"Jest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... between the Bailiff of Vevey and the Prior of St. Bernard, on the occasion of their present meeting. Peterchen was known to the brotherhood, and, though a Protestant, and one too that did not forbear to deliver his jest or his witticism against Rome and its flock at will, he was sufficiently well esteemed. In all the quetes, or collections of the convent, the well-meaning Bernois had really shown himself a man of bowels, and one that was disposed ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... Folks, sh - - t and write, and mend honest Bog's Trade, For when you sh - - t Rhymes, you help him to Bread: He'el feed on a Jest, that is broke with your Wind, And fatten on what you ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... to flag; their guards had been less courteous than at first, sickness had attacked two or three, gloomy apprehensions were troubling the minds of many. Still we had a pleasant dinner, and the song and the jest went round as before. The two midshipmen were the merriest of the party, and paid, as may be supposed, the most devoted attention to the two young ladies whom they thought fit to admire. Their happiness was, however, disagreeably interrupted ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... zee him, zur," the landlord answered, eyeing the stranger askance; "he be out, jest at present. He do go vur a walk, mostly, down yonner in the bottom alongside the brook. Mebbe if you was to vollow by river-bank you med come up wi' him by-an'-by ... and mebbe, agin, ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... specimens from an herbarium. But it showed the awl-shaped leaves, and thread-like stalk with its tiny round seed-vessels, like those of our common shepherd's-purse, and Jimmy knew it at once. "There's a dreffle lot o' that peppergrass out in deep water there, jest where I ketched the big pick'ril," he said quietly. "I seen it nigh a foot high, an' it 's juicier and livin'er than them dead sticks in your book." At our request he accompanied the unbelieving botanist and myself ...
— Fishin' Jimmy • Annie Trumbull Slosson
... books may entitle me to serious consideration. If I can get the editors to take more stories, why I suppose there'll be more books. But please don't perform any more serious consideration stuff over 'em. Because me'n Georgie Cohan, we jest aims to amuse. ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... who was kept in England by the British Association till September 10, wrote that he was going abroad for the rest of September, and proposed to spend some time at Menaggio, whence he hoped to effect a meeting. He winds up with a jest at his recent unusual occupation:—"I have had no end of righteousness accounted to me for helping to entertain Bishops at Cambridge." Hence the ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... needs to be lifted to a higher standard on these matters. The subject of marriage is too sacred to jest about, and people in general think it no harm to toy with the word and all that pertains to ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... repute, celebrated for his excellence in some of the comedies of Congreve. The characters which he played may have been comic ones, but he was a serious man. Indeed, his gravity was so well known in his lifetime that it was reckoned the height of wit, when he was dead, to father off upon him a Jest Book! This joke, bad as it was, was better than any joke in the book. It made him famous, so famous that for the next hundred years every little bon mot was laid at his door, metaphorically speaking, the puniest youngest brat of them ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... brought you here to jest with you, nor yet, as you think, to condemn you to die, though your life is justly forfeit to me and my people, whom you would have betrayed again to their oppressors. Now, listen! You brought me back from death to life, and for my life I will give you ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith
... hit hain't a lady! Hain't yo' done tol' her to git off an' come in? Looks like yer manners, what little yo' ever hed of 'em, fell in the crick an' got drownded. Jest yo' climb right down offen thet cayuse, dearie, an' come on in the house. John, yo' oncinch thet saddle, an' then, Horatius Ezek'l, yo' an' David Golieth, taken the hoss to the barn an' see't he's hayed an' watered 'fore yo' come back. ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... others: and he that shall judge those he walketh not with, or say, as you, that they, like Ephraim, are 'joined to an idol, and ought to repent and be ashamed of that idol before they be shewed the pattern of the house'; and then shall back all with the citation of a text; doth it either in jest or in earnest; if in jest it is abominable; if in earnest his conscience is engaged; and being engaged, it putteth him upon doing what he can to extirpate the thing he counteth idolatrous and abominable, out of the churches abroad, as well as that he stands in relation unto. This being ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... acquainted, I'll tell you in brief, If you would but listen awhile; For this very jest, among all the rest, I think it may cause you ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... be there. It was empty! They looked into each other's faces with blank astonishment. Everything had been so strangely true, and so strangely false, up to this moment, that they could not comprehend this failure at the last moment. It was the strangest, saddest jest! It brought Middleton up with such a sudden revulsion that he grew dizzy, and the room swam round him and the cabinet dazzled before his eyes. It had been magnified to a palace; it had dwindled down to Liliputian ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... seen Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been So nimble, and so full of subtile flame, As if that every one from whence they came Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, And resolved to live a fool the rest Of ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... they began to set to work about noon yesterday, the Duchess of Milan could not contain her amazement at seeing my wife sewing with as much vigour and energy as any old woman. And my wife told her that, whatever she did, whether it were jest or earnest, she liked to throw her whole heart into it and try and do it as well as possible. Certainly in this case she succeeded perfectly, and the skill and grace with which she carried out her idea gave me indescribable ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... of the perishable glory and the imperishable hope of man. He looked up into the vast countenance of the crouching Sphinx and vainly tried to read the meaning of her calm eyes and smiling mouth. Was it, indeed, the mockery of all effort and all aspiration, as Tigranes had said—the cruel jest of a riddle that has no answer, a search that never can succeed? Or was there a touch of pity and encouragement in that inscrutable smile—a promise that even the defeated should attain a victory, and the disappointed should ...
— The Story of the Other Wise Man • Henry Van Dyke
... cross my inclinations, do you, father?" asked Julie, half in earnest, half in jest. "Am I to marry to please you and not to ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... bishops, but still less was she fervent for God's glory and public Reformation. Accordingly, on the first Court day she handed Knox's letter, perhaps unread, to the Bishop of Glasgow, with the words, 'Please you, my Lord, to read a Pasquil.' The unwise jest came to Knox's ears, and some years after he published his letter with resentful additions and interpolations. In these he assumed—much too soon—that there was no longer hope of the Regent becoming personally convinced of the Evangel. But he ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... not altogether freed from the contagious influence of a prevailing superstition. Yet the result of his calculations in these two instances left so unpleasing an impression on his mind, that, like Prospero, he mentally relinquished his art, and resolved, neither in jest nor earnest, ever again to ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... he can do well enough, 'f he's jest a mind to! nothin' wantin' but the will! There's a pair on 'em," said the driver, "but I won't never drive 'em together. Staples drove the pair last summer. He says they'd run till they dropped down dead. I guess they would. He's a putty critter enough, and well made, but dreadful ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... parent, while laboring, under age and infirmity, to wean him from a course of dissipation and vice. Little indeed did he suspect that his virtuous offspring was absolutely enacting his part, for the purpose of having a good jest to regale Norton with in the course ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... cards," he suggested. "What's the matter with a game of solitary? I've known men to put in hull winters alone, up in the mountains, jest eating and sleeping ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... head on his shoulder and sob: 'I wanted you to love me'; but that would have been to abase herself too much; yet the tears fell as she answered, trying to smile: 'It was only that you hurt me; even in jest I cannot bear to have you say that I could have been ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... licenses of that court did not only make the Love which the Vulgar call Romantick, the object of Jest and Ridicule, but even common Decency and Modesty were almost ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... attempts to make herself attractive to her husband when she knows that she is not what she has been, and—worst of all—the love that she spends on her children. That particular sort of heavy-handed jest was specially dear to Bronckhorst. I suppose that he had first slipped into it, meaning no harm, in the honeymoon, when folk find their ordinary stock of endearments run short, and so go to the other ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... glass! There lies the slime! 'Tis but a jest; I but keep time, Thou hellish pest, To thine own chime! [While the WITCH steps back in rage and astonishment.] Dost know me! Skeleton! Vile scarecrow, thou! Thy lord and master dost thou know? What holds me, that I deal not now Thee and thine apes a stunning blow? No more respect to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Chota Rani," exclaimed my sister-in-law, "dressing so early in the day! One of their Bande Mataram meetings, I suppose. Robber Queen!" she called out in jest to Bimala. "Are you counting ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... and shrugged as if at a gracious jest, and Mrs. Fowler observed in her crisp, matter-of-fact manner: "Yes, my daughter has a genuine instinct for dress, and, as you say, that is very rare. She carries her clothes well, doesn't she? It's such a blessing to be tall—though my husband insists ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... meat he liketh best, For bread no more together shall we break. Nay, soon from all my labour must I rest, But eat ye well, and drink the red wine, lest Ye blame my house-wifery among men dead." And all they took her saying for a jest, And sweetly did they laugh at that ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... hear him, though," laughed Hozier, with a warning pressure that suspiciously resembled a hug. These two were children, in some respects, quicker to jest than to grieve, better fitted for ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... Some canderdates air dead an' gone, an' some hez ben defeated, Which 'mounts to pooty much the same; fer it's ben proved repeated A betch o' bread thet hain't riz once ain't goin' to rise agin, An' it's jest money throwed away to put the emptins in: But thet's wut folks wun't never larn; they dunno how to go, Arter you want their room, no more 'n a bullet-headed beau; Ther' 's ollers chaps a-hangin' roun' thet can't see pea-time's past, Mis'ble as roosters in a rain, heads down ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... reproachfully. "I cannot jest on so serious a matter," he said, resolving to make the attempt to re-establish his dignity with Alice. "I think, Miss Groff, that you perhaps hardly know how absurd your supposition is. There are not many men of distinction in Europe with whom my cousin is not personally acquainted. A very young ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... as it would seem, for a jest. Compare the description of Giants in Dante, Inf. XXI and XXII. Perhaps Leonardo had the Giant Antaeus in his mind. Of him the myth relates that he was a son of Ge, that he fed on lions; that ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... February, 1835; Op. 31 (B flat minor), published in December, 1837; Op. 39 (C sharp minor), published in October, 1840; and Op. 54 (in E major), published in December, 1843. "How is 'gravity' to clothe itself, if 'jest' goes about in dark veils?" exclaims Schumann. No doubt, scherzo, if we consider the original meaning of the word, is a misnomer. But are not Beethoven's scherzos, too, misnamed? To a certain extent they are. But if Beethoven's scherzos often ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... contrived to score one on the friar's crown: but in the careless moment of triumph a splendid sweep of the friar's staff struck Robin's out of his hand into the middle of the river, and repaid his crack on the head with a degree of vigour that might have passed the bounds of a jest if Marian had not retarded its descent ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... we're off for Turkey, Lord knows when we shall come back! Breezes foul and tempests murky May unship us in a crack. But, since life at most a jest is, As philosophers allow, Still to laugh by far the best is, Then laugh on—as I do now. Laugh at all things, Great and small things, Sick or well, at sea or shore; While we're quaffing, Let's have laughing— Who the devil cares for more?— Some good wine! and who would lack it, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... jest tie 'em up, or wrop 'em in a bit of canvas, they'd go straighter, and wouldn't scatter round so bad," remarked old Trull, who was not an uninterested spectator ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... and he kin git a clip on the jaw, like I give my man once. No, sir. Bears is better company than is men. I know for I've tried 'em both. Take my advice and when ye wants to git another husband, jest ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... Sir, the court, In troth, stays for you. I am mad, a mule That never read Justinian, should get up, And ride an advocate. Had you no quirk To avoid gullage, sir, by such a creature? I hope you do but jest; he has not done it: 'Tis but confederacy, to blind the rest. ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... what appeared a reasonable interval, long enough for it not to seem that she was too much elated over it, she remarked, "An', by-de-way, Mr. Peters, I must tell you what a lovely Christmas gif' I have just received by de hand of Mr. Pier. He has jest presented me with his yaller-wheeled buggy, an' I sho' is proud of it." Then, turning to Pierre, she added, "You sho' is a mighty generous gen'leman, ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... do not ask, when back on Blighty's shore My frozen frame in liberty shall rest, For pleasure to beguile the hours in store With long-drawn revel or with antique jest. I do not ask to probe the tedious pomp And tinsel splendour of the last Revue; The Fox-trot's mysteries, the giddy Romp, And all such folly I would fain eschew. But, propt on cushions of my long desire, Deep-buried in the vastest of armchairs, Let me recline what time the roaring fire Consumes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 11, 1917 • Various
... sell, an' I concluded I'd go along next day; 't wa'n't more 'n' seven mile from the Centre, down by a piece o' piny woods, an' the woman was Miss Adams. I used ter know George Adams quite a spell ago, an' he was a likely feller. Well, it come on to snow jest as fine an' dry as sand, an' the wind blew like needles, an', come next day, when I started to foot it down there, I didn't feel as though I could ha' gone, ef I hadn't been sure of a good bargain; the snow hadn't driv much, but the weather had settled down dreadful ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... a chin-beard of considerable length, and the remainder of his face was blue with shaving, Challoner could only suppose himself the subject of a jest. He was no longer under the spell of the young lady's presence; and with men, and above all with his inferiors, he was capable of some display ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... falsehood spoken by me before, O blessed lady, even in jest. What need then be said of (such a solemn occasion as) preparing sanctified food with the aid of Vedic formulae after igniting the fire? It was ordained of yore by Destiny, O amiable one! I have ascertained it all by my penances. All the descendants ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... you was, too, my lads, to run through a gap that way. And now look here, you, jest recklect all this; you've both got your necks in nooses, and Mr Brymer here's got hold o' the other ends of the ropes, so as he can pull 'em any time he likes, and he will too if you don't stick pretty close to your dooty. ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... many stumps. Thinkin' that, of coorse they'll think it's o' no use to try to cross the river and give chase, 'cause I've got a long start o' 'em, an' so, d'ye see, they'll give me up an' think no more about me. Good! very good! But p'r'aps it's jest poss'ble that feller whose paw I tickled may sometimes recall ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... tears in my eyes—was a sort of chorus, in general; and affected to be convulsed with mirth at the comic parts, and to be overcome with fear when there was any passage of an alarming character in the narrative. This rather put me out, very often. It was a great jest of his, I recollect, to pretend that he couldn't keep his teeth from chattering, whenever mention was made of an Alguazill in connexion with the adventures of Gil Blas; and I remember that when Gil Blas met the captain of the robbers in Madrid, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... evidently playing with scepticism; for himself, he had no heart to jest upon the subject. The Scotch sceptic acknowledged that the metaphysical riddles of his "absolute scepticism" exercised, and ought to exercise, no practical influence on himself or any man; that the moment he quitted them, and entered into society, "they appeared to him so frigid and unnatural" ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... war! Those marches put something into him I like. Even at this distance his mettle is but little softened. As soon as he gets warmed up, it all comes back to him. He catches your step and away you go, a gay, adventurous, half-predatory couple. How quickly he falls into the old ways of jest and anecdote and song! You may have known him for years without having heard him hum an air, or more than casually revert to the subject of his experience during the war. You have even questioned and cross-questioned him without firing the train you wished. But get him out ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... MR. Y. You jest! Then they cut down your rations, so that every day, every hour you feel a distinct difference between life and death; all life's functions are repressed; you feel yourself grovelling, and your soul, which should be bettered ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg
... I stared at him that he should stoop to jest, yet having a ready leap of comradeship toward him for it; then suddenly his mood changed. Close to me he edged, and began talking with a serious shrewdness which showed his mind brought fully to bear upon the situation. "You say, sir," said he, "that Mistress Mary ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... in spite of you, and I know to whom to apply. Do you think you can play fast and loose with me and my love? No, no! I used to believe in you; I turned, a deaf ear to your traducers. My mad passion for you became known; I was the jest and the butt of the town. But you have opened my eyes, and at last I see clearly on whom my vengeance ought to fall. He was formerly my friend, and I would believe nothing against him; although I was often warned, I took no notice. But ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... disturbs the calm of Winter's rest, But quiet and serene on earth's broad breast Is shrub and bush and seed in loamy hold; The buds on elm are waiting to unfold, Our biddie hen wears crimson on her crest. This gorgeous day, when children laugh and jest, And run and dance ...
— Clear Crystals • Clara M. Beede
... unruliness diffused itself among us and, under its influence, differences of culture and constitution were waived. We banded ourselves together, some boldly, some in jest and some almost in fear: and of the number of these latter, the reluctant Indians who were afraid to seem studious or lacking in robustness, I was one. The adventures related in the literature of the Wild West were remote from my nature but, at least, ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... Shih, does away with rotten old customs. Wang Hsi-feng imitates in jest (the dutiful son), by getting herself ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... long I waited—waited with soul aflame— And then through the still of evening, humming a tune, you came; Came with a jest on your smiling lips, and eyes that were all too gay; And the light died out of my waiting heart with the words that I ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... most dutiful slave?" whispered he, and his breath fanned her cheek. "Ah, no. But do not forget our conversation, loveliest of women. Things spoken in jest often come true in the end." She looked up and smiled as if enchanted at the idea. Then she rose, and when he grasped one of her hands she made no effort to wrest it away. He imprinted a long-drawn kiss on it. She shivered and then rapidly glided into the adjoining room, where the ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... examined the lock. It was a simple one, and as my idea now was to free myself without raising an alarm, I decided to unscrew it with my pocket-knife. I was still confused, but inclined to consider my imprisonment a jest, perhaps on the part of Charlie Jones, who tempered his religious fervor with a fondness ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... had left us, we used to hold long and frequent conversations about them, and I noticed that Peterkin's manner was now much altered. He did not, indeed, jest less heartily than before, but he did so less frequently, and often there was a tone of deep seriousness in his manner, if not in his words, which made him seem to Jack and me as if he had grown two years ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... himself, and a soft look came into his eyes. The girl was making a jest of a situation that would have appalled multitudes of her over-civilized sisters, and he marvelled at her courage. The glow in his eyes grew brighter as he stared into vacancy. Some day-dream softened the stern lines in ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... "rules of the road," and these rules contribute greatly to our convenience and safety. Such rules are the result of the common sense of man working upon his everyday problems. To violate one of these practical rules is to be a blunderer, and blundering is a subject for jest rather than bitter denouncement. Hence the humorous and satirical note ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... frocks and tunics with one shoulder; yes, by Jove, you go ahead and give them armor and mount them on horses and, if you like, take them to Spain; and let's bring them in here, so that they may take part in our assemblies." Valerius said this in jest, but the women hearing him (many of them were hanging about near the Forum inquisitive to know how the affair would come out) rushed into the assembly denouncing the law; and accordingly, as it was speedily repealed, they put on some ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... difficulty of getting labour, penalties, and damage caused by cattle, even of Bismarck, the war of 1866, and Napoleon III., whom Kollomietzev called a hero. Kollomietzev gave vent to the most retrograde opinions, going so far as to propose, in jest it is true, a toast given by a certain friend of his on a names-day banquet, "I drink to the only principle I acknowledge, ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... prattling and poetizing about the mysteries of love, the delightful life of youth with full cups and empty purses, the pleasures of travel and of poetry, the Roman and still more frequently the Veronese anecdote of the town, and the humorous jest amidst the familiar circle of friends. But not only does Apollo touch the lyre of the poet, he wields also the bow; the winged dart of sarcasm spares neither the tedious verse-maker nor the provincial who corrupts the language, but it hits none ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... so as to try and make out whether his ally was speaking in jest or earnest; and there was enough feeble light in the east to enable him to read pretty plainly that the lad was ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... if a guy wants a bath, there's the river, all full o' 'gators and cattawampuses and things. And if ye eat, I s'pose ye rustle yer own grub and pay for eatin' it off that slab table there. There's jest one thing ye can say for this dump—a feller can spit on the floor. But with all them cracks in it he might not hit it, at that. Mother of mine! To think Missus Ryan's li'l' boy should ever git caught stayin' in a hole like this, along o' drunks and skiddin' she-goats ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... he replied, "you insist, Mave; but I'll tell you what—I'll put Peggy in a coach yet, when I come into my fortune; an' so you'll insist, will you? Jest look at that wrist of yours," he replied, seizing hers, but with gentleness, "and then look at this of mine; an' now will you tell me that you'll insist? Come, Darby, we're bound for the Bank; there's not a beech there but's a hundred feet high, an' that's higher than ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... profess to understand the language of birds; but the passage in the text is probably intended only in jest. ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... all dead, and my children is all dead, and I'm dead, too. Women don't live, you know, they jest work." This last in a low, confidential tone as she stretched the wrinkles of her face into a ghastly grin. "I've heard of you," she went on. "You think you are going to make the women live same as men. You can't do it. We ain't for ourselves, we are jest made ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... man to speak hoped it was not an accident; and again the second man, fearing that someone might have missed it, repeated the old jest about presence of mind and absence ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 24, 1917 • Various
... rejoined he. "You are fast recovering, I see. There is not much the matter with a midshipman when he is able to fling a sly jest in the face of his captain. But—midshipman? My dear Ralph, you are no longer such. How could I be so forgetful? Your commission has come out by the packet which arrived yesterday, and the admiral will hand it you the first time you call upon him. Now let me ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... was in anything but the mood for joking, yet a certain dour humour in the jest caught his fancy and persuaded him against ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... and with many a knight to bear him company rode, not eager and swift, like a prince who went to find a treasure, but steady and slow, as we should go to meet sorrow. Not one of the hundred men who followed dared to lilt a lay or fling a laughing jest from his mouth. All rode silent among their gay trappings, for so ...
— The Story and Song of Black Roderick • Dora Sigerson
... wild huntsman in the ballad is nothing to him, all except the sublimity—intending very seriously to take the first he can. He is now about one in particular, but I won't tell where it is because we have considered so many houses in particular that our considerations have come to be a jest in general. I shall be heartily glad, at least I think so, for it is possible that the reality of being bricked up for a lease time may not be very agreeable. I think I shall be heartily glad when a house is taken, ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... what was jest to the soldiers, I saw, by his face, was fierce enough earnest to him. We walked on a little, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... colored paper filling the air before it, and the people still reverently bowing down to the host. The solemn and impressive chanting of the priests kindled the pious enthusiasm of the multitude, and as the line passed the cafes and estaminets, or smoking houses, the pipe, the drink, and the gay jest were abandoned, to pay homage to the faith of ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... was no necessity for suppressing his remarks, for he had spoken his mind as freely on them elsewhere as in these letters. But any personal reflections written on the spur of the moment, in confidence or in jest, have been struck out, however strong the temptation sometimes of leaving them. Many expressions, too, of his kind feelings towards me have been omitted. If some have been left, I hope I may be forgiven for a pride ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... snow-flakes, encompassed in blackest darkness, the little column toiled steadily on through sludge ankle-deep, those in the rear judging by the quantity of snow lodged on the hats and coats of those in front, the load that they themselves were carrying. Not a word, a jest, or a snatch of song broke the silence ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... then explained how the tavern had lost its custom when the old stage line was broken up by the railroad. The introduction of steam was, in Mr. Sewell's estimation, a fatal error. "Jest killed local business. Carried it off, I 'm darned if I know where. The whole country has been sort o' retrograding ever sence steam ...
— Miss Mehetabel's Son • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Fancy and Observation resided; and from their union sprang this numerous and whimsical progeny. This is the head of George Alexander Stevens, long known and long respected; a man universally acknowledged of infinite wit and most excellent fancy; one who gave peculiar grace to the jest, and could set the table in a roar with flashes of merriment: but wit and humour were not his only excellencies; he possessed a keenness of satire, that made Folly hide her head in the highest places, and Vice tremble in the bosoms of the great: ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... was aimin' to do that assessment work and couldn't jest lay my hands on the time. I'd been a millionaire three years and didn't know it. Then this damned Morse butts in and euchres me out of the claim. Some day him and me'll have a settlement. If the law don't ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... at him to see if he was in jest or earnest. Her look staggered him a little, but he repeated his question. She cast her eyes down ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... me to hear from Obed that he and Margit had determined on a sea voyage, and wished to book their passages to the Canton River and back in the Macartney. I had often given this invitation in jest: but such voyages merely for health and pleasure were then far from common. Yet there was no single impediment to their going. They had no children: they were well-to-do: they had now a hind, or steward (one Stephens), to whose care they might comfortably leave the farm. To be ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... see your eagerness in that direction, Francisco, and I did but jest with my daughters. You have not yet asked me what is the destination of the Lido, for that is the name of your new vessel. This time you are going quite in a new direction. In the spring we are certain to have war with Genoa, and as Parma and Hungary will probably both take side against us, ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... big as you," he said, "but if I was the same shape, I'd go to a bush carpenter, and get him to trim me down with an adze." Then after this jest, he resumed seriously. "Well, Ted, it is just this. Lizzie says that she likes Sydney but you do not, and that you will never stay there for more than a week at a time. Now, that isn't doing the square thing by her. You and I as well, never think that the ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... bloated face of the Belgian: all those maimed and broken men condemned to live and carry on the living flesh the pranks of shell fire. For it was surely better to be torn to pieces and to die than to be sent forth a jest. ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... luxury of plain speech, wondered in vain what they had done to offend her. Her desire was now towards new friends, new faces. Her sense of humour appeared to be departing from her; it became unsafe to jest with her. On the other hand, she showed herself greedy for admiration and flattery. Her former chums stepped back astonished to watch brainless young fops making their way with her by complimenting her upon her blouse, ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... stopped for a moment to ladle out a dipperful of water from the wooden pail he carried upon his left arm, while now and then he stopped to hear some complaint of a weary man, to promise aid or seek to jest away the prisoner's melancholy. ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... am going to give you—my wife. You have had her from the first, and now she is yours." For one frightful moment there was no sound; even the men's breathing was hushed, and they sat slack-jawed, stunned, half-minded to believe this some hideous, incredible jest. But the maniacal light in Cortlandt's eyes, and Anthony's chalk-white, frozen countenance soon showed them the truth. Some one gasped, another laughed hysterically, the sound breaking in his throat. ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... time she saw no one, and commenced to fear that the whole thing had been a gruesomely real, practical jest. So she stopped her horse and imitated the signal whistle as well as she could. It was repeated immediately behind her—almost in her ear, and she turned to make out the dark ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... to make her happy and contented; and there is nothing I can imagine that would make me more unhappy than to fail in the effort. I know I should be much happier with you than the way I am, provided I saw no signs of discontent in you. What you have said to me may have been in the way of jest, or I may have misunderstood you. If so, then let it be forgotten; if otherwise, I much wish you would think seriously before you decide. What I have said I will most positively abide by, provided ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... and craftily bringing her to the son-in-law after the wedding-feast, is scarcely due to the invention of an individual. The shepherd's tricks, by which Jacob colours the sheep as he likes, have quite the flavour of a popular jest. The observance of hospitality or transgressions against it, occupy a prominent place in the Genesis of the Jehovist; Lot's entertainment, and the Sodomites' insulting maltreatment, of the Deity who comes among them in disguise, is an incident ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... squeaking train"; but he was no sooner a minister of Charles than he flung himself into the debauchery of the Court with an ardour which surprised even his master. "You are the wickedest dog in England!" laughed the king at some unscrupulous jest of his counsellor's. "Of a subject, sir, I believe I am!" was the unabashed reply. But the debauchery of Ashley was simply a mask. He was in fact temperate by nature and habit, and his ill-health rendered any great excess impossible. Men soon found that ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... Lay here all night and breakfasted at railway hotel. J.H. Hayford, editor Laramie Sentinel, told us of the bill to repeal the woman suffrage law in Wyoming. The law had been passed by a Democratic legislature as a jest, but five Democrats voted for repeal and four Republicans against it, in one house, and in the other, three Republicans voted against and every Democrat for the repeal. Governor Campbell, a Republican, vetoed this repeal bill and woman suffrage ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... the present time, though all his sensations were more or less new to him. And his mother's sudden and rather eccentric opposition unexpectedly strengthened his determination. He might laugh at what he called her originality, but he could not afford to jest at the prospect of her giving Clare an account of his life. She was quite capable of it, and would ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... coustume," etc. Baum, ii., App., 102, 103. Nemours, after his conspiracy was discovered, fled from court. He wrote, however, disclaiming any ulterior object in his invitations to the young Prince of Orleans, to whom he had in jest proposed to go with ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... sound sleeper. It has been a standing jest in the family that nothing could ever wake me during the night; and yet somehow on that particular night, whether it may have been the slight excitement produced by my little adventure or not, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... missed you yesterday, and they hope nothing was the matter at home. Among them are brazen jades who chatter saucily with the guards, and these are the best treated of all. They are asked no gruff, surly questions, but with a wink and a jest ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... "Jest what I thought, but you see you don't know the ways of New York. You will learn, though, and you will be surprised to see how easy it is to pick up a pocket book full of greenbacks and bonds—perhaps a hundred thousand ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey
... joke?" said Handyside sadly. "That's very generous of you, Alan, if I may say so,—to quote Caw—but the Green Box is too hard and cold a fact to jest about." ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... abundantly facetious, which took much with the Queen, when it suited with the season, as he was well able to judge of the times; he had a very quaint saying, and he used it often to good purpose, "that he loved the jest well, but not the loss of his friend;" and that, though he knew that "VERUS QUISQUE SUAE FORTUNAE FABER," was a true and good principle, yet the most in number were those that numbered themselves, but I will never forgive that ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... There was held the great council of the Immortals. When the ocean was quiet, Poseidon had left it to visit Olympus. There came Hephaestos, quitting his subterranean fires and gloomy laborers, to jest and be jested with, sitting by his beautiful queen. There, while the sun hung motionless in mid-heaven, Apollo descended from his burning chariot to join the feast. Artemis and Demeter came from the woods and fields to unite in the high assembly, and war was suspended while Ares made love to ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... place, comrades,' she heard a voice say, then laughter. A little water? What had Eberhard Ludwig said? 'One might stand a siege here if one turned the waters on from inside; I don't believe anything but a sea-serpent could enter!'—idle words spoken in jest. Was there a chance left? If she could find the lever—but it would not turn—the hinges must be locked with rust. She was seeking wildly along the wall now, her hands rasped and bleeding with scraping against the rough surface. She remembered Eberhard ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... o' my grandmother keep the water out?" growled Tom, scornfully. "Why, she couldn't keep it out if we set her in it. I jest got one peep, and then the water hid it, but there's a hole pretty nigh big enough for you to ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... jest to do the shovel work, but might have my own little side-show to bring off, hey?" he inquired of no one in particular. "Here, Slinker, help ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... "Couldn't tell ye jest what happened. They went off int' the house. Nex' day the boss tol' me he wa'n't no longer a poor man an' was goin' t' sell his farm an' leave for Californy. In a tavern near where we lived the stranger died sudden ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... me a hard blow in wanton play; I growl with new-born ecstasy; Then speaks she in a sweet vain jest, I wot "Allons lout doux! eh! la menotte! Et faites serviteur Comme un joli seigneur." Thus she proceeds ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... in jest about those cups in order to induce them to laugh," old goody Liu at these words, mused within herself, "but, who would have thought that she actually has some of the kind. I've often been to the large households of village gentry on a visit, and even been ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... His royalty is not the blare of trumpets, but the 'Hosanna!' from a thousand throats. That is not the sort of King that the world calls a King. The Roman soldiers might well have thought they were perpetrating an exquisite jest when they thrust the reed into His unresisting hand, and crushed down the crown of thorns on His ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... foller. Never was handled right when I was a colt. Don't you wait fer me, feller, you jest sift along in and I'll ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... you, Seer Marcous?" she exclaimed, seizing my hand rapturously. I verily believe she thought I was in earnest, for when I turned aside my jest, she pouted in disappointment and declared that it ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... with its enemies. He certainly must have thought it open to ridicule; and now that it is recalled to his memory, (he had, I believe, wholly forgotten the circumstance,) he recollects that he did treat it with some levity. But is it a fair inference from a jest on this unseasonable lamentation, that he was then an enemy to monarchy, either in this or in any other country? The contrary perhaps ought to be inferred,—if anything at all can be argued from pleasantries good or bad. Is it for this reason, or ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... objects of no little jealousy on the part of other personages belonging to the court circle. The exceedingly sarcastic and malevolent tongue of the Baroness Kotze, and the somewhat coarse flavor of the ever-ready jest and quip of her jovial, loud-voiced, hail-fellow-well-met mannered husband did not tend to ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... luved him, for he never yoosed us rite. He hated the Whigs ez bad ez we did, but after we beat em and elevated him to the Presidency, the stealins didn't come in ez fast ez we expected. Never shel I forgit the compliment he paid me. Jest after his election I presented myself afore him with my papers, an applicant for a place. He read em, and scanned me with ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... "Jest drove off that way; Mrs. Flynn's baby's in a fit," cried a stout lady from the piazza, never ceasing to rock, though several passers-by paused to hear the news, for she was a doctor's wife, and used to the arrival of excited messengers from ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... but to tempt me to anger,' said Goisvintha, altering her manner with sudden and palpable cunning, more ominous of peril to the fugitive than the fury she had hitherto displayed. 'You jest at me, because I have failed in patience, like a child! But you will shed her blood—you are honourable and will hold to your promise—you will shed her blood! And I,' she continued, exultingly, seating herself on the oaken chest that she ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... uncles that tower up at times above the common levels of humanity. At times, when we consider our derived and undeserved share of his inheritance and count the joys it gives us, we have projected half in jest and half in earnest the putting together of a little exemplary book upon the subject of such exceptional men: Celebrated Uncles, it should be called; and it should stir up all who read it to some striving at least towards the glories of the avuncular crown. ...
— Floor Games; a companion volume to "Little Wars" • H. G. Wells
... despotic ruler. Later generations could recognise that his supreme merit was that he made England one. He did not die in England. In 1087 he fought with his lord, the king of France, Philip I. In anger at a jest of Philip's he set fire to Mantes. As he rode amidst the burning houses his horse shied and threw him forward on the pommel of his saddle. He was now corpulent and the injury proved fatal. On September 9 he died. When the body was ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... this remark, because the hearers felt uncertain whether he meant the pronoun for a jest. To evade the difficulty, old O'Beirne bade Dan fetch a mug for a drop of poteen, and meanwhile ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... can't yeh give a poor feller a couple of cents t' git a bed? I got five, and I gits anudder two I gits me a bed. Now, on th' square, gents, can't yeh jest gimme two cents t' git a bed? Now, yeh know how a respecter'ble gentlem'n feels when he's down on ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... we take her no more seriously than she takes us. I maintain that one should always talk of philosophy with a smile. We owe it to the Eternal to be virtuous but we have the right to add to this tribute our irony as a sort of personal reprisal. In this way we return to the right quarter jest for jest; we play the trick that has been played on us. Saint Augustine's phrase: Lord, if we arc deceived, it is by thee! remains a fine one, well suited to our modern feeling. Only we wish the ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... by moi bedside hours every day, Polly," he said, "and it's moi turn now to take thy place here. Jack ha' brought over all moi books, for oi couldn't make shift to carry them and use moi crutches, and oi'll explain all the pictures to Jarge jest as Maister ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... he remembers." Very likely there may be people who can read this, even the "all in black," without laughing, and among them I should suppose must be the somebody or other, whose name we too have forgotten, who is said to have imagined that he had more than parried Sydney's unforgiven jest about the joke and the surgical operation, by retorting, "Yes! an English joke." I have always wept to think that Sydney did not live to hear this retort. The classical places for this kind of summary work are the article just named on Ceylon, and that on Waterton. But the most inimitable single ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... Colville stopped short, while a cold bewilderment bathed him from head to foot. It must be some sort of jest, though he could not tell where the humour was, and he could not treat ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... imitate the rector, in his manner of performing the ceremony, as we deem the matter to be too serious for jest; but we will say, never before was ceremony performed in so strange a manner. However, to all intents and purposes, they were married; and at the conclusion of the service, the bridegroom slipped a fifty-dollar note into the rector's hand, and then conducted his lovely ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... which were displayed so as to spare the luckless ones the slightest jolt or pain while being carried in uncomfortable positions and attitudes over the thickly dust-strewn and uneven road. The fortitude of the badly battered was wonderful. They forgot their sufferings, and were even bandying jest and joke. Their cheeriness under the most terrible conditions was soul-moving. No one can testify more truthfully to the Tapley cheeriness of the British soldier under the most adverse conditions ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... monks in pursuit of the female laity; and how in due course he had been taken out barefooted and down to the parlour, where was a supper fit for the duke, and at it twelve jolly friars, the roaringest boys he had ever met in peace or war. How the story, the toast, the jest, the wine-cup had gone round, and some had played cards with a gorgeous pack, where Saint Theresa, and Saint Catherine, etc., bedizened with gold, stood for the four queens; and black, white, grey, and crutched friars for the four knaves; and had ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... "Um-ah! Jest look at 'em!" murmured Jeff. "Golly! I kin git one as easy as not outen dat open box! Wait till ...
— The Story of a China Cat • Laura Lee Hope
... him in somebody's doorway. Hullo! Here's the house of that County Council! I fancies now it is rather in your way! You're up to everythink, you swells are, from "Betterment" to the claims of Cabby. You've a lot to learn; so jest have a turn—as I hope ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 17, 1890. • Various
... appetite and luxury Are forced their empire to resign; The wanton sport, the jest obscene, The ignoble sway of sleep and wine, And all the plagues of languid sense Feel the ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius |
