"Banter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... more than one point of view. At first Lorimer had tried to banter him out of the plan, insisting that the guardianship would be sufficient. There was something in his earnest desire that touched the heart of the man of wide experience. He wondered why he could not be as persistent to win the lady! Perhaps she ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... of breast-pin. Pictures on the wall cut out of the Police Gazette. A slush of beer on floor and counter. A pistol falls out of a ruffian's pocket. By the gas-light a knife flashes. Low songs. They banter, and jeer, and howl, and vomit. An awful goal, to which hundreds of people better ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... formed by melting snow. Neither would they come out for either threats or blandishments until he went in too, with a pike; while Jasper's broncos, which were considerably less than half-tamed, backed round and round in rings when I attempted to re-harness them. Still, with laughter and banter we started again, and worked on until daylight faded and the stars twinkled out one by one above the dewy prairie. The scent of wild peppermint hung heavy in the cool air, which came out of the north exhilarating ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... two best brokers, there was a deficit in his premium returns which he could not overcome. And certainly his melancholy countenance did not attract business; it was a bold placer indeed who tried with quip and banter to secure Mr. Cuyler's acceptance of a doubtful risk. His world was awry, and all who ran might read it. His brow became unpleasantly corrugated, his smile a thing of the past. If Mr. O'Connor had wanted evidence of the success of his ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... the parliamentary Opposition, but pelted the governor himself with a shower of pasquinades in prose and verse. Lord Falkland has practically put himself at {82} the head of the Tory party, said Howe, and as a political opponent he shall have no mercy. A flood of Rabelaisian banter was poured upon the head of the unhappy nobleman. He was attacked in his pride, his tenderest place. It is impossible not to wish that Howe had shown more moderation. He had, of course, precedent on his side. Nothing which he wrote was so bad as the language of Queen Elizabeth ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... most diverse sorts but very much of a unit, and all bright, witty, and ready to cooperate. Indeed, having a system of fetching each other's hay and filling each other's canteens, they have a better squad organization than we. It has pleased me very much that our banter between the tents at Plattsburg has turned into the friendliest of feeling, so that we naturally seek each other out. We gave them a spread last night, and today are invited ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... writings, and said to Simplicianus (not openly, but privately and as a friend), "Understand that I am already a Christian." Whereto he answered, "I will not believe it, nor will I rank you among Christians, unless I see you in the Church of Christ." The other, in banter, replied, "Do walls then make Christians?" And this he often said, that he was already a Christian; and Simplicianus as often made the same answer, and the conceit of the "walls" was by the other as often renewed. For he feared to offend his friends, proud ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... can't get over it that you should fancy I meant to 'banter' you.[47] If I wrote lightly, it was partly that you wrote lightly, and partly perhaps because at bottom I wasn't light at all. When one feels out of spirits, it's the most natural thing possible to be ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... too small for him. He had a pink face like a girl's, a broad forehead topped with close-cropped hair, and a scrubby and ill-trimmed fair beard. His bright eyes gleamed with intelligence. He seemed not in the least embarrassed and wore a pleasant smile, free from any shade of banter. ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... a sharp reply to this banter, but she was very anxious to find a physician for Phoebe, and so thought it best ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... in fair I 've braced me wi' pride, The bruse I hae won, and a kiss of the bride; And loud was the laughter, gay fellows among, When I utter'd my banter, or chorus'd my song. Dowie to dree are jesting and glee, When poverty ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... us. At the same moment we heard Henri's mocking voice, and there, sword in hand, stood my cousin, barring our path. Below him were several brawny ruffians, bearing pikes and clubs, and, last of all, Pillot, who shouted with good-humoured banter, "Aha! the wheel has ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... a tone of banter, and was cut short by a curious, prolonged chuckle, which differed from laughter in the feeling it produced in the hearer that the mirth did not spring from the open, obvious humor of the situation, ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... would persuade you only that banter, pun, and quibble are the properties of light men and shallow capacities; that genuine humour and true wit require a sound and capacious mind, which is always a grave one. Contemptuousness is not incompatible ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... said Oliver, smiling, and just then, piqued by his companion's banter, he would have crossed had the ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... to banter them agreeably; "here you are, young men, eh? Holidays all over now! Work while you're young, and then—— Gad, you're walking me off my legs. Stop; I'm not as young ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... scarcely any courtier who fears God's anger more than the displeasure of his master. A pension, a title, a ribbon, are sufficient to make one forget the torments of hell and the pleasures of the celestial court. A woman's caresses expose him every day to the displeasure of the Most High. A joke, a banter, a bon-mot, make more impression upon the man of the world than all the grave notions of his religion. Are we not assured that a true repentance is sufficient to appease Divinity? However, we do not see that this true ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... him with laughing abuse, but he persisted,—a serious undertone to his banter. "Yes, I have always observed the scepticism of youth, no matter what may be the age of the contracting parties and their previous experience, in this matter. But Love and Marriage are two distinct and entirely independent states of being,—one is the creation ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... had already been taken up, as the phrase goes, by the elite of Edinburgh; and it shows also and quite as clearly in the tone of quiet banter, that he was little likely to lose his head by the notice taken of him. To the Earl of Glencairn, mentioned in it, he had been introduced probably by Mr. Dalrymple of Orangefield, whom he knew both as a brother-mason and a brother-poet. The ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... would not follow her in her banter. He grew grave and even frowned, but all he said was, "Really there are limits, you know." It was her own verdict, expressed more tersely, more completely, and more finally. There were limits, and Alexander Quisante was beyond them; the barrier they raised could not be surmounted; he could ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... this specimen, there is little delicacy in Defoe's satire. The lines run on from beginning to end in the same strain of bold, broad, hearty banter, as if the whole piece had been written off at a heat. The mob did not lynch the audacious humourist. In the very height of their fury against foreigners, they stopped short to laugh at themselves. They were tickled by the hard ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... came to John Flint's lips. He made no reply to the light banter, but stiffened, and stared ahead of him with a set face and eyes into which crept an expression of anguish. Mary Virginia, with a quick glance, laid her ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... of months my friends had made me the target of plenty of pleasant banter about my "highest land," which they lost faith in as we climbed from Thomas's Mill,—I too becoming a trifle anxious about it; but now the truth had burst upon Brewer and Hoffman they could not find words ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... to their work—heartened by the feel of the snow. The tingling air was filled with familiar man-sounds—the resonant stroke of axes, and the long crash of falling trees, the metallic rattle of chains, the harsh rasp of saws, and the good-natured calls of men in rude banter; sounds that rang little and thin through the mighty silence of ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... foreigners, and the king reproached and insulted by insolent pedants and ballad-making poets for employing foreigners and being a foreigner himself, I confess myself moved by it to remind our nation of their own original, thereby to let them see what a banter they put upon themselves, since—speaking of Englishmen ab origine—we are really all ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... strolls, nutting expeditions in the October woods,—Alice declared that it was a whirl of dissipation. The fondness of Ruth, which was scarcely disguised, for the company of agreeable young fellows, who talked nothings, gave Alice opportunity for no end of banter. ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... from his excellent work, a distinguished passage in support of the Christian Revelation. After shewing, in decent but strong terms, the unfairness of the INDIRECT attempts of modern infidels to unsettle and perplex religious principles, and particularly the irony, banter, and sneer, of one whom he politely calls 'an eloquent historian', the archdeacon thus ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... arts only remain in bondage, when a man of science and character shall be openly insulted in the midst of the many useful services he is daily paying to the publick. Was it ever heard, even in Turkey or Algiers, that a state-astrologer was banter'd out of his life by an ignorant impostor, or bawl'd out of the world by a pack of villanous, deep-mouth'd hawkers? Though I print almanacks, and publish advertisements; though I produce certificates under the ministers and church-wardens hands I am alive, and attest the same on oath ...
— The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers • Jonathan Swift
... say that, living in the same house with the young lady to whom people have married me, I am ill-bred and do not speak to her, but I am not in love with her. I banter and jest with her when time permits (which is only in the evenings when I chance to be at home, for in the morning I write in my room, and in the afternoon am rarely in the house), but nothing more. If I were obliged to marry all those ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... jestingly criticised the color, and begged her to choose another. Madame Bonaparte defended her shawl, and said to the general that he knew as much about criticising a toilet as she did about attacking a fort. This friendly banter continued for some moments; and in the interval, the First Consul, who never waited, set out in advance, and the miserable assassins and authors of the conspiracy set fire to the infernal machine. Had the coachman of the First Consul ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... statue to sup with him that night. At midnight Don Juan and his friends are making merry when a knock is heard at the door and the stone guest enters. Don Juan, who does not lose his bravery even in the presence of the supernatural, plays the host, maintaining his air of insulting banter. At the end of the evening the guest departs, offering to repay the hospitality the following night if Don Juan will visit his tomb at midnight. Though friends try to dissuade him, Don Juan fearlessly accepts ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... about English musicians, her banter about the provincial festivals had stung him. The word "provincial" rankled. If it applied to him, to his talent! If he were merely provincial and destined to remain so because ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... affected desire for occupation made me soon skilful. We talked as we worked. When I had nothing to do, I read new books to her, for I had my part to keep up as a man weary of life, worn out with griefs, gloomy, sceptical, and soured. My person led to adorable banter as to my purely physical resemblance—with the exception of his club foot—to Lord Byron. It was tacitly acknowledged that her own troubles, as to which she kept the most profound silence, far outweighed mine, though the causes I assigned ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... a suggestion of laughter in the husky voice, now, of a sort of contemptuous banter. But Cairn stolidly shook his ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... banter through several letters. Cicero regrets that he has been unable as yet to pay his threatened visit, when his friend would have seen what advances he had made in gastronomic science. He was able now to eat through the whole bill of fare—"from the ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... love," said the major as he looked at her thoughtfully and dropped the banter that had been in his voice since she had come in. "A boy's? Perhaps, but I think not. You'll see! It's a call, a call that must be answered some time, child—and a mystery." For a moment the major sat and looked deep into the gray eyes raised to his in quick responsiveness to the change ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... substituted a bourgeois good-humor which respects the family circle, and haunts the kitchen-stairs; for the biting jeer, intended to make some victim uncomfortable, it gives the sarcastic or sprightly banter, not unconscious of an effort at moral amelioration; for the sententious sagacity, and humorous enjoyment of the nature of man, it gives bright thoughts and a humanitarian sympathy. But, on the whole, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... Amidst laughter and banter and repartee, they came to it, of course; the most delightful combination and joint arrangement. Two wagons, the general's and Dr. Ingleside's two saddle-horses, Frank Scherman's little mountain mare, that climbed ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... Their idle banter was interrupted by Westy Martin of Roy's and Pee-wee's troop who paused at the tree as they returned from the village. Westy was ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... tremendous fuss over the old lady. He also threw the aunties into pleased confusion by pretending that he was going to kiss them, and occasioned no end of laughter and good-natured banter by his incessant teasing of Mr. Chester. He was in that state of effervescence that ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... that it was his way of laughing. He was a singular man in all respects; he might not have been quite in earnest, but that the short, hard, rapid manner in which he shot out these cinders of principles, as if it were done by mechanical revolvency, seemed irreconcilable with banter. ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... roast the dab; I'll arrest the rascal.—Also to jeer, ridicule, or banter. He stood the roast; he was the butt.—Roast meat clothes; Sunday or holiday-clothes. To cry roast meat; to boast of one's situation. To rule the roast; ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... livery bills, and the others. He was figuring out the added expense of the dinner, with roast beef now costing as much as peacocks' tongues. He had raised a large family and there was not a dyspeptic in the lot—not even a banter. ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... Palmer, in the same grave tone, which might have passed for banter, had Jack ever bantered. "I'll maintain and prove it. I don't see how he can be otherwise. It is as necessary for a man to be a gentleman before he can turn highwayman, as it is for a doctor to have his diploma, or an attorney his certificate. Some of the finest gentlemen of ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... man I am to marry!" she said in a voice from which the girlish banter had gone forever. It was the voice of a woman in arms to ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... quarter of a mile on smooth water appears but a short distance, and the people of the two boats could hold converse at will. The opportunity was not neglected by those of the Belle to pay back the boasts of the Magnolians. Shouts of banter reached their ears, and their former taunts were now returned ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... now, and, finding much to interest him, he presently recovered his temper, and began to banter his host. But even this outlet was scarcely sufficient for his superfluous life and energy, so he emphasized his remarks by throwing a stray cushion or two at the Tenor; he jumped over the chairs instead of walking round them, and performed ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... far from being the frivolous young thing that her father's banter indicated. She had a train of admirers, never thinning from year to year, to be certain, for it had been the regular fate of adolescent male Shelbyville to get itself tangled up in love with Alice Price ever since her high-school days. ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... the apartment. In the ante-room, a number of servants had collected, and no sooner did the young man appear than they began to banter and annoy him. It was perfectly legitimate for the serfs to derive as much amusement from the Jews ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... mighty well," said Uncle Remus, snapping his huge tongs in order to silence a persistent cricket in the chimney, "dat ef he dast ter back out fum a banter lak dat he never is ter year de las' un it fum Miss Meadows en Miss Motts en de gals, en he march off todes Mr. Benjermun ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... for the last sheaf is Boba (Old Woman), answering to the Polish name Baba. The Boba is said to sit in the corn which is left standing last. The person who binds the last sheaf or digs the last potato is the subject of much banter, and receives and long retains the name of the Old Rye-woman or the Old Potato-woman. The last sheaf—the Boba—is made into the form of a woman, carried solemnly through the village on the last harvest-waggon, and drenched with water ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... rear of the court-house: of whom the first to greet our Chairman was Lord Rattley. Lord Rattley, a peer with very little money and a somewhat indecorous past, rarely honours the Tregantick bench by attending sessions; but for once he was here, and at once started to banter ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... ground, for that day. From all which, one has to infer, That the mutual salutation by hat was probably a fact; that, for certain, there was some slight preliminary talk and gesticulation, but in the Homeric style, by no means in the Espagnac-French,—not chivalrous epigram at all, mere rough banter, and what is called "chaffing;"—and in short, that the French Mess-rooms (with their eloquent talent that way) had rounded off the thing into the current epigrammatic redaction; the authentic business-form of it being ruggedly what is ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... in the little store wended their uneasy way along, a spark of humour was often injected into them by the delightful banter of a rollicking, good-natured Irishman, a big two-fisted fellow, generous- hearted and lovable, whom we affectionately called "Big Phil." I can see him now, standing like a great pyramid in the midst of the little group, every now and then throwing his head back in good-natured abandon, ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... nation, is not a man pledged to respectful language? speaking, though it is but by a chimera as wild as Repeal to a question of national welfare, a man is pledged to sincerity. Had he seven devils of mockery and banter within him, for that hour he must silence them all. The foul fiend must be rebuked, though it were Mahu and Bohu who should prompt him to buffoonery, when standing at ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... was fond of his joke too—a kind of supersubtly satirical Cambridgy banter that was not to my taste at all; for I am no Cantab, and the wit of the London Stock Exchange is subtle enough for me. His father did not joke. Indeed he was full of useful information, and only too fond of imparting it, and he always made use of the ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... part jointly in many affairs, but Bob got Marjorie to himself as much as possible. The others chaffed them a good deal, but as the banter was all good-natured, it was ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... always difficult to detect how much of conviction and how much of banter there was in his treatment of men engaged in the actual intellectual movement of our times. I found such to be the case in my own intercourse with him. He always attacked me in a bantering way, but, I thought, half in earnest too. Hence I never found it advisable to enter into argument ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... applause greeted this gay banter, and then as Adele played a lively strain, the Lord of Misrule gave a clever clog dance on the ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... strength and activity was a greater protection to him than his inoffensive good-nature. But the loud admiration of Offutt gave them umbrage. It led to dispute, contradictions, and finally to a formal banter to a wrestling-match. Lincoln was greatly averse to all this "wooling and pulling," as he called it. But Offutt's indiscretion had made it necessary for him to show his mettle. Jack Armstrong, the leading ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... them are nothing else but science.' 'You are munificent indeed,' said Socrates; 'for when asked for one thing, you have given many.' I almost think," continued Harrington, "that, if Socrates were here, he would do what I should not presume to do,—banter you in a somewhat similar way. He would say, that, having asked what a miracle was, Mr. Fellowes told him that half a dozen things were miracles, but did not tell him what every miracle was; that is, never told him what made all miracles such. Suffer ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... men, he took a fancy to visit their camp. There he perceived little strength, less courage, but much disorder. From that time, foreseeing that things would go ill with them, as it since happened, he began to banter now one and then another, and be very free of his cutting jests; so some of Pompey's captains, playing the good fellows to show their assurance, told him, Do you see how many eagles we have yet? (They were then the device of the Romans in war.) They might ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... club-footed giant Malan had a lot of scars under his shirt that were not born on him. And there was Ump, a crooked thing of a man truly, but a crooked thing of a man that would hobnob with the king of all the fiends, banter for banter, and in whose breast cowardice ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... ideas treasured in his breast, He grew composed, and let his anger rest; Till Counter once (when wine so long went round, That friendship and discretion both were drown'd) Began, in teasing and triumphant mood, His evening banter: —"Of all earthly good, The best," he said, "was an obedient spouse, Such as my friend's—that every one allows: What if she wishes his designs to know? It is because she would her praise bestow; What if she wills that he ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... eyes and seemingly mocking smile, he appears about to lead her back into the ballroom, there is, at least so I like to read the music, a pretty little laugh, as much as to say, "Can't you read my real feelings under my mask of banter," a tender glance indicated by a retard on a charmingly expressive little turn of the melody—and she is in ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... himself up to the enjoyment of a pleasant contempt for all that immediately surrounds him. Pedantic /literati/, vain youngsters, every sort of narrowness and conceit, he banters rather than satirizes; and even his banter expresses no contempt. Just in the same way does he jest about his own condition, his misfortune, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... transaction happened to my father whilst doing the business of the rent-day. He was receiving sums of money from the tenants in succession. After looking over a bundle of notes which he had just received from one of them, a well-known character, he said in banter, "James, the notes are not correct." To which the farmer, who was much of a humorist, drily answered, "I dinna ken what they may be noo; but they were a' richt afore ye had your fingers in amang 'em." An English farmer would hardly ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... people travelling my way, that June morning, T was probably one of the most thoughtful and judiciously-minded; yet of every one but myself the business in being abroad was sober and reasonable, while mine was utterly ridiculous and silly. And the girl whose banter had driven me to it—perhaps she had attached no seriousness whatever to my petulant vow and had even now forgotten it. With these reflections were mingled the pangs of parting from my home and family; and for a time ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... most feeling man alive at the fate of his poetry. At the representation of his Cato, such was his agitation, that had Cato been condemned, the life of Addison might, too, have been shortened. When a wit had burlesqued some lines of this dramatic poem, his uneasiness at the innocent banter was equally oppressive; nor could he rest, till, by the interposition of a friend, he prevailed upon the author to ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... Knowledge, good Sense and Penetration, which your Libertines display at some Times, are inconsistent with the Ignorance, Folly and Stupidity they shew at others. It is impossible that Men of Parts, and the least Spirit, how much soever they were in the Wrong, could see themselves defeated, banter'd and exposed with so much Tranquility and Chearfulness; and I can't conceive how any, but egregious Coxcombs, without Sense of Shame, could behave as Alciphron and Lysicles do throughout your Dialogues. They are Fellows ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... so glad you say No." He spoke passionately, and yet there was banter in his voice, or so it seemed to her. "It is because you fear to be told; it is because you had hoped ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... "Don't banter me," she said, wounded at what appeared to be his flippancy. He did not mind the entreaty, but the tone with its delicate note of pathos was like a reproach. He could not explain; he could not tell her that he had penetrated her mood and understood. ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... Spanish, besides I don't know how many Indian sign-languages." Now I was patting the groom on the back. I sat facing the ladies, so it was impossible to see the expression on his face. I kept up this banter till we arrived at the Department. I bade the ladies good day. I do not recollect when I enjoyed ten ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... study of Aretino. Nola, Bruno's birthplace, was famous for the license of its country folk. Since the day of its foundation by Chalkidian colonists, its inhabitants had preserved their Hellenic traditions intact. The vintage, for example, was celebrated with an extravagance of obscene banter, which scandalized Philip II.'s viceroy in the sixteenth century.[85] During the period of Bruno's novitiate, the ordinances of the Council of Trent for discipline in monasteries were not yet in operation; and ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... Orme could get out of her and after a little banter and a brief exchange of greetings with Tom, who was called to the telephone by his wife, the wire was permitted ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... avowal shocked and disappointed him a little, the old man could not find it in his heart to say one word of sorrow or disapproval, far less of ridicule or banter, to his dearly loved boy. He felt instinctively, what Herbert Le Breton could not feel, that this sentimental tendency of his son's, as he thought it, lay far too deep and seemed far too sacred for mere argument or common discussion. ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... not feel himself "altogether disqualified for it by nature."[23] "I have refrained, as much as human frailty will permit, from all satirical composition,"[24] he said. For satire he seems to have substituted that kind of "serious banter, a style hovering between affected gravity and satirical slyness," which has been pointed out as characteristic of him.[25] Washington Irving noticed a similar tone in all his familiar conversations about local ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... boys should drive away, Little maidens from their play, Or love to banter and fight so well, That's the ...
— Fifty Famous People • James Baldwin
... her banter about the "horrid Germans," for which she had abundant reason in our journey from Gratz to Vienna. We had hoped to have a compartment to ourselves, to which end Herr Schwager had expended a florin; but at the last moment ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... said Murray, who had dropped all light flippancy and banter, to speak now as the eager young officer deeply interested in everything connected with ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... and readers to appreciate the calibre of poetical work in point of musical and general execution could be given than the fact that Moore has always with them passed, and still passes, for an eminently melodious poet. What then remains? Chiefly this. In one class of writing, liveliness of witty banter, along with neatness; and, in the other and ostensibly more permanent class, elegance, also along with neatness. Reduce these qualities to one denomination, and we come to something that may be called "Propriety": a sufficiently disastrous "raw material" for the purposes ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... close that her stool touched the chair. She bent her cheek upon the shrivelled hand resting upon the arm. The excitement and feverish banter of Truedale affected her painfully. She reproached herself bitterly for having left him to the mercy of his loneliness and imagination. Her interest in, her resentment for, Conning faded before the pitiful display of feeling expressed ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... his banter. She needed to ask him no questions about his presence here; his ease of bearing had conveyed to her unconsciously from the first instant that her previous half-contemptuous estimate of him had been altogether wrong and that he was now in his natural ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... voices silenced his laughing banter; on the instrument board the warning light was flashing imperatively. Above the bedlam of voices one stood out, and all other commands went silent before ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... decided note of uneasiness behind the banter of his tone which her quick ear instantly detected. She looked up sharply and in a second, as if at a touch of magic, the laughter all ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... operations with great vigor. He made Aun' Sheba sit down and give directions for supper, which he and his two colored men carried out. Mrs. Bodine was the only one who would jest with him, and he had a word of banter with her; and a cheery word for every one ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... worldly matters. His other convictions Captain Whalley never intruded. The difference of their ages was like another bond between them. Once, when twitted with the uncharitableness of his youth, Mr. Van Wyk, running his eye over the vast proportions of his interlocutor, retorted in friendly banter— ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... glances which were turned toward him. There was something in his appearance which cast an unpleasant chill over every one of the little assembly. Even the Colonel, though an outsider, felt himself disagreeably impressed by Travers' new bearing, and the good-natured banter which he had held in readiness for the new arrival died away on his lips as he responded to the cold, formal bow. For some minutes no one spoke. Travers was busy arranging some papers which he had brought with him, and only when he had laid these out to his satisfaction ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... seemed to stand out from his head, shorn to the very skin, and the whole of his diminutive barrel-like body expressed a spirit of banter. ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... silent, fearing the banter of the company; but he drank immoderately, trying to drown in intoxication the recollection ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... self once more, she took her husband's arm, and passed through the opening ranks of her friends, bowing to this side and that, with apologetic banter and graceful words of regret—still very pale, but changed ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... questions about his first experiences in Paris, and inquired mischievously whether he had brought his cloak, his purse, and his handkerchief home with him, to which de Sigognac joyfully answered in the affirmative. In this friendly banter he soon forgot his sombre thoughts, and asked himself whether he had not been the dupe of a hypochondriac fancy, which could see nothing ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... of the frenzy of Mr. John Dennis," published in the Miscellanies of Pope, Swift, and Arbuthnot, and said to have been written by Pope, is a grave banter on his usual violence. It professes to be the account of the physician who attended him at the request of a servant, who describes the first attack of his madness coming on when "a poor simple child came to him from the printers; ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... look, Chevalier!" said she, in a tone of half banter. "One would think I had accused you of murder instead of saving a fair lady's life in the forest; although woman-killing is no murder I believe, by the laws of gallantry, as read by ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... their stand at the steps of the Piazzetta to receive the oncoming barges, for the "Calza" were the very darlings of their eyes, and never had they been more brilliant. With true Venetian comradery the crowd tossed them light banter on the names of their divisions, with pantomimic interpretation, in response ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... be taking Venza now to Mars. I was glad to see her. She was diverting. Educated. Well traveled. Spoke English with a colloquial, theatrical manner more characteristic of Greater New York than of Venus. And for all her light banter, I would rather put my trust in her than any Venus girl I ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... villains with stout cords, for the present," cried the lieutenant, returning no answer to the banter of Nosey, who fired with indignation at ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... untrustworthy person who would make him ultimately miserable. I'll remind him that her beauty is no deeper than he sees it. But that Caroline there, admirable girl, seething with affection in a figure warranted against time or accident—" her expression brought his banter to an end. He studied her seriously, revolved what she had said. She was right about Myrtle, who was undoubtedly a vain and silly little fish. His father's immoderate admiration for her had puzzled him as well as the elder ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... dogs, thought I to myself, trying to make the best of the matter, for I saw it would not do to resent what they said; they can't mean any harm, though they are certainly very impudent; so I tried to laugh off their banter, but as soon as ever I could, I put down my name ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... that Robin might welcome the newcomers. They were four of the Mill girls and they crowded into the room, staring curiously about them and at Robin, whose greeting they answered awkwardly. Spying Adam Kraus, they rushed to him with noisy banter and laughter that ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... with the banter that invariably took place when Rube was of the party. It was late when they left the Squire's, the constable going along with them, and all singing merrily as ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... the carriage-window, and, leaning his arms upon it, put his head out. He flung some good-humoured banter at some of the nearest men, and two or three responded. But the majority of the faces were lowering and fierce, and the horses were becoming ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and wine in his veins were doing their work, and a pleasant warmth was stealing over Hardrow. He found to his surprise that airy banter ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... dear, you're growing ferocious." Her uncle's tones were laden with banter, but his countenance could not conceal the pleasure her last remark had ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... a hint of something more than banter in his voice. They had reached the end of the terrace, and were slowly descending the steps. But at his last words, Lady ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... even to the medium of their cast-off bodies, to juggle, and rap, and squeak, and perform mountebank tricks with tables and chairs; to recite over in weary sameness harmless truisms, which we were wise enough to say for ourselves; to trifle, and banter, and jest, or to lead us through endless moonshiny mazes. Sadly and soberly we say that, if this be communion with the dead, we had rather be without it. We want something a little in advance of our present life, and not below it. We have read with some attention weary pages of spiritual communication ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... as unjust now as you have been generous hitherto,' said St. Cleeve, with tears in his eyes at the gentle banter of the lady, which he, poor innocent, read as her real opinions. Seizing her hand he continued, in tones between reproach and anger, 'I swear to you that I have but two devotions, two thoughts, two hopes, ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... tone of banter the dinner began; and no doubt in another man's mouth it might have sounded good-humoured enough. There was certainly no word as yet which, it could be definitely said, was meant to wound, but underneath the raillery Thresk ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... thundered past the fortifications of Paris, and said, as people do say in such circumstances, "Why, I believe I've been asleep!" Roderick shook himself like a great bear, and asked if we had passed Chantilly; the Perfect Fool began his banter, and roared for a cab as the lights of the station twinkled in the semi-darkness. I could scarce believe, as I watched his antics, that he was the man who had spoken to me of great mysteries ten minutes before. Still less could ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... interfered with, and resents the advice of candid friends, and cannot stand any 'chaff.' He has his kind of humour, which is slow in expression and material in conception, but he does not understand 'banter.' He is liberal in theories, but intensely conservative in practice. He will agree with a new theory, but often do as his grandfather did, and so in Holland there may be seen very primitive methods side by side with fin de siecle thought. In a salon in any principal ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... their intellectual want of harmony. Douglas's usual sobriquet was "the little giant," and it fitted well—a man of stalwart proportions oddly "sawed off." His voice was vibrant and sonorous, his mien compelling. It was no great speech, a few sentences of compliment to the city and of good-natured banter of the political foes among whom he found himself; but it was ex pede Herculem, a leader red-blooded to the finger-tips. I treasure the memory of this brief touch into which I once came with Douglas for I have come to think more kindly of him as he has receded. ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... amuse themselves, and that they jest, and that they banter, and that they make sport of France! It is there that they pocket hap-hazard, amid great shouts of laughter, the millions of louis and the millions of votes! See them, look at them! They have treated the Law like a girl, they are content! Right is slaughtered, Liberty is gagged, ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... of her last adventure, which gave me endless opportunities to banter her, one would have thought I might have been on my guard as to what her real intentions were; but she managed to mislead me with an art of dissimulation quite admirable, and lulled me into a fatal security with regard to her intentions: for, one ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with a tinge of feeling beneath his banter—"you've added to the list to-night, and I wish you joy of your acquisition! But don't ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... disappointments you may meet with at first, do not be discouraged. Success is certain if you will only have a little patience and perseverance. Do not be disheartened because you feel very awkward, and because you not unfrequently forget the oven, and let your cakes and pastry burn. Try not to mind the banter of your relations and friends at any possible failure. Many well-meaning efforts to acquire this useful knowledge have been nipped in the bud by the thoughtless, silly way in which some people will laugh at any mistake or blunder. ...
— The Skilful Cook - A Practical Manual of Modern Experience • Mary Harrison
... to banter his antagonist. "You are a fine gentleman," he said; "you have been at Baiae" (Baiae was a fashionable watering-place on the Campanian coast). "Well," said Cicero, "that is better than to have been at the 'matrons' worship.'" ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... said in a tone of good-humoured banter, which gave me courage. He offered to walk homewards with me; and, as I shambled along by his side, I told him all my ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... which to answer his nonsense. I never have had the gift of repartee. I can talk well enough about subjects that interest me when I am conversing with some one whom I know well, but the frothy persiflage, the light banter that forms the conversation's stock in trade of so many women, is an alien tongue ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... say, you think I have sense enough to love you," said Fanny, still in a tone of banter. "We part as friends, however, and if you insist on coming to call upon my sister, Mrs Barton, of course I cannot help it, only do not for a moment suppose that ...
— The Ferryman of Brill - and other stories • William H. G. Kingston
... their cloaks and capes, and the men, following their example, took off their coats and sat in their shirt-sleeves. Whereupon ensued much banter of a not particularly edifying kind respecting the garments which each person would like to remove—which showed that the innuendo of French farce is not so unknown to the upright, honest Englishman ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... with something remote and reserved in his air, as if in the city he bore with him another atmosphere, and were still secluded among solitary hills. In the bright and busy street of the city which was always cosmopolitan, and in which there lingers a tradition, constantly renewed, of good-natured banter of the losel Yankee, this figure passed like the grave genius of New England. By a little play of fancy the first figure might have seemed the smiling spirit of genial cheerfulness and humor, of ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... who insist on charm, on winningness in style, on subtle harmonies and fine exquisiteness of suggestion, are disappointed in Burke: they even find him stiff and over-coloured. And there are blemishes of this kind. His banter is nearly always ungainly, his wit blunt, as Johnson said, and often unseasonable. As is usual with a man who has not true humour, Burke is also without true pathos. The thought of wrong or misery ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... the four men under sentence sounding in his ears, and their hands, stretched our through the gratings in their cell-doors, clasped in frantic entreaty before his very eyes, it was particularly remarkable. Indeed, Mr Dennis appeared to think it an uncommon circumstance, and to banter himself upon it; for he thrust his hat on one side as some men do when they are in a waggish humour, sucked the head of his stick with a higher relish, and smiled as though he would say, 'Dennis, you're a rum dog; you're a queer fellow; you're capital company, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... the cap'n had been schoolfellows, though he was older, and often she treated him with scanty ceremony; now, after she had tossed him that aged formula of banter, she laughed to soften it. But ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... soul. Now he understood the heart and inmost meaning of it; it was the all-compelling Womanhood, the sacred spark, guarded and precious, which set men's hearts aflame; and for him, henceforth, because of that one, it made all women sacred. He answered her, banter for banter. ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... of the master being in that place which one would naturally assign to the man, and the man appearing to usurp the position of the master. One day these two alighted at the terminus in full view of each other. "Well," said Mr. B—, in that tone of banter which a superior so frequently thinks it becoming to adopt, "I don't know how you manage to ride first-class, when in these hard times I find third-class fare as much as I can afford." "Sir," replied the clerk, "you, who are known to be a person ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... of the Coliseum, like the galleries of a great theatre, and the lowest of these was occupied by a regiment of Carabineers. There was some banter and chaff at the expense of the soldiers, but the people were serious for all that, and the excitement beneath their jesting ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... their banter the old windmill, perhaps because it was the only thing stirring, held them and sobered their thoughts as it would not have done elsewhere. Perhaps they felt a sort of consciousness of its lonely position and fancied it to be something human. It overlooked the obscure ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... good-natured banter. There was not a sign of panic in the army. The men at once formed themselves into line of battle, according to their instructions, and opened a terrible fire upon the weeds in which the warriors lay concealed. Hundreds ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... commented Martin cheerfully. "Very well, see you to-morrow. Meanwhile, be good. Flee the giddy lure. Go home to your little bed and sleep sweet." There was seriousness under his good-natured banter. "Come along and I'll see you as ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... the same, and that the genuine coherence is apt to be at its best in the first trial, for one of the essences of the rapture of production is the novelty of the new relation. There were times in the forenoons when I met halting stages and was ready possibly to banter a moment. I very quickly encountered a repulse, if she were in the thrall. She would wave her hand palm outward before her ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort |
