"Wit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... an indulgent employer whose clothes fitted Jeff. Indeed, anybody's clothes fitted Jeff. He had one of those figures which seem to give and take. He was well nourished, gifted conversationally, of a nimble wit, resourceful, apt. Moreover, home-grown watermelons were ripe. The Eighth of August, celebrated in these parts by the race as Emancipation Day, impended. The big revival—the biggest and most tremendously successful ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... Antony, both in Greek and Roman style, have been handed down, I have determined to write a little about the beginning and end of Paul's life; more because the matter has been omitted, than trusting to my own wit. But how he lived during middle life, or what stratagems of Satan he endured, is known ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... his feelings up. The ludicrous, however, in any of its shapes, is a phaenomenon with which M. Comte seems to have been totally unacquainted. There is nothing in his writings from which it could be inferred that he knew of the existence of such things as wit and humour. The only writer distinguished for either, of whom he shows any admiration, is Moliere, and him he admires not for his wit but for his wisdom. We notice this without intending any reflection on M. Comte; for a profound conviction ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... easily I befooled that sergeant! That is how things have to be done, Makarei—one has to keep folk from knowing one's business, yet to make them think that they are the chief persons concerned, and the persons whose wit has put the ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... general miscellaneous lot, her own book, never read by anybody else but me, added to and completed by me after her first reading of it, eight-and-forty printed pages, six-and-ninety columns, Whiting's own work, Beaufort House to wit, thrown off by the steam-ingine, best of paper, beautiful green wrapper, folded like clean linen come home from the clear-starcher's, and so exquisitely stitched that, regarded as a piece of needlework alone, it's better than the sampler of a seamstress ...
— Doctor Marigold • Charles Dickens
... that a man should have more wives than one. Then the young Papirius told the story how his mother had questioned him, and how he had devised this story to escape from her importunity. Thereupon the Senate, judging that all boys might not have the same constancy and wit, and that the State might suffer damage from the revealing of things that had best be kept secret, made this law, that no sons of a senator should thereafter come into the House, save only this young Papirius, but that he should have the right ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... horsed he thanked heartily Sir Tristram, and desired to wit his name; but he would not tell him, but that he was a poor knight adventurous; and so he bare King Arthur fellowship till he met with some of his knights. And within a while he met with Sir Ector de Maris, ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... mere possession of animal spirits, too exuberant to be confined within the established bounds. Every vain jest and unprofitable word was deemed an item in the account of criminality, and whatever wit, or semblance thereof, came into existence, its birthplace was generally the pulpit, and its parent some sour old Genevan divine. The specimens of humor and satire, preserved in the sermons and controversial ...
— Dr. Bullivant - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... over the old roads of four continents with the words of one whose wisdom was not surpassed by his wit, although his wit surpassed most of the wisdom of his contemporaries. "It is of some importance," says Sydney Smith, (it is wrong to add 'the Reverend,' for no one says Mr. William Shakspeare or Mr. John Milton,) ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... 1718, made Duke of Wharton for his fathers vigorous support of the Hanoverian succession. His character was much worse than that of his father, the energetic politician and the man of cultivated taste and ready wit to whom Steele and Addison here dedicated the Fifth ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... yet unseen, beaming across the ages, Brimful of fun And wit and wisdom, baffling all the sages ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... O, Sleep! The certain knot of peace, The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe, The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release, The indifferent judge between the high ...
— Sleep-Book - Some of the Poetry of Slumber • Various
... retort on the tip of my tongue. Fortunately I suppressed it; there is no accomplishment so fatal to success in life as wit, except kindness. ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... had the beauty, the wit, the genius, the dramatic talent, which have constituted the strength of some wonderfully ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... walking softly on, and offered to meddle with nobody, till Friday coming pretty near, calls to him, as if the bear could understand him: "Hark ye, hark ye," says Friday, "me speakee wit you," We followed at a distance; for now being come down to the Gascoigne side of the mountains, we were entered a vast great forest, where the country was plain, and pretty open, though many trees in ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... Crawley's house, but asked her to her own mansion and spoke to her twice in the most public and condescending manner during dinner. The important fact was known all over London that night. People who had been crying fie about Mrs. Crawley were silent. Wenham, the wit and lawyer, Lord Steyne's right-hand man, went about everywhere praising her: some who had hesitated, came forward at once and welcomed her; little Tom Toady, who had warned Southdown about visiting such an abandoned woman, now besought to be introduced to her. In a word, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the Rue Royale, thence I had diverged into the Rue de Louvain—an old and quiet street. I remember that, feeling a little hungry, and not desiring to go back and take my share of the "gouter," now on the refectory-table at Pelet's—to wit, pistolets and water—I stepped into a baker's and refreshed myself on a COUC(?)—it is a Flemish word, I don't know how to spell it—A CORINTHE-ANGLICE, a currant bun—and a cup of coffee; and then I strolled on towards the Porte ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... admitted language taken from purely Japanese sources and could thus be produced without any exercise of special scholarship. Afterwards, by the addition of the hokku, an abbreviation of the already brief renga and haikai, which adapted itself to the capacities of anyone possessing a nimble wit or a sparkling thought, without any preparation of literary study, the range of poetry was still further extended. Matsuo Basho Was the father of the haikai and the hokku, and his mantle descended upon Kikaku, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... passage, erased certain lines from her face and restored the curves to her figure—indeed, it came to be much more than a restoration!—but they could not restore the colour to her hair nor the lightness to her heart. She looked at mankind from a cynical altitude of worldly wisdom; her wit grew keen and swift as d'Artagnan's rapier; her bon-mots had a way of passing into proverbs, or of being stolen by more distinguished contemporaries. She took her revenge upon society as completely as she could, yet without ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... much employed in military labours, and engaged in so many wars, he, however, found some leisure to devote to literature.(840) Several smart repartees of Hannibal, which have been transmitted to us, show that he had a great fund of natural wit; and this he improved by the most polite education that could be bestowed at that time, and in such a republic as Carthage. He spoke Greek tolerably well, and even wrote some books in that language. His preceptor was a Lacedaemonian, named Sosilus, ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... clever of you," his grace commented heartily— "confoundedly. I should never have had the wit to think of it myself, or the courage to do it if I had. Shop-women ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... not kill, and who had mysteriously flown from the top of the peak into their prisoner's waggon, had spread among them. They knew also that it was she who had saved their general from the Makalanga, and those who had heard her admired the wit and courage with which she had pleaded and won her cause. Therefore, as they marched past in their companies, singing a song of abuse and defiance of the Makalanga who peered at them from the top of the wall, they lifted their ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... of the season, and by which she had hoped to conquer one or two of the remaining rungs of the social ladder—her play was rendered impossible; this affair would get into the society papers, with every perversion which wit or malice could supply—she would be made ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... name of Wecameke. Beginning at a marked oak tree which divideth this land from ye land I formerly sold Samuel Precklove and extending easterly up ye said Sound at a point or turning of ye aforesaid Perquimans River and so up ye east side of ye said river to a creek called Awoseake to wit, all ye land between ye aforesaid bounds of Samuel Precklove and the said creek whence to ye head thereof. And thence through ye woods to ye first bounds. To have and to hold ye quiet possession of ye same to him, his heirs forever, with all rights and privileges thereto forever ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... of five great divisions, to wit: 1. A Colonial exhibition. 2. A General Export exhibition. 3. A Retrospective exhibition of Fine Arts and of Arts applied to the Industries. 4. Special exhibitions. 5. Lectures ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various
... one is a tendency from Polytheism to Monotheism; the other from Polytypism to Monotypism of the earliest forms of life-all animal and vegetable forms having at length come to be regarded as differentiations of a single substance-to wit, protoplasm. ...
— God the Known and God the Unknown • Samuel Butler
... humorists attracted as much custom to good Mr. Pfaff's beer-saloon as did his fresh, cool lager; and that young men, and, for the matter of that, men not so young, stole in there to listen to their contests of wit, and to wish and yearn and aspire to be of their goodly company. For the old gentleman little dreamed, as he went on his course up Broadway, that he had seen the first Bohemians of New York, and that these young men would be written about and ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... suppose, call literature; and some people seem to enjoy reading it. Very well: you sit there and write this literature, or whatever it is, and keep your mind fixed on that. I will see to everything else for you. I will provide you with writing materials, and books of wit and humour, and paste and scissors, and everything else that may be necessary to you in your trade; and I will feed you and clothe you and lodge you, and I will take you about to places that you wish to go to; and I will see that you have plenty of tobacco and ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... other hand, any deception on the part of Elias would oblige us to hold that his accomplices were actually the heads of the party opposed to him, Leo, Angelo, and Rufino. Such want of wit would be surprising indeed in a ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... finally got something out of that stuff?" he asked, approaching the table. He might have been commenting on the antics of the village half-wit, from his tone. ...
— Omnilingual • H. Beam Piper
... sense and money, feeble in person, full of self-will, and consorting rather with fools than with the wise; lastly, if we are to believe Guicciardini, who was an Italian, might well have brought a somewhat partial judgment to bear upon the subject, a young man of little wit concerning the actions of men, but carried away by an ardent desire for rule and the acquisition of glory, a desire based far more on his shallow character and impetuosity than on any consciousness of genius: he was an enemy to all fatigue and all ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... up, and with eggs, cakes or Tansies which be pleasant in taste and goode for the Stomache," wrote quaint old Gerarde. That these were popular dainties in the seventeenth century we further know through Pepys, who made a "pretty dinner" for some guests, to wit: "A brace of stewed carps, six roasted chickens, and a jowl of salmon, hot, for the first course; a tansy, and two neat's tongues, and cheese, the second." Cole's "Art of Simpling," published in 1656, ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... (wood merchants), plostrarii (cart-wrights), piscicapi (fishermen), agricolae (husbandmen), muliones (muleteers), culinarii (cooks), fullones (fullers), and others. Advertisements of this sort appear to have been laid hold of as a vehicle for street wit, just as electioneering squibs are perpetrated among ourselves. Thus we find mentioned, as if among the companies, the pilicrepi (ball-players), the seribibi (late topers), the dormientes universi (all the worshipful company of sleepers), and as a climax, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... of compliment rich and stiff as a piece of ancient brocade. A peremptory letter, bearing the autograph signature of Mary Queen of Scots, to Torquil McLeod of Dunvegan, who had been on the eve, it would seem, of marrying a daughter of Donald of the Isles, gave the Skye chieftain, "to wit" that, as he was of the blood royal of Scotland, he could form no matrimonial alliance without the royal permission,—a permission which, in the case in point, was not to be granted. It served to show that the woman who so ill liked ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... is not vertue, wisdom, valour, wit, 1010 Strength, comliness of shape, or amplest merit That womans love can win or long inherit; But what it is, hard is to say, Harder to hit, (Which way soever men refer it) Much like thy riddle, Samson, in ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... mad girl?" said brother Michael. "Has she not beauty, grace, wit, sense, discretion, ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... a Westphalian. Hatred against the junkers and the priests had driven him to this Protestant city of the South, where from the beginning he had acquired the respect of people through his ready wit and speech. Theresa Hoellriegel had lodged in the house in which he opened his shop, and gained her living as a seamstress. He had thought that she had some money, but it had proved to be too little for his ambitious notions. When he discovered ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... of the specialists is the one already alluded to: that the attack on marriage is an attack on property; so that Shelley was something more hateful to a husband than a horse thief: to wit, a wife thief, and something more hateful to a wife than a burglar: namely, one who would steal her husband's house from over her head, and leave her destitute and nameless on the streets. Now, no doubt this ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... went With shining eyes, and a joy in his face, about His needs of living. Clear it was to me He knew of some sweet race in his daily wont Which blest him wonderly. I lived with him, And from him learnt marvels. Yea, for he gave me A wit to see in our earth more than fear. Brother, how shall I tell thee, who hast still Fear-poisoned nerves, that like a priest he brewed My heart keen drink from out the look of earth?— Gast, is it nothing to thee that all in green The wolds go heaping ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... without presenting his compliments to the lovely and unfortunate marquise. Desgrais had just the manner of the younger son of a great house: he was as flattering as a courtier, as enterprising as a musketeer. In this first visit he made himself attractive by his wit and his audacity, so much so that more easily than he had dared to hope, he got leave to pay a second call. The second visit was not long delayed: Desgrais presented himself the very next day. Such eagerness was flattering to the marquise, so Desgrais was received ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... had the wit to see how the problem was to be wrought out further. No. The best things come to us when we have faithfully and well made all the preparation and done our best; but they come in some way that is none of ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... about her friend. Rebecca's wit, spirits, and accomplishments troubled her with a rueful disquiet. They were only a week married, and here was George already suffering ennui, and eager for others' society! She trembled for the future. ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Madame de N., the accomplished and beautiful wife of a triple millionaire of the quartier St. Honore, equally renowned for the charms of her wit, and for the intensity of her passion for the barking pets so dear to Parisian hearts, had taken a violent fancy (shared by half Paris) to a certain tiny gray spaniel, the property of one of the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... room and locked the door. She's there now. I've tried to get to her. But she won't let me in, won't even answer me. Listen," and she pointed upward. "She's been doing that for hours. I've taken her food. She won't eat or reply. Nothing except, 'Go,' or 'Go away.' I'm at my wit's ends. I seem to be ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... furbished up for the benefit of the Republicans who now control the Third French Republic. However true it may, or may not, have been of the Comte de Provence and the Comte d'Artois, Henri IV., who was certainly a Bourbon of the Bourbons, had a quick wit at learning, and upon occasion also a neat knack of forgetting. He thought Paris well worth a mass, heard ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... your money and all your warrants,' he saith like a clap of thunder; 'gentlemen, have you now the wit to ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... King Arthur there lived in the County of Cornwall, near to the Land's End of England, a wealthy farmer, who had an only son named Jack. Jack was a brisk boy, and of a ready wit: he took great delight in hearing stories of Giants and Fairies, and used to listen eagerly while any old woman told him of the great deeds of the brave Knights ...
— The Story of Jack and the Giants • Anonymous
... outshining the easily outshone belles of Remsen City. She had felt humiliated by having to divide the honors with a brilliantly beautiful and scandalously audacious Chicago girl, a Yvonne Hereford—whose style, in looks, in dress and in wit, was more comfortable to the standard of the best young men of Remsen City—a standard which Miss Hastings, cultivated by foreign travel and social adventure, regarded as distinctly poor, not to say low. Miss Hereford's audacities were especially offensive to Jane. ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... attended largely by the younger members of families long acquainted and associated, are apt to be rather rollicking, not to say "rough and tumble," affairs, where practical jokes and unmerciful "guying" are the characteristic wit, and such smart tricks as bumping an unsuspecting comrade's head against the wall are applauded with shrieks of admiring laughter. The onlookers may be excused for their tacit countenance of the rudeness, since some element of drollery—that might have been wit, under ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... nephew's gallantry at a period of dejection in Britain: for the winter was dreadful; every kind heart that went to bed with cold feet felt acutely for our soldiers on the frozen heights, and thoughts of heroes were as good as warming-pans. Heroes we would have. It happens in war as in wit, that all the birds of wonder fly to a flaring reputation. He that has done one wild thing must necessarily have done the other; so Nevil found himself standing in the thick of a fame that blew rank eulogies on him for acts ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... natural and free from affectation. There are, it is true, passages, though, comparatively speaking, very few, where his poetry exceeds the bounds of true dialogue, where a too soaring imagination, a too luxuriant wit, rendered the complete dramatic forgetfulness of himself impossible. With this exception, the censure originates only in a fanciless way of thinking, to which everything appears unnatural that does not suit its own tame insipidity. Hence, an ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... copious draughts of ale. My father went on steadily with this kind of existence without anything whatever to rescue him from its gradual and fatal degradation. He separated himself entirely from the class he belonged to by birth, lived with men of little culture, though they may have had natural wit, and sacrificed his whole future to mere village conviviality. Thousands of others have followed the same road, but few have sacrificed so much. My father had a constitution such as is not given to one man in ten ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... and seemed naturally inclined to acts of benevolence and generosity. In society he held the foremost rank, and was fitted by birthright, education, and taste for the highest social position. His noble nature, his wit and learning and generous flow of spirits, united to complete a most ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... his hands despairingly. "Ah, what a wag you are, what a wag," he laughed. "To think that that very admirable wit of yours must go the way of ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... had the honor of addressing you were of the 3d and 7th of November. Your several favors, to wit, two of July 27, two of Oct. 24, and one of Nov. 3, have all been delivered within the course of a week past; and I embrace the earliest occasion of returning to Congress my sincere thanks for the new proofs I receive therein of their confidence in me, and of assuring ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... can spare him," Asmund said, "because of the work and the provisioning. Grettir will not do anything. But he has quite wit enough to carry out the duties at the Thing on ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... according to my father's wishes, and his hopes of my future celebrity and fortune were confirmed, during my childhood, by instances of wit and memory, which were not perhaps greater than what could have been found in my little contemporaries, but which appeared to the vanity of parental fondness extraordinary, if not supernatural. My father declared that it would be a sin not to give me a learned education, and he went ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... Hallowe'en, as it is now commonly called, that is, on the thirty-first of October, the day preceding All Saints' or Allhallows' Day. These dates coincide with none of the four great hinges on which the solar year revolves, to wit, the solstices and the equinoxes. Nor do they agree with the principal seasons of the agricultural year, the sowing in spring and the reaping in autumn. For when May Day comes, the seed has long been ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... Senate, for their consideration and advice, the following treaties entered into with several of the Indian tribes, to wit: ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... can have the heart to blame the parties that in the exercise of their vocation make hay while the sun shines? There is one personage, and one alone, who makes it whether or no, summer and winter, to wit, the auctioneer; his commission is assured; on what or from whom he gets it he cares not. He cheerfully leaves the adjustment of ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... would fain have you all list me heedfully. Prithee, take not up, none of you, with men's notions. To wit, that a woman must needs be wed, and that otherwise she is but half a woman, and the like foolery. Nay, verily; for when she is wed she is no more at all a woman, but only the half of a man, and is shorn of all her glory. Wit ye all what marriage truly meaneth? ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... fibres of the heart just as they are growing rigid from over- strained excitement. The imagination is glad to take refuge in the half-comic, half-serious comments of the Fool, just as the mind under the extreme anguish of a surgical operation vents itself in sallies of wit. The character was also a grotesque ornament of the barbarous times, in which alone the tragic ground-work of the story could be laid. In another point of view it is indispensable, inasmuch as while it is ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States containing among other things the following, to-wit: ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... adrift, was a curious microcosm and full of contrasts. A mixture of unabashed blackguardism and cloistered prudery; of double-beds and primness; of humbug and frankness; of liberty and restraint; of lust and license; of brutal horse-play passing for "wit," and of candour marching with cant. The working classes scarcely called their souls their own; women and children mercilessly exploited by smug profiteers; the "Song of the Shirt"; Gradgrind and Boanerges holding high festival; Tom and Jerry (on their last legs) and ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... by sending a younger man. Age has weakened my memory, and I'll be overlooking some o' the saircumstances in a manner that will be unseemly for the occasion. Here is Blodget, a youth of ready wit, and ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... should perhaps best express the depth of their brilliancy. They were dreadful eyes to look at, such as would absolutely deter any man of quiet mind and easy spirit from attempting a passage of arms with such foes. There was talent in them, and the fire of passion and the play of wit, but there was no love. Cruelty was there instead, and courage, a desire of masterhood, cunning, and a wish for mischief. And yet, as eyes, they were very beautiful. The eyelashes were long and perfect, and the long, steady, unabashed gaze with which she ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... in the autumn of life, and several were very young folks, scarcely able to walk, who now count many "daughters and sons of beauty." There was a pretty equal admixture of Irish and English, amongst them several persons of rank; also one or two foreigners; besides much native wit, worth, and beauty, of the highest order, and all most delightfully set off by the graces and nameless enchantments of refined manners, and tasteful as well as useful accomplishments. I have rarely, if ever, seen in any part ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... frys 'em—make believe," said the big girl, who was smiling now. "But I can cook real, an' when we has any money at home, an' me ma buys real sausages, I boils 'em an' we eats 'em wit mustard on." ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Aunt Lu's City Home • Laura Lee Hope
... you for months on end, who is hard up and worldly and therefore calculating, whose job is to amuse people and who will therefore sacrifice her best, perhaps not most useful, friend to an epigram, whose wit is barbed, who has a fine nose for trouble, and who is always in at the death. Mrs. Scattergood was a small blond woman, high voiced, precise in manner, very positive in her statements which she delivered in a drawling tone, humourless, inquisitive about petty affairs, ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... promotion to engine-driver—for now the Reward Claim boasted a small crushing plant—and Spring came, and with it in November the disastrous rush to "Siberia." This name, like most others on the goldfields, may be traced to the wit of ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... him it over and over, and that ale had fuddled his wit, But he stood and laughed at us there, as though his sides would split, Till I could stand it no longer, and whipped off his head at a blow, Being mad that he did not answer, and more at his laughing so, And there on the ground where it fell it went ...
— The Green Helmet and Other Poems • William Butler Yeats
... the mother-wit of this Medium to the test of stitched envelopes, I wrote the following:—'Is Marie St. Clair pleased in having her skull carefully treasured here in my Library? Does it gratify her, as a Spirit, that it is mounted on black marble? Does ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... carried himself as if he were ranged against every one, or perhaps I should rather say that he carried himself as if his single will was above all the wranglers of others, and that it was given to him to do as he pleased, heedless of the feelings of any faction. Had he had but the wit to balance his arrogance, Messer Simone might have been a great man in Florence. As it proved, he was only a ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... rebellious vassal of the Holy Roman Empire, and, above all, because he had robbed her of Silesia; Madame de Pompadour, because when she sent him a message of compliment, he answered, "Je ne la connais pas," forbade his ambassador to visit her, and in his mocking wit spared neither her nor her royal lover. Feminine pique, revenge, or vanity had then at their service the mightiest ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... the oaths to the government against which he was constantly intriguing, forfeited the right to be considered as a man of conscience and honour. In the assembly was Sir John Friend, a nonjuror who had indeed a very slender wit, but who had made a very large fortune by brewing, and who spent it freely in sedition. After dinner,—for the plans of the Jacobites were generally laid over wine, and generally bore some trace of the conviviality ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... it was considered by some as made up of fictions and extravagances, and Vossius assures us that even after the death of Marco Polo he continued to be a subject of ridicule among the light and unthinking, insomuch that he was frequently personated at masquerades by some wit or droll, who, in his feigned character, related all kinds of extravagant fables and adventures. His work, however, excited great attention among thinking men, containing evidently a fund of information concerning vast ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... gunwale and pulling himself aboard, amid chuckles of laughter from the crew. His ducking had not improved his personal appearance, and as he now sat in the bow of the boat dripping water from every point, he formed an object for so much rude wit and coarse merriment, that upon reaching the transport he ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... spirit. Nevertheless she was conscious of a certain pleasure in the bitterness. The bitterness was her own, the pleasure some one else's, so to speak, who was looking on and laughing. She felt an unconquerable impulse to sharpen her wit on Mrs. Jupe's customers, and even to imitate them to their faces. They liked it, so she was ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... her valise and go through it, swiftly. She found nothing, and turned to the wash-stand drawer. The latter was empty, and was instantly closed again, the girl staring about the room, as though at her wit's end. Suddenly she disappeared along the edge of the bed, beyond the radius of the crack in the door. What was it she was doing? Searching the bed, no doubt; seeking something hidden beneath the pillow, ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... constitutes another stage in Ralegh's career. No more fascinating Court favourite, no Leicester, Essex, or mere Hatton, stood now in his way. If even Elizabeth's vivacious temperament may have ceased to require attentions as from a lover, she never grew insensible to wit, grace, versatility, and valour like his. The jealousy he continued to arouse was a tribute to his power. To this time belongs the story, contained in Bacon's Apophthegms, of Lord Oxford's insolence. The malicious Earl had returned, the ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... till the girl gains wit and moves to my house. But have no fear, I go with a sword; and if any man should bar ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... who happened to live next door to her. It is easy to imagine what she thought of the aristocrats who visited her mother-in-law. She was amusing when she joked and made parodies on the women she styled "the old Countesses." She had a great deal of natural wit, a liveliness peculiar to the native of the faubourgs, all the impudence of the street arab, and a veritable talent of mimicry. She was a good housewife, active, industrious and most clever in turning everything to account. With a mere nothing she could improvise a dress or a hat and give ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... you harm? I go to Detroit. I sell furs to ze commandaire for powder and bullets. I travel an' hunt wit' mes amis, ze Indians, but I do not love ze Anglais. When I was a boy, I fight wit' ze great Montcalm at Quebec against Wolfe an' les Anglais. We lose an' ze Bourbon lilies are gone; ze rouge flag of les Anglais take its place. Why should I fight for him who conquers ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... ancestors in hall or cottage assemble round the blazing hearth, and listen to the minstrel's lays, and recite their oft-told tales of adventure and romance. Sometimes they indulge in asking each other riddles, and there exists at the present time an old collection of these early efforts of wit and humour which are not of a very high order. The book is called Demands Joyous, and was printed in A.D. 1511. I may extract the following riddles:—"What is it that never was and never will be? Answer: A mouse's nest in a cat's ear. Why does ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... now state," said Stover, replacing his watch, "for the benefit of any other young, transcendent jokers that may care to display their side-splitting wit, that the chair is quite capable of handling the previous question, or any other question, and that these meetings are going to be orderly proceedings and not one-ring circuses for the benefit of the Kennedy Association of Clowns. ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... you who live at your wit's end, Unto this maxim pray attend, Never despair to find a friend, While flats have bit aboard! For Nell and I now keep a gig, And look so grand, so flash and big, We roll in every knowing rig [14] While we sing fal de ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... with inimitable spirit and mimicry, as want of clerical wit is a direct impeachment of the validity of one's "call" to preach; and when the table is filled, and with outstretched hands the blessing said, our father gets a universal compliment for his carving. There is roast turkey, with rich stuffing, bright cranberry sauce, ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... length was marked by apparent sincerity, and was a calm and argumentative presentation of objections, theoretical and practical, which occurred to him against the extension of the franchise to women. It was replied to by Mrs. Colby, in a running comment, which abounded in womanly wisdom and wit, and incessantly brought down the house. Our restricted space will compel us to forego a report of the discussion at present. On the conclusion of Mrs. Colby's very bright and convincing remarks, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Chelsea, with well-trimmed gardens sloping down to the Thames; and this was the resort of the most learned and able men, both English and visitors from abroad, who delighted in pacing the shady walks, listening to the wit and wisdom of Sir Thomas, or conversing with the daughters, who had been highly educated, and had much of their father's humor and sprightliness. Even Henry VIII. himself, then one of the most brilliant ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... possessed many more of the poet's letters than are printed—she sometimes read them to friends who could feel their wit, and, like herself, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... Tony, but, learning that he had not done so, she gossiped briefly with the barber, discussing the raid on the Metropolitan, the misfortunes that had overtaken their mutual friends, and other topics of interest. She realized from Tony's laughter that she was talking with unusual wit and brilliance. ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... side. I do not wish to convey to my readers the idea that there were men always sullen and disagreeable. Far from it, they were a jolly set of men when in a good humor, and, like all Irishmen, full of wit and humor. After I became known to them their gentle, courteous treatment of me never varied. They were very fond of playing cards, but whenever I appeared upon one of the avenues, every card would disappear. Not one ever failed to salute me, often adding ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... and "Ja, zu enge!" said the other, and they laughed innocently in each other's' faces, with a joy in their recognition of the corridor's narrowness as great as if it had been a stroke of the finest wit. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... d'Abrantes—this Pylades of the poor Orestes—was—a madman!—a poor simpleton, of good family, who was so good-humored and harmless that he was allowed to go at large, and free scope given to his innocent freaks. He, however, possessed a kind of droll, pointed wit, which he sometimes brought to bear most effectively, sparing neither rank nor position. The half-biting, half-droll remarks of this Diogenes of Istria was all that now afforded enjoyment to the broken-down old hero. It was with intense delight that he heard the social grandeur ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... friend, whose shining wit Sets all the room ablaze, Don't think yourself "a happy dog," For all your merry ways; But learn to wear a sober phiz, Be stupid, if you can, It's such a very serious thing ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... the long list of churches and ruins and pictures catalogued upon her efficient tongue, and she and my mother ran together like sisters to see the sights of beauty and reminiscence; neither of them ever tired, and never disappointed. Her voice was richly mellow, like my father's, and her wit was the merry spray of deep waves of thought. The sculptor, Miss Harriet Hosmer, it was easy to note, charmed the romancer. She was cheerfulness itself, touched off with a jaunty cap. Her smile I remember as one of those very precious ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... few months to the times when those little dinners of four had been so pleasant, and when this girl, who was now looking at him like an accusing angel, had matched even Carol herself in the gaiety of her conversation and the careless use she made of her mother-wit, and he tried hard to say something which should in some way cover his retreat, but the words wouldn't come, and so he just opened the ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... married in 1882 and has seven sons and seven daughters. Owns his own home and plenty of other property around the neighborhood. Ninety-six years of age and still feels as spry as a man of fifty, keen of wit, with a memory as good can be expected. This handsome bronze piece of humanity with snow-white beard over his beaming face ended the interview saying, "I am waiting now to hear the call of God to the promise ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... was warm, and in the palm of his it was lost. He felt it tremble. Then the Egyptian came, so the opposite of this little one; so tall, so audacious, with a flattery so cunning, a wit so ready, a beauty so wonderful, a manner so bewitching. He carried the hand to his lips, and gave ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... down, one half a block. Little yaller house wit' green blinds and ornings. Yer could n't miss it. Yer party left dere ten minutes ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Brighton was ready to embark him for Fecamp. George Gunter's own story is, however, that the King rode direct to Brighton. He reached Fecamp on October 16. Two hours after Gunter left Brighton, "soldiers came thither to search for a tall black man, six feet four inches high"—to wit, ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... employed by Caius Julius Caesar at a battle fought in Transalpine Gaul fifty odd years before the advent of the Christian era. It was evident to the critic's youthful mind that the battle ought to have resulted differently, and that if the foes of "the mighty Julius" had had the wit to take advantage of his indiscretion, certain pages of the "Commentaries" might have been conceived in a less boastful spirit. Little Louis Joseph had sketched a rough plan, showing the respective positions of the ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... beginning of a fresh life for John Broom. With many other idle or homeless boys he now haunted the barracks, and ran errands for the soldiers. His fleetness of foot and ready wit made him the favourite. Perhaps, too, his youth and his bright face and eyes pleaded for him, for British soldiers are a ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... faithful friend resolve to get them back for the Anses, who bewail their absence. They journey to Monster-land, win back the lady, who ultimately is to become the hero's wife, and return her to her kindred; but her brother can only be rescued by his father Niord. It is by wit rather than by force that Swipdag ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... play that largely turned upon the changes in an old celibate's menage. But in the main it was a comedy of character, a struggle between youth and crabbed age, in which the younger will and the quicker wit prevailed. As we first see him, James Ollerenshaw is a crusty, browbeating, misogynist, hoarding his wealth, content with a mean habit of life, and convinced that nobody can get the better of him. As we see him at the end he is a tamed man, dependent on female protection against ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various
... in a good many ways by woman's wit. There was no dispute between them, and much as he objected to the ways of the world's people, he had no mind to defraud his small niece out of a considerable fortune that might reasonably come to her. Indeed he began to be a little afraid of Bessy Henry's willfulness. And she might marry and ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... smile, as ever, and congratulate herself on the five hours a day, and tell herself how soon she would reach perfection if there were real necessity for it? Hopeless to comprehend a woman. The senses warred upon the wit; seized by calenture, one saw ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... accordance with the substance of my letter to you of the 8th instant, I propose to receive the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia on the following terms, to wit: Rolls of all the officers and men to be made in duplicate, one copy to be given to an officer to be designated by me, the other to be retained by such officer or officers as you may designate. The officers to give their individual paroles not ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... a man of a great spirit, proud, watchful and of a gross understanding. He whose brow is full of wrinkles, and has as it were a seam coming down the middle of the forehead, so that a man may think he has two foreheads, is one that is of a great spirit, a great wit, void of deceit, and yet of a hard fortune. He who has a full, large forehead, and a little round withal, destitute of hair, or at least that has little on it is bold, malicious, full of choler and apt to transgress beyond all bounds, and yet of a good wit and very apprehensive. He ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... ended, 'say now that you have been jesting; that this is a piece of wit with which you would begin in a suitable way an extraordinary day; this is ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... favouring breeze of the cheap edition. She wrote her sketches at Three Mile Cross, some two miles from Swallowfield, and I refer to them because in the little volume you have faithful scenic pictures of the Loddon country. I have also a personal story to tell, to wit: On returning from one of my visits to Loddon-side I secured through an old friend of Miss Mitford a note in her handwriting, and was not a little impressed and amused on discovering that the envelope in which it was inclosed had been previously used and turned no doubt by the lady ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... 1882, when the elite of American literature gathered at Boston to celebrate her seventieth birthday, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes read a poem in which Mrs. Stowe's share in the emancipation of the colored race was recorded with equal wit and pathos:— ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... night passed thus, and Ginevra began to fear for her father's reason. She challenged him to play backgammon with her, but he scorned the proposal. She begged him to teach her chess, but he scouted the notion of her having wit enough to learn. She offered to read to him, entreated him to let her do something with him, but he repelled her every advance with contempt and surliness, which now and then ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... you please, this plain poor man, Whose only fields are in his wit, Who shapes the world, as best he can, According to God's higher plan, Owns you, and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... narrative he had discussed with Darco. Little by little he got to take Darco's view. It is the view of ninety per cent, of men of the world. A naturally pure mind never learns to love nastiness, but it learns to tolerate it, for the sake of the wit ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... validity of the testaments, save only a poor relation, a nephew, whose name was down for $500. He was indignant with the old lady and loudly declared that he would not put up with it. The next day he employed a briefless lawyer, one that had wit and brass enough and who had his way to make in the world, and ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... is quite a sum, Jason, and I feel guilty that I haven't saved anything for you. But it all went, especially after father got sickly. I've sold a lot of things, Jason, so as to send you the money. I'm most at my wit's end now. Grandma's silver teapot, that kept you three months, and your father's watch, nearly six. That's the way the things have gone. My, how thankful I was ...
— Benefits Forgot - A Story of Lincoln and Mother Love • Honore Willsie
... still sufficient. Nevertheless, he is a woeful wreck to look at; and the doctor looks at him with the greatest respect, and listens to his querulous plaint patiently. For that great dome of silence, his brain, repository of so many state-secrets, is still a redoubtable instrument: its wit and its magician's cunning have not yet lapsed into the dull inane of senile decay. Though fallen from power, after a bad beating at the polls, there is no knowing but that he may rise again, and hold once more in those tired old hands, shiny ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... play of feature or pitch of voice, at once didactic and yet not uncomrade-like, must be counted a very important fact, especially in connection with the period when that voice was first heard. It must be remembered that Shaw emerged as a wit in a sort of secondary age of wits; one of those stale interludes of prematurely old young men, which separate the serious epochs of history. Oscar Wilde was its god; but he was somewhat more mystical, ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... use. The entree which follows the fish should be eaten with the fork only. A mouthful of meat is cut as required; it is never buried in potato or any vegetable and then conveyed to the mouth. Vegetables are no longer served in "birds' bath-tubs," as some wit once called the individual vegetable dishes, but are cooked sufficiently dry to be served on the plate with the meat. All vegetables are eaten with the fork, so also jellies, chutney, etc., served with the ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... more than a golf book. There is interwoven with it a play of mild philosophy and of pointed wit."—Boston Globe. ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... that they should no more see the good, cheery master, whose pleasant smile and kindly word had so often made their labours light. There was many a sad heart, too, we may be sure, in Rome, when the wit who never wounded, the poet who ever charmed, the friend who never failed, was laid in a corner of the Esquiline, close to the tomb of his "dear knight Maecenas." He died on the 27th November B.C. 8, the kindly, lonely man, leaving to Augustus what little he possessed. ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... have granted to him an infinity of virtues, and naturally fine qualities—such as sensitiveness, generosity, frankness, humility, charity, soberness, greatness of soul, force of wit, manly pride, and nobility of sentiment; but, at the same time, they do not sufficiently clear him of the faults which directly exclude the above-mentioned qualities. The moral man does not sufficiently appear in their ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... show that both man and woman are designed for a higher final estate—to-wit, that of matrimony. It seems to be conceded that man is just as well fitted for matrimony as woman herself, and the whole subject is illuminated with certain botanical lore about stamens and pistils, which, however relevant to matrimony, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... Where sense and sensibility were join'd; Love to inspire, to charm, to win each heart, And ev'ry tender sentiment impart; Thy outward form adorn'd with ev'ry grace; With beauty's softest charms thy heav'nly face, Where sweet expression beaming ever proved The index of that soul, by all beloved; Thy wit so keen, thy genius form'd to soar, By fancy wing'd, new science to explore; Thy temper, ever gentle, good, and kind, Where all but guilt an advocate could find: To those who know this character was thine, (And in this truth assenting numbers join) How vain th' attempt to fix a crime ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... as the penalty. And what shall I propose on my part, O men of Athens? Clearly that which is my due. And what is my due? What return shall be made to the man who has never had the wit to be idle during his whole life; but has been careless of what the many care for—wealth, and family interests, and military offices, and speaking in the assembly, and magistracies, and plots, and parties. Reflecting that I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live, ...
— Apology - Also known as "The Death of Socrates" • Plato
... degrading. Advice has been given to householders, that they should follow up the shot at a burglar in the dark by hurling the pistol after it, so that if the bullet misses, the weapon may strike and assure the rascal he has it. The point of her wit is in this fashion supplemented by the rattle of her tongue, and effectively, according to the testimony of her admirers. Her wit is at once, like steam in an engine, the motive force and the warning whistle of her headlong course; and it vanishes like the track of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... taking orders, as I had intended; but I with warmth entered into literary pursuits; perhaps my heart, not having an object, made me embrace the substitute with more eagerness. But, do not imagine I have always been a die-away swain. No: I have frequented the cheerful haunts of men, and wit!—enchanting wit! has made many moments fly free from care. I am too fond of the elegant arts; and woman—lovely woman! thou hast charmed me, though, perhaps, it would not be easy to find one to whom my reason would allow me ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... public man—ever looked for fairness from Goldwin Smith, whose idea of independence seemed to consist of being alternately unjust to each side. Both sayings, however, are extremely clever, and both had sufficient truth about them to give point at once to the author's malevolence and to his wit. ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... soldier under his Brother, full of spirit and talent, but liable to weak health;—was Father of the "Prince Louis Ferdinand," a tragic Failure of something considerable, who went off in Liberalism, wit, in high sentiment, expenditure and debauchery, greatly to the admiration of some persons; and at length rushed desperate upon the Frenoh, and found his quietus (10th October, 1806), four days ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... mother's heart at the thought of what she could foresee! But the warmth of the mother-love lent life to the mother-wit. Having sent her little ones out of sight, and by a sign conveyed to Saddleback her alarm, she swiftly came back to the man, then she crossed before him, thinking, in her half-reasoning way, that the man must be following a foot-scent ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... have sworn that Beppo was founded on Whistlecraft, as both were on Anthony Hall,[100] who, like Beppo, had more wit ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... too tired and faint with hunger and heavy at heart to take an interest in these things. He turned back toward the gate, and, missing his way a little, came to a great pool of water, walled in wit, white stone, with five porticos around it. In some of these porticos there were a few people lying upon mats. But one of the porches was empty, and here the Boy ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... to states of the mind: he unites the method of Stendhal to that of Balzac. He is always interesting and amusing. He takes himself seriously and persists in regarding the art of writing fiction as a science. He has wit, humor, charm, and lightness of touch, and ardently strives after philosophy and intellectuality—qualities that are rarely found in fiction. It may well be said of M. Bourget that he is innocent of the creation of a single stupid character. The men and women ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the matter might have been adjudged there, England would have been satisfied? Our grievance was, that our mail-packet was stopped on the seas while doing its ordinary beneficent work. And our resolve is, that our mail-packets shall not be so stopped wit impunity. As we were high handed in old days in insisting on this right of search, it certainly behoves us to see that we be just in our modes of proceeding. Would Captain Wilkes have been right, according to the existing law, if he had carried the "Trent" away to New York? If ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... his meretricious exaltation of passion, have lost their magical effect, but his poetical gifts would have commanded homage in any age. The message which he professed to deliver was a false message, but few poets have surpassed him in daring vigour of imagination, in descriptive force, in wit, or in pathos. His style was eminently such as to invite imitation, yet no one has successfully imitated him. Had he been a better man, and had his life been prolonged, he might perhaps have towered above his ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... of small frame, but a large brain and a generous heart. His style of speech was clear, distinct and rapid. He could reason a question with great force, and could fringe the most commonplace subjects with wit and humor. He was a true man, a good Preacher, and ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... have been so stupid? Stupid? It was easy! He had wanted to be stupid! And how could the Mr. Eumenes-or-otherwise have used such obvious giveaway names? It was a measure of their contempt for the humans around them and of their own grim wit. Look at all the double entendres the salesman had given his father, and his father had never suspected. Even the head of the Bureau of Health and Sanity had been terrifyingly ...
— They Twinkled Like Jewels • Philip Jose Farmer
... of England upon conditions and sentiment in the colonies. His examination before the House of Commons in February, 1766, marks perhaps the zenith of his intellectual powers. His wide knowledge, his wonderful poise, his ready wit, his marvelous gift for clear and epigrammatic statement, were never exhibited to better advantage and no doubt hastened the repeal of the Stamp Act. Franklin remained in England nine years longer, but his efforts to reconcile the conflicting claims of Parliament ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... success. While Alexander Garden, to keep his flock from straying after this strange pastor, expatiated on the words of Scripture, "Those that have turned the world upside down are come hither also." Whitfield, with all the force of comic humour and wit for which he was so much distinguished, by way of reply, enlarged on these words, "Alexander the coppersmith hath done me much evil, the Lord reward him according to his works." In short, the pulpit was perverted by both into the mean purposes of spite and malevolence, ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... defects, but you promptly shift the question to one of moral qualities, of practical energy, of subduing your wilderness, and so forth. You have too often absented yourself from the wedding banquet, from the European symposium of wit and philosophy, from the polished and orderly and delightful play and interplay of civilized mind,—and your excuse is the old one: that you are trying your yoke of oxen and cannot come. We charge ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... got you that wit? If I must, I kneel;" and he groaned in mock despair. "And if Monsieur Iberville should come knocking at our door you would ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... law teaches might be stated in five words, to wit: Breed only from the best—but the teaching may be more impressive, and will more likely be heeded, if we understand the extent and ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale
... boy, I knew there was no need of sending for you. I knew you would be here. God bless you. Sit down, sit down. I want to use your ready wit just now for a few minutes. Thank God, I have your clear head and honest heart to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... befool[obs3], bamboozle, flimflam, hornswoggle; trick. impose upon, practice upon, play upon, put upon, palm off on, palm upon, foist upon; snatch a verdict; bluff off, bluff; bunko, four flush*, gum* [U.S.], spoof*, stuff (a ballot box) [U.S.]. circumvent, overreach; outreach, out wit, out maneuver; steal a march upon, give the go-by, to leave in the lurch decoy, waylay, lure, beguile, delude, inveigle; entrap, intrap[obs3], ensnare; nick, springe[obs3]; set a trap, lay a trap, lay a snare for; bait the hook, forelay[obs3], spread ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Mr. Thackeray knows the value of his writings and his time too well to whittle at verses in the Messenger office, and leave his chips on the floor; and that he is too observant of the laws of fair wit to make a falsification and call it a burlesque. The Sorrows of Werther is not so popular as when known here chiefly by a wretched version of a wretched French version, and many who read these stanzas will be satisfied that the {378} last conveys, at worst, a distorted notion ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various
... perfection has to obtain a being and substantial existence in a complete and perfect world. Reality is not confined to the absolutely necessary; it also embraces the conditionally necessary: every offspring of the brain, every work elaborated by the wit, has an irresistible right of citizenship in this wider acceptation of creation. In the measureless plan of nature no activity was to be left out, no degree of enjoyment was to be wanting in universal happiness. The great Inventive Spirit would not even permit error to be ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... wine, old boy, on cold winter nights! he won't do that, will he?" asked Handy; and laughing at the severity of his own wit, he and his colleagues retired, carrying with them, however, ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... Tyrrell and Paula were Mr. Tyrrell and the son of the house, Mr. John, the Jack Tyrrell of sundry convivial clubs in town. Mr. Tyrrell senior was a high-coloured jovial gentleman of three score, great in finance, practical to the backbone, yet with wit and tact which put him at ease with all manner of men, even with social reformers. These latter amused him vastly; he failed to see that the world needed any reforming whatever, at all events beyond that which is constitutionally provided for in the proceedings of the British Parliament. He had ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... the wit is out, captain," I remarked. "At first, I grant you, they said nothing to betray themselves; but when I tell you that some of our chief nobles act just as indiscreetly, you may more readily believe that such men as these might let out their secrets ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... think that they made a shrewd move by having His Imperial Majesty prohibit preaching. But the poor deluded people do not see that, through the written Confession presented to them, more has been preached than otherwise perhaps ten preachers could have done. Is it not keen wisdom and great wit that Magister Eisleben and others must keep silence? But in lieu thereof the Elector of Saxony, together with other princes and lords, arises with the written Confession and preaches freely before His Imperial Majesty and the entire realm, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... went up to the writing-room to fulfil a part of his destiny. He took the letter out and read it again. A woman of wit and presence; a mighty good dinner companion, or he was no judge of women. He replaced the letter in its blue covering, and then for the first time his eye met the superscription. Like a man entranced he sat there staring. The steward had ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... service the best men of Italy. These things render him victorious and formidable, and to these is yet to be added his perpetual good fortune. He argues," the Florentine envoy proceeds, "with such sound reason that to dispute with him would be a long affair, for his wit and eloquence never fail him" ("dello ingegno e della lingua si vale ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... keep up the kicking part of it," says Molly, with a delicious laugh that ripples through the air and shows her utter enjoyment of her own wit. Not to laugh when Molly laughs, is impossible; so Luttrell joins her, and they both make merry over his vulgarity. In all the world, what is there sweeter than the happy, penetrating, satisfying laughter of ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... complained that her guests were too much for her, Vera would not bring herself to assist immediately, but presently she would appear in the company with a bright face, her eyes gleaming with gaiety, and astonished her aunt by the grace and wit with which she entertained the visitors. This mood would last a whole evening, sometimes a whole day, before she again relapsed into shyness and reserve, so that no one could ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... (have you not observed it?) I am altered of late!—I, that was ever light of heart, the very soul of gayety, brimfull of glee, am now demure as our old tabby—and not half as wise. Tabby had wit enough to keep her paws out of the coals, whereas poor I have—but no matter what. It will never come to pass, I see that. So many reasons for every thing! Such looking forward! Arthur, are not men sometimes too ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he is every where alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great when some great occasion is presented to him: no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various
... for polite literature, by mingling with the sons of sensuality and riot, blasted in the bloom of life? Such was the fate of the late celebrated Duke of Wharton, Wilmot, earl of Rochester, and Villers, duke of Buckingham, three noblemen, as eminently distinguished by their wit, taste, and knowledge, as for their extravagance, revelry, and lawless passions. In such cases, the most charming elocution, the finest fancy, the brightest blaze of genius, and the noblest burst of thoughts, call for louder vengeance, and damn them ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis |
