"Pert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pretty speech, but the "Good Night! Good Night! my dear, sweet, pretty mamma" is of the very spirit of the redundancy by which children hope in heaping words together to express accumulation of emotion. Du Maurier's children never make the nasty pert answers upon which, for their nearly impossible but always vulgar smartness, the providers of jokes about children for the comic papers generally depend. He is simply going on with his "novel"—The Tale of ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... nor even the Russian, made himself abhorred, employed his study in vexing the feelings of the people, had a perpetual sneer on his visage, or exhibited in his habits a perpetual affectation of that coxcomb superiority to all other human beings, that pert supremacy, that grotesque and yet irritating caricature, which makes the Moi, je suis Francais, a demand for universal adoration, the concentrated essence of absurdity, the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... Sagamoni Borcan mourut iiij vint et iiij foiz et tousjourz resuscita, et a chascune foiz d'une diverse maniere de beste, et a la derreniere foyz mourut hons et devint diex, selonc ce qu'il dient.'[17] Et fist encore Messires Marc: 'A moy pert-il trop estrange chose se juesques a toutes les creances des ydolastres deust decheoir ceste grantz et saige nation. Ainsi peuent jouer Misire li filsoufe atout lour propre perte, mes a l'ore quand tiex fantaisies se respanderont es joenes bacheliers et parmy la menue gent, celz averont pour ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... time to deliver the rather pert reply which she was preparing, for the door opened, and the young man ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... stooping over it, and go to the door myself. Whom do I see at the threshold? It is not a dripping love, and I am not an old Anacreon; but it is a very pretty little boy of about ten years old. He is alone; he raises his face to look at me. His cheeks are blushing; but his little pert nose gives one an idea of mischievous pleasantry. He has feathers in his cap, and a great lace-ruff on his jacket. The pretty little fellow! He holds in both arms a bundle as big as himself, and asks me if I am Monsieur Sylvestre Bonnard. I tell him yes; ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... would have made to this pert speech was cut short by a loud cry of pain or terror from the old half-dismantled barn on the other side of the road. All eyes were at once turned in that direction, and beheld Joe Fairthorn rushing at full speed down the bank, ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... 's a summerish day, and not feelin' just as pert as I oughter I reckon I 'll ride a right smart piece with you for ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... enemies said it reminded them of snakes. Her eyes were of a darker shade of ashen grey, verging on hazel. Her mouth was mobile, with thin lips and an expressive corner—the left-hand corner—and at this moment it suggested pert inquiry. Some people thought she had an expressive face, but then some people are singularly superficial in their mode of observation. There was really no power of expressing any feeling in the small, delicately cut face. It all lay in the mouth, ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... a beauty in her youth, and there were those who placed confidence in the rumour. Mrs. Stornaway did so herself, and it had been intimated that it was this excellent lady who had vouched for the truth of the statement in the first instance; but this report having been traced to a pert young relative who detested and derided her, might have had its origin in ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... The pert vivacity of La Fille at Montreuil was all we could find there worth remarking: it filled up my notions of French flippancy agreeably enough; as no English wench would so have answered one to be sure. She had complained of our avant-coureur's behaviour. "Il parle sur le bant ton, ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... not till my mother remembered that if she did not see herself that my bed was well aired I should certainly lose the use of my limbs, and therefore disappeared with Primmins and a pert chambermaid, who seemed to think we gave more trouble than we were worth, that I told my father of my ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... lawyer was far from laughing, but this was her only way of defending herself. These pert, bird-like ways formed her shield against ridicule ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... dead silence after Betty had read these few words of Christina Rossetti. The girls glanced from one to another. For a minute or so, at least, they could not be frivolous. Then Olive made a pert remark; another girl laughed; and the cloud, small at present as a man's hand, seemed to vanish. Betty replaced her book on Olive's book-shelf, and sat quite still and quiet. She knew she was a wet blanket—not the life and soul of the meeting, as was generally ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... being a light-haired, stiff-necked, free and easy sort of footman, with a swaggering air and pert face, had attracted Mr. Weller's special attention at first, but when he began to come out in this way, Sam felt more than ever disposed to cultivate his acquaintance; so he launched himself into the conversation at once, with ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... from indulging them in many rather doubtful ways. Chief among his foibles stood curiosity. He was a born gossip; and life, and especially those parts of it in which he had no experience, interested him to the degree of passion. He was a pert, invincible questioner, pushing his inquiries with equal pertinacity and indiscretion; he had been observed, when he took a letter to the post, to weigh it in his hand, to turn it over and over, and to study the address with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... spoke to him tenderly, telling him that he had come from a friend with a little money to enable him to buy what he might most pressingly require. At first, on seeing Pierre's cassock, the old man had growled some coarse words; but, despite his extreme feebleness, he still retained the pert chaffing spirit of the Parisian artisan: "Well, then, I'll willingly drink a drop," he said distinctly, "and have a bit of bread with it, if there's the needful; for I've lost taste of both for ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... assigned as a cause, We were all much too heavy to gallope and waltz. What impertinence this, want of grace to ascribe To the Lord of the whole Lepidopterous tribe; I too'll give a ball, and such folks to chastise, I'll not be at home to these pert butterflies. Bid the Empress[3] come hither, and we'll talk about What arrangements to make ...
— The Emperor's Rout • Unknown
... low cottage viewed from inland, and a tall, grim structure seen from the sea. On a higher level stands St. George's, once a church, but years ago promoted to a cathedral-dignity, making Freetown proud as Barchester Towers. We shall presently pass it and its caricature, the pert little Wesleyan church to its east. The extreme west of the triangle-base is occupied by the gaol. No longer a 'barn-like structure faced by a black wall,' it is a lengthy scatter of detached buildings, large enough to accommodate half the population, and distinguished ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... the deferential lover with more delicate or graceful attention. Poor fellow, the pert, intruding sparrows plague him abominably; and really it becomes almost an affair of police that some measures should be adopted for their exclusion. He is subject to fits, too, and suddenly, without the ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... words of entreaty upon his sister, but seized her in his arms, and pulling the coverlet in which she had huddled herself up with her pert chin on her knees, more closely about her, he strode along the passage with her in his arms till he stopped at an open door leading into a large chamber which looked ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... friends and warnings from Mackaye, I started next day on my journey. I arrived in the midst of a dreary, treeless country, and a little pert, snub-nosed shoemaker met me, and we walked together across the open down towards a circular camp, the earthwork, probably, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... England. The grown-up people often fancy that cold reserve, and an assumption of great state, indicate high birth and breeding. The younger branches seem frequently to think that there is no such thing at home as the period of adolescence; consequently, you often see a pert young master deliver his unasked opinion and behave before his seniors and superiors as though he wanted to intimate that he was wiser in ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... be A dashing damsel, gay and pert, A pattern of inconstancy; Or selfish, mercenary ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... a young girl, or very young woman. It is one of the prettiest words in the Nipponese language; it seems almost as if there were a little pout in the very sound—a pretty, taking little pout, such as they put on, and also as if a little pert physiognomy were described by it. I shall often make use of it, knowing none other in our own language that conveys ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... A pert, petulant young clerk, continually fooling with the mate, swearing at the stevedores and laboring men, who regard him ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... little Bit of, which I think may do you a good turn now and then. Give a look at 'Egypt of the Pharaohs' by Zincke, Vicar of a Parish near Woodbridge; the Book is written in a light, dashing (but not Cockney pert) way, easily looked over. There is a supposed Soliloquy of an English Labourer (called 'Hodge') as contrasted with the ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... was a mature Venus of thirty-six, of middle height, and with the voluptuous figure of a true Viennese, with bright eyes, thick dark hair, and beautiful white teeth, while her daughter Ida, who was seventeen, had light hair and the pert little nose of the china figures of shepherdesses in the dress of the period of Louis XIV., and was short, slim, and full of French grace. Besides them and the Count, a son of twelve and his tutor were present at supper. It struck the hussar ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... "Come, Miss Pert, you must mind your behaviour," says Florence; "remember, Mr Tankardew is a gentleman and ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... the afternoon he caught sight of his house (some of our folks was right behind, and they saw him), and he stood right up in the sleigh and shook his fist, he was so mad; but afterwards he bu'st out laughin'. It did look kind of curi's; it wa'n't bigger than a front entry, and it set up so pert right there on the heater-piece, as if he was calc'latin' to farm it. The folks said Susan Ellen covered up her face in her shawl and began to cry. I s'pose the pore thing was discouraged. Joseph was awful mad,—he was kind of laughing and cryin' together. Our folks stopped and asked him ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... of candle-shape, joined in batteries of six or twelve, with a pert handle at one side, and tiny holes at the tips, through which the wick-ends were thrust, by help of a long broom-straw. Well in place they were drawn taut, the reeds so placed as to hold the wicks centrally, then tallow melted with ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... action, the readiness, and above all the downright courage of the little woman, had its effect. A roar of sympathetic applause followed the act. "Cut and run while you can," she whispered hurriedly over her one shoulder, without altering the other's attitude of pert and saucy defiance toward the audience. But even as she spoke the poet tottered and sank fainting upon the stage. Then she threw a despairing whisper behind the scenes, "Ring down ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... maple and beech: or, with a startling call, a red-crested cock of the woods would beat his white-striped wings from spur to spur, as though he were keeping close to the long swells of an unseen sea. Several times, a pert flicker squatting like a knot to a dead limb or the crimson plume of a cock of the woods, as plain as a splash of blood on a wall of vivid green, tempted him to let loose his last load, but he withstood them. A little later, he saw a fresh bear-track near a spring below ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... Jenny's pert little nose seemed to turn up more than ever as she walked away, for she had not beaten her old playfellow quite as badly as usual. There were several sharp things on the very tip of her tongue, but ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... by the tossing up of caps; and by these harbingers I knew who were coming. When my palfrey eyed them askance for their clamorousness, and shrank somewhat back, they quarrelled with him almost before they saluted me, and asked him many pert questions. What a pleasant spot, Sidney, have you chosen here for meditation! A solitude is the audience-chamber of God. Few days in our year are like this; there is a fresh pleasure in every fresh posture of the limbs, in every turn ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... heroine of her, especially at noon, when her father was in New York and she, consequently, was alone. They pitied her, in a covert sort of fashion, because her father was going to get married again, especially Mrs. White and Lillian. Lillian was a very pretty girl, with a pert carriage of blond head, and a ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... it wears no outer sign; No more the signet of the mighty line Stamps the great brow for all the world to know. Shrunken the mould of manhood is, and lo! Fragments and fractions of the old divine, Men pert of brain, planned on a mean design, ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... however, always necessary that the person so signalized should be submissive. Now, Mrs. Carroll, Mr. Grey's sister, had long since shown that she was not submissive enough, nor were the girls, the eldest of whom was a pert, ugly, well-grown minx, now about eighteen years old. The second sister, who was seventeen, was supposed to be a beauty, but which of the two was the more odious in the eyes of their cousin it ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... right pert," he admitted; "pearter'n I've felt afore in years. You see, she was a good wife. She was a good-lookin' woman, an' smart as they make 'em, an' a fine housekeeper, an' she always done her duty by me an' the children, an' she warn't sickly, ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... in her new linsey-woolsey and shining bandana as a turban, started off in great glee for the Court House. That she might appear there fresh, brisk, and pert, she was not suffered to walk, but Washington, the coachman, was ordered to drive her in the ark of the plantation wagon. Joe, smart, smiling, and newly-equipped in clothes, sat by her side, scarcely knowing whether he had best share in his mother's uncommon gaiety, ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... it clear that it is not the reporters but the owners of the papers that should be censured. With the exception of a few garrulous and gushing geese, who think it smart to ask pert and meaningless questions, the male reporters that I have met have not only been serious and intelligent, but men with whom I have discussed literature, politics and religion; but it would not pay their editors, I presume, to publish conversations of this character. On the front page of ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... hold! before I close the scene, The sacred altar should be clean. Oh, had I Shadwell's second bays, Or, Tate! thy pert and humble lays,— Ye pair, forgive me, when I vow I never missed your works till now,— I'd tear the leaves to wipe the shrine, That only way you please the Nine; But since I chance to want these two, I'll make the songs ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... deserted all that afternoon, for Psyche sat in the orchard drawing squirrels on the wall, pert robins hopping by, buttercups and mosses, elves and angels; while May lay contentedly enjoying sun and air, sisterly care, and the "pretty things" she loved so well. Psyche did not find the task a hard ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... the heroine, who drove between them in a hansom and pair and received the shots in its panels! Out West, too, he could probably put more money in his pocket if he were disposed to put his pride there too. One pert youth in Arizona preferred to lose my order for cigars rather than bring the box to me for selection; he said "he'd be darned if he'd sling boxes around for me; I could come and choose for myself." However, ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... child, said she, in drollery, don't be too pert neither, I beseech thee. Thou wilt not find thy master's sister half so ready to take thy freedoms, as thy mannerly master is!—So, a little of that modesty and humility that my mother's waiting-maid used to ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... London, I went to St. James's Church last Sunday, and there opposite me sat my beauty of the Wells. Her behaviour during the whole service was so pert, languishing and absurd; she flirted her fan, and ogled and eyed me in a manner so indecent, that I was obliged to shut my eyes, so as actually not to see her, and whenever I opened them beheld hers (and ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... Well, Admiral, it may be the case; but still there is no excuse for your folly: and mark me, Sir Gilbert, I will not have that pert minx, Lucy Bargrove, closeted with my daughter Agnes. As to the boy, it is a downright puppy and fool, or, to speak less plebeianly, is a ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... under the spreading tent of the glade. Not a flower that bloomed the same: the roses differed in the fashion of their wooing. Some, shy and blushing, would show but a glimpse of bud, while others, panting and wide open, seemed consumed with infatuation for their persons. There were pert, gay little things that filed off, cockade in cap; there were huge ones, bursting with sensuous charms, like portly, fattened-up sultanas; there were impudent hussies, too, in coquettish disarray, on whose petals the white traces ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... cried Lionel, hurriedly (he was afraid some one might come, and then he would be snatched unceremoniously away from the open door, and the beggar sent smartly about his business by one of the pert-tongued maids); "but is it for ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann
... he seemed known, and several came to greet him and some to whisper in his ear. At last a pert boy in a satin suit that was striped in the Imperial livery of black and yellow, pushed his way through ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... Armada leaves me no repose," he said; "I can think of nothing else. I don't content myself with what I have written, but write again and again, although in great want of light. I hear that the Armada has sunk and captured many English ships, and is refitting in a Scotch pert. If this is in the territory, of Lord Huntley, I hope he will stir up the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... and the variety is quite astonishing. It appears like a large Shop full of toys, work-baskets, Columns, little Cottages, pyramids, mounts—in short, what is there in the form of a Monument which may not there be found? A pert little Column with a fanciful top, crowned by a smart wire basket filled with roses, marked the grave, I concluded, of some beautiful young girl of 15 or 16. Lo and behold! it was placed there to commemorate "un ancien Magistrat ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... Now your fader an' moder are honahing dar moder, an' you are goin' to hab a chance ter honah dem an' your granma, too. You will hab temptations in de streets ter be pert an' idle, ter stop an' talk to dis one and ter answer back to dat one in a way you shouldn't. But if you go along quiet an' steady, an' do what you're tole, an' be car'ful 'bout de money an' de messages an' de orders an' so forth, you will reflect honah on us all an' 'specially ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... quickness: "I am not to be Agatha, and I am sure I will do nothing else; and as to Amelia, it is of all parts in the world the most disgusting to me. I quite detest her. An odious, little, pert, unnatural, impudent girl. I have always protested against comedy, and this is comedy in its worst form." And so saying, she walked hastily out of the room, leaving awkward feelings to more than one, but exciting ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... mutual dependence upon each other. Not that he placed the slightest value on Waitstill's opinion of him, or cared in the smallest degree what she, or any one else in the universe, thought of his conduct; but she certainly did appear to advantage when contrasted with the pert little hussy who had just left the premises. Also, Waitstill loomed large in his household comforts and economies, having a clear head, a sure hand, and being one of the steady-going, reliable sort that can be counted on in emergencies, ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... "Ye be a pert girl, Tessibel, and I were a cuss for trying to scare ye—but the brindle bull has got ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... fine arts, and especially for the belles-lettres, he entertained a profound contempt. With this he had been inspired by Casimir Perier, whose pert little query "A quoi un poete est il bon?" he was in the habit of quoting, with a very droll pronunciation, as the ne plus ultra of logical wit. Thus my own inkling for the Muses had excited his entire displeasure. He assured me one day, when I asked him for a new copy of Horace, that ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Colonel at a hop Jazzing in his goloshes, With a dress-tie pert on a cricket-shirt That had shrunk in various washes; And my Major was doing the Donkey-Drop Between a couple of rippers— Yet his pink-and-white pyjama-top If anything seemed a shade de trop, And his faultless coat hardly echoed the note ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... Pert," said her mother, laughing. "I wish you would learn to be more steady and to remember what is ...
— Naughty Miss Bunny - A Story for Little Children • Clara Mulholland
... them, too, when their sweethearts came along, and seen—oh, yes, many, many things have I seen, and many, many things have I heard of those fair young ladies of quality. She belongs to them, and she likes that good-for-nothing, pert little Susy Hopkins! Yet it don't matter to me. Susy shall have my good graces if she has secured those of Miss ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... dead sorry for her having to work so hard! It's a comfort to her now to see you doin' so well. Where have been now? I saw you comin' out of the doctor's office just now—anybody sick? You're not looking as pert as usual yourself—you haven't been powdering' your face, I hope! No one sick, eh? Just a friendly call then, was it? See here, Pearl—when I was young, girls did not do the chasin', we let the men do that, and I'm here to tell you it's the best way. And look here, there's enough ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... is the part of the tale which leaves a melancholy impression; Goldsmith has so determined it—and to his judgment we bow implicitly. Had any other author so wretchedly disposed of his heroine, in a work not professedly tragic, we should have been pert as critics usually are. Mrs Primrose is certainly here too young. We cannot keep our eyes off Olivia; and see, the scoundrel has slyly taken her innocent hand, and the other is put up to her neck in such modest doubt of the liberty ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... if you do not know these, you are not entitled to give any opinion on the subject. Whenever any skeptic or bigot claims to be heard on the questions of intellect and morals, we ask if he is familiar with the books of Plato, where all his pert objections have once for all been disposed of. If not, he has no right to our time. Let him go ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... tell me where to shear, for she had played In childhood under them, and 'twas her pride To keep them in their beauty. Plague I say On their new-fangled whimsies! we shall have A modern shrubbery here stuck full of firs And your pert poplar trees;—I could as soon Have plough'd my father's grave as cut ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... creak your joints," answered Louisa Helen with a pert little toss of her curly head as she passed him and stood by Rose Mary's table. "Miss Rose Mary, I wanter to show you this Sunday waist I've done made Maw and get you to persuade her some about it for me. ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... diatribe concerning the lively Judith: "Surely you remember her, Jeff. She used to come here selling blackberries when she was a kid—a little barefooted girl and as pert as you please even then. After old Dick Buck died she used to trap rabbits and bring them here for sale and sometimes fish. It always made me mad for Aunt Em'ly to encourage her by making Mother buy the things. I think poor persons should ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... times, fair game for their stings and arrows. In one of the northern hotels, there used to be a portly and rubicund waiter who might have passed for the High Priest of the Goddess of Health. His face shone, if I may say so, with the radiance of perfect digestion. A pert commercial, one day, approached him with an affected look of deep concern and said, "Well, I hope you're keeping better," accompanying the remark with a dig in the waiter's stomach. The waiter, who had never known a minute's ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... he uttered them, before Mr. Middleton regretted his forward and pert words, for never before had he answered the emir lightly, such was his respect for him as a man of goodly parts and as one set in authority, and such was his gratitude toward him as a benefactor. Stammering ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... I'd have got out of the scrape at any price," said he, bold as brass. "But I'm sorry for that beautiful creature. She must lead a beastly life, between a silly, overdressed woman and a pert minx. Poor child, she's evidently as hard up as I am, or she wouldn't stand it. She's miserable with ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... was rude and noisy, when I tried so hard to be still. I made some hateful remark about her in the hall, which she overheard, and when Mrs. Lindsey scolded me for it, saying she was a very wealthy lady from Florida, and accustomed to every attention at home, I said back some pert things, I suppose, for she threatened to write and tell you, and so I thought I'd come and ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... one of these journeys, if any strange suspicious sights are seen, my lord whale keeps a wary eye on his interesting family. Should any unwarrantably pert young Leviathan coming that way, presume to draw confidentially close to one of the ladies, with what prodigious fury the Bashaw assails him, and chases him away! High times, indeed, if unprincipled young rakes like him are to be permitted to invade the sanctity ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the whole will read a work today, Of moderate sense, with any pleasure? And as regards the dear young people, they Pert and precocious are beyond ...
— Faust • Goethe
... He was tired of the house, tired of the frozen garden, tired of scolding the slovenly girl who pottered around all day in a boudoir cap and slovenly wrapper. Tired of Anna's rebellious face and pert answers. ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... There's a pert little poppet called Polly, Who frequently falls into folly! She's a terrible tongue For a 'creetur' so young, But if she were dumb she'd ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... performances, was determined to do the thing in style. Bertha and Carmel between them evolved a poster. It was painted in sepia on the back of one of Dulcie's school drawings, sacrificed for the purpose. It represented the profile of a rather pert looking young person with a tip-tilted nose and an eye several sizes larger than was consistent with the usual anatomy of the human countenance. Lower down, in somewhat shaky lettering, was set forth the ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... a readiness that was practically pert. "To have it, first. Not, at any rate, to go on not having it. Then ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... pert stare of the village girls, the glimpses of happy homes caught through the windows, and the noisy stir of life, only made more striking the contrast of her own lonely lot. Gladly would she hasten back to her own silent fireside, where the cats, at least, were glad of her ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... simple. You have an instrument ready to your hands. You can do just what you like with him—make an Italian of him; make him renounce his engagement to this pert little Lena of Lenkenstein, break his sword, play Arlecchino, do what you please. He is not required for any outrageous performance. A week, and Angelo will have recovered his strength; you likewise may resume the statuesque demeanour which you have been exhibiting ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... back our old chair, the rocker with the red roses onto it. Seems ter me them roses must 'a' knowed all the time that this was a-goin' ter happen. They was jest as pert an' ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... more uninviting than Birmingham; for the houses are built of brick toned down to a grimy red by smoke, in long streets crossing each other at right angles,—and the few modern stone buildings and blocks of houses seem as pert and as much out of place as the few idle dandies who are occasionally met among the crowds of busy mechanics and anxious manufacturers. What neatness—cleanliness—can do for the streets, bell-pulls, and door-knockers, ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... pert canaille! Smile away! That mighty hour Dawns wherein we shall be freed From your bondage ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... a question, others a felicity in replying to the motive which prompted the question. In one case you get an answer addressed to your understanding; in the other, an answer which smites like a slap in the face. Thus, when a pert skeptic asked Martin Luther where God was before He created heaven, Martin stunned his querist with the retort,—"He was building hell for such idle, presumptuous, fluttering, and inquisitive spirits as you." And everybody will recollect the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... owed this—Mr. an' Mis' Holly did—and they had agreed ter pay it next Sat'day. And they was all right, too. They had it plum saved in the bank, an' was goin' ter draw it Thursday, ter make sure. An' they was feelin' mighty pert over it, too, when ter-day along comes the news that somethin's broke kersmash in that bank, an' they've shet it up. An' nary a cent can the Hollys git now—an' maybe never. Anyhow, not 'fore it's too ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... began with Jemima. They were all pretty, but she was a love—yet there was an awkwardness about them that convinced me they were not of the bon ton of Philadelphia. The answers to all my questions were quick, pert, and given with an air of assumed consequence; at the same time I observed a mode of expression which, though English, was ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... splendid achievement in Berlin woolwork, that was to be the glory of an approaching charity bazaar, was rapidly advancing towards completion. The design was a group of dogs, after Landseer, and Miss Granger was putting in the pert black nose of a Skye-terrier as the gentlemen entered. The two ladies were as far apart as they well could be in the spacious room, and had altogether an inharmonious air, Mr. Granger thought; but then he was nervously anxious that these two ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... after Quebec it is English. There are weather-beaten farm-houses, rolling country, thickets of trees, little hills green and grey in the distance, decorous small fields, orchards, and, I swear, a hedge or two. Most of the towns we went through are a little too vivacious or too pert to be European. But there seemed to be real villages occasionally, and the land had ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... I will particularly caution you against either using, believing, or approving them. They are the common topics of witlings and coxcombs; those, who really have wit, have the utmost contempt for them, and scorn even to laugh at the pert things that those would-be wits say upon ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... paused, then went on thoughtfully: "Unfortunately money won't buy happiness. I can't do very much for her—only give her what money can buy. But even the harmony of material environment means a great deal to Nan—the difference between a pert, indifferent maid and a civil and experienced one; flowers in your rooms; a taxi instead of a scramble for a motor-'bus. Just small things in such a big thing as life, but they ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... an exciting event occurred. It concerned Susy's pony. Percy Eastman said he was called Wings "because he hadn't any feet." Susy was vexed at this remark, and Prudy, taking her part, said, "Percy is such a pert boy;" adding next moment, "What is pert?" ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May
... out so young Wid a look in its face like a sassy tongue, Den it grows light-headed wid self-conceit Wid a flighty ol' age, for full defeat. An' it ain't by itself, pert chillen, in dat— No, it ain't by itself ...
— Daddy Do-Funny's Wisdom Jingles • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... English correspondence naturally falls; while a still younger one at Marseilles has the French. For the Italian was found a musician, on his first trip into the world; while the youngest of all, a sort of pert nestling, had applied himself to Jew-German,—the other languages having been cut off from him,—and, by means of his frightful ciphers, brought the rest of them into despair, and my parents into a hearty laugh at the ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... news for me from Unterwald? What of my father? 'Tis not to be borne Thus to be pent up like a felon here! What have I done so heinous that I must Skulk here in hiding, like a murderer? I only laid my staff across the fists Of the pert varlet, when before my eyes, By order of the governor, he tried To drive away ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... others in discoloured travel-stained garments, who pressed about the soprano with cries of joyous recognition. He was evidently an old favourite of the band, for a duenna in tattered velvet fell on his neck with genial unreserve, a pert soubrette caught him by the arm the duenna left free, and a terrific Matamor with a nose like a scimitar slapped him on the back with a ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... he had such grace in his soul, and such communion with God, that though he had yet a body of sin within him, it was a rare thing for him to see his wretchedness (Num 11:14,15); that is, to see it pert, lively, and powerful in him. Indeed God saith, that upon the land of his people shall come up briars and thorns; 'yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city; because the palaces shall be forsaken, the multitude of the city shall be left, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... "What a wicked, satirical, pert young man you have become! Comme vous voila forme!" said the young lady, "How different from Arthur Pendennis of the country! Ah! I think I like Arthur Pendennis of the country best, though!" and she gave him the full benefit of her eyes—both of the fond, appealing glance into ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... half-dead, and we asked no questions until she told us. She's been sick and fretful since, but I guess there's nothing you can do. When we can't keep a sick woman who has done good work for us a while we'll give up the business. She'll be pert ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... continued Tom, "Cockney is universally known to be the contemptuous appellation given to an uneducated native of London, brought into life within the sound of Bow bell—pert and conceited, yet truly ignorant, they generally discover themselves by their mode of speech, notwithstanding they have frequent opportunities of hearing the best language; the cause, I apprehend, is a carelessness of every thing but the accumulation of money, which is considered so important ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... being sorry when he saw him stretched out stiff near his home in the woodpile. "He was a pert little rascal;" said Jim. "I did kind o' hate to kill him; but he should have stayed with his own folks, if he wanted to be let alone. It's too ...
— The Hunter Cats of Connorloa • Helen Jackson
... sunshine of the morn A butterfly (but newly born) Sat proudly perking on a rose, With pert conceit his bosom glows; His wings (all glorious to behold) Bedropt with azure, jet, and gold, Wide he displays; the spangled dew Reflects his eyes and various hue. His now forgotten friend, a snail, Beneath his house, with slimy trail, Crawls o'er the grass, whom when he spies, In wrath ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... pert Bookseller give himself the Airs of Judging a Performance so far, as to Condemn the Correctness of what he knows nothing of these there's a pretender to Authorship in the City, who Rules the young Fry of Biblioples about ...
— A Vindication of the Press • Daniel Defoe
... all the care That waits upon a favourite heir, Ne'er felt correction's rigid hand; Indulged to disobey command, In pampered ease his hours were spent; He never knew what learning meant. Such forward airs, so pert, so smart, Were sure to win his lady's heart; Each little mischief gained him praise; How pretty were his fawning ways! 10 The wind was south, the morning fair, He ventured forth to take the air. He ranges all the meadow round, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... spring it one of these days when we're hard up for copy. Jack Frost must be a married man, did you see him try to cover up the show windows with his little traceries the other day when the shopping was at its height? There was a pert little hat in a window on Walnut Street we were very much afraid someone might see; the frost saved us. Don't forget to put Red Cross seals on your letters. Delightful to watch the faces on the streets at Christmas time. Everybody trying ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... about my poor daughter Amy, and what a sprightly, pert piece she was, and how dem awful Secesh took my poor chile ...
— Minnie's Sacrifice • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... womb, Grown old in fraud, though yet in manhood's bloom, 70 Adopting arts by which gay villains rise, And reach the heights which honest men despise; Mute at the bar, and in the senate loud, Dull 'mongst the dullest, proudest of the proud; A pert, prim, prater of the northern race,[16] Guilt in his heart, and famine in his face, Stood forth,—and thrice he waved his lily hand, And thrice he twirled his tye, thrice stroked his band:— At Friendship's call (thus oft, with traitorous aim, Men void of faith usurp Faith's ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... filling his water-bag. They both hoped to pull wool off dead sheep and make some more money that way. They had quite made up their minds about what they wanted to get: it must be house plants for ma; but still they both wished they could get some little thing for pa. They were not pert or forward in any way, but they answered readily and we all drew them ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... mild and placid little woman in dove-gray came walking from the bridge and handed over her penny. She eyed the skipper with interest, and cocked her head with the pert demureness of a sparrow while she studied the parrots who were waddling ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... most material leaves of the whole book. This, you will allow, was provoking; but I said nothing till the rest of the honest company were gone, and then gave the fellow a gentle rebuke, who, instead of expressing any concern, made me a pert answer, 'That servants must have their diversions as well as other people; that he was sorry for the accident which had happened to the book, but that several of his acquaintance had bought the same for a shilling, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... to prolong satire without wit. But the leadership of instinct, the conscious expression of mechanism, is not merely a necessity in the Life of Reason, it is a safeguard. Piety, in spite of its allegories, contains a much greater wisdom than a half-enlightened and pert intellect can attain. Natural beings have natural obligations, and the value of things for them is qualified by distance and by accidental material connections. Intellect would tend to gauge things impersonally by their intrinsic ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... own, and whom he permitted familiarly to approach him, he was exceedingly affable, and with such he frequently jested, and hilariously enjoyed the piquant story in mirthful humor; but this was for the few. He was a proud man, and was at no pains to conceal his contempt for pert folly or intrusive ignorance, wherever and in whomsoever he ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... of the gardens. There was but a happy sense of green and gold, with blue topping all; of twinkling, fluent, tossing leaves and of the gray under side of elongated, straining leaves; a sense of pert bird-noises, and of a longer shadow than usual slanting before him, and a sense of youth and well-being everywhere. Certainly it was not a morning wherein ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... write. But I have known her ladyship break through it, although in both cases in which she did so she put the girl's principles to a further and unusual test in asking her to repeat the Ten Commandments. One pert young woman—and yet I was sorry for her too, only she afterwards married a rich draper in Shrewsbury—who had got through her trials pretty tolerably, considering she could write, spoilt all, by saying glibly, at the end of the last Commandment, "An't please your ladyship, ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... self-possessed youth of twenty hardly seemed to expect an answer; but the man addressed in this pert manner, though the senior of the pair by six years, felt that the emotion throbbing in his heart must be allowed to bubble forth lest he ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... unlike our friend Edward than the stranger. Fair, freckled, light-haired, light-eyed, with invisible eye-brows and eye-lashes, insignificant in feature, pert and perking in expression, and in figure so dwarfed and stunted, that though in point of age he had evidently attained his full growth, (if one may use the expression to such a he-doll,) Robert at fifteen would have made two of him,—such was the new ...
— Aunt Deborah • Mary Russell Mitford
... door, cautiously (as Irish girls always do), and admitted them into the entry, where one light only was burning in a branch lamp. "Shall we go upstairs?" said Mrs. Morland. "And what for would ye go upstairs?" said the girl in a pert tone. "It's all dark there, and there's no preparations. Ye can lave your things here a-hanging on the rack. It is a party ye're expecting? Blessed ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... neighbors. It was pretentiously ugly with its mansard roof, intricate porches, balconies and bay windows that had evidently been added after the original architectural atrocity had been committed. At her first glance as the pert and frilly maid opened the door it seemed as though the whole house were filled with innumerable elaborate draperies and fat-framed paintings and much stuffed furniture. While she waited for the ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... heronsewe betoure Egrete Corlewe wodecok Pert[r]igge Plover Snytys quaylys ffretours leche la{m}me stewed Kidde rosted Veneson rosted heronsewe betoure pigeons [e]Rabetts [f]a bake mete Stokke-dovys stewed cony ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... comparisons. Particular features held my attention for a few moments: but these served but to whet my impatience to find the charmer of my soul; who, for person, for air, for mind, never had any equal. My heart recoiled and sickened upon comparing minds and conversation. Pert wit, a too-studied desire to please; each in high good humour with herself; an open-mouth affectation in both, to show white teeth, as if the principal excellence; and to invite amorous familiarity, by ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... we find her rather too conscious of her own superiority; not only was she the beauty, she was also the Muse of the village; had she been less vain she must have been unnatural. Yet, under all her pert provincialism, we can detect that mysterious quality which distinguishes the good letter-writer. She writes to please two people—her correspondent and herself; she has no need, therefore, to canvass general truths, but can afford to be personal ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... Birds in Cages;—they are, when well, uniformly as happy as the day is long. What else could oblige them, whether they will or no, to burst out into song—to hop about so pleased and pert—to play such fantastic tricks, like so many whirligigs—to sleep so soundly, and to awake into a small, shrill, compressed twitter of joy at the dawn of light? So utterly mistaken was Sterne, and all the other sentimentalists, that his Starling, who he absurdly opined was wishing to get ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... contribute, remains, I believe, pretty much the same as when I left it. I have seen, within this twelvemonth almost, the change which has been produced upon a boy of eight or nine years of age, upon being admitted into that school; how, from a pert young coxcomb, who thought that all knowledge was comprehended within his shallow brains, because a smattering of two or three languages and one or two sciences were stuffed into him by injudicious treatment at home, ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... A pert little wave by the sea-shore one day, Came dashing along in its impudent way; A wee little maiden was straying too near. Said the wavelet—I'll catch you my child, never fear, "I will carry you home to a bed in the sea, "I will rock you as snug as on ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... he rode cautiously down the stony track, among thick hazel copses; occasionally, through a gap, he had a view of a great valley, all wild with wood; once or twice he passed a timbered farmhouse, with tall brick chimneys. The country round about was much invaded by new, pert houses, but there were none here; and Hugh supposed that this road, which seemed the only track into the valley, was of so forbidding a steepness that it had not occurred to any one to settle there. The road became more and more ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... her head, and uttered with pert vivacity: "I never likes compliments, sir! But the young ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... words always seem more pert upon paper than they did upon her lips. Her naivete, the twinkling light in her eyes, and the smile flitting about her mouth, always modified greatly ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... voices. Tracey Tanner ambled into view on the other side of the street and beamed at him generously, his round red face resembling, Duncan thought, more than anything else a summer sun rising through mist. Josie Lockwood (he was to discover her name later) passed with her pert little nose ostentatiously pointed away from him; none the less he detected a gleam in the corner of her eye.... Others went by, singly or in groups, all more or less ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... A pert young Mouse, to whom the world was new, Had once a near escape, if all be true. He told his mother, as I now tell you: "I crossed the mountains that beyond us rise, And, journeying onwards, bore me As one who had a great career before me, When lo! two creatures met my wondering ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... not infrequently have accused American children of being "pert," or "lacking in reverence," or "sophisticated." Those of us who are better acquainted with the children of our own Nation cannot concur in any of these accusations. Unhappily, there are children in America, as there ...
— The American Child • Elizabeth McCracken
... Russian cigarette, and smiled her thanks, had a peculiar appropriateness. All the ladies, it may be observed in passing, had by this time lit their cigarettes. The men were smoking Toscani, Sellas, or Cavours, and the little boys were dancing round the table breathing smoke from their pert nostrils. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... corrected Ricky Ralestone somewhat indifferently. "Can't you do better than that?" She gave her small, pert hat an exasperated tweak which brought the unoffending bowl-shaped bit of white felt into its proper position over her right eyebrow. "How long does it take Rupert to ask a ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... off. The most hideous demon (whose complexion had not only the colour, but the precise metallic lustre of an ill black-leaded stove) at last chirruped a wish for orders, which I gave. I asked the pert, active, cockney housemaid what I ought to pay them, as, being a stranger, they might overcharge me. Her scorn was sublime, 'Them nasty blacks never asks more than their regular charge.' So I asked the black-lead demon, who demanded 'two shilling each horse ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... splendid ball, She never blazed in courtly grandeur, But like her native lily's bloom, She cheerfu' gilds her humble home; The pert reply, the modish air, To soothe the soul were never granted, When modest sense and love are there, The guise o' art may well be wanted; O Fate! gi'e me to be my bride The ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... strawberries that succeeded them; and oh! what mirth went on all the time! Kate was chattering fastest of all, and loudest—not to say the most nonsensically. It was not nice nonsense—that was the worst of it— it was pert and saucy. It was rather the family habit to laugh at Mary de la Poer for ways that were thought a little fanciful; and Kate caught this up, and bantered without discretion, in a way not becoming ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Rubens and Her Son and Daughter" was really painted to honor the boy. It has always been the custom in Europe to pay special attention to the boys in the home and keep the girls very much in the background. It is very easy to see how pert the little Albert Rubens is, and how subdued and meek is his sister. The boy has the "Lord of Creation" air that would not be good for him in America. We love the picture, for Rubens, the father, shows us plainly the old idea that the boy rules the home. Naturally the father would ...
— The Children's Book of Celebrated Pictures • Lorinda Munson Bryant
... the ground in helpless languor lay, Unheeding in his weariness the tumult of the day; In vain a pert mosquito buzzed madly in his ear, His thoughts were far away from earth—its sounds he could not hear; Nor noted he the kindly glance with which his brigadier Looked down upon his manly form when chance had brought him near. It was a glorious autumn night on which the moon looked ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... condition to go back to the house, and so did not return until it was time for supper. He found a good meal awaiting him, and his wife on hand as pert ...
— From Farm to Fortune - or Nat Nason's Strange Experience • Horatio Alger Jr.
... to do with it. It was simply an intensely personal exhibition, and the person making it happened to be fascinating. She might have offended the taste of certain people—Ransom could imagine that there were other Boston circles in which she would be thought pert; but for himself all he could feel was that to his starved senses she irresistibly appealed. He was the stiffest of conservatives, and his mind was steeled against the inanities she uttered—the rights and wrongs of women, the equality of the sexes, ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... which is in the city of Suten-henen (Heracleopolis), for, behold, I am the nose of the God of the winds, who maketh all mankind to live on the day when the Eye (Utchat) of Ra is full in Annu (Heliopolis) at the end of the second month(89) of the season Pert (i.e., the season of growing) [in the presence of the divine lord of this earth].(90) I have seen the Eye of Ra when it was full in Annu, therefore let not evil befall me in this land and in this Hall of double Maati, because I, even ...
— Egyptian Literature
... peacocks; in which, while every justice is done to the peacocks themselves, the splendour of their plumage, the gorgeousness of their dazzling necks, and the magnificence of their tails, exception will yet be taken to the absurdity of their rickety strut, and the foolish discord of their pert squeaking; in which lions in love will have their claws pared by sly virgins; in which rogues will sometimes triumph, and honest folks, let us hope, come by their own; in which there will be black crape and white favours; ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... should be taken away the instant it becomes disobedient. It soon learns that it can not "stay with mother" unless it is well-behaved. This means that it learns self-control in babyhood. Not only must children obey, but they must never be allowed to "show off" or become pert, or to contradict or to answer back; and after having been told "no," they must never be allowed by persistent nagging ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... few. What about the wreck? No, let's hear from the date of the marriage." And Mr. Slade, inwardly surprised at Mr. Reed's patience, yet unable to forego the luxury of being as familiar and pert as possible, settled himself to listen to the story which Mr. Reed had permitted ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... Testament. His expensive debaucheries forced him to have recourse to the Jews. He was soon a ruined man, and determined to try his chance as a political adventurer. In Parliament he did not succeed. His speaking, though pert, was feeble, and by no means interested his hearers so much as to make them forget his face, which was so hideous that the caricaturists were forced, in their own despite, to flatter him. As a writer, he made a better ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... that," said Miss Amanda, "it looks forward and pert. It is their place to say 'Good morning,' not yours. You have no occasion to speak to your betters, and, anyway, children should be seen and ...
— The Potato Child and Others • Mrs. Charles J. Woodbury
... voice, like a judge's, and a quick, pert eye, like a jackdaw's. Outwardly he was as unlike Margaret as the haft of a pike is unlike a lily, but I already saw her spirit ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... that's wrong The dung-ball of his dirty thoughts along His tiny sphere of grovelling sympathies— Has knocked himself full-butt, with blundering trouble, Against a mountain he can neither double Nor ever hope to scale. So like a free, Pert, self-conceited scarabaeus, he Takes it into his horny head to swear There's no such thing ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... sitting upright on the topmost stone in the wall, or on the tallest stake in the fence, chipping up an apple for the seeds, his tail conforming to the curve of his back, his paws shifting and turning the apple, he is a pretty sight, and his bright, pert appearance atones for all the mischief he does. At home, in the woods, he is the most frolicsome and loquacious. The appearance of anything unusual, if, after contemplating it a moment, he concludes it not dangerous, excites his unbounded mirth ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... a suppressed longing and eager interest, her eyes sparkling, in the midst of all the chattering, whispering and gossiping among her different ideals—Kristofa and Gunda, active Swedish Lena, and pert Jakobina. If she could not be with them herself, she might at any rate hear what fun they had had, and all that had happened. In this way she could live their life ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... be—a mere Materialist—an Atheist in disguise; that Bentley's insinuation, that looseness of living is the cause of his looseness of belief, is ungenerous, and requires proof which Bentley has not given: that the bitter abuse which he heaps upon his adversary as 'a wretched gleaner of weeds,' 'a pert teacher of his betters,' 'an unsociable animal,' 'an obstinate and intractable wretch,' and much more to the same effect, is unworthy of a Christian clergyman, and calculated to damage rather than do service to the cause which ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton |
