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More "Wit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... talked to her of love (ll. 1487-1524). "You ought," she says, "to show and teach a young thing like me some tokens of true-love's crafts; I come hither and sit here alone to learn of you some game; do teach me of your wit while my lord is from home." Gawayne replies that he cannot undertake the task of expounding true-love and tales of arms to one who has far more wisdom than he possesses. Thus did our knight avoid all appearance of evil, though sorely pressed to do what was wrong (ll. 1525-1552). The ...
— Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight - An Alliterative Romance-Poem (c. 1360 A.D.) • Anonymous
... Journey to Lisbon, in the sentence, "Whereas envy of all things most exposes us to danger from others, so contempt of all things best secures us from them." But on the whole it is safe to say that Joseph Andrews best presents Fielding's mischievous and playful wit; Jonathan Wild his half-Lucianic half-Swiftian irony; Tom Jones his unerring knowledge of human nature, and his constructive faculty; Amelia his tenderness, his mitis sapientia, his observation of the details of life. And first ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... She has lived a life of single blessedness to the coast. In every trouble along her section of the shore it is "routine" to send for "Aunt" 'Mira. She has more sense and unselfishness and native wit than you would meet in ten products of civilization. For a year she acted as nurse to the little boy of one of the staff, and never was child better cared for. They once told 'Mira she really must make baby ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... will admit of, and you shall find it, in quantity, at least, to resemble Gratiano's three grains. But we are not inclined to quarrel with the scheme, for with Johnson we say, "Quotation, sir (Walter), is a good thing," in the hope of hearing our readers reply, "This fellow pecks up wit ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 282, November 10, 1827 • Various
... knowledge that she would never get rid of her unwelcome guests until Prince Inga was overcome and Regos regained for King Gos, the Queen of Coregos finally decided to trust to luck and her native wit to defeat a simple-minded boy, however powerful he might be. Inga could not suspect what she was going to do, because she did not know herself. She intended to act boldly and trust to chance ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... had learned all the arts that helped to make men's fortunes. He was tall and very handsome, a splendid swordsman, and a wit who could hold his own with poets and with statesmen. He still spoke with the strong broad accent of Devon, and when he learned that the Queen liked his unusual accent he was very careful to see that he never lost it. He ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... with handsomely chiseled features; and, endowed with physical strength and health, Octave de Mussidan had the additional advantages of noble descent and princely fortune. Two women, both renowned for their wit and beauty, his aunt and his mother, had been intrusted with the education which would but enable him to ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... and appropriated it, and obtained food and raiment like the former. It is one of the most extensive systems of counterfeiting that the world has seen. I did not know that mankind were suffering for want of gold. I have seen a little of it. I know that it is very malleable, but not so malleable as wit. A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... the Derby, I should like to say that, although my confidence in my last week's selection, La Fleche, is unshaken, I wish to have a second "arrow" to my bow in Llanthony—of whom a very keen judge of racing (Lord BOURNEMOUTH to wit) has formed the opinion that—in his own words—"he will be on the premises"! The premises in question being Epsom Downs, there will undoubtedly be room for him without his filling an unnecessarily prominent position, so I will couple ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 4, 1892 • Various
... lady said sarcastically, "you have now transferred to my daughter. I congratulate you, Sir James, upon the possession of a ready wit and an invention which does not fail you at a pinch, and of a tongue which repeats unfalteringly any fable which your mind may dictate. You do not, I suppose, expect me to believe the tale. Still, I own that it is a well-devised one, and ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... saying in connection with this old church, which I will pause long enough to repeat, because there is a principle in it as well as a great deal of wit. They kept there the old English church service, except that it was purged, according to their point of view, from all Trinitarian belief. It is said that Dr. Bellows, who was attending a service there some years ago, had with ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... after-wit may have prompted him to deny it, his despatch of 4.10 P.M., to Sedgwick, shows conclusively that he himself had adopted this theory of a retreat. "We know that the enemy is flying," says he, "trying to save his trains. Two of Sickles's divisions ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... substance it intends. And inasmuch as we must needs infer From such belief our reasoning, all respect To other view excluded, hence of proof Th' intention is deriv'd." Forthwith I heard: "If thus, whate'er by learning men attain, Were understood, the sophist would want room To exercise his wit." So breath'd the flame Of love: then added: "Current is the coin Thou utter'st, both in weight and in alloy. But tell me, if thou ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... not to let it be known who puts his name first or last to the paper. This proposition was instantly assented to; and Dr. Barnard, Dean of Derry, now Bishop of Killahoe, drew up an address to Dr. Johnson on the occasion, replete with wit and humor, but which it was feared the Doctor might think treated the subject with too much levity. Mr. Burke then proposed the address as it stands in the paper in writing, to which I had the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... for tonnage, import, and export duties on American vessels at the ports of Canton, Shanghai, and Fuchau, and it was "agreed that this amount shall be in full liquidation of all claims of American citizens at the various ports to this date." Debentures for this amount, to wit, 300,000 taels for Canton, 100,000 for Shanghai, and 100,000 for Fuchau, were delivered, according to the terms of the convention, by the respective Chinese collectors of the customs of these ports to the agent ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... was able to feel, with sincerity and dignity, that if she received much, she also gave much—the hours of relief and pleasure which ease the labour, the inevitable torment of the artist, all that protecting environment which a woman's sweet and agile wit can build around a man's taxed brain or ruffled nerves. To chat with her, in success or failure; to be sure of her welcome, her smile at all times; to ask her sympathy in matters where he had himself trained in her the faculty of ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the ordinary of Newgate was the funniest dog in the world. Manslaughter, arson, and the more practical jokes in the Calendar, were already familiar to the stage; it was a refinement of the Haymarket authors to introduce those livelier sallies of wit—crim. con. and felo-de-se. The "immense coalitions" of all manner of crimes and vices in the subsequent "highway school"—the gradual development of every unnatural tendency in the youthful Jack Sheppard (another immor-t-al work by the author of the afore-lauded comedy)—the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various
... much so, that the pedantic Tuscans require Berni to make Tuscan, elegant, to ingentilire, with infinite loss to quaintness and charm, the "Orlando Innamorato" of poor Ferrarese Boiardo. Moreover, Ariosto has many qualities unknown to Boiardo; wit, malice, stateliness, decided eloquence and power of simile and apostrophe; he is a symphony for full orchestra, and Boiardo a mere melody played on a single fiddle, which good authorities (and no one dare contest with Italians when they condemn anything not Tuscan as jargon) pronounce to ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... satiety with abuse, scorn and heckling, the latter is the more likely. Under such circumstances they have to think more, they learn more than the others to train their wits, largely as means of defense against physical attack. They often succeed by wit, but then, they can never be brought into a state of good temper and lovableness when they are required to defend themselves by means of sharp, biting and destructive wit. Moreover, if the deformed is naturally not well- disposed, ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... is fine, Miss Markland's divine, Miss Smith, she has wit, and Miss Betty is braw; There's beauty and fortune to get with Miss Morton, But Armour's the jewel for me o' ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... work than Rigby; they are in love with Laura Bell, and refuse to see either cruelty or caricature in their poet's presentment of Alcide de Mirobolant. Thackeray's fun, Thackeray's wisdom, Thackeray's knowledge of men and women, Thackeray's morality, Thackeray's view of life, 'his wit and humour, his pathos, and his umbrella,' are all articles of belief with them. Of Dickens they will not hear; Balzac they incline to despise; if they make any comparison between Thackeray and Fielding, or Thackeray and Richardson, or Thackeray and Sir Walter, ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... heedless of the word of his defence, "an' ye maun learn to put awa' bairnly things. There's a heap depen'in' upo' ye, Cosmo. Ye'll be the fift o' the name i' the family, an' I'm feart ye may be the last. It's but sma' honour, laddie, to ony man to be the last; an' gien ye dinna gaither the wit ye hae, and du the best ye can, ye winna lang be laird o' Glenwarlock. Gien it wasna for Grizzie there, wha has no richt to owerhear the affairs o' the family, I micht think the time had come for enlichtenin' ye upo' things it's no shuitable ye should gang ignorant o'. But we'll put it aff ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... neighbor, make him pass an agreeable hour, we set out in the same way. We invite him to admire our versatility, to laugh at our wit, to frequent our house, to sit at our table; through it all, our desire to shine breaks forth. Sometimes, also, with a patron's prodigality, we offer him the beneficence of a public entertainment of our own choosing, unless we ask him to find amusement at our home, ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... diffuse thy genial ray, Fair Science, on my Albion's plain! And still thy grateful homage pay Where Montagu has rear'd her fane; Where eloquence and wit entwine Their attic wreath around her shrine; And still, while Learning shall unfold her store, With their bright ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams
... which debar him from ever attaining to the first rank. There is an originality of position about Mr. Emerson, in his resolute setting up of King Self against King Mob, which, coupled with a singular metallic glitter of style, and plenty of shrewd New England mother-wit, have made up together one of the best counterfeits of genius that has been seen for many a day; so good, indeed, that most men are taken by it for the first quarter of an hour at the least. But for real unmistakable genius,—for that glorious fulness of power which knocks a man down at a blow ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... to the heart, and to the imagination, are brought forward; they are discussed in a kind of sportive way, with animation and refinement, and are never continued longer than politeness allows. Here fancy flourishes,—the sensibilities expand—and wit, guided by delicacy and embellished by ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... mortal be proud?" And this evening, the seventh since the storm, when for one weak moment she had allowed the conversation to drift toward wedlock, he had stated a woman's chances of marrying between the ages of fifteen and twenty, to wit, 14-1/2 per cent; and between thirty ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... describing the maids of Maryland, whose social life was quite similar to that of their sisters of Virginia, says, "All complimental courtships drest up in critical rarities are meer strangers to them. Plain wit comes nearest to their genius; so that he that intends to court a Maryland girle, must have something more than the tautologies of a long-winded speech to carry on his design, or else he may fall under the contempt of her frown ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... the profit of Flavian's really great intellectual capacities, developed and accomplished under the ambitious desire to make his way effectively in life. Among other things he introduced him to the writings of a sprightly wit, then very busy with the pen, one Lucian—writings seeming to overflow with that intellectual light turned upon dim places, which, at least in seasons of mental fair weather, can make people laugh ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... the broken glasses and other pieces cut in the shape of dice, hearts, clubs, diamonds, and spades. Thereafter, when the festive party broke up, those whose turn it was to walk homewards through the dark lanes had their way lighted before them by this emblem of their wit and humour." Stanbury, an old manor south of Tonacombe, claims some notice as the birthplace of John Stanbury (or Stanberry), confessor of Henry VI., who was appointed by that king to be first Provost of Eton. From being a Carmelite friar at Oxford he rose to be bishop, first of Bangor, finally ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... held the rudder and the ropes. The perfumes burnt upon the vessel filled the banks of the river with their fragrance. The inhabitants cried that Venus had come to revel with Bacchus. Antony accepted her invitation to sup on board her galley, and was completely subjugated. Her wit and vivacity surpassed even her beauty. He followed her to Alexandria, where he forgot every thing in luxurious dalliance and ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... have Mr. Salvador Brau's authority[65] for stating the general character of the present generation of Puerto Ricans to be made up of the distinctive qualities of the three races from which they are descended, to wit: indolence, taciturnity, sobriety, disinterestedness, hospitality, inherited from their Indian ancestors; physical endurance, sensuality, and fatalism from their negro progenitors; and love of display, love of country, independence, devotion, perseverance, ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... Jock began to realise that he had been witty again. He paused and bethought himself of what he had done, and he too saw how funny it was. He did not laugh right out at first. Jock's mirth, like his wit, was too deliberate for that. He began by uttering a low subterranean sort of chuckle, which finally worked to the surface in a rhythmic shaking of his whole sturdy little body. By this time J. P. was ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... the preceding instance, they differ in person, number, gender, and case. But the compound always follows the person, number, and gender of its first part, and only the case of its last. The notion of some grammarians, (to wit, of Wells, and the sixty-eight others whom he cites for it,) that you and your are actually made singular by usage, is demonstrably untrue. Do we, our, and us, become actually singular, as often as a king or a critic applies them to himself? No: for nothing can be worse syntax ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... diverting as that program has ever been witnessed. The funny men with their solemn mock-battles, their extravagance in dress, their galloping wit, made her laugh till she wanted them to stop. The singers were bell-voiced; the dancers graceful as clouds, and just touched with a beguiling naughtiness; and in the playlet there was a chill intensity that made her shudder when the husband accused the wife ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... this rhetoric is, it is almost paralleled in vividness, while exceeded in wit, by a figure which Seargent S. Prentiss, ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... of humour is the more conspicuous because he was a Jew. I was reading the other day a book of essays by one of our leading young latitudinarian divines, in which he was most anxious to prove that Our Lord had all the graces of a well-bred young man about town, including a pretty wit. He actually claimed that the pun on Peter's name was an example of Our Lord's urbane and genial humour! It gives away the latitudinarian position completely. They're really ashamed of Christianity. They want to bring it into line with modern thought. They hope by throwing overboard the ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... Gascon, vain, loquacious, and ostentatious, proud of his own ready wit and possessed of a fatal talent for sharp and bitter sayings. He seems to have been a brave and generous soldier. There is little proof that he was specially vicious or incompetent, and, had he been allowed ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... Now, I had wit enough to observe that the Doctor had not said "I am glad," but "I shall be glad," and I asked, "Do you think ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... want," cried Lena with such a deliciously whimsical twist of her little lips that Dick laughed at her irresistible wit. That was coming to be one of Lena's most fetching little ways, to say what she meant as though it were the last thing in the world that could be expected of ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... afternoon to these little exchanges of wit, and was depressed when for any reason the womenfolks were away. There were other places pleasanter than the Kennedy farm-some of "the Dutchmen" had fine big brick houses and finer and bigger barns, but their women were mostly homely and went around barefooted ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... would call those of non-productive consumers. They are active drones, to speak with paradox, in the great hive of human energy. Like all gamesters, all men who live by the turning of the dice-box, they have a devil-may-care demeanor, now and then rather sharply peppered with wit, though wit not always avoidant of the obscene. For the most part, they are as ignorant of the large onward push of human thought as if they were farmers in some remote county of Arkansas. And yet they affect, at all times, an amusing omniscience. ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... had an after-dinner dispute, ending in a threat on the part of De Lancey that he would make the Governor's seat uncomfortable. To marked abilities, better education, and more knowledge of the world than was often found in the provinces, ready wit, and conspicuous social position, the Chief Justice joined a restless ambition and ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... as you would suppose, in the thickest parts of woods or shrubberies, but under skirting trees or in avenues. The best times for pupae are from October to January. Many people attain great proficiency in finding—the Rev. Joseph Greene, to wit. For my own part I must confess that I have never "earned my salt" at it, but that is possibly due to want ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... health. A mother's influence, however, changed his plans and he finally decided to remain in the East. He purchased a grocery business and conducted it with great success until his death, March 17th, 1910. By his strict attention to business, square dealing, genial disposition and original wit, he gained the confidence and respect of his fellow-men. He was buried in St. Patrick's cemetery in his home city where a surviving sister has caused to be erected an appropriate and costly ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... yea, and to the greatest perfection that may be in this life; I mean, if that a soul that is so disposed will busily, night and day, meek it[244] to God and to good counsel, and strongly rise and martyr itself, with casting down of the own wit and the own will in all such sudden and singular stirrings, and say sharply that it will not follow such stirrings, seem they never so liking,[245] so high nor so holy, but if it have thereto the witness[246] and the consents of some ghostly teachers—I mean such as have been of long time expert ...
— The Cell of Self-Knowledge - Seven Early English Mystical Treaties • Various
... whitewashed fence enclosed a diminutive yard, and as we turned in the gate Bat Perkins appeared in the doorway, both hands thrust deep in his trousers pockets and a pipe sagging down one corner of his wide mouth. He was rudely jovial in his greeting, as most of his type were. His wit was labored, but his welcome was ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... who knew What dark and acid doses life prefers, And yet with friendly face resolved to brew These sparkling potions for your customers— In each prescription your Physician writ You poured your rich compassion and your wit! ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... is true," replied the Italian. "He kills every one who laughs at him. Three days ago I laughed at him. But I ran away. He followed me. He does not know where I lodge, but he has wit enough to understand that if he waits long enough he will find me out. In Heaven's name, my friend, can you not help me? See, I am a simple soul. I cannot think quickly. I have prayed to the Virgin, but it is no use. Tell me, what can I ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... expression, for his wife, as a most precious and sweet commodity that was always looking up, and that never was worth less than all the gold in the world. And she, being inspired by her affection, and having a quick wit and a fine ready instinct, made amazing progress in her domestic efficiency, though, as an endearing creature, she made no progress at all. This was her husband's verdict, and he justified it by telling her that she had begun her married life as the most ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... Slavery now exists, which shall abolish the same therein, at any time, or times, before the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred, shall receive compensation from the United States, as follows, to wit; ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... brute with a blundering tongue!" he cried miserably. "You had not thought of that—and I made you. I could have found another excuse for going if I had only had wit enough. I was a brute once before to-night, and—" He stopped, and for a moment stood there looking at her, stood in the firelight, his face white again even in the ruddy glow—and ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... induced to stir out of doors; and he only visited Woolwich Arsenal—the destructive resources of which were expected to influence his future behavior in a manner favorable to English supremacy—under compulsion. At last the Colonial Office, which had charge of him, was at its wit's end to devise entertainments to keep him in good-humor until the appointed time ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... feathers wax'd his hairs, His nailes like a birde's clawes were, Till God released him at certain years, And gave him wit; and then with many a tear He thanked God, and ever his life in fear Was he to do amiss, or more trespace: And till that time he laid was on his bier, He knew that God was full of might ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... remember without some degree of sensibility. In truth, Sir, he was the delight and ornament of this house, and the charm of every private society which he honoured with his presence. Perhaps there never arose in this country, nor in any country, a man of a more pointed and finished wit; and (where his passions were not concerned) of a more refined, exquisite, and penetrating judgment. If he had not so great a stock, as some have had who flourished formerly, of knowledge long treasured up, he knew better by far, than any man I ever was acquainted with, how to bring ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... in his love for her and in the power of her endearments that has in it the assurance of a faint contempt. She had mingled pride and sense in the glorious realization of the power over him that her wit and beauty gave her. She had held him faint with her divinity, intoxicated with the pride of her complete possession, and she did not dream that the moment when he should see clearly that she could deliberately use these ultimate delights to rule and influence him, would be ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... stingless, is yet full of horror, what is he with his worst sting beside, the sting of our sins? What is he when he is taking us, not to nothingness, but to judgment? He is indeed so fearful then, that no words can paint him half so truly as our foreboding dread of him, and no arguments which the wit of man can furnish can strip him of ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... fell upon George Leicester's ear as he once more became feebly conscious of the fact of his own existence. The words came to him mingled with other sounds, to wit—the creaking of bulkheads, the rattling of cabin doors hooked back to allow the free passage of fresh air, the grinding of a rudder and the clank of rudder-chains, the sonorous hum of the wind through a ship's rigging, the flapping of a sail, the distant subdued murmur of men's voices, and ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... and form to which I am here alluding also holds good of conversation. The chief qualities which enable a man to converse well are intelligence, discernment, wit and vivacity: these supply the form of conversation. But it is not long before attention has to be paid to the matter of which he speaks; in other words, the subjects about which it is possible to converse with him—his knowledge. If this is very small, ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... materially abated through disparity of age, for he had reached the ripe maturity of forty-seven, whilst the bride of his choice had not yet seen half that cycle of summers. To be twenty-four years her senior was, for the husband of a youthful princess so excelling in wit and beauty, certainly a formidable inequality, and so Mdlle. de Bourbon seems to have thought. At the command, however, of her father, who intimated that his determination was inflexible in thus disposing of his daughter's hand, Anne Genevieve meekly complied, and was espoused in June, 1642, ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... other words of the same stamp, it continued a private token of the party who issued it, and never, as far as I am aware, became current coin. Four times, at least, it occurs in his works; and always in that sense only which its etymon indicates, to wit, "adulterous." In his "Challenge ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... 22, 1542. Villalobos certifies before a notary that he has received from Juan de Villareal, Mendoza's agent, "four ships, one small galley, and one fusta, [25] to wit: the admiral's ship, named 'Santiago;' the 'San Jorge,' 'San Antonio,' and 'San Juan de Letran;' the galley 'San Christoval,' and the fusta 'San Martin'—with all equipment, ammunition, artillery, weapons, provisions, etc.,... in the name of his lordship [Mendoza] ... in order to go with ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... to observe, that the Opinions about Digestion, are deficiently related by our Author; for they are chiefly four, Trituration, Fermentation, Heat, and by a Menstruum, which are so far from being incompatible, that three of them necessarily concur to promote Digestion; to wit, Heat, and a Menstruum or Liquor, and Trituration, or the Motion or rubbing of the Coats of the Stomach: For it is plain, if the two former are absent, there can be no Digestion, and without doubt the ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus
... to smash, I was almost ready to cry myself with relief that it was only a playmate Zura wanted in Pinkey and not a sweetheart. Even at that I was at my wit's ends again to know what to say next when the door opened. Jane had heard the commotion, and there she stood in her sleeping garments and cap, a kimono floating behind her. In one hand was her candle, in the other the only ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... COPE trode the north right far, Yet ne'er a rebel he cam naur, Until he landed at Dunbar, Right early in the morning. Hey, Johnnie Cope, are ye wauking yet? Or are ye sleeping, I would wit? O haste ye, get up, for the drums do beat: O fye, Cope, ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... Lover's wit was spontaneous, and bubbled over in his ordinary conversation with friends. An English lady friend, deeply interested in Ireland, once said to him—"I believe I was intended for an Irishwoman." Lover gallantly replied—"Cross over to Ireland and they ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... anathematize Arius and all who agree with him and share his absurd opinion; also Macedonius and those who, following him, are well styled foes of the Spirit.(334) We confess that our lady, St. Mary, is properly and truly the Theotokos, because she bore, after the flesh, one of the Holy Trinity, to wit, Christ our God, as the Council of Ephesus has already defined, when it cast out of the Church the impious Nestorius with his allies, because he introduced a personal [{GREEK SMALL LETTER PI}{GREEK SMALL ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... court, then and there being as herein above set forth, did with premeditation, and much show of emotion look up into the eyes of said plaintiff, said eyes being tear-dimmed and extraordinarily beautiful as to their coloring to-wit: brown, as to their expression to-wit: sad and full of love, and furthermore the court did with deliberation and after for a moment while he held the heavy bejeweled hand of said plaintiff above mentioned, and ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... his father before him had frequent lawsuits.[18] While a uniform tradition represents him as comely, pleasing and attractive, equally does it represent him as a man of ready, aggressive and caustic wit, and rebellious and bitter against opposition.[19] The lines on the slab over his grave are less supplicatory than mandatory against the removal of his bones to the adjacent charnel-house.[20] His name, often written with a hyphen, indicates ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... you her charge against me in her own words, from one of her letters delivered to me with her own hands, on taking leave of me on the last visit she honoured me with. But I will supply that charge by confession of more than it imports; to wit, 'That I am haughty, uncontroulable, and violent in my temper;' this, I say; 'Impatient of contradiction,' was my beloved's charge; [from any body but her dear self, she should have said;] 'and aim not at that affability, that gentleness, next to meekness, which, in the letter I was going to communicate, ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... illustrate what the subject of discussion does not resemble—they are forced and without much point; but when Mr. Lowe likens our Reform Bill to the "monstrum infelix," and hopes it will not succeed in penetrating the "muros" of the Constitution (isn't that pretty nearly what he said?) there is wit and point in ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... before them,' I said. 'The rum-sellers are almost driven to their wit's ends for devices ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... life an altered man, because he once paid too dearly for a penny whistle. My concern springs usually from a deeper source, to wit, from having bought a whistle when I ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was aware of a keener tension in the crowd atmosphere. They were good natured crowds, to be sure; laughing, and cheering, and making sallies of heavy wit; but they were in some way more intense than he had ever seen before. There was no fear of war; there was, rather, an adventurous spirit which seemed to fear that the affair would blow over, as had so many affairs in the ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... crooked counsels fit, Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit, Restless, unfix'd in principle and place, In power unpleased, impatient in disgrace. —ABSALOM ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... little hands clenched together, as if she would like to tell these rebels what she thought of their treatment of her father. And I, seeing the war signal so clearly on her cheek, and daring not the batteries of her eyes and wit, was discreet ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... the aforesaid wrongs and usurpations, and no hopes remain of obtaining redress by those means alone, which have been hitherto tried, your committee are of opinion that the house should enter into the following resolve, to wit: ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... he fortuned to meet with Mr. Snap, who had just returned from conveying the count to his lodgings, and was then walking to and fro before the gaming-house door; for you are to know, my good reader, if you have never been a man of wit and pleasure about town, that, as the voracious pike lieth snug under some weed before the mouth of any of those little streams which discharge themselves into a large river, waiting for the small fry which issue thereout, so hourly, before the door or mouth of these ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... thoughts and gloomy memories, for assuredly, if they do not so habituate themselves, they had better never try in life to race against those more favoured individuals who have things other than their wits to rely upon. The Wit will prove but a sorry steed unless its owner be ever ready to race it against those more substantial horses called Wealth and Interest, and if in that race, the prize of which is Success, Wit should have to ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... said Lady Gosstre. She was not one who could be unkind to the professional wit. "And the music-leaves go for feathers. What has the band done to displease him? I thought the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... no less than of improvements in the fine arts and the mechanic arts. He had a vast imagination, equal to the comprehension of the greatest objects, and capable of a cool and steady comprehension of them. He had wit at will. He had humor that when he pleased was delicate and delightful. He had a satire that was good-natured or caustic, Horace or Juvenal, Swift or Rabelais, at his pleasure. He had talents for irony, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the pseudonym of "Uncle Scribble," contributed to the pages of the Sporting Magazine an admirable series of photographs—to adopt a modern word—of hunting and hunting men, as remarkable for dry wit and common sense, as a thorough knowledge of sport. But "Uncle Scribble," as the head of a most successful ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... to prosper in Indian warfare," returned the scout, "must not be too proud to learn from the wit of a native. Lay her more along the land, Sagamore; we are doubling on the varlets, and perhaps they may try to strike our trail on ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... a Young Clergyman,' says: 'I cannot forbear warning you in the most earnest manner against endeavoring at wit in your sermons, because, by the strictest computation, it is very near a million to one that you have none.' Perhaps that would be good advice to all who consciously seek for what is called originality, which is mostly ...
— The Brochure Series Of Architectural Illustration, Vol 1, No. 2. February 1895. - Byzantine-Romanesque Doorways in Southern Italy • Various
... had been going on for some time in an impertinent way, on which I was about to admonish him; and, as a preliminary, I asked him, with great coolness, "pray, Sir, is not your naive Leach?" "Yes," said he, "it is Leech, and I should like to suck thy blood!" This was esteemed a brilliant sally of wit, and was received with noisy approbation by his surrounding friends. Well! I thought to myself, I am amongst a precious set of cannibals, indeed, and it will require all my temper to manage with such a tribe. There, too, sat the Sheriffs. The one of them, Mr. Sheriff Brice, a sugar-baker, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... All the devices blazoned on the shield, In their own tinct, and added, of her wit, A border fantasy of branch ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... fear I what hard sequel after-wit Will draw upon me; that the number's one Of years, moneths, dayes, houres, and of minutes fleet Which from eternitie have still run on. I plainly did confesse awhile agone That be it what it will that's infinite More infinites will follow ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More
... great reason, gal. Accordin' to the custom of families, the goods are your'n, and there's no one here to gainsay it. If Hetty would only say that she is willing, my mind would be quite at ease in the matter. It's true, Judith, that your sister has neither your beauty, nor your wit; but we should be the tenderest of the rights and welfare of the ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... nor give to Him. Fifth, the bequeathed blessing which the words signify, namely, remission of sin and eternal life. Sixth, the obligation, remembrance or requiem which we should observe for Christ, to wit, that we preach this His love and grace, hear and meditate upon it, by it be incited and preserved unto love and hope in Him, as St. Paul explains it: "As oft as ye eat this bread and drink of this ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... The Jan. No. just out, Now is the Time to Subscribe Every No. contains 40 long columns, 8 pages, Ledger size 480 long columns of splendid reading during 1870. Four columns of "swindling exposures" in every No. In fact the whole paper is brimming with Wit, Humor, Fun Sense & Nonsense, Wit, Wisdom, & Wind, Fun, Fact, & Fancy. It is Rich, Rare, & Racy; Smart, Spicy, & Sparkling. It exposed 100 swindlers last year, and is bound to "show up" rascality without fear or favor. You Need it. There is nothing Like it. It will instruct, amuse, and ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... with the oriental world. The writers of Alexandria lacked the 'high seriousness' of purpose to produce an Aeneid, the imaginative enthusiasm needed for a Faery Queen. What they possessed was delicacy, refinement, and wit; what they created, while perfecting the epigram and stereotyping the hymn, was a form intermediate between epic and lyric, namely the idyl as we find it in the works ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... further certain 'schemes' which were vaguely talked about, but which never came to fruition,—each had a little bevy of young journalists in attendance,—press boys whom they petted and flattered, and persuaded to write paragraphs concerning their wit, wisdom and beauty, and how they 'looked radiant in pink' or 'dazzling in pea green.' Contemplating first one and then the other of these ladies, Julian almost resolved to compose a poem about them, entitled 'The Sirens' and, dividing it into Two Cantos, ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... to his friends—until they are guilty of lese majeste; a personal integrity which no man questions; a wit that makes him in his lighter moments a rare companion; a generosity as broad as his fighting ruthlessness is deep; and, finally, a lion-like courage. To me, my lads, those assets seem worth ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... You'll never be a Shakespeare, there will never be such another—Nature exhausted herself in producing him. Bulwer used the word "stretch" for hang, as to stretch his neck. Don't follow his example in such use of the word. Above all, avoid the low, coarse, vulgar slang, which is made to pass for wit among the riff-raff of the street. If you are speaking or writing of a person having died last night don't say or write: "He hopped the twig," or "he kicked the bucket." If you are compelled to listen to a person discoursing on a subject of which he knows ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... their own breast." The highest tax was upon men who are the greatest favourites of the other sex, and the assessments, according to the number and nature of the favours they have received; for which, they are allowed to be their own vouchers. Wit, valour, and politeness, were likewise proposed to be largely taxed, and collected in the same manner, by every person's giving his own word for the quantum of what he possessed. But as to honour, justice, wisdom, and learning, they should not be taxed at all; because they are qualifications ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... sir, that I owe my presence here. He was my fellow-prisoner, and but for his quick wit and stout arm I should be stiff by now. Anon, sir, you shall hear the story of it, and I dare swear it will divert you. This gentleman is Sir Crispin Galliard, lately a captain of horse with whom I ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... overwhelmed, altogether annihilated by the accusation; she wags her head, and her legs seem to melt away under her—she might fall and hurt herself. Her head is busy all the time; her ready wit had always helped her, always served her well; it must ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... bore off into his own country, as the most striking evidence of victory, the images of the deities which the Babylonians especially reverenced. This king's name, which was Kudur-Nakhunta, is thought to be the exact equivalent of one which has a world-wide celebrity, to wit, Zoroaster. Now, according to Polyhistor (who here certainly repeats Berosus), Zoroaster was the first of those eight Median kings who composed the second dynasty in Chaldaea, and occupied the throne from about B. C. 2286 to 2052. The Medes are represented by him ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... Woman" in 1609, "The Alchemist" in the following year. These comedies, with "Bartholomew Fair," 1614, represent Jonson at his height, and for constructive cleverness, character successfully conceived in the manner of caricature, wit and brilliancy of dialogue, they stand alone in English drama. "Volpone, or the Fox," is, in a sense, a transition play from the dramatic satires of the war of the theatres to the purer comedy represented in the plays named above. Its subject is a struggle of wit applied to chicanery; for among ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... shelter a couple of volleys were sent in the direction of the flashes of light which indicated the whereabouts of the enemy, and this made them continue their flight, the surprise having been too great for their nerves; while the right interpretation was placed upon the adventure at once—to wit, that in ignorance of the fact that Colonel Lindley had done in the darkness exactly what might have been expected, and occupied the kopje, the Boers had brought up a heavy gun with the intention of mounting it before morning, and ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... would have thee know, He does not breath this air, Whose love I cherish, and whose soul I love More than Mounchensey's: Nor ever in my life did see the man Whom, for his wit and many vertuous parts, I think more worthy of my sister's love. But since the matter grows unto this pass, I must not seem to cross my Father's will; But when thou list to visit her by night, My horses sadled, and the ...
— The Merry Devil • William Shakespeare
... themselves compelled to again refer the Government of Her Majesty, the Queen of Great Britain, to the London Convention of 1884, concluded between this Republic and the United Kingdom, which in Article XIV. guarantees certain specified rights to the white inhabitants of this Republic, to wit:— ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... led-captain is a term of frequent reproach, but it must always be considered that that sort of talent will be chiefly noticed and rewarded which is in demand in certain circles; fashionable people desire neither to be deafened with wit, nor bewildered with philosophy, nor oppressed with learning; their business, to which they have been brought up, is to glide smoothly through life, and their patronage is chiefly extended to those who offer to relieve them of its petty cares and small annoyances, which men ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... denies The power to utter what consumes her heart. Such instances (and some a loss to know, Which steadfast reticence will shield from those, Debased or garrulous, whose hearts corrupt, But learn the gloomy secrets of their kind To poison-tip their wit, or grope and grin With pharisaic laughter at disgrace)— Such instances as these demand no guide To thrid the dismal issues from their source! But others are there, lying fast concealed, Dark, hopeless, and unutterably sad, Which have not been, ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... as of value only by ignoring the fact demonstrated in my previous paper, that natural science does not confirm the order asserted so far as living things are concerned; and by upsetting a fact to be brought to light presently, to wit, that, in regard to the rest of the pentateuchal cosmogony, prudent science has very little to say one way ...
— Mr. Gladstone and Genesis - Essay #5 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... A. D. 1825, in the fiftieth year of the Independence of the United States of America, Richardson & Lord, of the said District, have deposited in this office the Title of a Book, the right whereof they claim as Proprietors, in the words following, to wit: ...
— Zophiel - A Poem • Maria Gowen Brooks
... appropriation act of last year a general system was provided and its installation was directed by the 1st of January. This has entailed upon the Post Office Department a great deal of very heavy labor, but the Postmaster General informs me that on the date selected, to wit, the 1st of January, near at hand, the department will be in readiness to meet successfully the requirements ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... and served a paper. It proved to be an injunction issued by Judge Sherman enjoining Thorpe against interfering with the property of Morrison & Daly,—to wit, certain dams erected at designated points on the Ossawinamakee. There had not elapsed sufficient time since the commission of the offense for the other firm to secure the issuance of this interesting ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... lived in Damascus a rich Jew named Rufaiel. He had great wealth in marble palaces and rich silk robes, and well stored bazaars, and his wife and daughters were clad in velvets and satins, in gold and precious stones. He had also great wit and cunning, and often helped his fellow Jews out of their troubles. Now the Pasha of Damascus was a Mohammedan, who had a superstitious fear of the holy Moslem Dervishes, and they could persuade him to tax and oppress the Jews ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... "Wit. Primitive Power. Perception of the disjunction or incongruity of ideas; the analytical faculty. Uses: Separation of compound or general ideas into those that are elementary or more simple; knowledge of characteristic ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 346, December 13, 1828 • Various
... leave the poor little puppy, Joan?" said the mother, keeping her voice steady, for all the force of the two men could not help her now. It rested with her wit. ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... at the singular man, whose brilliant courage made him the equal of the bravest; whose keen and ready wit rendered him the equal of all. Laporte entered the room, and announced that the message he had taken to the people had acted like oil upon the waves, and that they were waiting in respectful silence, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... that he had a special reason for dividing it thus—that one lot may have belonged to the School clubs, another to the House clubs, and another to something else. But which was which it passed his wit to remember. ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... quivering and responding to all its vicissitudes and escapes as does the humble owner. Hardy gardening of this kind is both more difficult and costly, even if more satisfactory, than filling a bed with a rotation of florists' flowers, after the custom as seen in the parks and about club-houses: to wit, first tulips, then pansies and daisies, next foliage plants or geraniums, and finally, when frost threatens, potted plants of hardy ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... this bomb had been all that the Huns intended it to be, Sammie would have returned to minute specks of dust and his name would have been added to the long list of dead heroes; but since the bomb was a "dud," Sammie was made the butt of his friends' wit. ...
— Night Bombing with the Bedouins • Robert Henry Reece
... Detraction, and think it the greatest Meanness that People of Distinction can be guilty of: However, it is hardly possible to come into Company, where you do not find them pulling one another to pieces, and that from no other Provocation but that of hearing any one commended. Merit, both as to Wit and Beauty, is become no other than the Possession of a few trifling Peoples Favour, which you cannot possibly arrive at, if you have really any thing in you that is deserving. What they would bring to pass, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... of human knowledge. The sentiment of Leibnitz seems to rest upon a more solid foundation. "It is necessary to come," says he, "to the grand question which M. Bayle has recently brought upon the carpet, to wit, whether a truth, and especially a truth of faith, can be subject to unanswerable objections. That excellent author seems boldly to maintain the affirmative of this question: he cites grave theologians on his side, and even those of Rome, who appear to ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... elegant, is ogling the fishwomen through his glass; while the Quaker is performing a pas seul Alberti might be proud of, in a quadrille of riotous Turks and half-tipsy Hindoos; in fact, the whole wit of the scene consists in absurd associations. Apart from this, the actors have rarely any claims upon your attention; for even supposing a person clever enough to sustain his character, whatever it be, you must also supply the ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... reversed ratchet wheel on its forward movement. It was thus made impossible for either dial to go by momentum beyond its limit. Learning that Doctor Laws, with the skilful aid of F. L. Pope, was already active in the same direction, Mr. Callahan, with ready wit, transformed his indicator into a "ticker" that would make a printed record. The name of the "ticker" came through the casual remark of an observer to whom the noise was the most striking feature of the mechanism. Mr. Callahan removed the two dials, and, ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... ye wit how that the town of Saint Pere le Moustier hath been taken by storm; and with God's help it is our intention to cause to be evacuated the other places contrary to the King; but for this there hath been great expending of powder, arrows ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... remembered as a wit had he not been even more brilliant as a chef, paid his respects to the English by saying they were a nation of a hundred religions and only one sauce. Being a true Frenchman he believed a reversal of the numbers better for the soul. It is ...
— Twenty-four Little French Dinners and How to Cook and Serve Them • Cora Moore
... neology! This man comes from the dung-heap, this man comes from the Morgue, this man's hands steam like a butcher's, he scratches his ear, smiles, and invents words like Julie d'Angennes. He marries the wit of the Hotel de Rambouillet to the odour of Montfaucon. We will both vote for him, ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... in Southwark Chapel. Mr. Thomas Farmer, presided. Several spake: one a New Zealander, whose wit and oddities amused all, ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... that the religious men and women did ordinarily make three vows—to wit, those of chastity, poverty, and obedience: it was therefore constituted and appointed that in this convent they might be honorably married, that they might be rich, and live at liberty. In regard to the legitimate age, the women were to be admitted from ten till ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... say;—yet to what end? Thou hast nor ear, nor soul, to apprehend The sublime notion and high mystery That must be uttered to unfold the sage And serious doctrine of Virginity; And thou art worthy that thou shouldst not know More happiness than this thy present lot. Enjoy your dear wit, and gay rhetoric, 790 That hath so well been taught her dazzling fence; Thou art not fit to hear thyself convinced. Yet, should I try, the uncontrolled worth Of this pure cause would kindle my ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... recently been reading a story by Jack London, dealing with the Indians in the vicinity of Tanana, where he was bred and born, and his indignation at the representation of his people in this story was amusing. The story was called The Wit of Porportuk, and it presented a native chief in almost baronial state, with slaves waiting upon him in a large banqueting hall and I know not what accumulated wealth of furs and gold. Such pictures are far more flagrantly ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... chique with which they adopt certain Americanisms, and other cant phrases of the day. Such habits cannot be too severely reprehended. They lower the tone of society and the standard of thought. It is a great mistake to suppose that slang is in any way a substitute for wit. ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... that in thy dream or vision thou didst seem to appear before thyself seated on a throne and in that self to find thy judge. That is the Truth whereof I spoke, though how it found its way through the black and ignorant shell of one whose wit is so small, is more than I can guess, since I believed that it was revealed ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... shall find that the phrase is arranged according to some mathematical plan. No doubt a certain sentence has been written out and then jumbled up—some plan to which some figure is the clue. Now, Harry, to show your English wit—what is ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... at what he considered wit. But a frowning glance from the Tzigana cut short his hilarity; and, with a mechanical movement, he drew himself up in a military manner, as if the Czar ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... friends' virtues recorded, may put to particular parts. I question not but several of my readers will know the lawyer in the stage-coach the moment they hear his voice. It is likewise odds but the wit and the prude meet with some of their acquaintance, as well as all the rest of my characters. To prevent, therefore, any such malicious applications, I declare here, once for all, I describe not men, but manners; not an individual, ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... Exchequer strongly professed to retain every part of Mr. Fox's bill which was intended to prevent abuse; but in his India bill, which (let me do justice) is as able and skilful a performance, for its own purposes, as ever issued from the wit of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... strongly expressive of inward fun, and after enjoying it some time in silence, he suddenly, and with great animation, turned to me and cried; "Down with her, Burney! down with her! spare her not! attack her, fight her, and down with her at once! You are a rising wit, and she is at the top; and when I was beginning the world, and was nothing and nobody, the joy of my life was to fire at all the established wits, and then everybody loved to halloo me on."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 117. 'She has,' adds Miss Burney, 'a sensible and penetrating ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... little doubt that the name "Christian"—so curiously hybrid, yet so richly expressive—was a nickname due to the wit of the Antiochenes, which exercised itself quite fearlessly even on the Roman emperors. They were not afraid to affix nicknames to Caracalla, and to call Julian Cecrops and Victimarius, with keen satire of his beard. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... much part in society, and only displayed in the closest intimacy the shrewdness of his observation and the playfulness of his wit. Every where he kept back much of what was in him, and while the keenest intelligence, mingled with a strong tinge of satire, animated his brisk countenance, it seemed to amuse him to be but half understood. His nearest social ties were those formed in the Royal Academy, of which he was by far ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... volume of the ballads Pepys has written:—'My collection of ballads, begun by Mr. Selden, improv'd by the addition of many pieces elder thereto in time; and the whole continued to the year 1700.' The library also possesses collections of old novels, pieces of wit, chivalry, etc, plays, books on shorthand, tracts on the Popish Plot, liturgical controversies, sea ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... likely to remember it's Mayn't!" retorted Mrs. Whelply, who was a recognised wit, and opponent of the Big Doctor. "Isn't it enough for him to bully us when we're sick, but he comes tormenting us when ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... the month there would not remain in Lower Guienne ten thousand Reformers out of the one hundred fifty thousand found there August 15th. "There is not a courier," wrote Madame de Maintenon, September 26th, "that does not bring the King great causes of joy; to wit, news of conversions by thousands." The only resistance that they deigned to notice here and there was that of certain provincial gentlemen, of simple and rigid habits, less disposed than the court nobility to sacrifice their ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... should be changed as soon as he has done with it; the vegetables and sauces belonging to the different dishes presented without remark to the guests; and the footman should tread lightly in moving round, and, if possible, should bear in mind, if there is a wit or humorist of the party, whose good things keep the table in a roar, that they are not expected to reach ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... with sudden alacrity; for she had recovered her ready wit, and was prepared to write anything, being now fully resolved the letter ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... the club. I've forgotten who. Carlos was working for a big Panama importing firm. He was trying to interest this chap in the New York end. I saw him off and on after that and got to like him for his quiet manner and a queer, dry wit he had in those days. Two or three months ago he—he seemed to fit into my humour, and we became pretty chummy as you know. Even after last night I hate to ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... surprise that, notwithstanding his sprightly wit, he never exposed by his raillery those vague, incoherent, and noisy discourses, those rash censures, ignorant decisions, coarse jests, and all that empty jingle of words which at Babylon went by the name of conversation. He had learned, in ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... military party, who do not wish to make peace until definitely victorious. But at last it is done. Then there were further difficulties with the Turks. They declared that they must insist on one thing, to wit, that the Russian troops should be withdrawn from the Caucasus immediately on the conclusion of peace, a proposal to which the Germans would not agree, as this would obviously mean that they would have to evacuate Poland, Courland, and Lithuania at the same time, to which Germany would never ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... AWAKENED TO THE SUBJECT OF SNOBS. The word Snob has taken a place in our honest English vocabulary. We can't define it, perhaps. We can't say what it is, any more than we can define wit, or humour, or humbug; but we KNOW what it is. Some weeks since, happening to have the felicity to sit next to a young lady at a hospitable table, where poor old Jawkins was holding forth in a very absurd pompous manner, I wrote upon the spotless damask 'S—B,' and ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... able members in the house, comprehending his own brother, Mr. Charles Townshend, whose genius shone with distinguished lustre: he was keen, discerning, eloquent, and accurate; possessed a remarkable vivacity of parts, with a surprising solidity of understanding; was a wit without arrogance, a patriot without prejudice, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... adopted, and all succeeded as he had foretold. None but those who have heard M. de Talleyrand converse can form an accurate idea of his easy manner of expressing himself, his imperturbable coolness, the fixed unvarying expression of his countenance, and his vast fund of wit. ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... Cod Lead, where Colonel Gideon Ward and Eleazar Bodge were languishing. It was probable that those marooned gentlemen had lighted a fire in their desperation in order to signal for assistance. The Cap'n reflected that it was about as much wit as landsmen ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... beauty and wit I should like to remain," replied John with increasing gallantry, still holding his cap in his hands, "but who can tell where he will be a week hence in ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... had the compensating advantage of forcing him to think long and intently about every sentence, and thus enabling him to detect errors in reasoning and in his own observations, or in those of others. He disclaimed the possession of any great quickness of apprehension or wit, such as distinguished Huxley. He protested, also, that his power to follow a long and purely abstract train of thought was very limited, for which reason he felt certain that he never could have succeeded with metaphysics ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... cart, whilst their colleague from another state— the very state they were assisting—was roughing it in a war- chariot. These latter seem to have connoted, for military organization purposes, a strength of 75 men each, and four horses; to wit, three heavily armed men or cuirassiers in the chariot itself, and 72 foot-soldiers. At least in the case of Tsin, a force of 37,500 men, which in the year 613 boldly marched off three hundred or more English miles ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... position, which left me no retreat, but I was afraid to change. Then I saw I had made a worse mistake about the lantern, which I should have left lighted, so that I could have had a crack at Case when he stepped into the shine of it. And even if I hadn’t had the wit to do that, it seemed a senseless thing to leave the good lantern to blow up with the graven images. The thing belonged to me, after all, and was worth money, and might come in handy. If I could have trusted the match, I might have run in still and rescued it. But who ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... show you the true nature of this reason, to wit, That Jesus Christ would have mercy offered, in the first place, to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... cometh of strength in the craft and self-restraint.' Then he bade her sing; and she said, 'Hearkening and obedience.' So she took the lute and tightening its strings, smote thereon a number of airs, so that she confounded Ishac's wit and he was like to fly for delight. Then she returned to the first mode and sang thereto ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... strongly differentiated forms to the smaller and simpler ones, even if these latter should have appeared contemporaneously or even later than the former. Here we have again to refer to the fact that has already been mentioned, to wit, that Oriental art remained stationary throughout long periods of time. In point of fact, the simpler forms are invariably characterized by a nearer and nearer approach to the more ancient patterns and also to the natural flower-forms of the Araceae. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... theatrical performances, &c. This inclination to illusion is perfectly normal with them, and should be permitted. The graceful kingdom of Art is developed from it, as also the poetry of conversation in jest and wit. Although this sometimes becomes stereotyped into very prosaic conventional forms of speech, it is more tolerable than the awkward honesty which takes everything in its simple literal sense. And it is easy to discover whether children in such play, in the activity of free ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... began, with easy wit, That half concealed his terror: "Pooh!" said the Judge, "I only sit In Banco or in Error. Can you suppose, my man, that I'd O'er Nisi Prius Courts preside, Or condescend my time to spend On anything ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... the case in my own intercourse with him. He always attacked me in a bantering way, but, I thought, half in earnest too. Hence I never found it advisable to enter into argument with him. How can you argue with a man, a brilliant wit and an accomplished theologian, who continually flashes back and forth between first principles and witticisms? When I would undertake to grapple with him on first principles he would throw me off with a joke, and while I was parrying ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... in accumulating individual wealth, and this in one way, to wit, as agricultural laborers—and this is, perhaps, the most useful purpose to which their labor can be applied. The effect of slavery has not been to counteract the tendency to dispersion, which seems epidemical among our countrymen, invited by the unbounded extent of fertile ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... found fitter place For courtly wit and modish grace, Than by the Indus. There right well His facile talent served his Chief; And England hears with genuine grief ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... is so skilled in the true sport of love and so renowned a knight, has never talked to her of love (ll. 1487-1524). "You ought," she says, "to show and teach a young thing like me some tokens of true-love's crafts; I come hither and sit here alone to learn of you some game; do teach me of your wit while my lord is from home." Gawayne replies that he cannot undertake the task of expounding true-love and tales of arms to one who has far more wisdom than he possesses. Thus did our knight avoid all appearance ...
— Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight - An Alliterative Romance-Poem (c. 1360 A.D.) • Anonymous
... instructed on the 18th instant to wait on the President elect to notify him of his election, reported that the committee had, according to order, performed that service, and addressed the President elect in the following words, to wit: ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson
... thoughts that had seemed new and beautiful to me fell flat and lustreless on the soul of others. If I was approved, it was often for what I condemned myself; and I found that the trite commonplace and the false wit charmed, while the truth fatigued, and the enthusiasm revolted. For men of that genius to which I make no pretension, who have dwelt apart in the obscurity of their own thoughts, gazing upon stars that shine not for the dull sleepers ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... priceless to me, with Dr. Roger S. Tracy, then a sanitary inspector in the Health Department, later its distinguished statistician, to whom I owe pretty much all the understanding I have ever had of the problems I have battled with; for he is very wise, while I am rather dull of wit. But directly I get talking things over with him, I brighten right up. I met Professor Charles F. Chandler, Major Willard Bullard, Dr. Edward H. Janes—men to whose practical wisdom and patient labors in the shaping of ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... twenty-fifth day of July, A. D. 1820, in the forty-fifth year of the Independence of the United States of America, HENRY BOWEN, of the said district, has deposited in this office, the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as Proprietor in the words following, to wit: ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... in the street, dipping their brooms into the creek, and flourishing water over the side-walks, and on the fronts of the low edifices. This light but daily duty was relieved by clamorous collisions of wit, and by shouts of merriment, in which the whole street would join, as with one joyous and reckless movement of ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... course.... So much the deeper revenge for me. And she loves that monk. I saw it in her eyes there in the garden. So much the better for me, too. He will dangle willingly enough at Orestes's heels for the sake of being near her—poor fool! We will make him secretary, or chamberlain. He has wit enough for it, they say, or for anything. So Orestes and he shall be the two jaws of my pincers, to squeeze what I want out of that Greek Jezebel.. And then, ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... go. I like not ill words. Write thy letter, but put out of thy mind all bad thoughts first. A love letter from a bitter heart is not lucky. And of all thy wit thou wilt have great need if to a woman ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... might have converted Hume and Gibbon to a belief in Christianity. But Dean Swift did not deserve a wife, from the way in which he broke the heart of Jane Waring first, and Esther Johnson afterward, and last of all "Vanessa." The great wit of the day, he was ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... The girl's quick wit had discovered the right way to get rid of Jack. He accepted the suggestion with enthusiasm. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "that's a good idea! It would never have entered ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... full wit enow That vision to explain; If to the Hvenish land ye go There'll many ...
— Grimhild's Vengeance - Three Ballads • Anonymous
... could I do?" asked Lydia, at her wit's end. "I don't dare leave Ariadne with those awful things from the employment agencies, and 'Stashie's not coming back till ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... old woman should have had the wit to guess it I could never tell, but she found out that he was inside that there churn. Without saying a word she took hold of the winch (it was turned by handpower then), and round she swung him, and Jack ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... an "Asylum," nor a "Retreat," nor by any of those names which savor of restraint and espionage—not even a "Home," as spelled with a capital H—but simply by the name of the spot upon which it is erected—to wit, ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... air, and such inimitable ease and composure in his flight and movement! He is a poet in very word and deed. His carriage is music to the eye. His performance of the commonest act, as catching a beetle, or picking a worm from the mud, pleases like a stroke of wit or eloquence. Was he a prince in the olden time, and do the regal grace and mien still adhere to him in his transformation? What a finely proportioned form! How plain, yet rich, his color,—the bright russet of his back, the ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... during the week that ensued after his proposal of marriage to Madaline, Lord Arleigh looked in wonder at the duchess. She seemed so unlike herself—absent, brooding, almost sullen. The smiles, the animation, the vivacity, the wit, the brilliant repartee that had distinguished her had all vanished. More than once he asked her if she was ill; the answer was always "No." More than once he asked her if she was unhappy; the ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... of the people of both Republics, to authorise the Governments to conclude peace on the following basis, to wit: The retention of a limited independence with the offer, in addition to what has already been offered by the Governments in their negotiations, ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell
... Destructiveness, Combativeness, Secretiveness, Acquisitiveness, Constructiveness, Cautiousness, Approbativeness, Self-Esteem, Firmness, Religion, Benevolence, Hope, Marvellousness, Poetry, Ideality, Imitation, Wit or Mirthfulness, Eventuality, Individuality, Perceptive Organs, Time, Comparative Sagacity, Causality, Tune, Constructiveness, Language—Comments ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various
... alone a rational being can be an end in himself, since by this alone is it possible that he should be a legislating member in the kingdom of ends. Thus morality, and humanity as capable of it, is that which alone has dignity. Skill and diligence in labour have a market value; wit, lively imagination, and humour, have fancy value; on the other hand, fidelity to promises, benevolence from principle (not from instinct), have an intrinsic worth. Neither nature nor art contains anything which in default of these it could put in their place, ...
— Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals • Immanuel Kant
... to Niccolo da Correggio, that all-accomplished gentleman who laid down his pen and sword to design elaborate devices for his mistress's new gowns. We read her merry letters to her husband and sister, letters sparkling with wit and gaiety and overflowing with simple and natural affection. We see her rejoicing with all a young mother's proud delight over her first-born son, repeating, as mothers will, marvellous tales of his size and growth, and framing tender phrases for his infant ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... a continuation of Gregory of Tours' work, added details which deserve reproduction, first as a picture of manners, next for the better understanding of history. "As he was not allowed to see Clotilde," says Fredegaire, "Clovis charged a certain Roman, named Aurelian, to use all his wit to come nigh her. Aurelian repaired alone to the spot, clothed in rags and with his wallet upon his back, like a mendicant. To insure confidence in himself he took with him the ring of Clovis. On his arrival at Geneva, Clotilde received him as a pilgrim ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... is probably more than he deserves. They cannot be the meek, for special allusion is made to the meek in this same group of specially designated persons. Neither can it refer to people who are usually called poor-spirited persons, to wit, those who are too devoid of what is commonly designated as spirit, for these are properly classified as peace-makers, and have a similar though not ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... with a soldier's quick wit, and spurring his jaded horse from the yard. "They will have taken a cross-road or by-lane. We shall track them by the hoofs of the horses or the ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... for what you have said!" was the reply of the daughter, with that species of iteration which displays no wit but ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... Troll; "I should admire to have such a little servant as you are. It is too much work for me to think, and you have wit enough for both; so begin with the trial. Here are my two buckets,—go and get the water to ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... Conjectures, yet (as I said last year) they many times come out too True to make a jest of." Then he goes on: "I have read of a story which Thaurus is said to relate of Andreas Vesalius, a great Astrologer who lived in the reign of Henry the VIII.; to wit, that he told Maximilian the Day and Hour of his Death, who, giving credit thereto, ordered a great feast to be made, inviting his Friends, sat and Eat [ate?] with them; and afterwards, having distributed his Treasures among them, took leave of them and Dyed ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... accept no offices or titles, the ordinary prizes of political life. But they themselves could not contend that they are truly representative of three-quarters of Ireland in any other sense than that they are Home Rulers. Half of the wit, brains, and eloquence of their best men runs to waste. Some of them are merely nominated by the party machine, to represent, not local needs, but a paramount principle which the electors insist rightly on setting above ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... that when he reached his goal two policemen, not devoid of rude wit, who had been conferring together as they bumped in their saddles, arranged an entertainment for his behoof. It consisted of first one and then the other entering his room with prodigious details of war, the massing ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... it may be feared, believed in his heart that she went because he was going. And he resolved to bestow his society on her rather than on Ethel and Mrs. Romaine on Sunday. It was decidedly more amusing to waken that still sweet face to animation than to engage in a war of wit ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... very early one. Of the infants baptized in it, one at least obtained a rather unenviable celebrity—Dr John Wolcot, better known as 'Peter Pindar.' His bitter satires earned for him a harvest of hatred and abuse, but nobody denied his wit. 'There is a pretty story of the older Pindar that a swarm of bees lighted on his cradle in his infancy and left honey on his lips; but we fear in the case of our hero they were wasps that came, and that they left some of ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... the little party of older people seemed stunned by the quick way in which he talked. His airy manner and flimsy wit impressed them with a sense of his knowledge of life. He represented the world to them, the World with a capital W, and they were all more or less conscious of a certain awe in his presence. His utter disregard of the little observances ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... the brilliancy of his position in Paris, the death of Chopin was a great shock to the artistic world, and he was buried with most impressive ceremonies. His grave is not far from those of Bellini and Cherubini. He was a man of fine wit, aristocratic presence, distinguished manners, and a highly sensitive and poetic nature, all of which qualities reached expression in ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... the Secretary of War ad interim to the application made by the Senators, was entirely unsatisfactory to me. It appeared to me to be not only a rejection in advance of the main proposition made by these Senators, to wit, that "an arrangement should be agreed on between the authorities of South Carolina and your Government, at least until the 15th of February next, by which time South Carolina and the States represented by the Senators might, in convention, ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... am sorry your last letters give us no greater hopes of that which we so much long for, to wit, your Excellence's speedy return home; it seeming by them that the treaty was not much advanced since your last before, notwithstanding the great care and diligence used by your Excellency for the promoting thereof, as also ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... characters out of our principal five have already left the mimic scene, it will now be my duty only to show, as nature and society do, how, of those three surviving chief dramatis personae, two of them—to wit, our hero and heroine of Heart—gathered many friends about their happy homestead, did a world of good, and, in fine, furnish our volume with a suitable counterpoise to the mass of selfish sin, which (at its height in the only remaining character) ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... Victorine working as usual, whilst Caliste was seated near her, her employment cast from her, and her whole appearance expressing the utmost dejection. At sight of her uncle she roused herself, and for a short time her excessive mirth, and even the great wit with which she spoke, astonished him. The quiet man was somewhat startled by her manner, and he looked at her earnestly, half alarmed by her wild and extravagant merriment. He soon remarked that the ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... Wyoming, and on the hereinbefore mentioned 13th day of July, Anno Domini 1880, did inflict to, at, upon, by, contiguous to, adjacent to, adjoining, over and against the body of him, the said James Smith, commonly called Windy Smith, one certain deadly, mortal, dangerous and painful wound, to-wit: Over, against, to, at, by, upon, contiguous to, near, adjacent to and bisecting the intestines of him, the said James Smith, commonly called Windy Smith, by reason of which he, the said James Smith, commonly ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... a fine flush of health, and cuckolds her husband with a simplicity that has infinitely more merit than the witty malice of the most experienced ladies. This play cannot indeed be called the school of good morals, but it is certainly the school of wit ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... unsparing hand; money burning a hole in one's pocket. Phr. amor nummi [Latin]; facile largiri de alieno[Lat]; wie gewonnen so zerronnen [German]; les fous font les festins et les sages les mangent [French]; "spendthrift alike of money and of wit" [Cowper]; "squandering wealth was his ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... to their station, out of remembrance for the past. Her mother was annoyed at her timidity. She ought to dance a lot, be lively and bold, like the other girls, crack jokes, even if they were doubtful, that the men might repeat them and give her the reputation of being a wit. It was incredible that with the bringing up she had had, she should be so insignificant. The idea! The daughter of a great man about whom people used to crowd as soon as he entered the first salons in Europe! ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... truth, his little bit of mother-wit was quite gone. When and where had it been ever heard that one person could pray another to death? Then they might pray them to life again. Shall she ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... selected a word, suppose "notwithstanding," each party sets to work to see how many different words they can make of the same letters. (Thus from the word above suggested may be made "not, with, stand, standing, gin, ton, to, wig, wit, his, twit, tan, has, had, an, nod, tow, this, sat, that, sit, sin, tin, wink, what, who, wish, win, wan, won," and probably a host of others.) A scrutiny is then taken, all words common to both parties being struck out. The remainder are then compared, and the ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... a sphere where bullying was a novelty with a direct traceable salutary effect. But whatever harshness was visible in him was tempered by his wife, who was New England, Boston itself, at its best. She had a grave charm, a wit, rather than humor, which irradiated her seriousness, and gave even her tentative remarks an air ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... her eyes on him. "The ingenuity of your companions, love, plays in the air like the lightning, but flashes round your head only, by good fortune, to leave it unscathed. Still, you have after all your own strange wit, and I'm not sure that any of ours ever compares with it. Only, confronted also with ours, how can poor Mr. Longdon really choose which ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... African Republic will be liable for any balance which may still remain due of the debts for which it was liable at the date of Annexation, to wit, the Cape Commercial Bank Loan, the Railway Loan, and the Orphan Chamber Debt, which debts shall be a first charge upon the revenues of the Republic. The South African Republic will moreover be liable to Her Majesty's Government for L250,000, which will be a ...
— Selected Official Documents of the South African Republic and Great Britain • Various
... it the less original with me? Not long since I should have fretted over the possibility, for my living depended on an avoidance of even seeming plagiarism. Now I am at one with Lord Foppington, and much disposed to take pleasure in the natural sprouts of my own wit—without troubling whether the same idea has occurred to others. Suppose me, in total ignorance of Euclid, to have discovered even the simplest of his geometrical demonstrations, shall I be crestfallen when some one draws ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... looking as if they had slept in their clothes, can get by quite nicely because they are amiable and suave. There are others who, for all that they excite adverse comment by being fat and uncouth, find themselves on the credit side of the ledger owing to their wit and sparkling humour. But this Glossop, I regret to say, falls into neither class. In addition to looking like one of those things that come out of hollow trees, he is universally admitted to be a dumb brick of the first water. No soul. No conversation. In short, any girl ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... at each other face to face. The intuition and ready wit of the woman pierced the disguise which had baffled ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... see that Lincoln ruled his own spirit; and we also behold the fact that he could rule others. 5 The letter shows frankness, kindliness, wit, tact, ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... nevertheless take a strange interest in all that concerns them, it having been from time immemorial their practice, more especially of the dissolute young nobility, to cultivate the acquaintance of the Gitanos as they are popularly called, probably attracted by the wild wit of the latter and the lascivious dances of the females. The apparition therefore of the Gospel of Saint Luke at Madrid in the peculiar jargon of these people was hailed as a strange novelty and almost as a wonder, and I believe ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... Deffaud was a very different personage to Madame Geoffrin, whose great enemy she was. When Horace Walpole first entered into the society of the Marquise, she was stone blind, and old; but retained not only her wit, and her memory, but her passions. Passions, like artificial flowers, are unbecoming to age: and those of the witty, atheistical Marquise are almost revolting. Scandal still attached her name to that of Henault, of whom Voltaire ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... composer was a big man, both physically and mentally. A friend describes his countenance as full of fire; "when he smiled it was like the sun bursting out of a black cloud. It was a sudden flash of intelligence, wit and good humor, which illumined his countenance, which I have hardly ever seen in any other." He could relish a joke, and had a keen sense of humor. Few things outside his work interested him; but ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... intolerance of the dominant "Auld Lichts." The fact that Burns had personally suffered from the discipline of the Kirk probably added fire to his attacks, but the satires show more than personal animus. The force of the invective, the keenness of the wit, and the fervor of the imagination which they displayed, rendered them an important force in the ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... mornin', beatin' it for N' Orleans. But he was n't travelin' wit' any moll that Hep ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... ought to be in ecstasies over her wit and over the repertory of ready-made phrases she ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... India as he actually lives. His Soldiers Three—Mulvaney, the Irishman, Ortheris, the cockney, and Learoyd, the Yorkshireman—are so full of real human nature that they delight all men and many women. Mulvaney is the finest creation of Kipling, and most of his stories are brimful of Irish wit. Of late years Kipling has written some fine imaginative stories, such as The Brushwood Boy, They and An Habitation Enforced. He has also revealed his genius in such tales of the future as With the Night Mail, a remarkably graphic sketch of a voyage ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... losing some of your wit, Dick. He didn't want to see us break the rules. I suppose if he had seen us he would have felt it was ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... or rather a hostage, and would gladly return to my home if I had permission. Persevering efforts have been made to pervert me, but I have had grace to remain firm to the true faith, and now I am simply exposed to the shafts of ridicule, and the wit and sneers of those who hold religious truth in contempt. You may be astonished at my thus venturing to speak to you, a perfect stranger, but I am sure that I may trust Mary Seton's cousin; and if you have the opportunity, I will beg you to tell my father or the good admiral what I ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... to Olivia, who happened to, be nearest him. "He fancies impudence is wit. He's devoid of moral sense or even of decency. He's a traitor to his class and shouldn't be tolerated ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... writer of this age some degree of unfortunate and deplorable advantage over his predecessors. Recent events have accumulated more terrible practical instruction on every subject of politics than could have been in other times acquired by the experience of ages. Men's wit, sharpened by their passions, has penetrated to the bottom of almost all political questions. Even the fundamental rules of morality themselves have, for the first time, unfortunately for mankind, become the subject of doubt and discussion. I shall consider it as my duty to abstain from ...
— A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations • James Mackintosh
... general an almost universal flogging match. My admiration naturally led to its probable result, a desire to imitate—I firmly resolved to become a Peregrine. I soon promoted myself to be the leader of every mad prank that the wit of a spirit suddenly excited to activity could devise. In the first fortnight I got flogged for tying a huge mass of brown paper to the tail of the favourite cat of the master's lady, with which she rushed with an insane and terrifying distraction into the drawing-room. We ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 274, Saturday, September 22, 1827 • Various
... was among the first of them to picture peasant, burgher, alewife, and nobleman in all scenes and places. Nothing escaped him as a subject, and yet his best work was shown in the handling of low life in taverns. There is coarse wit in his work, but it is atoned for by good color and easy handling. He was influenced by Rubens, though decidedly different from him in many respects. Brouwer (1606?-1638) has often been catalogued with the Holland school, but he really belongs with Teniers, in Belgium. He ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... that he is half disgusted with them before he can rightly say why," answered Sir Richard with a smile. "There is too much hatred and bitterness in Nicholas Trevlyn's religion to endear it to his children. The boy has had the wit to see that the Established Church of the land uses the same creeds and holds the same cardinal doctrines as he has been bred up in. For the Pope he cares no whit; his British blood causes him to think scorn of any foreign potentate, temporal or spiritual. He has the making ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... labor of years, and which placed him at once in the front rank of poets. About the same time, whether before or after remains uncertain, is to be placed his incomparable volume of epistles, which in grace, ease, good sense and wit mark as high a level as the odes do in terseness, melody, and exquisite finish. These two works are Horace's great achievement. The remainder of his writings demand but brief notice. They are the "Carmen Seculare;" a fourth book of odes, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... principle for which much might be pleaded. There were not fifty members in the House with the leisure or the ability to understand what it was which had actually happened, and if they had understood it, they would not have had the wit to see what was the rule which ought to have decided the case. Yet, whether they understood or not, they were obliged to vote, and what was worse, the constituencies also had to vote, and so the gravest matters were settled in utter ignorance. This has often been adduced as an argument ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... heads were turned with distinctions, and art and science were all the rage. But the narrow-minded leaders of a time of great intellectual progress all of them detested art and science. They had not even the wit to present religion in attractive colours, though they needed its support. While Lamartine, Lamennais, Montalembert, and other writers were putting new life and elevation into men's ideas of religion, and gilding ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... work—said she was very fond of France, loved driving in the streets of Paris, there was always so much to see and the people looked gay. She was very fond of the theatres, particularly the smaller ones, liked the real Parisian wit and gaiety better than the measured phrase and trained diction of the Francais and the Odeon. She spoke most warmly of Marshal MacMahon, hoped that he would remain President of the Republic as long as the Republicans ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... excursion into the regions of historical romance, amongst the well-beaten highways and byways of which he still manages to discover an untrodden path, or to embellish a familiar one by the sparkle of his wit and industry of his researches. The majority of his books convey the idea of being written currente calamo, and with little trouble to himself; and these have a lightness and brilliancy peculiar ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... mountains, fighting the Indians, freezing and starving, and always full of a keen enthusiasm for his work and of noble devotion to his duty. The construction train and the Irish boss are not forgotten, and in the stories of their doings we find not only courage and adventure, but wit and humor.—The Railroad Gazette. ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... was so startling, from his own daughter, that Pierson took refuge in an attempt at wit. "I should like notice of that question, Nollie, as ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... gained the esteem of the officers, and was admired by the soldiers. Having no less wit than courage, he so far advanced himself in the sultan's esteem, as to become his favourite. All the ministers and other courtiers daily resorted to Codadad, and were so eager to purchase his friendship, that they neglected the sultan's sons. The princes could not but resent this conduct, and all ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... considers withal, and sees clearly this, that neither they that shall follow us, shall see any new thing, that we have not seen, nor they that went before, anything more than we: but that he that is once come to forty (if he have any wit at all) can in a manner (for that they are all of one kind) see all things, both past and future. As proper is it, and natural to the soul of man to love her neighbour, to be true and modest; and to regard nothing so much as herself: which is also the property of the law: whereby ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... walked with them, laughing and talking; forced one's way through crowds; cheered, shouted; stood up on platforms before a sea of faces; roused applause, filling and emptying one's lungs; met interruptions with swift flash of wit or anger, faced opposition, danger—felt one's blood surging through one's veins, felt one's nerves quivering with excitement; felt the delirious thrill of passion; felt the mad joy of ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... wit ought to be exhausted before we presume to invoke divine interposition,' said the lady. 'I observe that Jesus was as fond of asking questions as of performing miracles; an inquiring spirit will solve mysteries. Let me ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... Antiquity,—such as no other can, in any sense, lay claim to: a Literature,—which is absolutely without a rival: a Terminology,—which reflects the very image of all the ages: Professors,—of loftier wit, from the days of Athanasius and Augustine, down to the days of our own Hooker and Butler,—men of higher mark, intellectually and morally,—than adorn the annals of any other Science since the World ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... two daughters was blind of one eye, and her only son was so simple that the loungers in the antechamber of the Pope were accustomed to amuse themselves with his want of wit. She is said to have died of a broken heart after the death of this son, and her portrait of him is considered ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... appeared to him that the priest held up the Body for a great space, and in that long time Master Richard understood many things that had been dark to him before. Of some of the things I have neither room nor wit to write; but they were ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... which he most readily did, adding the following literal translation: "Presence, [or face.] of the world—protector, salutation to thee: A poor dervish and world-wanderer I am; that I have come from a kingdom far, to-wit, from the kingdom of Ingliz-stan, which historians ancient, relation have made, that kingdom said, in the end of the west was, which the mother of every island of the world ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... plea, sacrificed without some kind of a struggle to help her. At the present writing I feel about as effective as a February lamb, and every move calls for tact. Wish I had been born with a needle wit instead of a Roman nose! For if Uncle has a glimmer of a suspicion that I would befriend Sada at the cost of his plans, so surely as the river is lost in the sea, Sada would disappear from my world until it was too late for me ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... every word capable of number is better provided therewith in this language, then [sic] by any other: for instead of two or three numbers which others have, this affordeth you four; to wit, the singular, dual, plural, ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... her. Of late, it had been brought home to her that the charm of Laodice for the stranger from Ephesus, to whom the Greek knew the girl had fled, had been her purity. Why should it matter so much about virtue? she had asked herself. Why should it weigh so immeasurably more than the noble gifts of wit and beauty and strength and charm? Behold, she was wise enough to educate a barbarous nation, beautiful enough to bewitch potentates—for a time—strong enough to take a city; yet Hesper, who best of all could appreciate the value ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... of securing better international arrangements regarding copyright. Having been elected a member of this, I had the satisfaction of hearing most interesting speeches from Victor Hugo, Tourgueneff, and Edmond About. The latter made the best speech of all, and by his exquisite wit and pleasing humor fully showed his right to the name which his enemies had given him— "the Voltaire of ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... of the powers given in the said antenuptial deeds the trustees therein named, on March 31, 1787, agreed upon a partition of the said lands, which agreement was with the approbation and consent of the cestui que trusts, to wit: Earl and Lady Abingdon, and Charles Fitsroy and Ann his wife, the said Susannah Skinner the second not then having arrived at age. In making the partition, the premises were divided into three parts on a survey made thereof and marked A, B and C; and it was agreed that such partition ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... handed him in charge, so that he spent the next hour in the charge office instead of at chapel. On the Monday morning he was convicted by the East Rand Magistrate and fined 1 Pound for trespassing on a private place, to wit, a church. And that was a Dutch Reformed church, the State Church of South Africa. Others had reproached him before me for such utterances, he said, but he will have "no more of our religious mockery with its theoretical ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... him ambitious. Having vanquished with the sword, he tried the pen. "You may grant the freedom of the city to your barbarians," said a wit to him one day, "but not to your solecisms." Undeterred he began a tragedy entitled "Ajax," and discovering his incompetence, gave it up. "And what has become of Ajax?" a parasite asked. "Ajax threw himself on a sponge," replied Augustus, whose father, it is to be regretted, ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... succeeded in forcing the Laird to listen to the dictates of prudence, and to act with sufficient caution, till it came to what he called the dirty part of the work, to wit, the valuation of small articles, and then was the blood of the Dymocks all up; nor would he hear of requiring a bond for the payment of this last sum, such a document, in fact, as should bind the purchaser down to payment without dispute. He contented himself only with such a note from the ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... common necessaries of life for a period of more than two years next preceding the commencement of this action, although having the ability so to do; awarding to said plaintiff the care, custody and control of the two minor children, the issue of the marriage between you and said plaintiff, to wit: G.L.G. and R.O.G.; and for general relief, as alleged and described in the complaint of said plaintiff now on file in said action in the office of the Clerk of the above named court, and to which said complaint reference is thereby made ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... spite of the danger of such employment, moved thereto not so much by the hope of a reward as from his great loyalty to his majesty, and a desire to avert from him his great danger from popish plots. Having succeeded in entering Sir Marmaduke's service, he soon discovered that six gentlemen, to wit, myself and five friends, were in the habit of meeting at Lynnwood, where they had long and secret talks. Knowing the deep enmity and hostility these men bore towards his gracious majesty, he determined to run any hazard, even to the loss ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... far end of the row lives 'Omadhaun Pat.' He is a 'little sthrange,' you understand; not because he was born with too small a share of wit, but because he fell asleep one evening when he was lying on the grass up by the old fort, and—'well, he was niver the same thing since.' There are places in Ireland, you must know, where if you lie ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... furbished up for the benefit of the Republicans who now control the Third French Republic. However true it may, or may not, have been of the Comte de Provence and the Comte d'Artois, Henri IV., who was certainly a Bourbon of the Bourbons, had a quick wit at learning, and upon occasion also a neat knack of forgetting. He thought Paris well worth a mass, heard the mass, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... no pacts, Cathbarr. My name is Brian Buidh. I made pact with the Dark Master, and now I am sorry for it; yet it must be held to, for I see no way out of it. But wait—I have a cunning man whose wit may help ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... closed ears thou dost not becalm sight and wit, they cease not to fructify under suasion of childhood impregnations. I fear not for thee, if thou art forewarned. If thou art taken to the King, he will straightway be enamoured of thy beauteous ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... of her bright vivacity, quick wit and keen sense of humor, therefore I sat listening to her pleasant chatter. Exiled as I was in a foreign land, I seldom spoke English save with Hutcheson, the Consul, and even then we generally spoke Italian if there were others ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... water," the boatman said, "but while swimming zey have a good deal. See, ze whole body of zat squid isn't more zan two feet long, an' yet if he'd got a hold of you in ze water, specially with ze bigger suckers on ze t'ick part of ze arms, you might have had some trouble. Zose big fellows wit' bodies twenty feet long an' arms t'irty feet, mus' be one horrible t'ing to meet ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... was received with something more than coldness by certain sections of the community. Men of wit, taste, and discrimination among the aristocracy gave it a hearty welcome, but the aristocracy in general were not likely to relish a book that turned their favourite reading into ridicule and laughed at so many ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... step was to approach Oliver, and that was more difficult, for he was such a queer fellow there was no knowing where to have him. However, Pembury's wit helped him over the ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... the Emperor's court together, we gave ourselves to learn horsemanship of Gio. Pietro Pugliano; one that, with great commendation, had the place of an esquire in his stable; and he, according to the fertileness of the Italian wit, did not only afford us the demonstration of his practice, but sought to enrich our minds with the contemplation therein, which he thought most precious. But with none, I remember, mine ears were at any time more laden, than when (either angered with slow payment, ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... imprisoned their superior, Ricci, in the castle of Saint Angelo, the Bastille of papacy. Severe only towards exaggerated zealots, he enchanted the Christian world by the evangelical sweetness, the grace of his understanding, and the poignancy of his wit; but pleasantry is the first step to the profanation of dogmata. The crowd of strangers and English whom his affability attracted to Italy and retained at Rome, caused, with the circulation of gold and science, the inflowing of scepticism ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... dramatizing a dry fact, of putting it into flesh and blood, and the instantaneous conception of Joe as a human thermometer, seem to us more like the poetical faculty than anything else. It is, at any rate, humor, and not mere quickness of wit,—the deeper, and not the shallower quality. Humor tends always to overplus of expression; wit is mathematically precise. Captain Basil Hall denied that our people had humor; but did he possess it himself? for, if not, he would never find it. Did he always ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... sketches on the black-board. The disappointed authoress took it with what calm she could muster. She knew they meant to tease, and the fewer sparks they could raise from her the sooner they would desist and let the matter drop. It would probably serve as a target for Addie's wit till the end of the term, unless the excitement of the newly formed ambulance class chased it from her memory. The Woodlanders were trying to do their duty by their country, and all the girls were enthusiastically ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... reply. She was looking before her down the hedge-bordered road. Always a girl of sudden impulses, she had just made a curious discovery, to wit that she was enjoying herself. There was something so novel and exhilarating about this midnight ride that imperceptibly her dismay and resentment had ebbed away. She found herself struggling with ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... and uncertainty of mind which I am not often troubled withal. It was partly astonishment, in truth, that confused me. Little Ugly and I actually exchanging ideas! I shall call her Little Ugly still, however, for I could not make her look at me as she spoke, nor answer my wit by a ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... complete the triumph of Justice but the apprehension of Perrier and his associate, to whose adventures it is now time that we return, in order to display the severe justice of Providence, and the admirable methods by which it disappoints all the courses that human wit can invent in order ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... walked in the flock, sometimes with this one, sometimes with that, that the fresh night air was producing staggerings and serpentine courses among the men who had partaken too freely; some of the more careless women also were wandering in their gait—to wit, a dark virago, Car Darch, dubbed Queen of Spades, till lately a favourite of d'Urberville's; Nancy, her sister, nicknamed the Queen of Diamonds; and the young married woman who had already tumbled down. Yet however terrestrial and lumpy their appearance just now to the ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... green after the haymaking. There was a fresh wandering air, which fluttered the ribbons in Molly's hat, as she danced on ahead, frisking in her short white skirt beside her uncle, her hand in his. Charles was the essence of wit to Molly, with his grave face that so seldom smiled, and the twinkle in the kind eyes, that always went before those wonderful, delightful jokes which he alone could make. Sometimes, as she laughed, she looked back at Ruth and Dare, half a field ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... remember well to be of that shark type: "In answer to your letter of the 28th of August, I beg to say that I do not see the necessity of giving you a Government wagon, because, through some carelessness in your business arrangements, you have lost one of your own." There is wit as well as rebuke in that communication. On the whole we repeat that, though he had a task of unusual difficulty, French laid the foundation of the Force, and gave the superstructure a trend that affected for good the after history of the famous corps. It was this man who was ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... The visible mission adds something to the apparition, to wit, the authority of the sender. Therefore the Son and the Holy Ghost who are from another, are said not only to appear, but also to be sent visibly. But the Father, who is not from another, can appear indeed, but ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... of the second objection. But it must be observed, when Avicebron argues thus, "There is a mover who is not moved, to wit, the first maker of all; therefore, on the other hand, there exists something moved which is purely passive," that this is to be conceded. But this latter is primary matter, which is a pure potentiality, just as God is pure act. Now ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... Gawaine, I will discover me unto your person. In Sir Launcelot and you I most had my joy and mine affiance, and now have I lost my joy of you both, wherefore all mine earthly joy is gone from me." "My uncle King Arthur," said Sir Gawaine, "wit you well that my death's day is come, and all is through mine own hastiness and wilfulness, for I am smitten upon the old wound that Sir Launcelot du Lake gave me, of the which I feel that I must die; and if Sir Launcelot had been with you as he was, this unhappy war had never begun, and of all ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... had so long suffered in this quest, Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ So many times among "The Band"—to wit, The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed 40 Their steps—that just to fail as they, seemed best, And all the doubt was now—should I ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... admiration, and unanimously lauded the unparalleled sagacity of the future ruler of Israel.—The Queen of Sheba's "hard questions" (already referred to, p. 218) were probably of a somewhat similar nature. Such "wit combats" seem to have been formerly common at the courts and palaces of Asiatic monarchs and nobles; and a curious, but rather tedious, example is furnished in the Thousand and One Nights, in the story of Abu al-Husn ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... gold, though, if necessary, he could squander it like a caliph. He had even a respect for very rich men; it was his only weakness, the only exception to his general scorn for his species. Wit, power, particular friendships, general popularity, public opinion, beauty, genius, virtue, all these are to be purchased; but it does not follow that you can buy a rich man: you may not be able or willing to spare enough. A person or a thing that you perhaps ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... roadster was considered an evidence of the terribly reckless extravagance of his habits, but it was really nothing more than a sort of pocketbook, since all his money went into it, and a very shabby one at that. He had a cheap wit and swaggeringly condescending air which he practiced on the simple inhabitants of Everdoze, and in his banter he was not always kind. Yet notwithstanding that he was tawdry both in dress and speech the villagers did not venture much into the conversational arena with him because they ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... meanwhile with fruitage of the vine, To-wit the mellow grape, scarce breathed to see The nut-brown maid, and gasped, 'Where is ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... a fine name once one has got hold of it." This does not prevent Phinuit from altering Theodora into Theosophy, and calling the person in question Theosophy! I could easily give other examples of Phinuit's wit. But on this point I must remark that the word "Theosophy" astonishes me in Phinuit's mouth, even when he is making a joking use of it. Evidently Mrs Piper knows the name and the thing well. But at the time when Dr Phinuit ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... novelty. The Circassian was undeniably most beautiful; but, without vanity, she was by no means to be compared to me; she had the advantage of novelty, and I hoped no more, for I felt what a dangerous rival she might prove if her wit and talents were equal to her personal charms. The sultan came, and I exerted myself to please, but, to my mortification, I was neglected; all his attentions and thoughts were only for my rival, who played her part to ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... elusive element in writing and the inability of instructors to impart it that make many journalists say news writing cannot be taught. Delicacy of expression is not effeminacy. It is originality; it is cleverness; it is nimbleness of wit and beauty of phrase; it is grace; it is simplicity; it is restraint; it is tact. It is all these, and more. It is that intuition in a star man which forbids his beginning the same kind of story day after day with a fixed, hackneyed type of sentence, which makes him avoid triteness of expression. ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... of call a nameless, cliff-sheltered sand beach which in his heart he christened from afar Port Adventure, Jim Kendric was richly content. With huge satisfaction he looked upon the sparkling sea, the little vessel which scooned across it, his traveling mate, the big negro and the half-wit Philippine cabin boy. If anything desirable lacked Kendric could not put the name ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... is not a brakeman in or out of work; wearing the black, soft hat tilted forward to shelter—as a counter does the contempt of a clerk—that expression which the face does not dare wear quite in the open, asserting the possession of supreme capacity in wit, strength, dexterity, and amours; the dirty handkerchief under the collar; the short black coat always double-breasted; the eyelids sooty; one cheek always bulged; the forehead speckled; the lips cracked; horrible teeth; and the affectation ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... enrichment." Quoth Khalifah, "I not Al-Rashid he in whose Palace I was imprisoned?" "Yes," answered she; and he said, "By Allah, never saw I more niggardly wight than he, that piper little of good and wit! He gave me an hundred blows with a stick yesterday and but one dinar, for all I taught him to fish and made him my partner; but he played me false." Replied she, "Leave this unseemly talk, and open thine ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... eye of Jennings and turned away with a shrug. He was apparently glad to get away. Jennings looked after him with a smile. "I'll catch the whole gang," he murmured, and took his departure, having learned what he wished to know—to wit, that ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... chance if it came was not ma way. It's no man's way who gets anywheres in this world, I've found. There are men who canna e'en do so much—to whom chances come they ha' neither the wit to see nor the energy to seize upon. Such men one can but pity; they are born wi' somethin' lacking in them that a man needs. But there is anither sort, that I do not pity—I despise. They are the men who are always waiting for a chance. ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... in status that we have described, and of the dreads and hesitations that go therewith. The American is marked, in fact, by precisely the habits of mind and act that one would look for in a man insatiably ambitious and yet incurably fearful, to wit, the habits, on the one hand, of unpleasant assertiveness, of somewhat boisterous braggardism, of incessant pushing, and, on the other hand, of conformity, caution and subservience. He is forever talking of his rights as if he stood ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... mad girl?" said brother Michael. "Has she not beauty, grace, wit, sense, discretion, dexterity, ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... form of expression, as well as a system of manners, different from that which is proper to mankind at large. In Elizabeth's reign, the court language was formed on the plan of one Lillie, a pedantic courtier, who wrote a book, entitled "Euphues and his England, or the Anatomy of Wit;"[3] which quality he makes to consist in the indulgence of every monstrous and overstrained conceit, that can be engendered by a strong memory and a heated brain, applied to the absurd purpose of hatching unnatural conceits.[4] It appears, that this fantastical person ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... Allan, that in thy dream or vision thou didst seem to appear before thyself seated on a throne and in that self to find thy judge. That is the Truth whereof I spoke, though how it found its way through the black and ignorant shell of one whose wit is so small, is more than I can guess, since I believed that it ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... This financier, a fashionable wit, great at charades, capping verses, and posies to Chlora, lived in society, was a hanger-on to the Duc de Nivernais, and fancied himself obliged to follow the nobility into exile; but he took care to carry his money with ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... "Ay!" replied the wit; "if we wants more we kin go back to the larder agin. It's a kind o' meat that eats ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... think they have been over-estimated in comparison with the rest of Schnitzler's production. "The Puppet Player," "The Gallant Cassian" and "The Greatest Show of All" (Zum grossen Wurstel) have charm and brightness and wit. But in regard to actual significance they cannot compare with plays like "The Lonely Way," ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... you, knowing I have but one object in submitting to association with you in any way, to wit, the recovery of the jewels of Madame de Montalais and their restoration to that lady, have not had sufficient wit to prevent my securing those jewels under ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... woman named Euphrosyne, a niece of the archbishop, married to one of the richest Greek merchants, and noted for wit and beauty. She was already the mother of two children, when Mouktar became enamoured of her, and ordered her to come to his palace. The unhappy Euphrosyne, at once guessing his object, summoned a family council to decide what should be done. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... voice and a lively manner, which stood him in good stead in proclaiming the merits of his wares. He could sing a ballad in taking style, and became so widely known for his songs and stories that he was often invited into gentlemen's houses to entertain company. His voice and his wit ended in making him a prince of the empire, a favorite of the czar, and in the end ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... of the Virtues Are Fittingly Set Down As Effects of Baptism, to Wit—Incorporation in Christ, Enlightenment, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... you would, Mr. Holmes. It's my first big chance, and I am at my wit's end. For goodness' sake come down ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... it, the more perplexed it is, and the more intricate, even so it befalls many unsober and presumptuous spirits, who, not being satisfied with the simple truth of God, clearly asserting that this is, endeavour to examine it according to reason, and to solve all the objections of carnal wit and reason, (which is often "enmity against God,") not by the silence of the Scriptures, but by answers framed according to the several capacities of men. I say, all this is but daring to behold the infinite glory of God with ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... warn the accused to utter no rash word which may be used against him; in France the first principle is to draw from him every rash word that he can be made to bring forth. This was the method employed with Jeanne. Her judges were all Churchmen and dialecticians of the subtlest wit and most dexterous faculties in France; they had all, or almost all, a strong prepossession against her. Though we cannot believe that men of such quality were suborned, there was, no doubt, enough of jealous and indignant feeling among them to ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... yeeres after that, to wit, the last yeere the saide Burgomasters of Hamburrough sent Sebastian Berghen their Secretarie and Agent with letters vnto the Queene of England, desiring that vnder the colour and title of Newtralitie, they might freely passe into Spaine ...
— A Declaration of the Causes, which mooved the chiefe Commanders of the Nauie of her most excellent Maiestie the Queene of England, in their voyage and expedition for Portingal, to take and arrest in t • Anonymous
... pomegranate shadows, moving slowly, groups of the fairest women that Italy ever saw—fairest, because purest and thoughtfullest; trained in all high knowledge, as in all courteous art—in dance, in song, in sweet wit, in lofty learning, in loftier courage, in loftiest love—able alike to cheer, to enchant, or save, the souls of men. Above all this scenery of perfect human life, rose dome and bell-tower, burning with white alabaster and gold; beyond dome and bell-tower the ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... grinning faces of the Privy Councillors was the face of Lord North. He sat fixed in rigidity, too well aware of all that depended upon the glittering slanders of Wedderburn to find any matter of mirth in them. Only one other man in all that assembly of genius and rank and fame and wit carried a countenance as composed as that of Lord North, and that was the face of the man whom Wedderburn was bespattering with his ready venom. Benjamin Franklin, dressed in a gala suit, unlike the sober habit that was familiar with him, ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... I suppose," said the yard-man grimly, pleased at his own generosity, well satisfied with his wit, and fairly so with ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... knife, fork, plate, and spoon should be changed as soon as he has done with it; the vegetables and sauces belonging to the different dishes presented without remark to the guests; and the footman should tread lightly in moving round, and, if possible, should bear in mind, if there is a wit or humorist of the party, whose good things keep the table in a roar, that they are not expected to reach ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... acquaintances must last longest, if they do last; and then, Sir, young men have more virtue than old men; they have more generous sentiments in every respect[1314]. I love the young dogs of this age: they have more wit and humour and knowledge of life than we had; but then the dogs are not so good scholars, Sir, in my early years I read very hard. It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at eighteen as I do now[1315]. My judgement, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... learning desirable for her, I'll see about giving it to her myself. After all, I am not sure that reading or writing is necessary. Many a good woman gets married with only a cross instead of her name; it's rather a diluting of mother-wit, to my fancy; but, however we must yield to the prejudices of society, Miss Eyre, and so you may teach ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... and lemon-colored hair, who apparently presided over the piano, went round with a tray. It was emptied several times, and I began to foresee that the temperance demonstration would fail miserably, as it might have done but for Johnston's ready wit and the opposite party's imprudence. Grinning derisively, Hemlock Jim led the waitress straight up to the orators' platform, and, with the revolver showing significantly as he bent forward, he held ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... men to give up dancing a dozen Germans. Besides their lavish extravagance, the most noteworthy thing about the people is their morbid self-consciousness; they are never at their ease; they are forever trying to impress one another with their own brilliant wit. It ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... However much Hooker's after-wit may have prompted him to deny it, his despatch of 4.10 P.M., to Sedgwick, shows conclusively that he himself had adopted this theory of a retreat. "We know that the enemy is flying," says he, "trying to ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... debt, by the great service which he has rendered in recovering much of the traditional poetry of Yorkshire and in giving it the permanence of the printed page. In compiling the so-called traditional poems at the end of this volume, I have largely drawn upon his Wit, Character, Folklore, and Customs of ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... be sure! The great-aunt of my cousin, John Mayrant (who is going to be married next Wednesday, to such a brute of a girl, poor boy!), lived here in 1840, and made an answer to the Earl of Mainridge that put him in his place. She was our famous Kings Port wit, and at the reception which her father (my mother's uncle) gave the English visitor, he conducted himself as so many Englishmen seem to think they can in this country. Miss Beaufain (pronounced in Kings Port, ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... who all of them had their officers fit and requisite for the guiding and managing of such a multitude. Likewise Martin Alorcon was appointed Vicar generall of the Inquisition, being accompanied with more then a hundreth Monkes, to wit, Iesuites, Capuchines, and friers mendicant. Besides whom also there were Phisitians, Chirurgians, Apothecaries, and whatsoever ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... in, the wit is out, captain," I remarked. "At first, I grant you, they said nothing to betray themselves; but when I tell you that some of our chief nobles act just as indiscreetly, you may more readily believe ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... special variety of human nature obtained in the Social Kingdom by a process analogous to that of the gardener's craft in the Vegetable Kingdom, to wit, by the forcing-house—a species of hybrid which can be raised neither from seed nor from slips. This product is known as the Cashier, an anthropomorphous growth, watered by religious doctrine, trained up in fear of the guillotine, ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... frugal than to heap together all manner of shining qualities in one glaring mass. Like a judicious painter, she endeavors to preserve a certain unity of style and coloring in her pieces. Models of absolute perfection are only to be met with in romance; where exquisite beauty, and brilliant wit, and profound judgment, and immaculate virtue, are all blended together to adorn some favorite character. As an anatomist knows that the racer cannot have the strength and muscles of the draught-horse; and that winged men, griffins, and mermaids ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the derrick frame, J, on the wagon frame, as shown, to wit by means of the circular plate, D, frame, F, and circular plate, G, with the wheel, E, and pinion, Y, to admit of the ready turning of ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... Hebrew name with sense doth sound, A fool's my brother,[11a] though in wit profound! Most wicked wits are the devil's chiefest tools, Which, ever in the issue, God befools. Can they compare, vile varlet, once hold true, Of the loyal lord, and this disloyal Jew? Was e'er our English earl under disgrace, And, unconscionable; put out ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... forth two by two into the open ground, it is seen that there is some quality and fashion common to all; to wit, that they are all youths—not any of them over twenty—and that they wear their hair cropped in front, showing a square line across the forehead, but left untouched on the crown and back of the head. There it falls in full profuseness, reaching to the hips, and in the case of some mingling ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... he was conveying our dinner to the picnic-grounds, and I was duly thankful that neither Fatima nor I was to be hampered ('tis a poor pun, and my father hath ever taught me 'tis the lowest form of wit) with clumsy packages dangling from ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... have wit enough to leave a watchman on the job!" he chafed—this by way of putting an apex to the pyramid of objurgation. "By heavens! this thing has got to stop, Benson. And it's going to stop, if we have to call out the State militia and picket every cursed mile ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... fun," she went on; "he hasn't the wit to retaliate, but just sits glum as you saw him to-night. I mean to tell Master Richard, though, that his manners were worse than usual, for he actually did not open his lips to his guest, although she was ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... married life which I mean to give you, will show you the wonderful wit and ingenuity of the sex. Here the parties had been much longer wedded. The poor woman had borne much. The husband thought he had a second Griselda. The case of his tyranny was pretty well known; indeed, the poor wife too often bore marks, that could not be concealed, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... third time, when he also died, to the son of the Empress Livia, afterwards the Emperor Tiberius,—she was throughout treated as a part of the State machinery, and as something more or less than a woman. But she turned out to be, in fact, a woman whose beauty, wit, and recklessness were alike extraordinary, and who rose in disastrous revolt against the system in which she was forced to be a pivot. Alike by birth and genius she easily took the first place in Roman society; and under the very ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... do not pretend to such sharp ears as you possess, nor to such sharp wit either. But who do you think can be en route ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... and no less thoroughly upon his delicate mind. He who drinks beer, thinks beer; and he who drinks wine, thinks wine;—and he who drinks midnight, thinks midnight. He was a man of rare intellect. He was endowed with racy humor and sarcastic wit, and a glorious imagination. But the fire of his genius burned not peacefully, and with a steady flame, upon the hearth of his home. It was a glaring and irregular flame;—for the branches that he fed it with, were not ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... thing, A lightning o'er the half-illumed, Who to base brute-dominion cleave, Yet mark effects, and shun the flash, Till their drowsed wits a beam conceive, To spy a wound without a gash, The magic in a turn of wrist, And how are wedded heart and head regaled When Wit o'er Folly blows the mort, And their high note of union spreads Wide from the timely word with conquest charged; Victorious laughter, of no loud report, If heard; derision as divinely veiled As terrible ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... one's self how harmoniously the holy cursing of the Puritan of that day would have chimed in with the unholy cursing and the crackling wit of the Rochesters and Sedleys, and with the revilings of the political fanatics, if my imaginary plain dealer had gone on to say that, if the return of such misfortunes were ever rendered impossible, it would not be in virtue ...
— On the Advisableness of Improving Natural Knowledge • Thomas H. Huxley
... and the daily papers were filled, according to their wont, with columns of sensational speculation and misinformation regarding the merits of the team and the work they were performing. Out of the mass of clashing "facts" contained in the daily journals but one thing was absolutely apparent: to wit, the work of the Harwell Eleven was known only to the men and the coaches, and neither would tell ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... from Wallace down to Balmerino and Kilmarnock, pitied by gentle hearts; before the awful window of Whitehall, whence the martyr Charles had issued, to kneel once more, and then ascend to Heaven;—before Playhouses, Parks, and Palaces, wondrous resorts of wit, pleasure, and splendour;—before Shakspeare's Resting-place under the tall spire which rises by Avon, amidst the sweet Warwickshire pastures;—before Derby, and Falkirk, and Culloden, where the cause of honour and loyalty had fallen, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the South Pass, and our course home would have been eastwardly; but that would have taken us over ground already examined, and therefore without the interest that would excite curiosity. Southwardly there were objects worthy to be explored, to wit: the approximation of the head-waters of three different rivers—the Platte, the Arkansas, and the Grand River fork of the Rio Colorado of the Gulf of California; the passages at the heads of these rivers; and the three ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... enough, when Judith Hutter and Hetty Hutter are in question. Hetty is only comely, while her sister, I tell thee, boy, is such another as is not to be found atween this and the sea: Judith is as full of wit, and talk, and cunning, as an old Indian orator, while poor Hetty is at the best but 'compass' ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... Brome's "City Wit" Mrs. Pyannet tells Toby Sneakup: "You have your kickshaws, your players' marchpanes—all ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... the proportion of the landlord tends thus steadily to increase as the productiveness of labour decreases, the division being as follows, to wit:— ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... five- and ten- and even fifty-dollar drafts from Eastern periodicals, and he had touched these with reverent hands: but two thousand dollars in a lump from one of the best-known publishers in the country staggered Amzi. To add to his mystification, half the amount plus one cent, to-wit, $1057.58, was immediately transferred to Thomas Kirkwood's account, and this left Amzi away up in the air. Just what right Tom Kirkwood had to participate in Nan's earnings Amzi did not know, nor did he see immediately any way of ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... it real well, and all the rest of the people and children I have let take one of the copies liked it so well I let them take more copies. I think it a very nice little paper, and wish you success. I send you the following extract, taken from "Wit and Wisdom," showing that the X-rays are not a recent ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 15, February 18, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... a grace upon her in these days that all saw. Over her real wit and native vivacity, it was like a porcelain shade about a flame. One could look at it, and be glad of it, without winking. The brightness was all there, but there was a difference in the giving forth. What had been a bit self-centred and self-conscious—bright as if only for being ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... pearl and ruby glowing Was the fair palace door, Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing, And sparkling evermore, A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty Was but to sing, In voices of surpassing beauty, The wit and wisdom of ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... Brannagan, was a short-bodied Irish lad, with red hair and a freckled face; but possessing a sturdy frame, as well as a ready wit. ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... escaped, and traveled through the woods, and swam the rivers, till I came to my own country. He thought the Dyak had no eyes except in the jungle; he thought he had no ears except to listen to the bird of omen; he thought he had no wit except to grow rice; but the Dyak saw, and heard, and understood, that while his words were sweet, his heart was crooked, and that, whether they were men of the sea or Dyaks, he deceived them with fair sayings; he said one thing to one man, and another to a second; he deceived ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... another system, aristocratical and central in its character, who said: "These wards, called townships in New England, are the vital principle of their governments, and have proved themselves the wisest invention ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-government and for ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... magnificent entry into the city, Sancho Panza was called upon to give judgment in certain teasing disputes, and this he did with such wit and such wholesome commonsense that he delighted all who heard him. Well-pleased with himself, he sat down in a grand hall to a solitary banquet, with a physician standing by his side. No sooner had Sancho tasted a dish than the physician ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... "Excluding those verbs which are become obsolete."—Priestley's Gram., p. 47. "He who sighs for pleasure, the voice of wisdom can never reach, nor the power of virtue touch."—Wright's Athens, p. 64. "The other branch of wit in the thought, is that only which is taken notice of by Addison."—Kames, El. of Crit., i, 312. "When any measure of the Chancellor was found fault with."—Professors' Reasons, p. 14. "Whether was formerly made use ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... general talents felt by his tutor and his companions. His most remarkable characteristic, however, was the exuberant spirits {p.xvi} which found vent in constant flashes of merriment brightened and pointed with wit and satire at once droll and tormenting. Even a lecture-room was not exempt from these irrepressible sallies; and our tutor, who was formal and wished to be grave, but had not the gift of gravity, never felt ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... perplexity expressed in Viola's face, she said, "O what a deal of scorn looks beautiful in the contempt and anger of his lip! Cesario, by the roses of the spring, by maidhood, honour, and by truth, I love you so, that, in spite of your pride, I have neither wit nor reason to conceal my passion." But in vain the lady wooed; Viola hastened from her presence, threatening never more to come to plead Orsino's love; and all the reply she made to Olivia's fond ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... Cornewall Lewis there—and came to town on Sunday. The Grange is a beautiful specimen of Grecian architecture, bought by Lord Ashburton of that extraordinary man Henry Drummond, a man so able and eccentric as to be treading on the very edge of the partition which divides wit ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... his bridle, stood viewing with all too obvious contempt the youthful frolics of the colts. Well he knew that life would cure them of all this foolish waste of spirit and of energy. Meantime on his part he was content to wait till his master—Dr. Martin, to wit—should give the order to move. His master meantime was busily engaged with clever sinewy fingers packing in the last parcels that represented the shopping activities of Cameron and his wife during the past two days. There was a whole living ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... sex or age or quality, and in his secret soul, while he lavished feigned caresses upon every one he saw, felt no esteem for any living being. He thirsted strangely for glory, and omitted no point of deed or word that might, he thought, procure him the reputation of a man of spirit or of wit. He was lean of person, somewhat slightly built, and on this account people called him Lorenzino. He never laughed, but had a sneering smile; and although he was rather distinguished by grace than beauty, his countenance being ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... died a clergyman in 1780, just on the eve of his intended marriage. My brother James has been in the army since the age of fifteen, and has married a woman of fortune, one of the old Duke family of Otterton in Devon. Edward, the wit of the family, went to Pembroke College, and is now a clergyman. George also went to Pembroke. He is in orders likewise, and now has the same School, a very flourishing one, which my Father had. He is a man of reflective mind ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... roundness of her slender figure was set off by the elegant carriage of her head. Her feet were small and pretty, her hands very white, with pink, well-rounded nails. But what formed the chief attraction of Hortense was the grace and suavity of her manners. She was gay, gentle, amiable. She had wit which, without the smallest ill-temper, had just malice enough to be amusing. A polished education had improved her natural talents. She drew excellently, sang harmoniously, and performed admirably in comedy. In 1800 she was a charming young girl. She afterwards ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... taxed him with it on the afternoon before her death, and a quarrel ensued, part of which was overheard. On the previous day, the prisoner had purchased strychnine at the village chemist's shop, wearing a disguise by means of which he hoped to throw the onus of the crime upon another man—to wit, Mrs. Inglethorp's husband, of whom he had been bitterly jealous. Luckily for Mr. Inglethorp, he had been able to produce ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... Greek word which means "to snarl," and a sardonic grin is merely a snarl. In it the teeth are shown with malicious intent, and not as they are in the benevolent appeal of true laughter. Mrs. Grote, the wife of the great historian (who was herself declared by a French wit to furnish the explanation of the word "grotesque"), wrote of "Owen's sugar-of-lead smile"—referring to the great naturalist, Richard Owen. There was no malice in the description, for he had, as some others have, ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... that Christ is ever present to assist His Church, and needeth not any man to supply His room, as His only heir to all His substance: and that there can be no one mortal creature, which is able to comprehend or conceive in his mind the universal Church, that is to wit, all the parts of the world, much less able rightly and duly to put them in order, and to govern them rightly and duly. For all the Apostles, as Cyprian saith, were of like power among themselves, and the rest were the same that Peter was, and that ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... this our feud, namely, the good knight, called for the present 'Le Noir Faineant', and the stout yeoman, Robert Locksley, called Cleave-the-Wand. Do you, Reginald Front de-Boeuf, and your allies and accomplices whomsoever, to wit, that whereas you have, without cause given or feud declared, wrongfully and by mastery seized upon the person of our lord and master the said Cedric; also upon the person of a noble and freeborn damsel, the Lady Rowena of Hargottstandstede; also upon the person of a noble and freeborn ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... this force the governor is authorized to appoint the following officers, who will be recognized and paid by the United States, to wit: One major-general, to command the whole of the State forces brought into service, who shall be the same person appointed by the President to command the United States Military Department of the West, and shall retain his commission ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... had considerable experience as a lawyer in the city courts, had served in the lower house of the legislature, and was preternaturally acute in detecting the interests of Tammany which he served. He was a man of much humor, with occasional flashes of wit, his own worst enemy, evidently, and his career was fitly ended when upon the fall of Tweed he left his country for his country's ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... never did a sense of vitality come so constantly from a man's pen, nor from man's voice, as from his! I knew him well for many years, and whether in sickness or in health, I have never come across him without finding him to be running over with wit and fun. Of all the men I have encountered, he was the surest fund of drollery. I have known many witty men, many who could say good things, many who would sometimes be ready to say them when wanted, though they would ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... consideration of the worst of these remarks, Mrs. Oliphant's explanation seems the true one; they are most of them sparkling bits of Mrs. Carlyle's conversation. She, happily for herself, had a lively wit, and, perhaps not so happily, a biting tongue, and was, as Carlyle tells us, accustomed to make him laugh, as they drove home together from London crushes, by far from genial observations on her fellow-creatures, little recking—how should ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... tell him all the story of the rose garden and of the sun-dial, and the beauty who had wit enough to scorn a man in public that she might more safely hold tryst with him alone. She had great wit and cunning for a beauty of sixteen. 'Twould be well for her lord to have keen eyes ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and are you then content, my Lord Man, that a contemptible boy should have better wit than your magnifical self? Truly, I think Hans was a man before thou hadst ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... is, it is very earnest and suggestive—and likely I hope to do good; and though I am rather scared at the thought of a fresh eye going over its 4,000 lines—discovering blemishes of all sorts which my one wit cannot avail to detect, fools treated as sages, obscure passages, slipshod verses, and much that worse is,—yet on the whole I am not much afraid of the issue, and I would give something to be allowed to read it some ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... human knowledge. The sentiment of Leibnitz seems to rest upon a more solid foundation. "It is necessary to come," says he, "to the grand question which M. Bayle has recently brought upon the carpet, to wit, whether a truth, and especially a truth of faith, can be subject to unanswerable objections. That excellent author seems boldly to maintain the affirmative of this question: he cites grave theologians on his side, and even those of Rome, who appear ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... resolve to get them back for the Anses, who bewail their absence. They journey to Monster-land, win back the lady, who ultimately is to become the hero's wife, and return her to her kindred; but her brother can only be rescued by his father Niord. It is by wit rather than by force that ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... Ensal's friend, why did he not make himself known to her on the train?" asked Earl of himself. But this query was soon dislodged from his mind by one of far more interest to him, to wit: "Is it not likely that I may utilize this young woman as a means of bringing to me a second glimpse of that girl that paid us a visit from ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... hall and out of the front door without waiting for the maid to open it. He had worn no overcoat, apparently. It was then seven o'clock; he would surely be late at his post in the up-town restaurant. I hoped he would have wit enough to take ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... in a jovial roar, as he helped himself to a pair of runners that rested on antlers against the wall. "You have a sly wit, Sigurd Jarlsson. You think, because I am round, I am wont to roll like a ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... cheeks. That her heart was beating like mad, that the intoxication of an intent he could not read had swept into her brain, that she was vastly more in the mood to weep than to smile . . . all of this lay hidden to him behind her woman's wit. For, having decided, there would be no ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... brute—a brute with a blundering tongue!" he cried miserably. "You had not thought of that—and I made you. I could have found another excuse for going if I had only had wit enough. I was a brute once before to-night, and—" He stopped, and for a moment stood there looking at her, stood in the firelight, his face white again even in the ruddy glow—and ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... Isidor G. Ingerman was a foeman worthy of even a novelist's skill in repartee. Thus far, he, Grant, had been merely uncivil, using a bludgeon for wit, whereas the visitor was making play ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... from the time when, as a young girl, she was living with her father in Philadelphia. A visitor at the house, a Frenchman, had succeeded by his wit, grace and persistent attention, in gaining her affections. He was said to be rich and had asked her of her father. Monsieur Stangerson, on making inquiries as to Monsieur Jean Roussel, found that the man was a swindler and an adventurer. ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... WIT. — Value 15s. to 30s.; or in brass-ware, a tawak which measures from the base of the boss to the outer edge a span between the first finger and the thumb. Also ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... staring might cause annoyance, he did most of it on the sly. And the opportunity was good. As a mystery, she proved an absorbing study: an irresistible blending of contradictions, of sympathy and reserve, of sadness—and of wit—of a character and temperament not half-divulged. Whenever their eyes met, he felt a mild commotion, a curious, unfamiliar excitement,—something that made him less at ease. For it invariably brought the keenest ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell
... hated to be warned about people, to be primed as it were with a dose of their superiority beforehand. It always prepared her to dislike the admirable individual when he appeared. It seemed as though it were taken for granted that she herself had not enough intelligence to discover wit in others, and needed to be told of it with great circumstance in order to be upon her good behavior. Consequently Josephine began by disliking John. She thought he was a Philistine; his hair was too straight, and besides, it was red; he shaved all his face, ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... trouble his head much about the why and the wherefore of this obligation. He reasoned it out thus: Germany had enemies—the French and the Russians, to wit—who might some day and for some unknown reason begin a war; therefore, of course, it behoved Germany to keep watch and ward, and for that soldiers were necessary. Furthermore, there was a certain consolation in the thought that this authoritative call ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... small rivers. In some places there are even some lofty ones of extraordinary height, but not many. Its fertility falls behind no province in Europe in excellence of fruits and seeds. There are three principal rivers, to wit: the Fresh, the Mauritius and the South River,(1) all three reasonably wide and deep, adapted for the navigation of large ships twenty-five leagues up and of common barks even to the falls. From the River Mauritius ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... and those accompanying, to wit, Mr. Newton's and I.N. Morris'. I may write to Mr. Newton but it will be different from what he expects. I am not a candidate for any office. All I want is to be left alone to fight this war out; fight all rebel opposition and restore ...
— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant
... unlimbered, and stationed with their infantry escort on rising ground at the far end of the field. Scattered groups of villagers, appearing on walls and house-tops and on the hill to the left, squatted on their heels, watching the mild tamasha with evident interest, and exchanging broad sallies of wit with the sepoys by way of adding ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... then open her valise and go through it, swiftly. She found nothing, and turned to the wash-stand drawer. The latter was empty, and was instantly closed again, the girl staring about the room, as though at her wit's end. Suddenly she disappeared along the edge of the bed, beyond the radius of the crack in the door. What was it she was doing? Searching the bed, no doubt; seeking something hidden beneath the ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... was granted to his father-in-law, Khnumhotpu I. Expeditions against the Uauaiu, the Mazaiu, and the nomads of Libya and Arabia delivered the fellahin from their ruinous raids and ensured to the Egyptians safety from foreign attack. Amenemhait had, moreover, the wit to recognize that Thebes was not the most suitable place of residence for the lord of all Egypt; it lay too far to the south, was thinly populated, ill-built, without monuments, without prestige, and ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... left them about the kitchen, and his indignant mother had used them to light the fire. The burning of his library was an enduring tragedy. He realized that it must be reconstituted; but how? His nimble wit hit on a plan. Vagrant as an unowned dog, he could roam the streets at pleasure. Why should he not sell newspapers-in a quarter of the town, be it understood, remote from both factory and Budge Street? He sold newspapers for three weeks before he ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... All my other vows I broke one by one. For a faggot must be broken every stick singly. But the strict vow I kept, for I entered Rome on foot that year in time, and I heard high Mass on the Feast of the Apostles, as many can testify—to wit: Monsignor this, and Chamberlain the other, and the Bishop of so-and-so—o—polis in partibus infidelium; for we were ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... gray Lewis over sea Bore his sires their family tree, On the rugged boughs of it Grafting Irish mirth and wit, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... born in 1627, and for forty years lived with his father, profiting by his lessons and his consideration. He was of the most agreeable manners, handsome, well made, full of humour, wit, and ability; in society the pleasantest person in the world, and yet well instructed; indeed, of rare erudition, generous, obliging, dignified, incapable of meanness, he was with so much talent and so many great ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... were left alone, the farmer said, "Well, mother, Sue HAS got a suitor, and if he don't suit her—" And then his wit gave out. ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... for these without having either the courage or the hypocrisy to applaud them, Forcheville, on the other hand, was on an intellectual level which permitted him to be stupified, amazed by the invective (without in the least understanding what it all was about), and to be frankly delighted by the wit. And the very first dinner at the Verdurins' at which Forcheville was present threw a glaring light upon all the differences between them, made his qualities start into prominence and precipitated ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... changes in this electronic edition, from the original, are in spelling (some words are spelled both ways in the original). To wit: ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... prone to verbosity. His profound moral sense made him sparing of words in the disputes in which the men of the day are prone to engage on any and every subject, but in polite conversation he displayed an eloquence full of wit and intelligence, emanating always from good sense and a temperate and just appreciation of worldly matters. He had no toleration for those sophistries, and mystifications, and quibbles of the ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... hint of beauty in the dark eyes and the down-dropped curve of the mobile lip in the portrait, and one need not quote "In Memoriam" to prove how utterly the charm of Hallam subjugated the Tennyson circle. Wit, swiftness of insight, beauty, lovableness— all seem to have been there; and it remains that Arthur Hallam was worshipped and adored by his contemporaries with a fierce jealousy of devotion. Nothing but the presence of an overmastering ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... its shapes, is a phaenomenon with which M. Comte seems to have been totally unacquainted. There is nothing in his writings from which it could be inferred that he knew of the existence of such things as wit and humour. The only writer distinguished for either, of whom he shows any admiration, is Moliere, and him he admires not for his wit but for his wisdom. We notice this without intending any reflection on M. Comte; for a profound conviction raises a person above the ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... Jonson told Drummond that "S. J. Davies played in ane Epigrame on Draton's, who in a sonnet concluded his mistress might been the Ninth [sic] Worthy; and said he used a phrase like Dametas in Arcadia, who said, For wit his Mistresse might be a Gyant."—Notes of Ben Jonson's Conversations with Drummond, p. 15. ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... in ripples of merriment that grew presently into genuine waves of laughter. He spoke out his regret for having worn black clothes. It was a mistake, he said, to consider this a solemn time—Aldrich would not have wished it to be so considered. He had been a man who loved humor and brightness and wit, and had helped to make life merry and delightful. Certainly, if he could know, he would not wish this dedication of his own home to be a lugubrious, smileless occasion. Outside, when the services were ended, the venerable juvenile writer, J. T. Trowbridge, came up to Clemens with extended ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... import, and export duties on American vessels at the ports of Canton, Shanghai, and Fuchau, and it was "agreed that this amount shall be in full liquidation of all claims of American citizens at the various ports to this date." Debentures for this amount, to wit, 300,000 taels for Canton, 100,000 for Shanghai, and 100,000 for Fuchau, were delivered, according to the terms of the convention, by the respective Chinese collectors of the customs of these ports to the agent selected by our minister to receive the same. Since that time the claims ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... being under undeserved calamity: but as the inclination she had for him was perfectly innocent, and no ways prejudicial to the prince who was in possession of her person, she made no secret of it either to himself or those she conversed with, and was always talking of the wit, delicacy, and handsomeness of one of those prisoners, whom it was well known were pensioners to her bounty. But how dangerous is it to be too open before persons who, void of all true generosity, or the lead principle of ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... in card play, or such like, but forasmuch as this game or kingly pastime is not only devoid of craft, fraud, and guile, swearing, staring, impatience, fretting and falling out, but also breedeth in the players a certaine studie, wit, pollicie, forecaste, and memorie not only in the play thereof, but also in action of publick government, both in peace and warre, wherein both Counsellors at home and Captaines abroade may picke ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... plumage and their prattle. From Paris to Ile-Adam, to Villers-Cotterets, to Fretoy, to Planchette, to Soissons, to Rheims, to Grisolles, to Sillery, to Braine, to Balincourt, to Vaudreuil, the Comte and Comtesse de Genlis thus bear about their leisure, their wit, their gaiety, at the domiciles of friends whom, in their turn, they entertain at Genlis. A glance at the exteriors of these mansions suffices to show that it was the chief duty in these days to be hospitable, as it was a prime necessity to be in society.[2181] Their luxury, indeed, differs from ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... 'oculus'; 'occisissimus' of 'occisus'; as in the 'dosones', 'dabones', which in Greek and in medieval Latin were names given to those who were ever promising, ever saying "I will give" but never performing their promise. Plautus with his exuberant wit, and exulting in his mastery and command of the Latin language, will compose four or five lines consisting entirely of comic combinations thrown off for the occasion{102}. Of the same character is Butler's 'cynarctomachy', or battle of a dog and bear. Nor do I suppose that ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... fine pelts of the huge northern beasts, which would long adorn the lodges of the Sioux, and Will again received approval for his quick and timely attack with fire. Xingudan knew in his heart that the village might have been overpowered and devoured had it not been for the wit and courage of Waditaka. But he merely said "Waditaka has done well." Will, however, knew that the four words meant much and that the liberty of the village was his. He was a sharer of all things save one—that, however, being much—namely, the knowledge ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... at wit," I reflectively confided to my wine-glass, "while doubtless amiably intended, are, to his well-wishers, painful. I daresay, though, he doesn't know it. We must, then, smile indulgently upon the elephantine gambols of what he is pleased to ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... Margery D. was a trim little ship, The men they could man, and the skipper could skip; She sailed from her haven one fine summer day, And she foundered at sea in the following way,— To-wit: ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... Eva's window open, and longs to make himself heard, steps up to the shoemaker's window. In answer to his testy questions why he is at his bench at such an hour, Hans Sachs good-humouredly replies that he must work late to finish the shoes about which he has been twitted in public. At his wit's end to silence the shoemaker and sing his serenade, Beckmesser artfully pretends that he would like to have Sachs's opinion of the song he intends to sing on the morrow, and proposes to let him hear it then. After a little demur the shoemaker consents, ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... thought and expression, considerable fancy and knowledge: but whether or not it would take with the public seems doubtful. For a jeu d'esprit of that kind it is too long; it would have suited better as an essay or article than as a volume. The Author has no great tact; his wit is frequently heavy; and reminds one of the German Baron who took to leaping on tables and answered that he was learning to be lively. ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... a brilliant dinner—because Billy made it so. At first William met her sallies of wit with mild surprise; but it was not long before he rose gallantly to the occasion, and gave back full measure of retort. Even Pete twice had to turn his back to hide a smile, and once his hand shook so that the tea he was carrying almost spilled. This threatened ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... choking and by stark terror, Lady had not the wit to realize what Lad was attempting. All she knew was that he had seized her roughly by the neck, and had leaped in air with her; and had then brought her bangingly down upon the torturing hot boards. And her panic was augmented ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... expressions of God and of the goodness of God; but they follow the usual method of divine revelation, to wit, mystery and allegory. The myths state clearly the one tremendous fact that the Gods are; that is what Julian cared about and the Christians denied: what they are the myths reveal only to those who have understanding. 'The world itself is a great ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... enjoy reading it. Very well: you sit there and write this literature, or whatever it is, and keep your mind fixed on that. I will see to everything else for you. I will provide you with writing materials, and books of wit and humour, and paste and scissors, and everything else that may be necessary to you in your trade; and I will feed you and clothe you and lodge you, and I will take you about to places that you wish to go to; and I will see that you have plenty of tobacco ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... justices, sheriffs, mayors, and other ministers, which, under us, have the laws of our land [32] to guide, shall allow the said charters pleaded before them in judgment, in all their points, that is, to wit, the Great Charter as the Common Law, and the Charter of the Forest for the ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... the eagerness of contest to its importance seems too hard a task for human wisdom. The pride of wit has kept ages busy in the discussion of useless questions, and the pride of power has destroyed armies, to gain or to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... biting jest!" said Prince John. "How like you it, sirs?—Our Saxon subjects rise in spirit and courage; become shrewd in wit, and bold in bearing, in these unsettled times—What say ye, my lords?—By this good light, I hold it best to take our galleys, and ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... Mr. Prohack had the wit to drink also. They went on talking.... A silver tongue vibrated from the hall with solemn British deliberation—One! Two! The air throbbed to the sound for ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... truly at "wit's end corner." I went alone, and did not take time even to kneel down, but just lifted up my heart to my Father to stop the rain and open a way for the children to get to the station. I felt a sudden, strong confidence that the Lord would help, ...
— How I Know God Answers Prayer - The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time • Rosalind Goforth
... scorn; they were buried in jests and buffooneries. As the Renascence expanded into the rationalism of recent centuries, nothing seemed so ridiculous as to butcher and bleed in a distant desert not only for a tomb, but an empty tomb. The last legend of them withered under the wit of Cervantes, though he himself had fought in the last Crusade at Lepanto. They were kicked about like dead donkeys by the cool vivacity of Voltaire; who went off, very symbolically, to dance attendance on the new drill-sergeant of the Prussians. They were dissected ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... powers.... As yet, his naturally kind and simple character had not been exposed to any of the dangerous flatteries of the world; his heart was pure; his enthusiasm buoyant as that of a happy child; and well as Scott knew that reflection, sagacity, wit and wisdom, were scattered abundantly among the humblest rangers of these pastoral solitudes, there was here a depth and a brightness that filled him with wonder, combined with a quaintness of humour, and a thousand little touches of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... that faith is dead withouten workis, So for to worken give me wit and grace! That I be quit from thence that most dark is; O thou that art so fair and full of grace, Be thou mine advocate in that high place, There, as withouten end is sung Hozanne, Thou Christes mother, daughter ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... servants of the king there were a hundred and forty-four thousand,—tried men and brave, brawny of arm and quick of wit; aye, too, and women of wisdom and women marvelous in beauty and grace. And yet on this drear day when the King called, their ears were thick with the dust of the enemy, their eyes were blinded with the flashing of his spears, and they ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... art of being agreeble is to appear well pleased with all the company, and rather to seem well entertained with them than to bring entertainment to them. A man thus disposed, perhaps may not have much learning, nor any wit; but if he has common sense and something friendly in his behaviour, it conciliates men's minds more than the brightest parts without this disposition; and when a man of such a turn comes up to old age, he is almost sure to ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... when carefully inspected, there appear some flashes of wit and ingenuity; but these totally suffocated and buried by the harshest and most uncouth expression that is any where to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... a man with his, in some respects, sharp intellect and native wit, should be so weak as to imagine the trash he jumbled together was poetry, and thus leave himself open to be laughed at by even his own cronies. But it is said we all have a ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... no good. My sister gave the young lady an attested certificate, stating that she passed the whole time with her, the two together, that the door to their room was locked, and that they were undisturbed during the night.—Nothing like a 'woman's wit!'" ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... candidates for President. When the war came, he declared himself unreservedly on the side of the Government, and rendered valuable service to the Union party. He was especially effective on the stump. His sharp wit, his rich fund of anecdotes, his sparkling humor, his singular felicity and aptness of biblical illustration, which had earned for him the popular name of "Scripture Dick," served to give him wonderful command over an audience, and ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... by the general verdict that Clowes, on the left wing, had played well. With a beautiful unanimity the six occupants of the first fifteen room came to the conclusion that the man who had let the team down that day had been the man on the right—Rand-Brown, to wit, of Seymour's. ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... always a little intolerant at home, and generally appeared there at his worst—caustic, silent, and unsympathetic. It seemed to him that the simple country life was unbearably insipid; he found there neither wit nor affairs: to see day after day the same faces, to listen to the same talk either on country subjects that were distasteful to him, or, out of compliment to himself, political subjects that were unfamiliar to the conversationalists, was a very hard burden, and he counted ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... himself thus myteriously, he shut himself up in obstinate silence until Helen Rolleston called again, two days afterward. She brought a bag full of manuscript this time—to wit, copies in her own handwriting of eight reports, the Queen v. Penfold. She was in good spirits, and told Mrs. Undercliff that all the reports were somewhat more favorable than the two she had left; and she was beginning to tell Mr. Undercliff he was quite right in his recollection, ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... cried Guy, with a laugh, "if it be true that 'brevity is the soul of wit,' you must be the wittiest fellow on ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... dexterity, and dealing a harmless thrust to every one. All were forced to laugh; the happy faces animated and inspired every thing. The brilliant satirical verses rushed like rockets from the lips of the reader—a real illumination of wit and humor, of good-natured jokes and biting sarcasm, and it delighted the old man that every one had received hits and thrusts but himself; he had been spared until now! Every one regarded him, smiling and amused, as the ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... historians, and all the best French, English, or Italian writers. His apprehension was quick, his imagination fine, and his memory remarkably strong; though his greatest commendations were a very genteel address, a ready wit and an excellent elocution, which shewed him to advantage wherever he went. There was, notwithstanding, one principal defect in his disposition, and this was an infinite vanity, which gave him so insufferable a presumption, as led him to think that ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... physical phenomena upon which mankind depends for subsistence. Naturally, therefore, the life and health of such a god-man are matters of anxious concern to the people whose welfare and even existence are bound up with his; naturally he is constrained by them to conform to such rules as the wit of early man has devised for averting the ills to which flesh is heir, including the last ill, death. These rules, as an examination of them has shown, are nothing but the maxims with which, on the primitive view, every man of common prudence must comply if he would live ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... their rods less dry (for there was but a very little, to wit, their tops dry), but they had clefts, and these were set in like manner by themselves. In the rods of others there was but a little green, and the rest dry; and these were ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... Jews, and their enmity to the Greeks. The Mosaic law had severely proscribed all representations of the Deity; and that precept was firmly established in the principles and practice of the chosen people. The wit of the Christian apologists was pointed against the foolish idolaters, who bowed before the workmanship of their own hands; the images of brass and marble, which, had they been endowed with sense and motion, should ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... well as you, am a little anxious. It is to apprize you, and to warn him, when he travels, to avoid the gins and man-traps fixed all over this country; traps, which a thorough knowledge of Latin and Greek, combined even with father and mother's wit, will not be sufficient to preserve him from, unless he is first shewn the manner in which they are set. These traps are not made to catch the legs, but to ruin the fortunes and break the hearts of those who unfortunately step into them. Their baits are artful, designing, ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... of the Council in 1862 subscribed L200 for the purchase of a "Mayor's Chain," the first to wear "the glittering gaud," strange to say, being a Quaker, Charles Sturge to wit. To this chain a valuable addition has since been made in the shape of a stone, worth L150, presented to the Town Council by Mr. W. Spencer, June 27, 1873, as being the first diamond cut in Birmingham, ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... friends of the bride and bridegroom." The "elegant simplicity" consisted of gifts, the value of which was estimated at fully a million dollars, and a costly ceremony. If the bride had beauty, and the bridegroom wit, no mention of them was made; the one fact conspicuously emphasized was the all-important one of the bride having a fortune "in her ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... your garments to Mr. Cohen. From your visage, I judge you to be a person I wish to know. I take you to be endowed with probity, discretion, and valor, and not without wit, good taste, and good manners. Mesrour, relieve the gentleman ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... of Claverhouse, and a small full-length of Rob Roy. Various little antique cabinets stand about the room; and in one corner is a collection of really useful weapons—those of the forest craft, to wit—axes and bills, &c. Over the fire-place, too, are some Highland claymores clustered round a target. There is only one window, pierced in a very thick wall, so that the place is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 571 - Volume 20, No. 571—Supplementary Number • Various
... he said, shortly. Brevity is the soul of medical wit; he was a very eminent man, ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... the interests of my father; and if you could intercede for us, please do so," he added in a piteous tone; "and ask the Grand Master for an order to pay certain sums that are due to my father, for he is at his wit's end ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... to learn that he is not a florid orator nor a smart debater,—he is a "weighty speaker." He is fairly read, but without any great range either of ornamental scholarship or constitutional lore. He has not much humour; but he has that kind of wit which is essential to grave and serious irony. He has not much imagination, nor remarkable subtlety in reasoning; but if he does not dazzle he does not bore,—he is too much of the man of the world for that. ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the territories in the counties of Fairfax and Alexandria, together with all the improvements and appurtenances thereunto belonging, as is contained in the following boundaries, to-wit: Beginning at the corner of Alexandria and Fairfax counties, on J. C. DePutron's farm; thence to the corner of J. C. Nicholson and W. S. Patton, in Mistress Ellen Gordon's line; thence to the corner of Sewell and L. S. Abbott on the new ...
— A Virginia Village • Charles A. Stewart
... of the fooling of Thoas is full of wit and double meanings. The end of it is rather like the famous scene in Forget- me-not, where the Corsican avenger is induced to turn his back in order to let a lady pass out of the room without being seen and compromised, the lady in question being really the ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides
... over this sally of the outspoken Mrs. Sargent, whose keen wit was the delight of ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... forehead seemed the continuation of a slight line which thought had already furrowed between the eyebrows, and made the expression of untameability perhaps a shade too strong. The voice of this charming child, whom her father, delighting in her wit, was wont to call his "little proverb of Solomon," had acquired a precious flexibility of organ through the practice of three languages. This advantage was still further enhanced by a natural bell-like tone both sweet and ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... to wit that I will that ye be all law worthy that were in King Edward's day, and I will that every child be his father's heir after his father's day: and I will not endure that any man offer ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... de French heels an' de one wit' de sissy eyebrow on 'is lip, would youse? Dey's a coupla heroes wat's been to France; dey ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... If he had no brain, no wit, no culture, on an animal basis, a woman would look twice before she'd send him away; but with such fanatics as Pryors, one can't always tell what ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... attended by pages in cloth of silver, Venetian hose, laced hats, and by gentlemen, yeomen, and trumpeters, in yellow velvet cassocks, buskins, and feathers—as one of "the four fostered children of virtuous desire" (to wit, Anjou) storming "the castle of perfect Beauty" (to wit, Queen Elizabeth, aetatis 47) rises out of the cloud-dusts of ancient chronicle for a moment, and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... loveliness of her, her grace and gentleness, her ingenuous sensitiveness, her wit: they combined to make the thought of her, to him, at least, at once terrible and a delight. Remembering that once he had held her in his arms, had gazed into her starlit eyes, and inhaled the impalpable fragrance of her, he trembled, ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... monk lay on his back in the bed, wit his head propped rather highly on a hard straw bolster; and the extreme attenuation of his body was indicated by the very slight degree in which the clothes that covered him were raised above the love of the bedstead. On the coverlet upon his chest, there was a rosary ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... only by language. Delicate allusions to sexual matters and somewhat lascivious conversation excite eroticism as much as looks and touch. According to the education of the persons concerned, this talk may be coarse and vulgar, or on the contrary refined and full of wit, managed with more or less skill, or clumsily. Here the natural finesse of woman plays a considerable part. Men wanting in tact are clumsy and offensive in their attempts at flirtation, and thus extinguish instead of exciting the woman's ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... Scouts did that morning. After all, the damage to their belongings did not turn out to be very serious, thanks to their ready wit in cutting down the tents; and before nightfall they were almost as comfortably fixed as before ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... teaching flows a corollary of great practical importance, to wit: The grace of final perseverance cannot be merited by good works, but it can be obtained ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... by Elder Duke Young, father of Judge William Young. Duke Young was one of the pioneer preachers of Western Missouri. When in his manhood's prime he was abundant in labors, and though he was without any scholastic attainments he had a keen mother wit, good sense, and good natural gifts as a public speaker; and, working in poverty, exposure, hardship, misrepresentation, and implacable opposition, he was one of the men that laid the foundations of the cause in Western Missouri. Becoming ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
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