"Wit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Berkeley was deliberately trying to make himself agreeable, something he did not often have to trouble himself to do. He was at his best only when he was really interested or amused, and he was at his best to-night. He aroused her admiration, drew the fire of her own wit and raillery, stung even quiet Jason into unwonted animation. Anne Champneys looked from one to the other, concealing the fact that at times their conversation was over her head. She didn't always understand them. The sense of their ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... immediately seeing all that it meant. Difficulty was the law of life, but one could thank heaven it was exceptionally present in that horrid quarter. There was the difficulty that inspired, the difficulty of The Major Key to wit, which it was after all base to sacrifice to the turning of somersaults for pennies. These convictions Ray Limbert beguiled his fresh wait by blandly entertaining: not indeed, I think, that the failure of his attempt to be chatty didn't leave him ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... the one woman in a million that I think you are," said Cynthia. "Tell me, isn't your husband at his wit's end to think how to meet the bills for his illness and all and all? And wouldn't you raise your finger to bring all his miserable worries to an end? Just look at the matter from a business point ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... be proud?" And this evening, the seventh since the storm, when for one weak moment she had allowed the conversation to drift toward wedlock, he had stated a woman's chances of marrying between the ages of fifteen and twenty, to wit, 14-1/2 per cent; and between thirty ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... Wellington resigned, having emphatically declared that the system of representation ought to possess, and did possess, the entire confidence of the country. He had gone so far as to say that the wit of man could not have devised a better representative system than that which Lord John Russell, in the previous session, had attempted to alter by proposing to enfranchise Manchester, Leeds, and Birmingham. But the election which followed the death ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... before we graduated, Perry and I went with George to the Third House, which is a mock session of the legislature that the political wags of the State take advantage of to display their wit and quickness at repartee and ability to make artistic fools of themselves. If it happens to be a year for the election of a senator, as it was in this case, the different candidates are in turn made fun of and held up to ridicule or approval; and the chief issues of the time ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... lie; rage hath this error bred; Love is not dead; Love is not dead, but sleepeth In his unmatched mind, Where she his counsel keepeth, Till due deserts she find: Therefore from so vile fancy, To call such wit a franzy, Who Love can temper thus, Good Lord, ...
— Tudor and Stuart Love Songs • Various
... begin his talk to the jury with calmness and build upon his opening until he warmed up into eloquence; but that Mr. Toombs would plunge immediately into his fierce and impassioned oratory, and pour his torrent of wit, eloquence, logic, and satire upon judge and jury. He would seem to establish his case upon the right, and then defy ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... be grouped a vast number of works, many of them exhaustive, on such topics as archaeology, seals (engraved), numismatics, pottery, ink (the miscalled "Indian"), mirrors, precious stones, tea, wine, chess, wit and humour, even cookery, &c. There is, indeed, hardly any subject, within reasonable limits, which does not find some corner ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... was an occasional visitor in Washington subsequent to his brilliant senatorial career which ended in 1845. That I had the pleasure of intimately knowing this man of wit and erudition is one of the brightest memories of my life. His quaint humor was inexhaustible and some of his bright utterances will never perish. When a younger sister of mine was lying desperately ill in Washington in 1856 he called to inquire about her condition, and ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... spirits. She must also endeavour to make herself of little value in the sight of the Barin, her owner. She must feign sickness or foolishness, and disfigure her countenance, or refuse to work; a woman's wit will advise her best, though, ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... conquering, for the soldiers of that bad thing that had been Bourbon despotism in the Italian south vanished before his path more quickly than the mists of the morning before the sun. No grounds that will bear scrutiny have ever been adduced for the reactionary explanation of the marvel: to wit, that the Neapolitan generals were bribed. By Cavour? The game would have been too risky. By 'English bank-notes,' that useful factor in European politics that has every pleasing quality except reality? It is not ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... of Flanders, as well for the Count's honor as for the peace of the country." Lastly, on June 10, 1338, a treaty was signed at Anvers between the deputies of the Flemish communes and the English ambassadors, the latter declaring: "We do all to wit that we have negotiated the way and substance of friendship with the good folk of the communes of Flanders, in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Athos, wit his quiet tone; "that throw of the dice is extraordinary. I have not seen such a one four times in my life. ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... last compositions is a little jewel of the modern Italian kinds. Its music is sparkling with wit and grace and may rank among the best comic operas, of which we have not too many. The reason, why it does not occupy the place on the German stage, which is due to its undoubted merit, is the somewhat deficient German translation of the textbook, and the very small frame, in which ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... flash of fancy, which sometimes, Dazzling our minds, sets off the slightest rhymes, Bright as a blaze, but in a moment done; True wit is everlasting, like the sun, Which, though sometimes behind a cloud retired, Breaks out again, and is by all admired. Number and rhyme, and that harmonious sound Which not the nicest ear with harshness wound, Are necessary, yet but vulgar arts; And all in rain these superficial parts ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... "But Mother Wit is always turning up unexpectedly with something new," laughed Dorothy. "And she says we must have a new shell in time to use it in the race ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... of forty did not lack mother wit, and as his hard fate rendered him thoughtful and often led him to use figurative turns of speech, which were by no means intended as jests, he had been called by his first master "Bias" for the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... sensibility to the beautiful; but, from deep diverseness in other leading mental gifts, the one, through the light of this vivifying power, became a poet of the propensities and the understanding, a poet of passion and wit; the other, a poet of the reason, a poet of ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... regarded me with considerable suspicion; yet he made so manly a figure of a lad, that I could not withhold from him my sympathy. And as for the impulse that had made her bring and introduce him, I could not sufficiently admire it. It seemed to me finer than wit, and more tender than a caress. It said (plain as language), 'I do not and I cannot know you. Here is my brother—you can know him; this is the way to ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... few marry from Fancy alone. They are attracted toward a gentleman by his manners and external appearance. They conceive a liking for another, because he has a pleasant voice, or an engaging smile, or is full of gaiety and wit. The influence of these qualities is felt by us all; nor is it wrong to give them some weight, in forming our estimate of one as a companion. But what are they all, if disconnected from a praiseworthy ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... as I hear tell, Was our lieutenant general; And captain Welsh, wi' his wit and skill, Was to guide them on ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... silver and dirt. She had a dozen orders, and as many portraits of saints or relics, fastened all down her dress, in such a way that when she walked you would have thought by the jingling that a mule was passing." She could neither read nor write, but she was sharp, had natural wit, and obtained great influence over Peter. They had two sons, Peter and Paul, who died in childhood, and two daughters, Anne and Elizabeth. The former ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... refer the Government of Her Majesty, the Queen of Great Britain, to the London Convention of 1884, concluded between this Republic and the United Kingdom, which in Article XIV. guarantees certain specified rights to the white inhabitants of this Republic, to wit:— ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... quadrangle facing the river. It had been the trader's residence before the days of the big clap-boarded villa. Stonor, tiring of the conversation around the stove, frequently spent the evenings in front of his own fire, and here he sometimes had a visitor, to wit, Tole Grampierre, youngest son of Simon, the French half-breed farmer up the river. Tole came of good, self-respecting native stock, and was in his own person a comely, sensible youngster a few years younger than the trooper. Tole was the nearest thing to a young friend that Stonor possessed in ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... poverty strike him with its wings or stab him with its beak. When he was about eight he was parted from his mother, she going to Lynn, and he, wee mite of a man, remaining in Newburyport. It was during the War of 1812, and pinching times, when Fanny Garrison was at her wit's end to keep the wolf from devouring her three little ones and herself into the bargain. With what tearing of the heart-strings she left Lloyd and his little sister Elizabeth behind we can now only imagine. She had no choice, poor soul, for unless she toiled they would starve. So with James, ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... fellow, too, and did not hoard the money, either; he loved his pipe and his pot too well; and at last he left off farming, and gave himself to them altogether. Many a jolly booze he and I have had, I can tell you. Brian was an awful passionate man, and, when the liquor was in, and the wit was out, as savage and as quarrelsome as a bear. At such times there was no one but Ned Layton dared go near him. We once had a pitched battle, in which I was conqueror; and ever arter he yielded a sort of sulky obedience to all I said to him. Arter being on the spree for a week ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... from that of most farces in depending less upon situations than upon dialogue. The First Act, with the situations still to come, was the best. I have not had the good fortune to read Miss EDGINGTON'S novel, but one might be permitted to assume, from the excellence of much of the wit, that, whatever the play may in other respects have lacked of subtlety or refinement, such defect was no fault of hers. What Mr. CHARLES HAWTREY himself thought of it all I cannot say, but the play did not begin to compare, either for irony or singleness ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... made the half circle when through the night air she heard faintly, as it were half a mile away, the cry, "Pee-wit! pee-weet!" ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... To speak critically, indeed, the latter rather carried the thing to excess, and seemed to make it a point to wallow in the miriest part of the sty, and otherwise to outdo the original swine in their own natural vocation. When men once turn to brutes, the trifle of man's wit that remains in them adds tenfold ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... education of a lady, the strength of a healthy woman, and a will of her own. Such was the list as she made it out for herself, and I protest that I assert no more than the truth in saying that she never added to it either beauty, wit, or talent. ...
— The Parson's Daughter of Oxney Colne • Anthony Trollope
... governor of Alabama on the dry issue. And officers and doughboys who knew the wild Australian in North Russia know that his father might have had some help if Bob were at home. With a genial word for every man, with a tender heart that winced to see a child cry, with a nimble wit and a brilliant daring, Lt. Bob Graham won a place in the hearts of Americans that ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... had the wit, like some of ourselves, to lay the scene in such a remote or distant country that nobody should be able to back-speer [Footnote: Scottish for cross-examine him.] him," ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... still be heard roaring away inside all the same. An iron enamelled plate and a duster complete the furniture of our little scullery, all the rest of the things we started with having been improved out of existence, for simplicity is the heart of invention as brevity is the soul of wit. ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... her own costumes. It was a saying with her friends that she was as much the artist with her needle as with her voice. She wrote and spoke five languages, and often used them with different interlocutors with such readiness and accuracy that she rarely confused them. Her wit and vivacity as a conversationalist were celebrated, and her mots had the point as well as the flash of the diamond. Her retorts and sarcasms often wounded, but she was quick to heal the stroke by a sweet and childlike contrition ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... forget that summer evening near Brandhoek. Roake, effervescing as always with droll wit, and Humfrey, with his natural cheerfulness and affability, made me at home in their little hut at once. I can well recall the scene: a tiny little wooden hut at the edge of a large field; the wall adorned by a trench map of the Ypres Salient, on which ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... facility with which everybody found a witness to certify his loss. "I had five thousand dollars," one would say; "ask the general: he will tell you if it is true." "True, as I am an honest man," would answer the general, "to wit, that I swapped with the judge my eastern ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... noisy revelry waxed as loud as ever. The incident of the shot was soon forgotten. Songs were sung, and stories told, and toasts drunk; and with song and sentiment, and toast and story, and the wild excitement of wit and wine, the night waned away. With many of those young hearts, old with hope and burning with ambition, it was the last "Twenty-second" they would ever celebrate. Half of them never ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... sufficient wit to understand why I joined you here. We can avoid unpleasant explanations. I am prepared ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... divine charm, he begot an early reverence unto his person, even from those that at other times and in other companies, took a liberty to cast off that strictness of behaviour and discourse that is required in a Collegiate life. And when he took any liberty to be pleasant, his wit was never blemished with scoffing, or the utterance of any conceit that bordered upon, or might beget a thought of looseness in his hearers. Thus mild, thus innocent and exemplary was his behaviour in his College; and thus this good man continued till his death, still ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... lonely little life she had never been singled out for applause, never lauded, nor crowned, as in this wonderful, dazzling moment. If "nobleness enkindleth nobleness," so does enthusiasm beget enthusiasm, and so do wit and talent enkindle wit and talent. Alice Robinson proposed that the school should sing Three Cheers for the Red, White, and Blue! and when they came to the chorus, all point to Rebecca's flag. Dick Carter suggested ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the rest, it was the fortune of Eugenius, Crites, Lisideius, and Neander, to be in company together, three of them persons whom their wit and quality have made known to all the town, and whom I have chose to hide under these borrowed names, that they may not suffer by so ill a narration as I am going ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... who rambled over Scotland cross the border to the Emerald Isle, and again they sharpen their wits against new conditions, and revel in the land of laughter and wit. ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... second sort. Such were Gaius Servilius Glaucia, called by Cicero the Roman Hyperbolus, a vulgar fellow of the lowest origin and of the most shameless street-eloquence, but effective and even dreaded by reason of his pungent wit; and his better and abler associate, Lucius Appuleius Saturninus, who even according to the accounts of his enemies was a fiery and impressive speaker, and was at least not guided by motives of vulgar selfishness. When ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the child to learn than those which Cadmus invented. The Spaniards have a good term to express this wild and dusky knowledge—Gramatica parda—tawny grammar, a kind of mother-wit derived from that same leopard ...
— Walking • Henry David Thoreau
... humility enough to ask the sort of girl who would be glad to take him. Now, with his improved prospects, he will want a royal princess or something not much short of it. Money, rank, and blood might have done before, but he'll expect youth, beauty, and wit now, as well as the other things. He may marry after all, for he is just the man to walk out of a church some day with the cookmaid under his ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... by the knowledge that she would never get rid of her unwelcome guests until Prince Inga was overcome and Regos regained for King Gos, the Queen of Coregos finally decided to trust to luck and her native wit to defeat a simple-minded boy, however powerful he might be. Inga could not suspect what she was going to do, because she did not know herself. She intended to act boldly and ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... are going on swimmingly, and it will, I think, soon be time for the loyal county of B. to show itself. They expect a dust in Surrey, which my good Lord Onslow does not seem to have quite wit enough ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... inviting, Intelligence's bee of laughter, At every flash of wit alighting, Allures ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... a full-grown male, was enraptured by the piquancy of hearing it on the lovely lips of his cousin. To demand that a pretty woman should possess the mental responsibility of a human being would have seemed an affront to his inherited ideas of gallantry. His slow wit was enslaved by Jinny's audacity as completely as his kind ox-like eyes were enthralled by the young red and white of ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... philosophy comes. He who carries the diamond upon him, it gives him hardiness and manhood, and it keeps the limbs of his body whole. It gives him victory over his enemies, in court and in war, if his cause be just; and it keeps him that bears it in good wit; and it keeps him from strife and riot, from sorrows and enchantments, and from fantasies and illusions of wicked spirits. ... [It] heals him that is lunatic, and those whom the fiend torments or pursues."] The supply of diamonds, ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... of dramatic merit in the tragedies of Young, Mallet, Home, and some other less distinguished authors. Very few regular comedies, during this period, were exhibited on the English theatre; which, however, produced many less laboured pieces, abounding with satire, wit, and humour. The Careless Husband of Gibber, and Suspicious Husband of Hoadley, are the only comedies of this age that bid fair for reaching posterity. The exhibitions of the stage were improved to the most exquisite entertainment by the talents and management of Garrick, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... definition of humor, ready to hand: humor is "the mental faculty of discovering, expressing, or appreciating ludicrous or absurdly incongruous elements in ideas, situations, happenings, or acts," with the added information that it is distinguished from wit as "less purely intellectual and having more kindly sympathy with human nature, and as often blended with pathos." A friendly rival in lexicography defines the same prized human attribute more lightly as "a facetious turn of thought," or more specifically in literature, as "a sportive ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... open night and day." If you entered this door and advanced, you would immediately find yourself ascending a narrow, gloomy and winding flight of stairs. Having with difficulty groped your way to the top, without having broken your neck, by having first reached the point from which you started, to wit, the bottom; or your shins, by stumbling against the steps—having, I say, accomplished the ascent to the first landing, your further passage is effectually stopped by a massive door, which resists all your ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... horses! Milly will laugh at me, for she dearly loveth an horse. We have six riding-horses, with two baggage-horses, but only four of them have names,—to wit, Father's, that is Favelle, because he is favel-colour [chestnut]; and Mother's, Garnet; and mine, Cowslip; and the last, that Milly or Edith doth commonly ride when ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... true," replied the Italian. "He kills every one who laughs at him. Three days ago I laughed at him. But I ran away. He followed me. He does not know where I lodge, but he has wit enough to understand that if he waits long enough he will find me out. In Heaven's name, my friend, can you not help me? See, I am a simple soul. I cannot think quickly. I have prayed to the Virgin, but it is no use. Tell me, what can ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... King he bit his nether lip, And smote his hand upon his knee: "By the faith o' my soul, True Thomas," he said, "Ye waste no wit in courtesie! ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... rich to brook repetition, shone forth resplendent. No longer did I wonder at what I had before deemed Harry Archer's strange hallucination; Tom Draw is a decided genius—rough as a pine knot in his native woods—but full of mirth, of shrewdness, of keen mother wit, of hard horse sense, and last, not least, of the most genuine milk of human kindness. He is a rough block; but, as Harry says, there is solid timber under the uncouth bark enough to make five hundred men, as men ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... interior regions of our continent. As our numbers have swelled, since we became a nation, from three and a half millions to thirty millions, so New York, including Brooklyn and other suburbs, has increased in population and wealth still more rapidly, to wit, from twenty-five thousand to more than one million. While the nation has increased less than tenfold, New York has grown more than four times tenfold. In 1790 the city of New York contained thirty-three thousand, and the State of New ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... seated himself in his arm-chair before his writing table, he recovered his sparkling humor, his gay wit, and recounted with a bright smile to the marquis that he intended to work most industriously, that he would certainly write a history of this war which he had just closed, and that he intended always to live at Sans-Souci, as its quiet and repose seemed more ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... some in the drawer of his inkstand. He had a vague idea that he had a special reason for dividing it thus—that one lot may have belonged to the School clubs, another to the House clubs, and another to something else. But which was which it passed his wit ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... narrated by Mr. Crofton Croker." Again, in his 'Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft,' Scott says: "We know from the lively and entertaining legends published by Mr. Crofton Croker, which, though in most cases, told with the wit of the editor and the humour of his country, contain points of curious antiquarian information" as to what the opinions of the Irish are. And again, speaking of the Banshee: "The subject has been so lately ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... a li'l church house for de niggers and preachin' in de afternoon, and on into de night lots of times. Dey have de cullud preacher. He couldn't read. He jes' preach from nat'ral wit and what he larn from white folks. De whole outfit profess to ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... engagement to lecture at Manchester and Mitcham Fair Green at half-past eleven at night on one and the same Sunday, and that I could manage pretty well. And then I had gone on to try to make the best of addressing a large open-air audience in the costume I was really then wearing—to wit, my night-shirt, reinforced for the dream occasion by a pair of braceless trousers. The consciousness of this fact so bothered me, that the earnest faces of my audience—who would NOT notice it, but were ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... smiled, and yawned expansively. He was a young man who considered himself a "gentleman," and among his own particular set passed for being a wit. ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... bread to him who has none, 4 that sustaineth the servant of his house. 5 Let no prince be my defender in all my troubles. 6 Let not my memorial be placed under the power 7 of any man who is in the house ... My Lord is (my) defender; 8 I know his power, to wit, (he is) a strong defender, 9 there is none mighty except him alone. 10 Strong is Amen, knowing how to answer, 11 fulfilling the desire of him who cries to him; 12 the Sun the true King of gods, 13 the Strong Bull, the mighty ...
— Egyptian Literature
... dear, My heart is broken for her, She and I loved each other so well, And she had more than common wit. ...
— A Complete Edition of the Works of Nancy Luce • Nancy Luce
... Haydon, 'and we had a glorious set-to-on Homer, Shakespeare, Milton, and Virgil. Lamb got exceedingly merry, and exquisitely witty, and his fun, in the midst of Wordsworth's solemn intonations of oratory, was like the sarcasm and wit of the fool in the intervals of Lear's passion.' Although the specimens of wit recorded no longer seem inspired, we can well believe Haydon's statement that it was an immortal evening, and that in all his life he never ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... he could hit any button in a man's coat he wanted to. In other words, as in all such cases, all the common feats were ascribed to him, as the current jokes of the day are laid at the door of any noted wit, however innocent he ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... silence. What the songs were that those workmen sang in the cemetery of St. Nicaise you can read in a queer little book written by one "Abbe Raillard" in 1557, an "Abbe des Conards," who imitates Rabelais when he tries to be original, but is of far more value when he merely reproduces what he heard, to wit, "la fleur des plus ingenieux jeux chansons et menus flaiollements d'icelle jeunesse puerille, receuilly de plusieurs rues lieux et passages ou il estoit repandu depuis la primitive recreation, aaze, ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... knives are in occasional use. The entree which follows the fish should be eaten with the fork only. A mouthful of meat is cut as required; it is never buried in potato or any vegetable and then conveyed to the mouth. Vegetables are no longer served in "birds' bath-tubs," as some wit once called the individual vegetable dishes, but are cooked sufficiently dry to be served on the plate with the meat. All vegetables are eaten with the fork, so also jellies, chutney, etc., ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... nations of Italy. Yet such is the indifference of our government to the interests of a national literature, that our authors are still open to the depredations of foreign pirates; and what is not less disgraceful, the British author, from whose stores of wisdom and wit we are nourished, is turned over, in like manner, to the tender mercies of our gentlemen of trade, for their own exclusive benefit, and with perfect indifference to his equitable claims." The New York ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... a slur on San Martin, but for the opposite purpose of averting undue reproach, though my bitter enemy. The enormities committed in his name were for the most part not his, but Monteagudo's; for, to paraphrase the saying of a French wit, "San Martin reigned, but his Minister governed." Duplicity and cunning were San Martin's great instruments when he was not too indolent to wield them; and while he was wrapped in ease, his Minister superadded to these qualities all the cruelty and ferocity which sometimes ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... Pertinax," said the Duke, slipping his lute into leathern bag and slinging it behind wide shoulders, "list ye, Sir Knight of Shene, and mark this, to wit: If a rogue in roguery die then rogue is he forsooth; but, mark this again, if a rogue be spared his life he may perchance and peradventure forswear, that is, eschew or, vulgarly speaking, turn from his roguish ways, and die as honest ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... a substitute for the original truth. It was as if, when she went to the theater to hear Shakspere and Moliere, the actors should try to impose upon the audience by reciting lines of their own. Truth was the wit of life and the wit of books. She traveled her road from affluence so leisurely that nothing escaped her eyes or her feelings, and she signaled unhesitatingly ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... dismal failure—is a Might-have-been. In a luckless moment he discovered men Rise to high position through a ready pen. Boanerges Blitzen argued therefore—"I, With the selfsame weapon, can attain as high." Only he did not possess when he made the trial, Wicked wit of C-lv-n, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... girl was too ill to come downstairs, and had not eaten a crumb of the tempting breakfast prepared and sent to her room for her. Mrs. Mountain was voluble in condemnation of her husband's lack of wit in his announcement of the matrimonial scheme he had formed for the girl, and Mrs. Jenny was fluent and honest in sympathy. Might she see the girl? Julia was fond of her, and her counsels might bring some comfort. Mrs. Mountain ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... Hamp related what little there was to tell. Brick's abduction threw light on some things that had been mysteries before. It was Jerry's keen wit that identified Joe Bogle with the missionary on the train. Sparwick took the same view ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... members; he had always been one of the most popular figures at Westminster and in Ireland; and he had always spoken a great deal. Yet he had never been in the front rank either as a speaker or as a politician. The humour and the wit which made him the joy of groups in the smoking-room on the occasions when he was in full vein of reminiscence never got into his set speeches—though no man oftener lit up debate with some telling interruption. He was often merely rhetorical; he had the name—though in my experience ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... friends were Dickens and Thackeray, and Sydney Smith was very fond of the artist; and it is said that when the great wit was asked to sit to Landseer for his portrait, he replied in the words of the haughty Syrian: "Is thy servant a dog that he ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... she was thirsty, certainly she was bored, for Flippard was a wit. To see 'those two' in so unlikely a spot was quite a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... himself with dissolute company, and at midnight on November 27 deliberately fulfils his own prediction, and dies by his own hand. It is a tale creditable to Coulton's fancy. A patrician of genius, a wit, a profligate, in fatigue and despair, closes his career with a fierce harangue, a sacrilegious jest, a debauch, and a draught of poison, leaving to Dr. Johnson a proof of 'the spiritual world,' and to mankind the double mystery of ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... sealing and stamping of leather and tanning of hides; by these presents have nominated and appointed Andrew Fraser, notary, burgess of Inverness, keeper of the said stamp and seal, within the burgh of Inverness and bounds thereabout following, to wit—from the shire of Nairn at the east, to the height of Strathglass at the west, including the priory of Beauly therein, with the lands and bounds of Urquhart, Glenmoriston, and Badenoch, Abertarff, Stratherrick, Strathdearn, Strathnairn; who has accepted the ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1875 • Various
... appear as you was overwelcome, miss!" he remarked: with his comrades on the stand he passed for a wit; "—leastways, it don't seem as your sheets was ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... a Constable there came, Who asked my trade, my dwelling, and my name, My businesse, and a troupe of questions more, And wherefore we did land vpon that shore? To whom I fram'd my answers true and fit, (According to his plenteous want of wit) But were my words all true or if I ly'd With neither I could get him satisfi'd. He ask'd if we were Pyrats? We said No, (As if we had we would haue told him so) He said that Lords sometimes would enterprise T' escape ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... poor fun," she went on; "he hasn't the wit to retaliate, but just sits glum as you saw him to-night. I mean to tell Master Richard, though, that his manners were worse than usual, for he actually did not open his lips to his guest, although ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the big double doors. He could see the horses floundering around. One had fallen down, but none of them seemed to be injured. The valuable steeds had been saved by the lad's ready wit. ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster
... was thought wonderful for a boy of nine years old, and Oliver became forthwith the wit and the bright genius of the family. It was thought a pity he should not receive the same advantages with his elder brother Henry, who had been sent to the University; and, as his father's circumstances ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... the Department is that if the widow's income aside from her daily labor does not exceed in amount what her pension would be, to wit, $96 per annum, she would be deemed to be without other means of support than her daily labor, and would be entitled to a pension under this act; while if the widow's income independent of the amount received by her as the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... sharp of wit, as well as ardent in fancy, Quentin saw visions of higher importance in this early summons to the royal presence, and his heart beat high at the anticipation of rising into speedy distinction. He determined carefully to watch the manners ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... amazingly at your epigrammatic witticisms; your reputation is already established here. You are known as a man of genius; so you may judge if they listened to your letter. M. Grimod, from the first, has been the trumpeter of your talents and wit; and the best of the joke is, that on the strength of his descriptions of you, they insist on believing that I am a person of infinite cleverness as well. I am delighted to hear such good accounts of your health. I was anxious to hear how you were. M. Grimod ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... Miscegenation were soon compiled. The sentimental and argumentative portions were quickly suggested from the knowledge of the authors of current politics, of the vagaries of some of the more visionary reformers, and from their own native wit. ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... which an Indian always assumes when in council, or in the presence of white men whom he distrusts. The party, on the contrary, was an extremely merry one; and as in a social circle of a quite different character, "if there was not much wit, there was at least a great deal ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... one. Back in the observation car, sleek commercial travellers, well groomed and well dressed and enveloped in comfortable self-satisfaction, gravely discussed politics, business or real estate, or exchanged the latest titbits of wit accumulated in their travels. Riles probably could have bought and paid for the worldly possessions of the whole group, and have still a comfortable balance in the bank. But a sleeper berth cost the price of two bushels of wheat, and even in ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... the lion had closed on the fox. Now was the time for the fox to show his boasted wit, for his position was one of danger. That rash-headed Duke of Burgundy was never the man to be played with, and in his rage was as perilous as dynamite. It was, in truth, an occasion fitted to draw out all the quickness ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... Lodge more original in his manner than in his matter. His style is that of the euphuists. John Lyly's "Euphues, or the Anatomy of Wit" (1579), and its sequel "Euphues and His England" (1580), had set a fashion that was destined for the next two decades to enjoy a tremendous vogue. Lyly's was the first conspicuous example in English of the attempt ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... enliven our promenade. He sang with exquisite taste, and the tones of his voice, breaking on the silence of the night, have often appeared to my entranced senses like more than mortal melody.' But besides his graces of person, he had a most delightful wit, he was a scholar who could bandy quotations with Fox or Sheridan, and, like the young men of to-day, he knew all about Art. He spoke French, Italian, and German perfectly. Crossdill had taught him the violoncello. At first, ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... Where got you that wit? If I must, I kneel;" and he groaned in mock despair. "And if Monsieur Iberville should come knocking at our door you would have ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... concealed in one of those numerous disused shafts of old mines which lie scattered thickly over that part of the country. Maggot's absence rendered her position still more perplexing, but she was a woman of ready wit and self-reliance, and she comforted herself with the knowledge that the brandy lay buried far down in the shaft, and that it would take the boatsmen some time to dig to it—that possibly they might give up ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... no resting-place without it. They may be men of a certain experience and discrimination, and have no doubt invented ingenious and even useful systems, for which we sincerely thank them; but all their wit and usefulness lie within certain not very wide limits. They are wont to forget that the world is not governed by policy and expediency. Webster never goes behind government, and so cannot speak with authority about it. His words ...
— On the Duty of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... the passage; and he was so pleased that he held out his hand to shake upon the merit of his joke. I was not disposed to be surly and I shook hands with him, and he clapped me on the shoulder, still laughing, and declared that it was a piece of wit worthy of the dissecting-room, and that he would ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... thought the trick would be unfair and mean, and lacking the sporting instinct which is the hall-mark of Australians; but the others were rather taken with it, and Palmer Billy, with more force than wit—and more good luck than either—insisted that Walker, as he had conscientious scruples, should come into the room behind them, an arrangement which effectually prevented a warning word being ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... curiosity was assailing him. It had become not enough to know that she was young and slender, with enchanting eyes and a teasing spirit of wit.... Vaguely he had thought her to be French, one of the quaint jeunes filles so ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... wit replied, that there was Scripture warrant for his drinking, inasmuch as the command was, to give wine to those that be of heavy heart. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more; and, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... bird from her childhood, and had always hated it, and longed to wring its neck. Why could not people speak out and say that they did not mean to give up the name of their informant? But it was a very favourite form of fiction with the Miss Brownings, and to Miss Phoebe it was the very acme of wit. ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... for the Mischief-maker. Thor came on foot, with his hammer tightly grasped in his hands, and lightning flashing from beneath his red brows. Tyr, the one-handed, came with his sword. Then followed Bragi the Wise, with his harp and his sage counsels; then Hermod the Nimble, with his quick wit and ready hands; and, lastly, a great company of elves and wood-sprites and trolls. Then a whirlwind caught them up in its swirling arms, and carried them through the air, over the hill-tops and the country-side, and the meadows and the mountains, and set them ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin |
