"Chit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... discussion is waning is the disrespect we feel for great subjects. We only mention them, or hint at them; and this cannot lead to very brilliant talk. Tho prattle and persiflage have their place in conversation, talkers of the highest order tire of continually encouraging chit-chat. "What a piece of business; monstrous! I have not read it; impossible to get a box at the opera for another fortnight; how do you like my dress? It was immensely admired yesterday at the B——s; how badly your cravat is tied! Did you ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... His lordship got plenty good stores, borrow some from him and give him chit. Coming in one minute—hot coffee, kipper herring, rasher bacon, also butter (best Danish), and Bath ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... a while the lively chit-chat within—the humorous joke—the joy-excited laughter, all of which only aroused his indignation to greater fierceness. But at that moment, when ready to put his threats into execution the right hand of his soul arrested suddenly the uplifted weapon of ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... unless you show some confidence in me. Good God!" he burst out, "what am I, to be repulsed so by a mere chit like you? For near three mortal months have you trifled with my feelings, eluded me, and snubbed me; and I ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... at a rest camp on the Somme when the chit first came round regarding the joining of the H.B.M.G.C. The Colonel came up to us one day with some papers in ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... him. I am afraid John Gordon will have gone by that time, or else we certainly would have had him down. I should like John Gordon to be present, because he would see how the kind of thing is done." The name of John Gordon at once silenced all the matrimonial chit-chat which was going on among them. It was manifest both to Mr Whittlestaff and to Mary that it had been lugged in without a cause, to enable Mr Blake to talk about the absent man. "It would have been ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... a message had been left for him to wait upon the sultan, which he complied with immediately after breakfast. He received him in an inner apartment, attended only by a few slaves. After asking Clapperton how he did, and several other chit chat questions, he was not a little surprised, without a single question being put to him on the subject, to hear, that if he wished to go to Nyffee, there were two roads leading to it, the one direct, but beset by enemies; the other safer, but more circuitous; that by either route he would ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... robh 'do chre Bha thu ciallach, narach, 's tu briathrach, pairteach, 'S tu rianail, daimheil, ri d' chairdean fhein: Bu tu firean, fallain, bha rioghail, geanach, 'Sa leoghann tapaidh bu ghlaine beus; Bhiodh min 'us gairg' air, bhiodh sith 'us fearg air, Nuair chit' air falbh e ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... every day to congratulate my arrival; among others, my cousin Betty, the greatest romp in nature; she whisks me such a height over her head, that I cried out for fear of falling. She pinched me, and called me squealing chit, and threw me into a girl's arms that was taken in to tend me. The girl was very proud of the womanly employment of a nurse, and took upon her to strip and dress me anew, because I made a noise, to see ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... squirrel anecdote incredible; but I can vouch for the truth of it on my own personal experience, as I not only saw but also felt it: the black squirrels are most lovely and elegant animals, considerably larger than the red, the grey, and the striped: the latter are called by the Indians "chit-munks." ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... seen or heard nothing of Europe and Europeans except the doctor at Csatsak, and his sage maxims about Greek masses and Hungarian law-suits. I therefore made prize of the captain, who was an intelligent man, with an abundance of fresh political chit-chat, and odds and ends of scandal from Paddington to the Bank, and from Pall-mall to Parliament-street, brimful of extracts and essences of Athenaeums, United-Services, and other hebdomadals. Formerly Foreign-Office messengers were the cast-off butlers and valets of secretaries ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... of the neighbors came to see what was the trouble, and if they could do anything about it. A black-and-white creeper rose from a low bush with a surprised "chit-it-it-it," alighted on a tree and ran glibly up the upright branch as though it were a ladder. But a glance at the "cause of all this woe" was more than his courage could endure; one cry escaped him, ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... days if she did have her. She swears no power on earth will induce her to have any one at all as it is. But I'm going to manage it if I can get the right person. I want some one who my mother will indignantly call a chit of a child"—he gave rather a broken little laugh—"can't I hear her saying it! But she'll instantly begin to mother her because she is a chit of a child, and to fuss over her and tell her what she ought to eat and what she ought to wear, and does she wear a flannel binder, ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... her toast and tea up to her," she begged. With that toast and tea she intended to pass along the good word Uncle Darcy had given her—"the line to live by." But Tippy was in no humor to be adjured by a chit of a child to bear up and steer right onward. Such advice would have been coldly received just ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... a novelist a harder case than to prove the likeableness of Cherry Mart, as her actions show her in September (METHUEN), and I wonder how a Victorian writer would have dealt with the terrible chit. But FRANK SWINNERTON, of course, is able to hold these astonishing briefs with ease. Here is a girl who first turns the head of Marian Forster's middle-aged husband in a pure fit of experimentalism, and then sets her cap with defiant malice at the young man who seems likely ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... in this kind of chit-chat, Marian told Miss Bella that she must be going, in order to gather some greens for her cow, who would want her breakfast by eight o'clock. This little girl did not eat up all her roll and jelly, ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... up to a vast picture, a life-size family group, which covered the greater part of the farther wall of the room. "What a vulgar, insignificant chit one feels oneself without cap or powder!—without those ruffles, or those tippets, or those quilted petticoats! Mrs. Allison, may my maid come down to-morrow while we are at dinner and take the pattern of those ruffles? No—no! ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... refreshments to our worn and wasted spirits in the walk of which we were deprived. The sight of the superintendent's children; their smiles and caresses; the scene where I had taken leave of their mother; the occasional chit-chat with the old smith, who had his forge there; the joyous songs of one of the captains accompanied by his guitar; and last not least, the innocent badinage of a young Hungarian fruiteress—the corporal's wife, who flirted with my companions—were among what we had lost. She had, in ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... also paid for overtime, and although Wanning attended to very little of the office business now, there was a great deal of overtime. Miss Doane was, of course, 'above' questioning a chit like Annie; but what was he doing with his time and his new ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... the sex. My mother was a woman— I hope my wife will be, and wholly human. And if she wants to make some sacrifice, I'll think her far more sensible and wise To let her husband reap the benefit, Instead of some old maid or senseless chit. Selfish? Of course! I hold all love is so: And I shall love my wife right well, I know. Now there's a point regarding selfish love, You thirst to argue with me, and disprove. But since these cosy hours will soon be gone And all our meetings broken in upon, No more of these rare moments must be ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... (jealously.) Then don't say it Leave him alone. It's not bad enough to croak over. Here, Gaddy, take the chit to Bingle and ride hell-for-leather. It'll do ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... assaults. But as frequently more comes to pass in an hour than in a hundred years, and no one can say, Stop here or go there, it happened that one day, when all were at table, and the Prince was cutting a piece of new-made cheese, whilst listening to the chit-chat that was going on, he accidentally cut his finger; and two drops of blood, falling upon the cheese, made such a beautiful mixture of colours that—either it was a punishment inflicted by Love, or the will of Heaven to console the poor father—the whim seized the Prince to find ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... within me which cannot bear the shock of the least indecent insinuation: in the sportability of chit-chat I have often endeavoured to conquer it, and with infinite pain have hazarded a thousand things to a dozen of the sex together,—the least of which I could not venture to a single one ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... unrest, I suppose. People get excited, and directly they get excited they get sentimental and confused. The daily press did, on both sides. I don't know which was worse. The Pinkerton press blossomed into silly chit-chat about noblemen working on under ground trains. As a matter of fact, most of the volunteer workers were clerks and tradesmen and working men, but these weren't so interesting to talk about, ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... brain scanty of ideas, made more difficult by disuse. I have been reading "The Task" with fresh delight. I am glad you love Cowper. I could forgive a man for not enjoying Milton; but I would not call that man my friend who should be offended with the "divine chit-chat of Cowper." Write to me. God love you ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... shall wait till I can show her the concertina; we shall see what the chit will do then. Perhaps she will understand in the future that her husband is ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... yellower. But such was indeed the case. I gleans a little valuable information from a friendly barkeeper who's got a brother-in-law at the Central Office, and so is in position to get hold of much interesting and timely chit-chat before it becomes common gossip throughout the neighborhood. So then I takes the Sweet Caps Kid off to one side and I says to him, ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... heap of trouble." And then it struck her that her son's language was not only peculiar but amusing. "A remarkable woman!" She laughed to herself as she thought of it. A little, brown-haired, bright-eyed, fair-skinned chit, pretty and plucky, and accomplished no doubt, but not at all "remarkable." She had no style nor pride. Yankee women never had. And no family of course, or she would not teach a colored school. "Remarkable!" ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... things did not this unmanly passion subject me!—I used to watch for her letters, though mere prittle-prattle and chit-chat, received them with delight, though myself was accused in them, and stigmatized ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... he meets a little chit of a thing, kind of heavy-set like, with this light yellow hair and pretty light blue eyes, that he saw one ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... liked Lettice. I believe she was born with a company voice in her mouth; and she would flit like a butterfly from one grown-up person to another, chit-chattering, whilst some of us stood pounding our knuckles in our pockets, and tying our legs into knots, as we wished the drawing-room carpet would open and let us through into the cellar to ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... perused the letter, her mind refused to retain the pleasant chit-chat gossip it contained. Her thoughst[*sic] were far away, and had she narrowly examined her motives she would have known that she bent over the friendly sheet chiefly as an excuse for silence, and to conceal her passing emotions. Meanwhile the newspaper crackled in ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... betokening resolution. First, he had been puzzled, then angry, finally he had had recourse to entreaty, feeling in his heart that he could never look the neighbours in the face again if the story got about that this chit had "got the better of him that way." At length Roseen had suffered herself to be softened, and agreed, after much persuasion, to a compromise. She would condescend to take up her abode under her grandfather's roof on the condition that Judy came too. Judy was one of these appendages so ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... into the smiling, blushing, sparkling face. "You haven't been planning and promising to give Adelaide and me a nephew older than ourselves? I tell you, miss, I refuse my consent. Why, it's absurd! the very idea! I used to think him almost an elderly gentleman when you were a chit of eight ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... took a chair, and was soon as busily occupied as I was with a cigar, which was occasionally removed from our lips as we asked and replied to questions as to what had been our pursuits subsequent to our last rencontre. After about half an hour's chit-chat, he observed, as he lighted ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... that the inimitable humour, and the rich sound and propulsive movement of the verse, have not rendered Corbet a popular poet. I am convinced that a reprint of his poems, with illustrative and chit-chat biographical notes, and cuts by Cruikshank, would take with the ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... lovers are thus engaged in a pleasant but indecisive daily round of amusement, Bellpine, a false friend, tries to turn Jemmy's affection to the fair musician, Miss Chit, in order to win Jenny for himself, but failing in that, circulates rumors of Jemmy's attachment to Miss Chit in hopes of alienating the lovers' regard. Emboldened by these reports of Jemmy's change of heart, Sir Robert Manley pays his court to Jenny on her way to Bath with her ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... of Middle Bay, where the new ship can distinctly be discerned standing upon her ways, while moving clusters of people were walking up and down her decks or lining the shore in the vicinity. All sorts of gossiping and neighborly chit-chat is being interchanged in the little ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... resemblance—servants, ordinary friends, even the old lawyer in charge of the estate—but it was inexcusable for him to have thus become a plaything. Yet he had, and now the mistake was too late to mend. He had left Natalie alone on the cliff, and then blindly permitted this chit to lead him straight into Hobart's set trap. Angered beyond control at the memory, West swore, straining fiercely in the vain endeavour to release his arms. Then, realizing his utter helplessness, he sank back on the floor, ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... in salute. "I'm afraid this sentimental chit-chat doesn't become either of us. Let's go back to our friend from the Herald Tribune. You're sure he photographed ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... about the roses for Fifi. He was still ready to believe that she might have some profitable suggestion about his new problem. Was she not that "public" and that "average reader" which he himself so despised and detested? Yet he could not imagine where such a little pink and white chit found the hardihood to take this tone with one of the foremost scientists ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... "Chip-chop the chit-chat!" Karns said, harshly. "What I want to know is whether I was having a nightmare. Can there possibly be a race such as I thought I saw? So utterly savage—ruthless—merciless! So devoid of every human trace and so hell-bent determined ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... ladies, and secure to you the hand of a charming Miss for the next dance. When on the floor with one of those dashing belles, commence a tete-a-tete with her, and pay no attention whatever to the figure or steps, but walk as deliberately as the music will admit (not dropping your little chit chat) through the dance, which is considered, undoubtedly, very graceful, and less like a mechanic or dancing-master. The dance finished, march into the bar, and call for a glass of blue-ruin, white-tape, or stark-naked, which is ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... pebble-stone? It's a thing I bought Of a bit of a chit of a boy i' the mid o' the day - I like to dock the smaller parts-o'-speech, As we curtail the already cur-tail'd cur (You catch the paronomasia, play 'po' words?) Did, rather, i' the pre-Landseerian ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... Shylock;" (Here the nose took again the same elevation)— "I wouldn't wear that for the whole of creation." "Why not? It's my fancy, there's nothing could strike it As more comme il faut"—"Yes, but, dear me, that lean Sophronia Stuckup has got one just like it, And I won't appear dressed like a chit of sixteen." "Then that splendid purple, the sweet Mazarine; That superb point d'aiguille, that imperial green, That zephyr-like tarletan, that rich grenadine"— "Not one of all which is fit to be seen," Said the lady, becoming excited and flushed. "Then wear," I exclaimed, in ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... and merchants coming from Cashmere, from Shahjehanabad, and bringing shawls and other goods and spices, &c., from all quarters, he orders to his gunge, and collects the duty from the aumils, gives them a chit, and a guard, who conducts them about five hundred coss: the former duties are not collected. From the conduct at Cawnpore, Futtyghur, Furruckabad, &c., the duties from the lilla of Gora and Thlawa are destroyed, and occasion a loss of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... character.' And Chitty adds that 'the object of conspiracy is not confined to an immediate wrong to individuals; it may be to injure public trade, to affect public health, to violate public police, to insult public justice, or to do any act in itself illegal (3 Chit. Crim. Law, 1139)." Quoted by Shaw, Chief Justice of Massachusetts, in Commonwealth v. Hunt (4 Mete. Illinois), printed as a Senate Document in the 57th Congress, 1st ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... childish fashion. If the man meant at last to be honest, there could be no doubt, Mrs Hurtle thought, that the girl would go to him. It would require no interference of hers. But after a while she thought that she might as well see this English chit who had superseded herself in the affections of the Englishman she had condescended to love. And if it were the case that all revenge was to be abandoned, that no punishment was to be exacted in return for all the injury that had been done, why should she not say a ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... her aunt with some reserve. She did not want her nephew to marry Nancy, but still less, with true feminine inconsistency, did she want him to be jilted by such a chit of a girl. She also stood very much in awe of Miss Metoaca's ready wit ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... babe, baby, babe in arms; nurseling, suckling, yearling, weanling; papoose, bambino; kid; vagitus. child, bairn, little one, brat, chit, pickaninny, urchin; bantling, bratling[obs3]; elf. youth, boy, lad, stripling, youngster, youngun, younker[obs3], callant[obs3], whipster[obs3], whippersnapper, whiffet [obs3][U.S.], schoolboy, hobbledehoy, hopeful, cadet, minor, master. scion; sap, seedling; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... uninteresting today is and how little is to be done—our burden we shift to the strong, young shoulders of tomorrow; tomorrow of the big heart, who in kindness hides our sorrows and whispers only of hope. I ended by writing,—this—which I have called "Chit-Chat," thus classifying the book, knowing that such a book if true to name will picture the age ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... were dispersing, she sat quite still, and closed her eyes. For her soul was too high-strung now to endure the chit-chat she knew would attack her on the road home,—chit-chat that had been welcome enough ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... curtains, which had been drawn. A wood fire was crumbling into glowing coals on the hearth. Virginia had long since gone to bed, and Sam Reddon, who had dropped in for dinner in the absence of his wife from the city, had left after an evening of banter and chit-chat.... At Milly's despairing exclamation, Ernestine squatted down on a footstool at her feet and looked up at her mate with the pained expression of a faithful dog, who wants to understand ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... love; Some shape the bow, or fit the string; Some give the taper shaft its wing, Or turn the polished quiver's mould, Or head the dart with tempered gold. Amidst their toil and various care, Thus Hymen, with assuming air, Addressed the god: 'Thou purblind chit, Of awkward and ill-judging wit, 10 If matches are not better made, At once I must forswear my trade. You send me such ill-coupled folks, That 'tis a shame to sell them yokes. They squabble for a pin, a feather, And wonder how they came ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... your own. Village full of them; you could bargain with a porpoise for half the money which I was duped into squandering away on a chit! But don't look so grave; you may copy me if ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in the store-room. No; you shan't let him up till I 'm ready. He 's got to learn that I 'm not to be shaken by a little chit like him. Make your candy, and let him alone, or I 'll go and tell papa, and then Tom will get ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... me, despite my best intentions and desires. I have never taken to those deep natures that talk in discreet monosyllables and cling to the sheltering refuge of such safe subjects as are the substance of everybody's and anybody's chit-chat. Maybe I judge them harshly when I persuade myself that the records of their past could not stand the open daylight of a free-and-easy discussion. This verdict is, however, the suggestion of my instinct, and need not carry weight with anyone ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... sits Pischet. She does not hearken to my words. Never has she heard the cry of the chit-chat, the voice of her husband, ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... Flora Macdonald was keeping up what she afterwards described to Bishop Forbes as "a close chit-chat" with Lieutenant Macleod, who put to her questions which she answered as "she thought fit." Lady Margaret, meantime, could not forbear going in and out in great anxiety; a circumstance which Flora ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... of some anecdotes, which we reserve for chit-chat on our return, you have here a correct account of our journey, which we, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... good deal more in his usual style of chit-chat; Mrs Murray had gone to stay with her friend Lucy at Halliburton Hall, though he expected both of them back again, and hoped that they would be with him when Jack arrived. Jack showed the letter to Terence, who sighed when ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... dead weeds, blanched and broken down. And the reason of it all? That's the puzzle. She has her meals, her liberty, a good house to live in, and good clothes to wear, as usual. A while since that sufficed to keep her handsome and cheery, and there she sits now a poor, little, pale, puling chit enough. Provoking! Then comes the question, What is to be done? I suppose I must send for advice. Will you ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... almost be tempted to say is realized in the French women. "Eve," say they, "comes from a word, which signifies to talk; and she was so called, because, soon after the creation, there fell from heaven twelve baskets full of chit chat, and she picked up nine of them, while her husband was ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... moment when I couldn't have stood a two-minutes' conversation with my dearest pal. For until I have had my early cup of tea and have brooded on life for a bit absolutely undisturbed, I'm not much of a lad for the merry chit-chat. ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... is it?" Miss Montressor remarked, with a toss of her head. "Well, you and your wife and your little chit of a daughter are welcome to him so far as we are concerned, aren't ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... lived at Tarbolton, united with some half-dozen young men, all sons of farmers in that neighbourhood, in forming a club, of which the object was to charm away a few evening hours in the week with agreeable chit-chat, and the discussion of topics of economy or love. Of this little society the poet was president, and the first question they were called on to settle was this, "Suppose a young man bred a farmer, but without any fortune, has it in his power to marry either of two women; the one a girl of ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... and the hearse and the letter convinced her that she was running the most serious dangers that evening. She collected all her supporters, told them that she was threatened at that evening's performance with a plot organized by Christine Daae and declared that they must play a trick upon that chit by filling the house with her, Carlotta's, admirers. She had no lack of them, had she? She relied upon them to hold themselves prepared for any eventuality and to silence the adversaries, if, as she feared, they ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... had salaamed gravely, and handed her a chit upon her arrival at the bungalow, where her friend was braving the pestilence of the hot weather in comradeship with her husband, who, in the secret places of his heart, wished to goodness she had gone to the hills with the ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... ruthlessness, her talent for torture, is, and always will be, the marring of man. The public prosecutor, the minister—here they are, all hoodwinked, all moving the spheres for some letters written by a duchess and a chit, or to save the reason of a woman who is more crazy in her right mind than she was in ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... woman that, only a chit of a girl fresh from school, but as quiet and strong as a man. She said nothing—only pressed her lips together tight, and put ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... her perfectly from here. She resents, for all the world like some high little personage, the imputation on her truthfulness and, as it were, her respectability. 'Miss Jessel indeed—SHE!' Ah, she's 'respectable,' the chit! The impression she gave me there yesterday was, I assure you, the very strangest of all; it was quite beyond any of the others. I DID put my foot in it! She'll ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... think Ruth is a mere chit of a flapper? You are old-fashioned, Tommy-boy. The day of the ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... Black I'm grown for want of meat Give me then an ant to eat, Or the cleft ear of a mouse Over-sour'd in drink of souce; Or, sweet lady, reach to me The abdomen of a bee; Or commend a cricket's hip, Or his huckson, to my scrip. Give for bread a little bit Of a pea that 'gins to chit, And my full thanks take for it. Flour of fuzz-balls, that's too good For a man in needihood; But the meal of milldust can Well content a craving man. Any orts the elves refuse Well will serve the beggar's use. But if this may seem too much For an alms, then give me such Little bits that ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... some such remark as: 'We are properly sold and no mistake' would have been enough to make trouble in that way. And then another sneer, 'Waste time enough over it too,' followed perhaps by the bitter retort from the other party, 'You seemed to like it well enough though, playing the fool with that chit of a girl.' Something of that ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... looked down sharply. Mrs. Carew was in no mood for preaching. She had just been obliged to endure it from the pulpit, she told herself angrily, and she would NOT listen to it from this chit of a child. Moreover, this "living one day at a time" theory was a particularly pet doctrine of Della's. Was not Della always saying: "But you only have to live one minute at a time, Ruth, and any one can endure anything for one minute at ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... down at me with undisguised surprise. I looked up at him and laughed merrily. The fun was all on my side. He was a great big man—rich and important. I was a chit—an insignificant nonentity—yet, despite his sex, size, and importance, I was complete master of that situation, and knew ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... am I? A silly chit of a thing, with about a dozen ideas in my head, nearly every one of which was planted there by Hope. I like the nonsense of the world very well as it is, and without her I should have cared for nothing else. Count Posen asked me the other day, which country ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... cage myself, I'd learned to do that; but I didn't want another she-bird molting around. And then when it looked as if it would be Marcia Oldham I got sicker. It drove me wild to think of that milk-faced chit of a girl, with a fool of a mother that I've always despised! I tell you what you do, Miss Gipsy Fortune-teller!" She rapped the arm of Ydo's chair emphatically. "Marry Wilfred! Sure if you do," peering at her suspiciously, "that you won't ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... became too ill to leave her room, and the doctor refused to hire extra help, saying, "two great girls were help enough," it was necessary for her to go into the kitchen, where she vainly tried to conciliate old Hannah, who "wouldn't mind a chit of a girl, and wouldn't fret herself either if things were not ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... couple were seen from the windows of Mrs. Chit, who sat on the lookout for useful information; and who forthwith ran to the apartments of Mrs. Chat, and told her ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... towards his companion's knowledge of two or three of the most popular of them. Her answers, however, were so superficial and irrelevant, and also so evidently embarrassed, that he saw his only resources to be society chit-chat, gossip about mutual acquaintances, the latest modes, the attractions of pleasure resorts in the city, and of summer resorts in the country. But he gave his mind to these unwonted themes, and labored hard to be ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... poured a jug of treacle over Johnny's head! I am quite sure that Mrs Buzzby is tired of being a widow—as she calls herself—and will be very glad when her husband comes back. But I must reserve chit-chat to the end of my letter, and first give you a minute ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... it at that, imagining something would happen. A man like a quartermaster, who rolls in boots, would, I felt, think nothing of sending along a dozen pairs before breakfast, with a chit telling me to give away what I couldn't use. But no. It seems every boot in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 1, 1916 • Various
... the girls were all talking together after the cadets had scurried away to answer tattoo roll-call.) Of course she understood that if it hadn't been for Jessie none of the cadets would have taken the slightest notice of her, a mere chit, with three years of school still ahead of her. But all the same it was something to live over and over again, and dream of over and over again, and the seashore seemed very stupid after the Point. Next year—next June—when Marshall graduated ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... by Mr. Wilborn at Luxor, recording a period of seven years' successive failure of the Nile to overflow, and the efforts made by a certain sorcerer named Chit Net to ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... indolently laid Under a poppy's spreading shade. The jealous queen started in rage; She kick'd her crown, and beat her page: "Bring me my magic wand," she cries; "Under that primrose, there it lies; I'll change the silly, saucy chit, Into a flea, a louse, a nit, A worm, a grasshopper, a rat, An owl, a monkey, hedgehog, bat. But hold, why not by fairy art Transform the wretch into— Ixion once a cloud embraced, By Jove and jealousy well placed; What sport to see proud Oberon stare, And flirt ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... "You're an impudent little chit," said Nan tartly. "See here," with a sudden change of voice, "let's pool issues. If we can discover anything important in this place, there's reward enough ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... did your best to keep 'em cheerful, didn't you, mim? Though there an't such a great deal to laugh at now either; is there, mim? It an't so much of a catch, after looking out so sharp ever since she was a little chit, and costing such a deal in dress and show, to get a poor, common soldier, with one arm, is it, mim? He he! I wouldn't have a husband with one arm, anyways. I would have two arms. I would have two arms, if it was me, though instead of hands they'd ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... Ah chit ah mooh oo mah kah keh ah kuck koo jeesh oo mong ke zheh ah sun ah kooh oo tah pe nick ah wah se seh oo tah pe nun e nah pe yook oo ta e min ke pah e kun oo que se mon ke pim oo say oo wig ke waum ke tah e kun pah ske se gun me squah ...
— Sketch of Grammar of the Chippeway Languages - To Which is Added a Vocabulary of some of the Most Common Words • John Summerfield
... the beach, Kit turned the phrase over and over. It rankled to be called tenderfoot by a slender chit ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... cynically disapproving, prepared to be disgusted yet entertained. On the whole she thoroughly enjoyed letters from Gilbert's wife. She settled down comfortably in her chair with her second cup of tea, while Mrs. Hilary read two pages of what Grandmama called "foolish chit-chat." Rosalind's letters were really like the gossipping imbecilities written by Eve of the Tatler, or the other ladies who enliven our shinier-paper weeklies with their bright personal babble. She did not often waste one of them on her mother-in-law; ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... himself upon the fallen tree, and there he set himself to reflect, and to realize that he, war-worn and callous, come to Castle Marleigh on such an errand as was his, should wax sick at the very thought of it for the sake of a chit of a maid, with a mind to make a mock and a toy of him. Into his mind there entered even the possibility of flight, forgetful of the wrongs he had suffered, abandoning the vengeance he had sworn. Then with an oath ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... 'position' which we assumed in alluding to his animadversions, the following remarks by the author of the 'Charcoal Sketches,' JOSEPH C. NEAL, Esq.: 'Gossip, goodly gossip, though sometimes sneered at, is after all the best of our entertainments. We must fall back upon the light web of conversation, upon chit-chat, as our main-stay, our chief reliance; as that corps de reserve on which our scattered and wearied forces are to rally. What is there which will bear comparison as a recreating means, with the free and unstudied interchange of thought, of knowledge, ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... breakfast-table; he seemed to consider himself guardian and protector of the whole place. One evening I was drawn far down on the lawn by a peculiar cry of his. It began with a singular performance which I have already described, a loud, rapid "chit-it-it-it-it," increasing in volume and rising in pitch, as though he were working himself up to some deed of desperation. In a few minutes, however, he appeared to get his feelings under control, and dropped to a single-note cry, often repeated. It differed widely from his loud call, "wok! wok! ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... with an infinite zest, he delights in various siestas during the day, relishing withal a long sleep at night; he enjoys dining at a fixed dinner hour, and wonders at the demoralisation of the mind which cannot find means of excitement in chit-chat or small talk, in a novel or a newspaper. But soon the passive fit has passed away; again a paroxysm on ennui coming on by slow degrees, viator loses appetite, he walks bout his room all night, he yawns at conversations, and a book acts upon his as a narcotic. ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... a dummy. That is to say it purported to be such an epistle as any young lady might have written to a gentleman friend. It began, "Dear Mr. Bingham," and ended, "Yours sincerely, Beatrice Granger," was filled with chit-chat, and expressed hopes that he would be able to come down to Bryngelly again later in the summer, when they ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... acquainted with the state of Amelia's affairs; how she was living with her father and mother; how poor they were; how they wondered what men, and such men as their brother and dear Captain Osborne, could find in such an insignificant little chit; how she was still, as heretofore, a namby-pamby milk-and-water affected creature—but how the boy was really the noblest little boy ever seen—for the hearts of all women warm towards young children, and the sourest spinster ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... latter years, it had been her practice to write to him periodically—I believe she said once a week. He had long ceased, probably from ill-health, to answer her letters; but she continued to write punctually lest he should miss the little budget of chit-chat to which he had grown accustomed. At another time—in a pleasant country-house which contained many examples of her art—and where she was putting the last touches to a delicately tinted child-angel ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... comparatively easy to write good letters with a library around you; it is marvellous that Cowper could have done this with so little material, and his letters are, from this point of view, the best of all—"divine chit-chat" Coleridge called them. His simple style captivates us. And here let me say—keeping to my text—that it is the sanest of styles, a style with no redundancies, no rhetoric, no straining after effect. The outlook on life is sane—what could be finer than the chase for ...
— Immortal Memories • Clement Shorter
... amount of chit-chat to get through, apart from serious problems. You have done me out of my Paris shopping, Evelyn, but I've a box full of trophies for you all the same. Wherever I went, I picked up some token to prove that I remembered you ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... had gone out shopping, and John Jr., who was present, and who felt just like teasing his sister, replied, "What do you care? Mrs. Graham has no daughters, and she won't fancy such a chit as you, so it must be Durward's society that you so much desire, bit I can assure you that your nose will be broken when once he ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... L'enjouement vaut mieux que l'esprit. If I wish to discuss a question of political economy, or of metaphysics, I can go to men; but the art of talking the men of to-day have lost. They either lecture, dispute, or twaddle. A Rabbinical story relates that twelve baskets of chit-chat fell from heaven, and that Eve secured nine while Adam was picking up the other three. Since then, Eve seems to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... that my last letter reached them in small type, most pernicious to English eyes, and half hidden among the rubbish of your editorial remarks, literary notices, and chit-chat with your million butterfly correspondents. Unless I am better served in future, I shall be compelled to transfer my patronage to the post-office, dangerous as it is, and liable to the occasional interference of American ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... annoyed and mortified at the discovery—made over the punch bowl—that the girl he had taken to be twenty was but sixteen. It was by no means his first experience of the quick maturity of southern women—but sixteen! He had never wasted a moment on a chit before, and although he was a man of imagination, and notwithstanding her intelligence and dignity, he could not reconcile properties so conflicting with any sort of ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... cotton wool did service for white hair neatly arranged under a boudoir cap; her dress (borrowed from Noreen, who was a head taller than Gowan) fell to her ankles; she wore spectacles, and wrinkles had been carefully painted across her forehead. Bertha, a forward chit of a maidservant (servants on the stage invariably assume a cheekiness of manner that would never be tolerated by any employer in private life), bounced in and handed her a letter, and stood making grimaces to the audience while her mistress—very foolishly—read its ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... answered, Carrie; mind that. I wonder you haven't more pride. A chit like that, who keeps the hotel books, and gives out ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... The new taste hailed with delight the appearance of a native lyric genius in Burns, whose first volume of poems was printed in 1786. It welcomed also the homely, simple sweetness, what Coleridge and Lamb called the "divine chit-chat," of Cowper, whose "Task" appeared in the preceding year. But it was in Coleridge himself and his close contemporaries and followers that the splendor of the new poetry showed itself. He was two years younger than Wordsworth, a year younger than Scott; he was sixteen ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... revenge, had put up a job on him. It simply could not be in the ordinary course that any audience, without some sly trickery of prompting from an old expert of theatrical "double-crossing," would be impatient for a mere chit of an amateur when it might listen ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... had come to see the fun of an execution, with money burning holes in their pockets, being captured, the party subsided into the "Bowl" where a bottle of wine washed away the remembrance of Sally Salisbury's grievance. But she vowed vengeance on the "squalling chit" sooner ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... the learned Dean, the idea of the Word, the Logos, was universal, and it formed part of the idea of a Trinity. Among the Hindus, the philosophers speak of the manifested Brahman as Sat-Chit-Ananda, Existence, Intelligence, and Bliss. Popularly, the Manifested God is a Trinity; Shiva, the Beginning and the End; Vishnu, the Preserver; Brahma, the Creator of the Universe. The Zoroastrian faith presents a similar Trinity; Ahuramazdao, the Great One, the First; then "the ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... and bacon. This is very pleasing to the old slave, who regains his wonted earnestness, takes the plate politely from his master's hand, retires with it to the chest, and keeps up a regular fire of chit-chat while dispensing its contents. In this humble apartment, master and slave-the former once opulent, and the latter still warm with attachment for his friend-are happily companioned. They finish their breakfast,—a ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... going to be lectured by a chit like you. But I should like to have a little talk with ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... us. I promised the master before he went away that I wouldn't let a strange foot pass over the doorway while he was away. And here you—a mere chit of a housemaid—go, without sayin', 'With your leave,' or, 'By your leave,' and let a dirty pedlar with his pack straight into the breakfast-room. He's sure to have scented the silver lyin' on the sideboard ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... education that papa would have given him if he had been born later: and he can't remember his mother, and has always been at a loss when with clever people. I never understood it till within the last two or three years, nor knew how trying it must be to see such a little chit as me made so much of—almost thrusting him aside. But you cannot think what a warm- hearted good fellow he is—he has never been otherwise than so very kind to me, and he was so very fond of his old aunt. Hitherto, he ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... and beast, there are four! In our race all the women of the royal blood are named Batwa, and I am the eldest and the wisest and the best of them, for I am older than my brother Sikonyana by twenty years, I, who have had three husbands and outlived them all; whereas the chit of whom you talk, a thing with a waist like a reed and an eye like a sick buck, is his junior by ten years, being a child of our father's ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... never to speak of her to the other again. Josephine was already regretting the frankness that had led her to expose a not too attractive part of herself—and to exaggerate in his eyes the importance of a really insignificant chit of a typewriter. When he went to bed that night he was resolved to have Tetlow find Miss Hallowell a job ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... be ready in one moment!" continued Miss Hancock. "There is plenty of time, and you can drive me to the station if you like. Richard shall not say I left the care of his son to a chit of ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... heart of hearts, he respected her scruples; he also admired her spirit. But for "Madame the Marquise," nothing more would have been said, but this young person was destined to be an instrument of the fates that ruled Mavis's life. This chit was already resentful against the strangely beautiful, self-possessed shop-girl; Mavis's objection to the Marquis's request was in the nature of a reflection on "Madame the Marquise's" mode of life. She took her lover aside and urged him to report to the management ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... shouldst make much difference. Had I a mind to fight for the door or the window, I could soon be quit of such a white-faced chit as thou. Ah me! to what end? That time is by, for me. Well! so they went off in grand array? I saw them. If Godfrey Foljambe buy his wife a new quirle, and his daughter-in-law a new gown, every time they cry for it, he shall be at the end of his purse ere my cushion yonder be finished broidering. ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... to see more of a people, shut in as they were from the noise and commotion of the lower world, and still not so far as to be unknowing of all that was taking place, whether in deliberative bodies, state policies, or the lighter chit-chat of the day. ...
— Scenes in Switzerland • American Tract Society
... kindred lofty topics. Albert liked Miss Fosdick. It is hard not to like a pretty, attractive young lady who takes such a flattering interest in one's aspirations and literary efforts. The "high brow chit-chats"—quoting Miss Kelsey again—were pleasant in many ways; for instance, they were in the nature of a tonic for weakened self-esteem, and the Speranza self-esteem was suffering just at this ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... Butler," I said coolly. "Give them, Elsin. What has been done this night has set me free of my vow. Can you not understand? I tell you he stands in my light, throwing the shadow of the gallows over me! May a man not win back to life but a chit of a maid must snatch his chance away? Give them, or I swing ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... of excited pleasure I passed the morning. Amidst the military chit-chat of the day around me, treated as an equal by the greatest and the most distinguished, I heard all the confidential opinions upon the campaign and its leaders; and in that most entrancing of all flatteries,—the easy tone of companionship ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... dye. In short, he has brains in his head which is all the more interesting for a little twist in the brains. He sometimes reminds the reader of Montaigne, but from no other than the general circumstances of an egotism common to both; which in Montaigne is too often a mere amusing gossip, a chit-chat story of whims and peculiarities that lead to nothing,—but which in Sir Thomas Browne is always the result of a feeling heart conjoined with a mind of active curiosity,—the natural and becoming egotism of a man, who, loving other men as himself, gains the habit, and the privilege ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... had to smile when she felt little like it—to be sociable when her thoughts were busy with her task. Her friends made a long call—they had nothing else to do with their time, and when they went, others came. In very unsatisfactory chit-chat, ...
— The Angel Over the Right Shoulder - The Beginning of a New Year • Elizabeth Wooster Stuart Phelps
... bride of the Lamb. He will not walk in the streets with them, nor sit at the same table. You can go to parties where it is said there are only religious people, but where you know all manner of gossip and Christless chit-chat is going on, which you would be awfully ashamed the Master should hear, and from which you retire with no appetite for prayer. You can go to all this, but I defy you to have the Holy Ghost at the same time. I won't stop to argue ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... I beg your pardon for the abruptness of my entrance," he said, choking down his wrath. He could not allow himself to be out-done in the matter of coolness by this chit of an ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... her conduc'," Dodge explained; "scand'lous thing. Why, she's been in Craddock school since she war a little chit o' sixteen." ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... hurt because thou didst plan and resolve to go to the Indies without ever a word to me. I was not thought on. The Queen moves a finger, and straightway thou art fashioning wings to take thee to the ends of the earth. 'Twas thy duty so to do, but why treat me as a chit or child of no account? Thy head was ever bobbing against that of Master Jeffreys, or pouring plans into the one ear of Paignton Rob. 'Mum' was the word if ye did but catch the rustle of my gown. Thou hadst vowed ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... that chit of a girl done to earn her immunity from self-defendings and the petty anxieties? Nothing, Elinor decided; at least, nothing more purposeful than the swimmer does when he lets himself drift with the current. None the less, the immunity ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... every well-devised expedient to cheat the long and weary days is at once abandoned; the chess-board and the new novel are alike forgotten, and the very quarter-deck walk, with its merry gossip and careless chit-chat, becomes distasteful. One blue and misty mountain, one faint outline of the far-off shore, has dispelled all thought of these; and with straining eye and anxious ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... and sweet, but none the sweeter for being short. I should have thought no one could have been worse provided than myself with news or letter chit-chit, and yet I think my letters are generally longer than yours; brevity, in you, is a fault; do not be guilty of it again: "car du reste," as Madame de Sevigne says, "votre style est parfait." John returned to Cambridge on Thursday night. He is a great loss to me, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... old fool—beggin' your pardon an' no offense meant, Miss Mary Marie—but what does any man do what's got bejuggled with a pretty face, an' his senses completely took away from him by a chit of a girl? Well, that's what he did. He acted as if he was bewitched. He followed her around the house like a dog—when he wasn't leadin' her to something new; an' he never took his eyes off her face except to look at us, as much ...
— Mary Marie • Eleanor H. Porter
... bottle down the bar so that a glass stopped in front of each man and the bottle came to a standstill between them. Racey spun a dollar on the bar. The bartender nonchalantly swept the dollar into the cash drawer and resumed his chit-chat with the tall man. At which Racey's eyes narrowed slightly. But ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... 1805] Monday 25th November 1805 The Wind being high rendered it impossible for us to Cross the river from our Camp, we deturmind to proceed on up where it was narrow, we Set out early accompanied by 7 Chit Sops for a fiew miles, they left us and Crossed the river through emence high waves; we Dined in the Shallow Bay on Dried pounded fish, after which we proceeded on near the North Side of the Columbia, and encamp a little after ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al |
