"Jest at" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... interruptions should be ended. Sigurd moved leisurely a little nearer to Robert, who did not heed him, heeding only the archbishop. Through his bewildered mind bewildering thoughts were flitting. What was the meaning of this strange jest at his expense? Could the archbishop believe that he would ever pardon so preposterous an enormity? Yet now a kind of fear crept in upon his rage, as he heard the priest use the name ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... important thing in criticism is to understand the triumphs of the poet or painter, let us say, whom we are studying. How came he to achieve poem or picture, so profound and so true? In what does he differ from other men, that he should do work so fundamental and so eternal? Lamb's punning jest at Wordsworth—that Wordsworth was saying he could have written Hamlet, if he had had the mind—puts the matter directly. What is the mind that can do such things? The historian will have to ask himself a ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... knee like a sword, broke it in twain, broke in their turn the two halves, and tossed the four pieces over the fence. "Thar, now! It's did." Moving back to Allan's side, he threw himself down upon the grass. "When's this hell-fired fightin' goin' to begin? I don't ask anything better, jest at this minute, than to ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... coffin now sat two common soldiers of ruffianly aspect playing at dice, betting whether the Lord or the Devil would get the soul of Barneveld. Many a foul and ribald jest at the expense of the prisoner was exchanged between these gamblers, some of their comrades, and a few townsmen, who were grouped about at that early hour. The horrible libels, caricatures, and calumnies which had been circulated, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... his rock, I sit and jest At others' dreams of love or fame or pelf, Discovering but a ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... not," he said fiercely; "no man is free to marry twice under such conditions. It's a jest at decency and a slap in the face of civilisation! I'm done for—finished; I had my chance and I failed. Do you think I consider myself free to try again with the chance of further ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... "Silence, Barnes; you jest at everything, you young men do—you do. Colonel Newcome's affection for his old nurse does him the greatest honour," said the Baronet, who really meant what ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... oft-times does more than argument, and many things that are very desirable and necessary are often overshadowed by the skilful juxtaposition that shifts them where they are but dimly seen, while other things stand forth in a strong light and are thus looked upon as all important. So the merry quip and jest at the Latin and Greek studied by the Negro bring far more than a passing laugh—they really bring discredit upon the whole higher training where none is actually intended. It causes the old friends of higher learning to pause, and take it far too literally, and then determine ...
— The Educated Negro and His Mission - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 8 • W. S. Scarborough
... that more trivial minds find it: a thing, on the contrary, to be gone into with slow spelling, and face knitted up into savage sternness, especially now, when, as he gravely explained to Margaret, "in his opinion the crissis was jest at hand, and ev'ry man must be seein' ef the gover'ment was carryin' out the views ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... actor, dramatic in the Cabinet, in the House, in his very office. He transacted business with his clerks in full dress. His letters to his family, genuine as his love for them was, are stilted and unnatural in tone. It was easy for the wits of his day to jest at his affectation, his pompous gait, the dramatic appearance which he made on great debates with his limbs swathed in flannel and his crutch by his side. Early in life Walpole sneered at him for bringing into the House of Commons "the gestures ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... rule was an impossible one, and Lord Brougham himself never tried seriously to observe it; nor, in truth, has any great writer made the attempt. Not only is our language highly composite, but the component words have, in De Quincey's phrase, 'happily coalesced.' It is easy to jest at words in -osity and -ation, as 'dictionary' words, and the like. But even Lord Brougham would have found it difficult to dispense ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... at last, stifling his mirth as he beheld the other's threatening frown. "Well, I ain't laffin' at you. It's—it's jest at things." ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... made so. The real Master to whom all is permitted storms Toulon, makes a massacre in Paris, forgets an army in Egypt, wastes half a million men in the Moscow expedition and gets off with a jest at Vilna. And altars are set up to him after his death, and so all is permitted. No, such people, it seems, are not of ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... more. Yet it is a sad story. Know, then, thy father was a wild and untameable youth, that was courteous and brave withal, but brooked not government overmuch. He was, too, of a wondrous merry disposition, that loved a jest at men in great places, and this made him not beloved. Against his father's command he stole away thy mother, who perished in a raid of her kinsmen upon his house, and in the minority of the duke he was found on ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... writings; of "Crispin Dorr," I am told, there are no fewer than three rival editions in the market; and I have received complimentary letters and requests for my autograph, from all parts of the United States, I think that the quality of American humour has been over-rated: but I can forgive a jest at my own expense, provided it be not ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... back!" Kamal has gripped him by the hand and set him upon his feet. "No talk shall be of dogs," said he, "when wolf and gray wolf meet. May I eat dirt if thou hast hurt of me in deed or breath; What dam of lances brought thee forth to jest at the dawn with Death?" Lightly answered the Colonel's son: "I hold by the blood of my clan: Take up the mare for my father's gift — by God, she has carried a man!" The red mare ran to the Colonel's son, and nuzzled against his breast; "We be two strong men," said ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... range, pickin' up what calves misses the spring brandin'—an' we're bringin' along mebby three hundred cows an' half-grown calves, an' headin' for the bar-B-eight—that's Enright's brand—corral to mark the calves. It's late in August, jest at the beginnin' of the rains. Thar's a storm, an' everybody's in the saddle, plumb down to the cook, tryin' to hold the bunch. It's flash on flash of lightnin'; an' thunder followin' on the heels of thunder-clap. As we-all is cirklin' the little herd, an' singin' to 'em ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... that I had gone too far, for to jest at the expense of the family pride was an unpardonable ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... his friend liked music without melody. Rossini openly protested against this in an article in which he designated the story as a mauvaise blague and at the same time declared that he would never allow himself such a jest at the expense of a man who was trying to extend his influence in the artistic world. When I heard of this, I did not for a moment hesitate to pay Rossini a visit, and was received by him in the friendliest manner, which I afterwards described in a ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... Next to win friends about me, few, that thirst To hold them clean of all unrighteousness. Our rule doth curse the tempters, and no less Who yieldeth to the tempters.—How, thou say'st, "Dupes that I jest at?" Nay; I make a jest Of no man. I am honest to the end, Near or far off, with him I call my friend. And most in that one thing, where now thy mesh Would grip me, stainless quite! No woman's flesh Hath e'er this body touched. Of all such deed ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... an't best to fret about it, jest at this minute," responded the imperturbable guide—"I kinder want to make an observation or two, before we start," he added, ascending an elevation near by, which commanded a view of the road both ways for a ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... But my master is in debt to Meshach Milburn, an' he's married Miss Vesty, an' we think we're all gwyn to be sold or made to live with that man that wears the bad man's hat.' Says I: 'Roxy, darling, maybe I kin buy you.' 'Oh, I wish you was my master,' Roxy said. An' jest at that minute, love bein' oncommon strong over me this mornin', I took the first kiss from Roxy's mouth, an' she didn't say nothin' ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... have you seed—oh, heer you are!"—he broke off as he noticed Westerfelt. "You are the one man in the United Kingdom that I want to see jest at this present moment. Bill Washburn 'lowed he had orders from you not to let me have anything out'n yore shebang; ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... auld wheezie bellows," replied one woman coarsely, adding a rough jest at his breathlessness, whilst the others laughed loudly, adding, each one, another sally to ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... us of the war as they waged it in France. Also, it introduced Bairnsfather to us. "The Better 'Ole" became almost an institution; we could speak with authority on "'oles." And "When the 'ell's it goin' to be strawberry?" was the unfailing jest at meal-times, as we scraped the layer of flies from the top of ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... to say in that amiable way of hisen, "that it probably made it a little harder for him jest at that time, as he wus struck by lightnin' that mornin'." (There ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... discourse, and at the folly of the merchant, who, I understood afterwards, was a foreigner; and though I thought he had been in jest at first, when he assured me he was not, I was curious to hear the issue, which at first he was loth to go on with, because he knew it would bring about all the rest; but I pressed him to know—so he told me that the merchant carried it to such a height as ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... or a little more, a prisoner in that house. They treated me very kindly. Aurelia was like an elder sister. Old Sir Travers used to jest at my being a rebel. But I was a prisoner, shut in, watched, kept close. The kindness jarred upon me. It was treating me like a child, when I was no longer a child. I had for some wild weeks been doing things which few men have the chance of doing. Perhaps, if I had confided ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... Helen, on the contrary, when he did not address her apart, his manner was more respectful. He did not call her by her Christian name, as he did Violante, but "Miss Digby," and softened his tone and inclined his head when he spoke to her. Nor did he presume to jest at the very few and brief sentences he drew from Helen, but rather listened to them with deference, and invariably honoured them with approval. After breakfast he asked Violante to play or sing; and when she frankly owned how little she had cultivated ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... girl's limbs; but she faced him bravely. Though her lips quivered, she forced herself to utter words that sounded like a jibe. "I am to play Pallas Athene to your Perseus," she said, and it seemed to him for a moment that she was in a mood to jest at heroics. ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... climb the Sinai Shakespeare trod, The Olivets where Beethoven walked and talked with God, We that have weighed the stars and reined the lightning, we That stare thro' heaven and plant our footsteps in the sea, We whose great souls have risen so far above the creeds That we can jest at Christ and leave Him where He bleeds, A legend of the dark, a tale so false or true That howsoe'er we jest at Him, the jest sounds new. (Our weariest dinner-tables never tire of that! Let the clown ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... she, 'an' seed it lyin' thar on the table, an' kerried it off!' says she. 'I'd like to get hold of her!' says she; 'I guess she wouldn't steal no more bunnits for one while!' says she. I had come in by that time, an' she was tellin' me all about it. Jest at that minute the door opened, and Abner kem sa'nterin' in, mild and moony as usual 'Sary,' says he,—ho! ho! ho! it makes me laugh to think on't,—'Sary,' says he, 'I wouldn't buy no more baskets without handles, ef ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... however, is, firstly, that no one, however great he may be, should permit himself to jest at any one beneath him, even if he be only a hedgehog. And, secondly, it teaches, that when a man marries, he should take a wife in his own position, who looks just as he himself looks. So whosoever is a hedgehog ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... did. I says, says I, 'Jim, whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and jest at this time present, I'm the instrument.' And when the dust got settled down, Jim he druv' home with that ther' piebald, allowin' he wasn't such an all-fired bad hawss after all. But lookee here, Tom-Jeff, this ain't sellin' you the finest saddle-hawss ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... Anglicana, Lyra Germanica, and so on,—culminating at last in the works of Dr. Pusey; the whole perhaps exhibiting in a succinct form the stages through which Mary Carvel had passed, or was still passing, in her religious convictions. And here let me say at once that I am very far from intending to jest at those same convictions of Mary Carvel's, and if you smile it is because the picture is true, not because it is ridiculous. She may read what she pleases, but the world would be a better place if there were more women ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... child to give his little coin, concludes, as a "sentimental traveler," to give it to the other sex, then there is nothing left to do but to follow his instinct. He reflects long with himself whether he was right in so doing,—all of which is a deliberate jest at the hesitation with reference to trivial acts, the self-examination with regard to the minutiae of past conduct, which was copied by Sterne's imitators from numerous instances in the works of Yorick. Satirical also is his ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... broke his crown," said I; "Wasn't it—Jill?" It seemed a jest at the time. But before long we had made these nicknames a habit, when just we two were together. And the outcome of it all was not ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... facts of the sexual life, from the age of ten onwards. He insists much on this subject in his great treatise, the Elementarwerk (1770-1774). The questions of children are to be answered truthfully, he states, and they must be taught never to jest at anything so sacred and serious as the sexual relations. They are to be shown pictures of childbirth, and the dangers of sexual irregularities are to be clearly expounded to them at the outset. Boys are to be taken to hospitals to see the results of venereal disease. Basedow ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... laggard at his post," says Miss Kavanagh, still smiling, but now in a little provoking way that seems to jest at his pretended suspicion of Dysart's constancy and dissolve it into the thinnest of thin air. "He was here just now, but I sent him to loose the dogs. I like to have them with me, and Lady Baltimore is pleased when they get ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... Haply if he had lingered without the sweats of bodily tortures to stay reflectiveness, he, also, in the strangeness of his prostration, might have cast a thought on the irony of the fates felling a man like him by a youngster's hand and for a shallow girl! He might have fathered some jest at life, with rueful relish of the flavour: for such is our manner of commenting on ourselves when we come to shipwreck through unseaworthy pretensions. There was no interval on his passage from ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to be serious;—it is time, Since Laughter now-a-days is deemed too serious; A jest at Vice by Virtue's called a crime, And critically held as deleterious: Besides, the sad's a source of the sublime, Although, when long, a little apt to weary us; And therefore shall my lay soar high and solemn, As an old ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... you have before you the whole future, full of sunshine, and I am beginning to lose my sight, so far am I advancing into the night; you are in love, that is a matter of course, I am beloved by no one in all the world; and you ask pity of me! Parbleu! Moliere forgot that. If that is the way you jest at the courthouse, Messieurs the lawyers, I sincerely compliment you. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... stood his full height, the earliest gold of the sun shining about him—"I will not kill you, but—so help me God!—I will fight with you once more, and I will leave you so maimed and so disfigured that you can woo no woman to ruin again and jest at her shame and agony with no man—for none can bear to look at you without a shudder—and you will lie and writhe to be given the coup de grace." He lifted the hilt of his sword and kissed it. "That I swear," he said, "by this first ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Samboanga I saw a bull which was killed immediately by a bagacay which a lad threw at it, which struck it clear to the heart. It is a thing that would cause laughter in Europa, and there would be little esteem for the valor which does not despise such weapons, and they would jest at so frail violence. But it is certain that, at close range, there is no crueler weapon; and it is also certain that, the day on which these Moros have bravery enough to get within range, on that day any ship must yield. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin |
