? No, no! I used to believe in you; I turned, a deaf ear to your traducers. My mad passion for you became known; I was the jest and the butt of the town. But you have opened my eyes, and at last I see clearly on whom my vengeance ought to fall. He was formerly my friend, and I would believe nothing against him; although ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Prince, laughing, "that is just a scar I have borne from birth. It is in the shape of a heart, and so, for a jest, my people call me the Prince ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... and public men, of parties in Church and State, whether in England or in Germany, there was no necessity for suppressing his remarks, for he had spoken his mind as freely on them elsewhere as in these letters. But any personal reflections written on the spur of the moment, in confidence or in jest, have been struck out, however strong the temptation sometimes of leaving them. Many expressions, too, of his kind feelings towards me have been omitted. If some have been left, I hope I may be forgiven for a pride ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... saith plainly that he that loveth and maketh a lie shall have his part 'in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone' (Rev 21:8,27). And yet thou art so far from dreading it, that it is thy delight to jest and jeer, and lie for a penny, or twopence, or sixpence, again. And also if thou canst make the rest of thy companions merry, by telling things that are false, of them that are better than thyself, thou dost not care a straw. Or if thou hearest a lie from, or of another, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... House (commonly called the Big House) and the Barons of Castle Raa. To prove his claim he spent his days in searching the registers of the parish churches, and his nights in talking loudly in the village inn. Half in jest and half in earnest, people called him "Neale the Lord." One day he was brought home dead, killed in a drunken quarrel with Captain O'Neill, a dissolute braggart, who had struck him over the temple with a stick. His wife, my grandmother, hung ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... that evening was heavily charged with gloom. ExSergeant Cook, usually a treasury of jest and anecdote, was silent and thoughtful. Mrs. Cook bustled about with her customary vigour, but she too was disinclined for conversation. The place was ominously empty. A quartette of school house juniors in one corner and a solitary ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... to implore him; but when I looked into his eyes and met his gaze cold as ice, I felt shame for my emotion; I hastened once more to discourse as coldly as I might of suits at law and of the district diets, and even to jest. All this, to be sure, was from pride, in order not to debase the name of the Soplicas, in order not to lower myself before a magnate by a vain request and receive a refusal—for what gossip there would have been among the gentry, if they had known ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... Jane, that's all jest as you say; but that there forest man never did save us to stay here. He done save us so we all could get AWAY from here. I expect he be mighty peevish when he find we ain't got no more sense than to stay right here after he done give us the ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... face as he numbered the wayfarers and speculated upon their fortunes and their future. Two or three friends who hailed him were answered by a quickening of his step and a curt nod of the handsome head. Alb's "curl," a fair flaxen curl upon a broad white forehead, had become a jest in Thrawl Street. "'E throws it at yer," the youths said—and ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... with the bishops, but still less was she fervent for God's glory and public Reformation. Accordingly, on the first Court day she handed Knox's letter, perhaps unread, to the Bishop of Glasgow, with the words, 'Please you, my Lord, to read a Pasquil.' The unwise jest came to Knox's ears, and some years after he published his letter with resentful additions and interpolations. In these he assumed—much too soon—that there was no longer hope of the Regent becoming personally convinced of the Evangel. ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... Bear," said the Onondaga confidently. "Tandakora will rage if we tell him some day that we were here, to be taken if he had only seen us. Now Lennox awakes also! O Dagaeoga, you have slept and missed all the great jest." ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... deeply, rosy pink within, and of a flavor and fragrance to shatter the fast of a Pope; and without, a brown-edged white layer, so firm that the lieutenant's deft carving knife, passing through, gave no hint to the eye that it was delicious fat. There had been merry jest and laughter and banter and gallant compliment before, but it was Richard Hunt's turn now, and story after story he told, as the rose-flakes dropped under his knife in such thin slices that their edges coiled. It was full half an hour before the carver and story-teller ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... glorified ones should stoop lower than even to the medium of their cast-off bodies, to juggle, and rap, and squeak, and perform mountebank tricks with tables and chairs; to recite over in weary sameness harmless truisms, which we were wise enough to say for ourselves; to trifle, and banter, and jest, or to lead us through endless moonshiny mazes. Sadly and soberly we say that, if this be communion with the dead, we had rather be without it. We want something a little in advance of our present life, ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... comparison with themselves; but, for all that, there are subtle and crafty folk to be found in every condition of life. Still, when those who think themselves the cleverest are caught tripping, their pride makes the jest a particularly pleasant one, and this I will try to show by telling you ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... looked up at her in the hope of catching from her face some clear intimation as to whether she was in jest or earnest, and demeaning himself accordingly. But her eyes were cast down and he could not make out the riddle. Driven by desperation, he dashed in, to prevent the possible propounding of another before he had time to come ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... were so fagged out they could scarcely stand. Dick and the guide had brought blankets with them, and one of these was placed over the opening temporarily, to keep out a large part of the wind. Then a candle was lit and John Barrow burnt up a little brushwood, "jest to take the chill outer the place," as he explained. They did not dare to let the flames grow too high for fear of setting fire to ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield
... and an indescribable emotion oppressed him as he heard her jest so gaily and saw her move about so freely with such grace and liveliness. She, good heavens! she whom he had seen for years with lifeless legs and colourless face! Since he had left her the day before at the Basilica she had blossomed into ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... think so kindly of me, madam," said he, "as she is a relation of yours, will you do me the honour to propose it to her father?" "And are you really then in earnest?" cries the lady, with an affected gravity. "I hope, madam," answered he, "you have a better opinion of me, than to imagine I would jest with your ladyship in an affair of this kind." "Indeed, then," said the lady, "I will most readily propose your lordship to her father; and I can, I believe, assure you of his joyful acceptance of the proposal; but there is a bar, which I am almost ashamed to mention; and yet it is one ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding |
