"Wits" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... good sense, is accomplished, and can talk agreeably on most subjects. This brings about her a host of learned men and wits. She flatters the discontented very adroitly, and says all ill things of my son. This is the secret by which she has made her party. Her husband is fond of her, and she in turn piques herself upon her love for him; but I should be sorry to swear to her sincerity. This at least is certain, that ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... sound of hoofs in the lane between the high hedges, and young Torode rode up on Black Boy. He drew rein sharply at sight of me, and a curse jerked out of him. And at sight of Gray Robin in his gay trappings, Black Boy danced on his hind legs and pretended to be frightened out of his wits. ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... its usual warmth and ease. She had taken no fancy at all to the stiff, awkward little English woman, in whom her quick wits detected the lurking tendency to cavil and criticise, and was discouraging accordingly. Oddly enough, Imogen liked this offish manner of Elsie's. She set it down to a proper sense of decorum and retenue. "So different from the usual American gush and making believe to be at ease always ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... Historical Manuscripts Commission testify to the vigilance with which his doings were noted. No personage in two reigns was more a centre for anecdotes and fables. They were eagerly imbibed, treasured, and circulated alike by contemporary, or all but contemporary, statesmen and wits, and by the feeblest scandal-mongers. A list comprising the names of Francis Bacon, Sir John Harington, Sir Robert Naunton, Drummond of Hawthornden, Thomas Fuller, Sir Anthony Welldon, Bishop Goodman, ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... lying awake, with a horrid headache (to adopt a suggestion of GILBERT's), When too freely you've dined, or too heavily wined, or munched too many walnuts or filberts; When your brain is a maze, and creation a haze, then each queer social craze—there are many!— Gets your wits in a spool, and there isn't a fool for your thoughts ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various
... Billy, "but Price will be at his desk bright and early the next morning, and every man in the office will be there, too. And if you think he won't have his wits about him, just you try to fool him on some deal, and see. Let me tell you a little that I know about the fight he has made with the Mississippi Steel Company." And she went on to tell. The upshot of her telling was that ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... resistance; and, much as he detested the butchery, he simply dared not stay his hand. Forward and upward he and his men cut their way; they encountered more and more opposition every minute, as the mutineers found time to recover their wits and secure their weapons, but his men would take no denial. Their blades, now dyed a deep red, swept through the smoky air, and their revolvers crackled and blazed merrily, as the Englishman led them forward; and presently, after ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... been too thrifty, for I found she had starved herself and her daughter to nothing." In short, I behaved myself so unaccountably that they were all of the captain's opinion when he first saw me, and concluded I had lost my wits. This I mention as an instance of the great power of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... stood before him, listening in silence with her grave, delicate air; and Madame Theodore, seeing him smile at the child, indulged in a final remark: "It's just the idea of that child," said she, "that throws Salvat out of his wits. He adores her, and he'd kill everybody if he could, when he sees her go supperless to bed. She's such a good girl, she was learning so nicely at the Communal School! But now she hasn't even a shift ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... existence. By the first return of the projectile I have promised to send back a thorough account of the evolution of life and the advancement of civilization on Venus, so far as Earthly eyes and wits ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... outwards, so that every five minutes they would be tumbling down with a crash of anathemas from the wearer. The supposition that any sane son of Adam would tuck up his sleeves inside out involves a suspicion, to say the least, that his wits had ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... 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 ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... have their brains baited and their fancies distempered with the imaginations and apprehensions of witches, conjurers, and fairies, and all that lymphatic chimera, I find to be marshalled in one of these five ranks: children, fools, women, cowards, sick or black melancholic discomposed wits." ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... starting this new school had in their minds pictures of what was called an educated Negro, with a high hat, imitation gold eye-glasses, a showy walking-stick, kid gloves, fancy boots, and what not—in a word, a man who was determined to live by his wits. It was difficult for these people to see how education would produce any other kind ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington
... faculties, reasoning faculties, intellectual faculties; faculties, senses, consciousness, observation, percipience, intelligence, intellection, intuition, association of ideas, instinct, conception, judgment, wits, parts, capacity, intellectuality, genius; brains, cognitive powers, intellectual powers; wit &c. 498; ability &c. (skill) 698; wisdom &c. 498; Vernunft[Ger], Verstand[Ger]. soul, spirit, ghost, inner man, heart, breast, bosom, penetralia ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... have done so. Naughty Kitty. It must have bolted back to its stable and frightened my poor brother out of his wits." ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... by the door, vastly amused by this duel of wits. The Chief and Mr. Marigold made a move towards the door, Desmond turned to open it and came face to face with a large framed photograph of the Chief hanging on the wall of ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... pretty big all, too," Jerry grumbled. "I felt skeered pretty nigh out of my wits, and the other two allow they were just as bad. If it hadn't been for your boat ahead I reckon we should never have gone through it, but as long as you kept on straight, there didn't seem any reason why we shouldn't. I tell you I feel so shaky that ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... range) the engineers and experts of the army should employ their very sharpest wits. For if the shot of one army, whether engine-stones or pointed projectiles, have a longer range than the shot of the enemy, rest assured that the side whose artillery hath the longest range will have a vast advantage ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... another, of course." Whereupon she flushed very prettily and felt constrained to avoid Truxton's look of inquiry. He did not lose his wits, but vowed acquiescence and assumed ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... been her most frequent visitor had it not been for the ever-open eye of Mrs. Quinlan, which caused her husband to seek his delights by stealth at a village a mile away. Mike was an elderly and handsome man, but his wits had ebbed out as the contents of the wine-cup flowed in, and the beauty that had won so remarkable a person as Mrs. Quinlan in its first glow was somewhat marred. He was the owner of a small cart ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... you again when there's less rum in your wits," said Wolverstone, rising. "Meanwhile ye'll please to remember the tale I've told, and say nothing that'll make me out a liar. They all believes me, even the men as sailed wi' me from Port Royal. I've made 'em. If they thought as how you'd taken the King's ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... and of course he was so tired that he couldn't dress without going to sleep first." As nobody else came for a quarter of an hour Mrs. Houghton had an opportunity of explaining some things. "Has Mrs. Montacute Jones called? I suppose you were out of your wits to find out who she was. She's a very old friend of papa's, and I asked her to call. She gives awfully swell parties, and has no end of money. She was one of the Montacutes of Montacute, and so she sticks her own name on to her husband's. He's alive, I believe, but he ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... and to myself, the ignominious rout was transformed into an orderly and quiet retreat. Both of us saved every thing that was yet to be saved. Ah, it is a funny thing that all the soldiers in the large camp had lost their wits, and that only a civilian and a woman kept theirs. [Footnote: Vide "Kaiser Franz und Metternich: Ein Fragment," p. 83.] On that day, in my enthusiasm, I vowed eternal friendship ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... addition, "You would not be such a fool, my dear Duke, as to be a 'faquir'—confess that you would be very glad to be one of those good monks who lead such a jolly life." The Duc de Richelieu was suspected of having employed one of his wits to write the story. The King was scandalised at it, and ordered the Lieutenant of Police to endeavour to find out the author, but either he could not succeed or ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... going to happen, or what is not; in weighing their own future words and deeds given a variety of contingencies. For reason, which at first kept him, despite his disquiet, in the region of the rational, grew weaker with Henry as the night advanced; the shadow of trouble deepened as his weary wits lost their balance to combat it. The premonition was as formless and amorphous as a cloud, and, though he could not see any shape to his fear, or define its limitations, it grew darker ere he slept. He considered what might happen and, putting aside any lesser disaster, tried to imagine what the ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... to all wits, when their public wakes to find them bores. The fault may not be the wit's, but what of that? The result ...
— Better Dead • J. M. Barrie
... in which case he would have got tin years transportation to Angola on the coast of Africa. At last, however, he got rid of it for 20,000 mil-reis, which is about 6000. It was all paid to him in hard dollars; and he nearly went out o' his wits for joy. But he was brought down a peg nixt day, when he found that the same di'mond was sold for nearly twice as much as he had got for it. Howiver, he had made a pretty considerable fortin; an' he's now the richest di'mond and gould merchant ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... suddenly jumping in and seizing the paddles; "this sort o' thing won't do, nohow. Here you be paid for lookin' arter a gentl'm'n as wanders in hes wits, and fust news es, you be doin' the same yoursel'. 'Tes terribul queer, though," he added, and with that began to row towards town with an energy that set ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... we had time to appreciate the magnificent desolation about us. Even on the march, with loaded sledges and tugging dogs to engage attention, unconsciously one finds oneself with wits wool-gathering and eyes taking in the scene, and suddenly being brought back to the business of the hour by the fiend-like ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... that there is reason in what you say, and I too will be reasonable, and will allow you to start with the premiss that the lover is more disordered in his wits than the non-lover; if in what remains you make a longer and better speech than Lysias, and use other arguments, then I say again, that a statue you shall have of beaten gold, and take your place by the colossal offerings of ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... with the ranks, he yet secured a still more bitter portion of hostility from their powerful opponents, for, to opposition in principle, Berlioz united a caustic and vigorous mode of expression. His name was a target for the wits. "A physician who plays on the guitar and fancies himself a composer," was the scoff of malignant gossips. The journals poured on him a flood of abuse without stint. French malignity is the most venomous ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... strong-featured and ruddy with vigour beneath a massive forehead whose thatch had the blackness and luxuriance of youth. His trunk was disproportionately large, carried on legs sturdy enough but noticeably short. The wits used to describe him as the statesman "with coat-tails very near the ground." It is worth while to remark on this physical peculiarity because it was the direct opposite of Lincoln's configuration. He, while comparatively ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... come suddenly upon what we had seen at the stern of the boat was simply appalling to think of. He certainly would have killed Glendenning where he stood, and very likely Mrs. Tremain as well. As Captain Tremain essayed to pass us I collected my wits as well as ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... is a wild and often vicious little beast—more so, perhaps, than its cousins of Wales and Dartmoor—and a "drive," when the little horses are corralled, is an exciting and interesting affair, human wits being pitted against equine, not always to the ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... are wits for, if not for use? I am breaking the men's hungry hearts. It is great fun in its way. The mollyhawks and albatrosses, after their fashion, have followed the Elsinore up out of their own latitudes. This means that there are only so many of them and that their numbers are not recruited. ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... Doctor Watson would have scorned when I say that, though I thought of the matter a good deal on my way back to the school, I did not arrive at the obvious solution. Much teaching and taking of duty had dulled my wits, and the presence at Sanstead House of the Little Nugget did not even occur to me as a reason why strange Americans should ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... roof to the shed and so to the ground. I heard men come running, so I dove into the coal-shed, where the sergeant grabbed me in the dark and I—had to make him let go, and—said I was Lieutenant Lanier. Later I crawled through a hole in the fence and started for the store, scared out of my wits. Right at the next gate I crashed into two men, grappled and fighting. We all three fell in a heap. I picked myself and cap up and ran again; caught Cary at the store just jumping into a sleigh, and we lashed those horses every inch of the way, left them at a ranch ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... moved it round. As for the owl, that was probably painted with the same chemical. People were more superstitious then than now. I have no doubt that an ignorant person like Ephraim, who had lived all his life in London, had been scared out of his wits by this machine. Like most ignorant people, he probably reckoned the thing as devilish, merely because he did not understand it. One or two neighbours, a housemaid or so, perhaps, had seen it, too. On the strength of their reports the house had gotten a bad name. The two ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... hardships he learned to write. The boy's wits, sharpened instead of blunted by repression, saw opportunities where more favored children could see none. He gave himself his first writing lesson in his master's shipyard, by copying from the various ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... of the Upside Down Club were at their wits' ends, for they could wage no effectual warfare against the mice. One or two of the committee of arrangements scurried around until they secured brooms, but by this time the mice had hidden in corners, whence they scurried out occasionally, to the great ...
— Frank Roscoe's Secret • Allen Chapman
... in the ranch-house. Though but little after eleven o'clock it was dark within the bunk-house, the men long ago asleep. But Barbee was awake, his wits about him; his voice and Blenham's, both quiet, met Steve's ears as he slipped about the corner of the house, coming under the window ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... to him by Turgot, was affixed to his portrait by Fragonard. The line, said to be an adaptation of a line in the Astronomicon of Manilius (lib. i. 104), descriptive of the Reason, "Eripuitque Jovi fulmen viresque tonandi," was turned into French by Nogaret, d'Alembert, and other wits and scholars. It appears on the reverse of a medal by F. Dupre, dated 1786. (See Works of Benjamin Franklin, edited by Jared Sparks, 1840, viii. 537-539; Life and Times, etc., by ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... my boy, rise up to our joy, An' make a clane sweep ov the crowd Of tinkerin tools, an' blundherin fools, That put your wits undher a cloud. Rise up in your might, an' sthrike for the right! Let England an' Spain hear us talk; Give FISH his conjay, an' ROONEY will stay; You'll then see who's cock ov the walk! Arrah what do you ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... with me," said Jack. "I am number seven, and they have all good constitutions. Destiny has decreed that I must live by my wits, without ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... need be said in relation to his testimony, is, that it agreed with his colleague's and fellow-servant's, Samuel. Before starting on their journey, they felt the need of new names, and in putting their wits together, they soon fixed this matter by deciding to pass in future by the following names: James and David Green, John Henry, and ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... up. It did not take very quick wits to put two and two together, and to guess from what I said that the secret had to do with her birthday. And Sharley was too anxious for grandmamma not to be vexed, to think about her ...
— My New Home • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... spell thee, praise: Blest Coupleteer! by blooming Critics read, At Toilets ogled, and with Sweetmeats fed: See, lisping Toilers grace thy Dunciad's Cause, And scream their witty Scavenger's Applause, While powder'd Wits, and lac'd Cabals rehearse Thy bawdy Cento, and thy Bead-roll Verse; Gay, bugled Statesmen on thy Side debate, And libel'd Blockheads court thee, tho' they hate. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Fools of all Kinds ...
— Two Poems Against Pope - One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope and the Blatant Beast • Leonard Welsted
... civil to us, but vowed they would punish the Neapolitans for making them expend the three shots, and they forthwith began plundering the vessel; and hauling out the master from his berth, into which he had crept, they made him point out whatever was most valuable on board—brightening his wits up every now and then with a rope's end. How the poor fellow did howl! but he deserved it; for he was an arrant coward. The leader of the pirates who boarded us was a very polite young man: he told us, that he should be sorry ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... eyes Fix'd full on Merlin's face, her stately prize. Her 'haviour had the morning's fresh clear grace, The spirit of the woods was in her face. She look'd so witching fair, that learned wight Forgot his craft, and his best wits took flight; And he grew fond, and eager to obey His mistress, use her ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... was what you could call grateful; he never looked my way at all, but went on cussing the horse he was holding, for acting up just when he should keep his wits. I went back to Frosty, and we stood elbows touching, ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... of Daisy's couch. She lay just a few feet from the door, and everybody coming to the door and having it opened, could look in if he pleased; and so Daisy would have no privacy at all. That would not do; Juanita's wits went to work to mend the matter. Her little house had been never intended for more than one person. There was another room in it, to be sure, where Mrs. Benoit's own bed was; so that Daisy could have the use and possession of this ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... here to see me, wrote books about me. Those who did come were more impudent than those who stayed away. Their idea of learning all about a creature was to dig up its home, and frighten it out of its wits, and kill it; and after a few moons of that sort of foolery they claimed to know all about us. Us! whose ancestors knew the world millions of years before the ignorant Humans came on the earth at all!" The Platypus spluttered out more dirty ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... the doctor rarely missed their festivities at the barracks. Here his peculations began and were discovered. He deserted and got to St. Louis, where he began to "barber" on a boat; got married and into more trouble; fled to Denver and found people's wits too sharp for him; so, leaving his wife to support herself as best she could, he ran up to Cheyenne and enlisted in the cavalry. Doors and windows, desks and trunks, were found lying open everywhere at Robinson; Celestine ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... Mr. McGrath's Company of Comedians, with the celebrated comedy The Miser. This Company is by far the best that ever visited this town." Then on August 12 there was "The Beggars Opera and A Comedy of two acts, Barnaby Brittle or a Wife at her Wits End. Also in August Mr. McGrath's Company of Comedians gave The Tragedy of Douglas and Garrick's Comedy of Two Acts ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... have it all, now. There can't be anything worse. It's funny, yes, with that truly infernal drollery which the newspaper wits seem to have the art of." He read on—"—'when a case was called that brought the breath of clover blossoms and hay-seed into the sultry court-room, and warmed the cockles of the habitues' toughened pericardiums with a touch of real poetry. This was a case of assault, with ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... so hard and fierce a blow upon his headpiece that he was hard put to it to keep his wits and his seat; and looking round he saw the troll, a fierce dark little man, on the very top of the mound, wielding a long thick bar of iron, as thick ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... said to his audience in College, 'Gentlemen, magnetism is the medicine of the future.' As I am writing this I have been disturbed by a visitor desiring the address of a reliable magnetizer, as the physician recommended a magnetizer, as he was at his wits end." ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... hospital and let them tuck me away in a cot. Now grin, blast you! Yes, she was one of the day nurses, Katie McDevitt. No raving beauty, you know. Ah, but the starry bright eyes of her, the tender touch of her soft hand, and the quick wits under her white cap! It wasn't just the mushy sentiment of a convalescent, either. Three grand weeks afterwards I waited around, going walks with her in the park, taking her on foolish steamer rides, sending her flowers, notes, candy. We were rare spoons, and she was as good ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... not shew it you," cried Henrietta, running back in a moment, "you would never think it possible, for it is to make such a request— that it has frightened me almost out of my wits!" ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... brought by Aladdin's lamp, they never considered it possible that the table would not be provided as usual on such occasions; so this terrible speech of Mrs. Crabtree's frightened them out of their wits. What was to be done? They both knew by experience that she always did what she threatened, or something a great deal worse, so they began by bursting into tears, and begging Mrs. Crabtree for this once to excuse them and to give some cakes and ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... effectually to conceal which, the remainder of the powder I had, the Wednesday before, thrown away, and burnt Mr. Cranstoun's letter: so I had nothing to evince the innocence of my intention, and was moreover frightened out of my wits. Let the good-natured part of the world put themselves in my place, and then condemn me if they can for this. On Sunday my father said, "He was better"; but found himself obliged to keep his bed that day. Mr. Blandy, of Kingston, a relation of ours, ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... the court wits of Queen Elizabeth's time. He uses the word "honorificabilitudinitatibus," and some of his blunders are very ridiculous, as "ad dunghill, at the fingers' ends, as they say" (act v. I).—Shakespeare, Love's Labour's ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... should he not be mad in love with her if he likes?" replied Jean; "she is a morsel fit for a king, and if Le Gardeur should lose both his heart and his wits on her account, it is only what half the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... feeling of renewed alarm, then, that I made this discovery, but I did not as before yield myself up to despair. Perhaps my wits were quickened by the peril that was fast approaching me. At all events, I kept my senses about me, and set to considering what was best to ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... least in most diggings men are left to sharpen their own wits by experience. Sometimes, however, the biter is pretty well bitten. There was a poor Chilian once who was deceived in this way, and paid four hundred dollars for a claim that was scarcely worth working. He looked rather put out on discovering the imposture, but was only laughed ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... the government of the State, he sent to Corcyra and summoned Lycophron to come back and take the supreme power; for in the elder of his sons he did not see the required capacity, but perceived clearly that he was of wits too dull. Lycophron however did not deign even to give an answer to the bearer of his message. Then Periander, clinging still in affection to the youth, sent to him next his own daughter, the sister of Lycophron, supposing that he would yield ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... relied on was the Duke of Richmond; they meant he should be either First Lord of the Treasury or Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. Lord Winchelsea said to Ellenborough, 'Why, he speaks better than the Duke of Wellington any day.' He happens to have his wits, such as they are, about him, and has been quick and neat in one or two little speeches, though he spoke too often, and particularly in his attack on the Bishop of Oxford the other night. Last year, on the Wool question, he did very well, but ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... rein in his horse, that he might return to the help of his friend, although from his wound he could render no aid. Some of his own men who had crossed the bridge, and in a sense of safety had regained their wits, saw his purpose, and dashing back, they formed a body-guard around him, and dragged his horse swiftly beyond the line ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... a hard question, and the professor felt himself at his wits' end. He had stepped a dozen yards out of the track, and was standing amongst some rough stones which helped the darkness to conceal his presence, though the valley was in such a deep shadow that, as he strained ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... matters of sex is an impossibility, and therefore not to be even attempted. They are no common people—these epicureans, selfish even in their refinement. In addition to losing their morals, they have certainly lost their wits. ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland
... This sight caused the king to wonder and to deem within himself that they were drunk with many liquors. Wherefore he commanded one of his lords, who served at the board, to go to them and desire them to collect their wits, and to consider where they stood, and what it was fitting for them to do. And this lord did so gladly. But they ceased not from their folly any more than before. Whereupon he sent to them a second time, and a ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... beforehand, and didn't know exactly what he was about. Anyhow, the first thing we knew Brother Gyardner had hold o' Amos himself, leadin' him towards the water. Amos was a timid sort o' man, easy flustered, and it looked like he lost his wits and his tongue too. He was kind o' pullin' back and lookin' round in a skeered way, and Brother Gyardner he hollered out, 'Come right along, brother! I know jest how it is myself; the spirit is willin', but the flesh is weak.' The Babtists ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... out that child to save my soul," remarked Miss Polly as he shut the door carefully and ran down the hall to the nursery. "The more I study him the curiouser he seems to me. If he wan't so quick about some things you might think his wits were sort of addled—but they ain't, are they? Now, whatever do you reckon put the notion in his head ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... object seems fair to it when it looks at it in the glass, which will deceive it if it is not on its guard. My mirror has greatly deceived me; for in it my heart saw a ray of light with which I am afflicted, and which has penetrated deep within me, causing me to lose my wits. I am ill-treated by my friend, who deserts me for my enemy. I may well accuse him of felony for the wrong he has done to me. I thought I had three friends, my heart and my two eyes together; but it seems that they hate me. Where shall I ever find a friend, when these three are my enemies, ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... this unknown, untraversed wild was of vast extent; grim, forbidding mountains blocked his way, torrents tumbling from rocky fastnesses impeded his progress, and at every turn he was forced to match wits and muscles with the great carnivora that he ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... not men who were always free from prejudices and blunders. They were not men, as a rule, from university quadrangles nor college cloisters. They were not the wise, nor the erudite, nor the cultivated, nor the rich. They were the good men. Brilliant men tire us; wits soon bore us with their gilt-edged nothings, but men with clean, holy hearts, fixed convictions, bold antipathies to sin, sympathetic natures and tender consciences never weary us, and they bear the intimate and familiar acquaintance which so often causes the downfall ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... wits!" Mayakin waved his hand disdainfully. "I am surprised, what an appetite you have for all sorts of nonsense! What does it ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... what he saies to you, O try your wits, they say you are excellent at it, for your Land has lain long ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... impediments of knowledge for want of a true succession of wits, and that hitherto the length of one man's life hath been the greatest measure of knowledge; being the ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... and law, and his high quality as thinker and speaker. Born in Kentucky in 1809, removing to Indiana in 1816, to Illinois in 1830, reared in extreme poverty and wholly self-educated, this man had risen by his wits, his sturdy perseverance and industry, his extraordinary ability, and his proverbial honesty, to be the acknowledged peer of the "Little Giant" himself. He began political life a Whig and ably represented that party in the national Congress from 1847 to 1849, making his ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... condemned at Tregarrick, that Assize; and two men put to death that morning. The first to go was a sheep-stealer. Ten minutes after, Dan'l saw Hughie his brother led forth; and stood there and watched, with the reprieve in his hand. His wits were gone, and he chit-chattered all the time about ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the stage. Caliban himself is a cross-breed between a witch and a clown. No offence to Shakespeare; who was not bound to be the greatest of healthy poets, and to have every morbid inspiration besides. What he might have done, had he set his wits to compete with Dante, I know not: all I know is, that in the infernal line he did nothing like him; and it is not to be wished he had. It is far better that, as a higher, more universal, and more beneficent variety of the genus Poet, he should have been the happier man ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... on those few but glorious days when the section was issued with one fig, two dates or half a dozen currants. The possibilities of the larder were considerably spun out by barter with the Indians, who had plenty and to spare of good food, by the use of one's wits and by purchase at exorbitant prices of certain articles from sailors. Still, despite this high living, the ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... your wits? I a new married man at sixty-five! And marry a decrepit poor old woman! Is that ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... you need not be alarmed. With the exception of being frightened very nearly out of her wits, poor child, there is nothing wrong with Lucille; she has swooned with terror, but I can soon put her all right again. The Malays, however, have landed on the island; and I am dreadfully afraid they have got Gaunt and poor little Percy, but we can know nothing for certain until ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... west) is distinguished as the birthplace, in 1584, of one who was considered by Hugo Grotius to be the glory of the English nation—John Selden. Nowadays, when we choose our glories among other classes of men than jurists and wits, it is more than possible for even cultured persons who are interested in books to go through life very happily without knowledge at all of this great man, the friend of great men and the writer best endowed with common sense ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... dictated lesson on the same subject, or to be afraid to go beyond one's note-books: for he who knows where everything is placed, and how he can arrive at it, even if anything be completely buried, will be able to dig it up, and will always have his wits about him in every discussion. And although men who are endowed with great abilities, attain to a certain copiousness of eloquence without any definite principles of oratory, still art is a surer guide than nature. For it is one thing to pour out words ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... scare a body out of their wits—scaring his mother to death won't bring his money back, will it? If it's ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... brain which may be assumed to have resulted in his own case from mental exercise? The question must not be misunderstood. We do not ask whether clever parents do as a rule have clever children; what we want to know is whether the successive sharpening of the wits of generations of people does, or does not, eventually result in establishing a real and ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen
... with the baby, who was also crying with fright, although not hurt. Unfortunately, Juno had fallen down upon Vixen the terrier, who in return had bitten her in the leg, which had made Juno also cry out; while Mrs. Seagrave was hanging her head out of her standing bed-place, frightened out of her wits at the accident, but unable to be of any assistance. Fortunately, Mr. Seagrave came down just in time to pick up Juno and the baby, and then tried to comfort little Caroline, who after all was not much scalded, as the soup had had ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... simpler than theirs, comprising far less of complex ideas; and partly because their organisation was, by hereditary culture, much more ductile and more readily capable of acquiring knowledge than mine. At this I secretly demurred; and having had in the course of a practical life, to sharpen my wits, whether at home or in travel, I could not allow that my cerebral organisation could possibly be duller than that of people who had lived all their lives by lamplight. However, while I was thus thinking, Zee quietly pointed ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... religion that a man will hardly pass for a genius if he does not allow his impious satire to run a tilt at its most sacred truths. The noble simplicity of holy writ must needs be abused and turned into ridicule at the daily assemblies of the so-called wits; for what is there so holy and serious that will not raise a laugh if a false sense be attached to it? Let me hope that I shall have rendered no inconsiderable service to the cause of true religion and morality in holding up these wanton misbelievers to the detestation ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... here with his fleet the great mountain on the island of Teneriffe, twelve thousand feet high, suddenly began to spit out flame and smoke. It was, as of course you know, a volcano; but the poor frightened sailors did not know what set this mountain on fire, and they were scared almost out of their wits' and begged the Admiral to go back home. But Columbus would not. And as they sailed away from Gomera some sailors told them that the king of Portugal was angry with Columbus because he had got his ships from the king and queen of Spain, and that he had sent out some of his war-ships ...
— The True Story of Christopher Columbus • Elbridge S. Brooks
... People, and a wicked Pleasure in suppressing them in others; both which I recommend to your Spectatorial Wisdom to animadvert upon; and if you can be successful in it, I need not say how much you will deserve of the Town; but new Toasts will owe to you their Beauty, and new Wits their Fame. I am, SIR, Your ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... as much open sea when I was blown out of Bolderhead in the sloop, as now lay between the Scarboro and Cape St. Antonio. But, as you might say, I had taken that first trip blindly. This time I had my eyes open and all my wits about me—and I knew that we had taken a big contract. The Wavecrest was a mere cockle-shell in which to cross such a waste of open sea as that which lay between us and the mouth of Rio de ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... to the rear of the car. It was odd how quickly his mind worked in his desperate predicament. His eyes stung and his throat pained him and he knew that he had won only the chance of a race with death. But what more does a scout want than a fighting chance? His wits, spurred by the emergency, were now alert and he recalled that the men who had stolen the car had rolled one door shut and slammed another. So perhaps the rolling door had been barred inside. Where the small door was he did not know, and there was no time now to make a groping exploration ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... o' her wits," went on the farmer, his rage growing as he looked at the spilt milk. "Nat Nason, I tell you, ...
— From Farm to Fortune - or Nat Nason's Strange Experience • Horatio Alger Jr.
... her wits to work, and was ingenious enough to invent an arrangement of small straps about the saddle, by which a great deal could be safely carried thereon, in a small compass. Here she now spread out and fastened a plain dark walking-dress and a few other trifles of apparel. Worm ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... woman! This's life or death now. Mind that. Climb up! Keep your wits. Stick close to me. Watch where your hoss's ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... noises. All the men smoked in church, and this we saw repeatedly; but it would be difficult to say where we ever saw a Dutchman with a pipe out of his mouth. Every man seemed to be systematically smoking away the few wits he possest. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... pain went off, so did Dexter's anger, and he reseated himself upon the stump, thinking, with his young wits ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... things, speaks familiarly to anyone. You wouldn't believe it, Varlamov came here one day and Solomon said such things to him that he gave us both a taste of his whip. . . . But why whip me? Was it my fault? God has robbed him of his wits, so it is God's will, and how am I ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... which did smile In Fletcher, grew on this enchanted isle. But Shakspeare's magic could not copied be— Within that circle none durst walk but he. I must confess 'twas bold, nor would you now That liberty to vulgar wits allow, Which works by magic supernatural things; But Shakspeare's power is sacred as a king's. Those legends from old priesthood were received, And he them writ ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... mistress; giving him his arm, telling him where to put his foot down so as to avoid the mud, warming the bed for him, lighting a fire in his room, making his supper ready. The next day, after he had done his best to fluster his son's wits over a sumptuous dinner, Jerome-Nicolas Sechard, after copious potations, began with a "Now for business," a remark so singularly misplaced between two hiccoughs, that David begged his parent to postpone serious matters until the morrow. But the old "bear" ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... were empty he borrowed of his neighbours, but he always took good care to prevent his scolding wife from finding out that he had done so. His motto was: 'It will all come right in the end'; but what it did come to was ruin for Master Peter. He was at his wits' end to know how to earn an honest living, for try as he might ill-luck seemed to pursue him, and he lost one post after another, till at last all he could do was to carry sacks of corn to the mill for his wife, who scolded him well if he was slow about ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... step, she knew, from the very sound of it, that he was discomposed. Never was such a creature for interpreting the signs of the unseen! Her senses were as discriminating as those of wild animals that have not only to find life but to avoid death by the keenness of their wits. She came out, and met him in the dim green air under ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... now arise, even in the heart, such defiling and foul infectious thoughts that putteth the tempted to their wits' end; for now it seems to the soul that the very flood-gates of the flesh are opened, and that to sin there is no stop at all; now the air seems to be covered with darkness, and the man is as if he was changed into the nature of a devil; now ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... possession books to which he attached no importance, but which, a lady informed him, must be very rare. They were submitted to the authorities of the British Museum, who gave a high price for them. One was Sir Anthony Sherley's 'Wits New Dyall,' published in 1604, of which only one other copy is known to be in existence. As a rule, offers of rare books come from booksellers, who do not always say how they become possessed of them. Among the private people who offer books to the Museum for sale ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... lynx you shot, Rod, and thought it was a Woonga, and had us all frightened out of our wits?" he cried. ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... ship was fast on a bank hitherto undiscovered. Suddenly a dreadful storm of wind and rain arose, and, being surrounded with rocks and shoals, the ship was constantly striking. "The women, children, and sick people were out of their wits with fear," so they decided to land these on an island for "their cries and noise served only to disturb them." The landing was extremely difficult owing to the rocky coast, where the waves were dashing high. When the weather had moderated a bit, Captain Pelsart took the ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... pupil, 'tell me if I am dreaming, or if I have lost my wits? When I came in just now, these angels were Florentine citizens with red caps on their heads, and now they are angels once more. What ...
— Knights of Art - Stories of the Italian Painters • Amy Steedman
... disturbed, without wearing an appearance of unnatural effort. The substantial burgher was a little turned of fifty: and an English wag, who had imported from the mother country a love for the humor of his nation, had once, in a conflict of wits before the city council, described him to be a man of alliterations. When called upon to explain away this breach of parliamentary decorum, the punster had gotten rid of the matter, by describing his opponent to be "short, solid and sturdy, in stature; full, flushed and funny, in face; and proud, ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... highly imaginative speculations. It is interesting to remember, however, that the system of astronomy first taught by Pythagoras was afterwards developed into the solar system by Copernicus, and is now received as the Copernican system. But, turning from grave to gay, we find that five wits have been described, viz., common sense, imagination, fantasy, estimation, and memory. Of these, common sense passes judgment on all things; imagination brings the mind to realise what comes before it; fantasy stimulates the mind ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... boy, remember me when I come in Paul's Churchyard to buy a Ronsard and [a] Dubartas in French, and Aretine in Italian; and our hardest writers in Spanish; they will sharpen my wits gallantly. I do relish these tongues in some sort. O, now I do remember, I hear a report of a poet newly come out in Hebrew; it is a pretty harsh tongue, and telleth[97] a gentleman traveller: but come, let's haste after my father; ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... but of the court and good society. Good society, in poesy, was born with Marot, with Francis I., and his sister Marguerite, with the Renaissance: much will still have to be done to bring it to perfection, but it exists and will never cease again. . . . Marot, a poet of wits rather than of genius or of great talent, but full of grace and breeding, who has no passion, but is not devoid of sensibility, has a way of his own of telling and saying things; he has a turn of his own; he is, in a word, the agreeable ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... were lodged in the hotel, turning it into a scene of indescribable confusion. The food is said to be first rate, but the rooms looked dirty and uninviting, and the noise was enough to drive anyone out of his wits. How refreshing to find myself in this quiet Presbytere on the outskirts of the town, no noise except the occasional pattering of little feet and happy sound of children's voices, almost absolute quiet indeed from morning to night! My window looks upon a charming hill clothed with vineyards, ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... glances. And Edward Henry, rapidly acquiring new knowledge of human nature on the threshold of a world strange to him, understood that Mr. Bryany, with his private sitting-room and his investments in Seattle and Calgary, was at his wits' end for a bag of English sovereigns, and had trusted to some chance encounter to save him from a calamity. And his contempt for Mr. Bryany was that of a man to whom his ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... came from the thorax of the Dominie. "Verily, friend Tom, it appeareth, among other virtues, to sharpen the wits. Proceed, friend Dux, in the medicinal virtues ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Bressant's eyes, and he pressed his hand rapidly down over his face, as if to sharpen his wits, or ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... tossed bodily into the cataract. The boat heeled gunwale under, and suddenly, but the bowman kept his feet like a Blondin, dropped the boat-hook, and jumped to unlash the halyard; a wave buried the boat nose under and swamped me in my kennel; my heart stopped beating, and, scared out of my wits, I began to strip off my sodden clothes; but before I had half done the sail had been set; both men had miraculously fended the boat from a rock, which, by a moment's hesitation, would have smashed us in bits or buried us in the boiling trough formed by the eddy below it, ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... never learned to sit for hours over a cup, slowly addling his wits and marking the hour when the room should begin to swing upon the pivot of his head; and Henry kept him constantly by his side, saying that he was the only sober man in his father's court, knight or squire; nor would the boy let him go, excepting when he himself could pass his time ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... and he has the spirit of a goblin; not wishing to hurt or harm you, indeed, but very ready to play off tricks upon you. He'll sit at your ear and whisper merry thoughts to you; he'll creep into your heart and warm you, so that you grow very merry and become a wit, so far as the wits of ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... not send for it?" inquired the major, who had scarcely been asked for his advice, but whose wits had been sharpened by the extremity of his danger. "Why not send for a couple ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... to the listening world that Wallace had thrown a tarantula upon him. Further fearful language suggested the thought that Colonel Jones had passed on the inquisitive spider to Frank. The reception accorded the unfortunate tarantula, no doubt scared out of its wits, began with a wild yell from Frank and ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... law and brute force, maximum of intelligent self-control and kindly adaptation. Mere codes of rules, whether at home or at school, set the children at work, with all their sharp, unregenerate little wits, to pick flaws, draw distinctions, and quibble on interpretations. They become abominably shrewd in a degrading, casuistical strict-constructionism. In spite of everything, the little, cunning, irresponsible, non-moral beings will be successfully ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... actually taxed to advertise the local makers of wooden nutmegs. Multitudes of swindlers are naturally induced to adopt advertising as a trade, and some of them make great fortunes at it. Like all other men who live by their wits, they regard themselves as superior fellows, and every year they hold great conventions, bore each other with learned papers upon the psychology of their victims, speak of one another as men of genius, have themselves photographed by the photographers of newspapers eager to curry favour with them, ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... and very full correspondence between the prisoners, and soon Casanova—who had not lived on his wits for nothing—was able to form a shrewd estimate of Balbi's character. The monk's letters revealed it as compounded of ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... wolf is a powerful, savage beast, and directing his strong jaws, tireless muscles, keen scent, and all-seeing eyes are exceedingly nimble wits. He is well equipped to make the severe struggle for existence which his present environment compels. In many Western localities, despite the high price offered for his scalp, he has managed not only to live, but to increase and multiply. I had seen gray wolves pull down big game. On ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... world to get on in a foreign country with a phrase book and your wits," he remarked to himself. "Jove, ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the comrades who had never left the dear old province, and so forth, and so forth. They were delighted with him. He took Petit-Claud aside, and asked him for the real truth about David's affairs, reproaching him for allowing his brother-in-law to go into hiding, and tried to match his wits against the little lawyer. Petit-Claud made an effort over himself, and gave his acquaintance to understand that he (Petit-Claud) was only an insignificant little country attorney, with no sort ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... of business he measures his wits with others of his kind. He apes their manners, their slang, and their tone inflections. He imitates their fashions in clothes, learns the popular dishes in the restaurants, and if of feminine tastes gives up pie for salad. He goes ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... to do, who is the patron of bad authors and bad actors. She has written a play too, which was damned, and worthy my lord's approbation.' It was this lady who bade her footman blow into the spout of the tea-pot. Ante, ii. 403. Dr. J. H. Burton writes of her in his Life of Hume, ii. 213:—'The wits must praise her bad poetry if they frequented her house. "Elle etait d'une figure aimable," says Grimm, "elle est bonne femme; elle est riche; elle pouvait fixer chez elle les gens d'esprit et de bonne compagnie, sans les mettre dans ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... was reached less by heroic endeavor than by heroic patience and the wisdom of a few. The depths of ignominy into which Continental currency had sunk measured the hopelessness with which those who lived by wits rather than by manual labor surveyed the field. So, relinquishing the law, Webster resumed teaching, this time in Sharon. An advertisement gives notice of what he expected to do ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... sometimes as prominent as in Euphues itself. Lyly's theatre represents, in short, a mere backwater in the general stream of dramatic progress, though not a few allusions in other men's work show us that it attracted no small attention. With Nash alone, of the University Wits proper, was Lyly connected, and this only problematically. He was an Oxford man, and most of them were of Cambridge; he was a courtier; if a badly-paid one, and they all lived by their wits; and, if we may judge ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... a certain amount of wealth—the many of mankind were (the industrious) producers—but he held that all men, speculators, who circumvented others by their wits, living without work, were in point of fact—gamblers. If a man were to go into the street and gain $3000 in a morning by a stock or other speculation—why, as surely as we lived, somebody lost that money—aye, and by gambling on the largest scale. Men who lost their money at a gaming-table ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... flash, came my wits again. In an instant I had drawn myself to my full height and stood regarding calmly my enraged father. Ah, that I have not one kind thought—one gentle memory——" Again the stranger paused, and the girls felt the undernote ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... demanded. "Aha! are you there, Miles Coverdale? You have been turning night into day since you left us, I reckon; and so you find it quite natural to come prowling about the house at this time o' night, frightening my old woman out of her wits, and making her disturb a tired man out of his best nap. In with you, you vagabond, and ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... She was dressed in a rusty black satin gown, with scant, short skirt and huge sleeves; on her head was a great black bonnet with a high crown and a close brim, which came far out over her face. "What is your pleasure?" said she; and we felt like two awkward children. Kate partially recovered her wits, and asked which was ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... his cap, And warm gown his limbs to wrap. Be your constant care, good boy, What shall give your uncle joy. Max and Maurice (need I mention?) Had not any such intention. See now how they tried their wits— These bad boys—on Uncle Fritz. What kind of a bird a May- Bug was, they knew, I ...
— Max and Maurice - a juvenile history in seven tricks • William [Wilhelm] Busch
... and giving him a goose's wing, bade him go on to the bridge and sweep off the dust. Meanwhile Ivan went into the Golden castle. And when the Tsar and the Princesses went out early on to the balcony they were amazed at beholding the Castle and the bridge; but the Princesses were out of their wits with joy, for they were now quite sure that Ivan Tsarevich was in the city; and presently after, indeed, they saw him at a window in the golden castle. Then they begged the Tsar and Tsarina to go with them into the castle; and as soon as they set foot on the ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... scenes, with the guns making the most of their opportunities and struggling over the torn ground behind the infantry as best they might. But the supply services experienced the biggest demand upon their wits and resources, uprooted from their comfortable and secure villages and cast out upon the shelterless land of the devastated area just like the infantry. Their work was wonderful, however, and very rarely had Tommy occasion to grouse about either the quality or the quantity ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... Stratton's acquaintance with the lady, which he managed to parry rather cleverly. As a matter of fact the acute horror he felt at the very thought of the truth about himself getting out, quickened his wits and kept him constantly on his guard. He kept his temper and his head, explaining calmly that Miss Manning had been one of the nurses detailed to look after the batch of wounded men of whom he had been one. Naturally he had seen considerable of her during ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... on the hill-top The old king sits; He is now so old and grey He's nigh lost his wits. With a bridge of white mist Columbkill he crosses, On his stately journeys From Slieveleague to Rosses; Or going up with music On cold starry nights, To sup with the queen Of ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... itself; Ariosto turns him accordingly into an actual being of that name. We speak of the flights of the poets; Ariosto makes them literally flights—flights on a hippogriff, and to the moon. The moon, it has been said, makes lunatics; he accordingly puts a man's wits into that planet. Vice deforms beauty; therefore his beautiful enchantress turns out to be an old hag. Ancient defeated empires are sounds and emptiness; therefore the Assyrian and Persian monarchies become, in his limbo of vanities, a heap of positive bladders. Youth ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... can in the least take the post which dear Miss Beverley has so worthily filled. But I have further bad news to give you. Mr. Bennett is leaving Warwick for a better post in London, and we shall be at our wits' end to get the girls good music-lessons ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... study of his countenance. She had never entertained for a moment the supposition that his wits were unsettled, but none the less the constant recurrence of that idea in her mother's talk had subtly influenced her against her husband. It had confirmed her in thinking that his behaviour was inexcusable. And now it ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... an immense clientele, if only he dared put up his signboard. Literally, I cannot do that. Actually, I mean to do so! I shall be willing to accept contracts either to help nervous people out of an undesirable crisis; or, on the other hand, to measure my wits against the wits of Scotland Yard, and to discover the criminals whom they have failed to secure. I shall make my own bargains, and I shall be paid in cash. I shall take on nothing that I am ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... zealous and repent; the word signifies be wise againe, or returne to your wits. The prodigall is sayd to come to himselfe, when he was first heat with this fire. Wee may well answer the world as old men doe young: You thinke us Christians to bee madd that follow heaven so eagerly; but we know ...
— A Coal From The Altar, To Kindle The Holy Fire of Zeale - In a Sermon Preached at a Generall Visitation at Ipswich • Samuel Ward
... a troubled smile. "I don't think so. I was off watch, waiting for cold-sleep—we're just about to make the long jump—when Vorongil came to my quarters. I was startled almost out of my wits. He asked if I could keep a secret; then he told me about you. Oh, Bart!" Her small soft hand closed convulsively on his, "I was so afraid! I knew they wouldn't kill you, ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... I have met Sheridan frequently: he was superb! He had a sort of liking for me, and never attacked me, at least to my face, as he did every body else—high names, and wits, and orators, some of them poets also. I have seen him cut up Whitbread, quiz Madame de Stael, annihilate Colman, and do little less by some others (whose names, as friends, I set not down) of good fame and ability. Poor fellow! he got drunk very ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... at their wits' end, the most faithful of their servants and partisans waited for some sign authorizing them to protest against the unparalleled surprise to which France had been subjected. The fugitive King made no protest. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... second the faculties of both boys were paralyzed. A tingling sensation was in their limbs. Jack was the first to recover his wits. He snatched his hands from his eyes and seized the wheel. In a jiffy the Wondership's earthward plunge was checked. Once more ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... he thought, "racking my wits over this matter, and about all I do is just guess work, after all. The best thing I can do is get permission to go to the town, find that alley and see if I can't run across some clue that was lacking the ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... if we keep our wits awake," I said; "but we must not be over-particular as to what ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... a tiny ghost, She stands unmoving there; Or if she moves, my wits were lost To meet her ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... gardener had collected his wits enough to go to her and explain. The last the kids saw of them as they bounded away, he had his arm around her and was loving her, much ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery
... Wolseley motors of one hundred and eighty horse-power each, and with a whole series of vertical and horizontal rudders. She was popularly called the Mayfly—a name which, both in and out of Parliament, suggested to bright wits an ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... pedants nor the people would really understand Cicero; though there were some indeed, like this new writer, Apuleius, who, departing from the custom of writing in Greek, which had been a fashionable affectation among the sprightlier wits since the days of Hadrian, had ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater |
