"Gibe" Quotes from Famous Books
... The gibe, with all the hurtful, stinging quality that only truth possesses, struck his anger from him, leaving him limp and ... — The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... niggers wus raised right an' de young niggers ain't. Iffen I had my say-so dey'd burn down de nigger schools, gibe dem pickanninies a good spankin' an' put 'em in de patch ter wuck, ain't no nigger got no business wid no ... — Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... said the governor smartly; 'you haven't it well, Mr. Fawdor; it goes this way,' and he went on to set me right. His nephew at that stepped in, and, with a little disdainful laugh at me, made some galling gibe at my 'distinguished learning.' I might have known better than to let it pique me, but I spoke up again, though respectfully enough, that I was not wrong. It appeared to me all at once as if some principle ... — The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to brook the fellow's saucy gibe, "That if the peasant must have bread to eat, Why, let him go and draw the plough himself!" It cut me to the very soul to see My oxen, noble creatures, when the knave Unyoked them from the plough. As though they ... — Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... when all the rest Crushed his spirit with gibe and jest, Whispered softly, "Whatever they say, I know you will build the wheel some day!" Chirping crickets and singing birds Were not so sweet as her heartsome words; Straight he answered, "If ever I do, I know it will only ... — St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... not worth answering: indeed, I knew it was not meant for an answer; it was a palpable gibe. I held my tongue, but now I knew I should get no information out of this soft-voiced ruffian until it suited him to give it. Our fate was still a mystery—if we were beaten in the struggle that was imminent, ... — Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... who, vain and proud, May ape the manners of the crowd, Lisp French, and lame it at each word, And jest and gibe to all afford:— But we, as in long ages past, Will still be poets to ... — Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... that hoose," Brodie burst out, ignoring the baker's gibe. "Dod, there's a chance, sirs. I wonder it never occurred to ... — The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... canvass for the consulship in that very year. Metellus was a good patron; that is, he was a bad friend. The aristocratic bristles rose on the skin that had seemed so smooth. At first he expressed mild wonder at Marius's resolution—the wonder that is more contemptuous than a gibe—and exhorted him in words, the professedly friendly tone of which must have been peculiarly irritating, not to let a distorted ambition get the better of him; every one should see that his desires were appropriate and limit them when they passed this stage; ... — A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... him the honourable position of Warden of the Cinque Ports, with a stipend of L3,000 a year, intimating at the same time that he would not hear of his declining it (6th August).[55] It is a proof of the spotless purity of Pitt's reputation that not a single libel or gibe appeared in the Press on his acceptance of this almost ... — William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... contumely, affront, dishonor, insult, indignity, outrage, discourtesy &c 895; practical joking; scurrility, scoffing, sibilance, hissing, sibilation; irrision^; derision; mockery; irony &c (ridicule) 856; sarcasm. hiss, hoot, boo, gibe, flout, jeer, scoff, gleek^, taunt, sneer, quip, fling, wipe, slap in the face. V. hold in disrespect &c (despise) 930; misprize, disregard, slight, trifle with, set at naught, pass by, push aside, overlook, turn one's back upon, laugh ... — Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... sots may swill, Cynics gibe, and prophets rail, Moralists may scourge and drill, Preachers prose, and fainthearts quail. Let them whine, or threat, or wail! Till the touch of Circumstance Down to darkness sink the scale, Fate's a ... — Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... you jeer and gibe if you saw a man sinking in the waves time after time in spite o' rafts and life-preservers thrown out to him from ... — Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... taken Captain Strawn's none-too-gentle parting gibe with good grace, it was a very thoughtful young detective who set about locking himself into the house in which Nita Selim had ... — Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... of quoting a foolish gibe: "Be good, and you may be happy; but you will not have a good time." The wise, however, soon become aware that if, in the course of life's journey, you achieve goodness and happiness, you will almost certainly have a good ... — Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... "Dinna gibe at yon puir mortal," he rebuked. "Ye canna keep fools frae wanderin'. I've seen manny's the man like him. It's likely that once he's had a fair taste o' the North he'll be less a saint an' more ... — Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... presently, they make their appearance on the deck of the world with their book; if truth has been victorious, then has truth the hurrah! but if truth is pinioned against the mast, then is their fist thrust against the nose of truth, and their gibe and their insult spirted in her face. The strongest party had the sailor, and the strongest party has almost invariably the writer of ... — The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... Vanir applauded Thor as he stepped out of old AEgir's hall. But Loki, mischievous Loki, threw a gibe after him. "Do not let the hammer out of your hands this time, bride of ... — The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... another and laughed, while pretty Melantho began to gibe at him contemptuously. She was daughter to Dolius, but had been brought up by Penelope, who used to give her toys to play with, and looked after her when she was a child; but in spite of all this she showed no consideration for the sorrows of her ... — The Odyssey • Homer
... tea at the Rectory, or with his master, or even with the curates. One of the curates was musical, and Mat had an angelic voice. One could imagine the danger to the precocious, clever boy, and how perhaps, on his return, he would gibe a little in his impertinent boyish fashion at thickheaded, clumsy Tom among his cornbins ... — Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... archbishop; "let not the gibe and jest go round; there be matters of graver import that should occupy us this night. To-morrow, let the elements be propitious, and ... — Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... propose to limit it to the land or to any particular continent. Now, did our believers in the Balance of Power ever wish to see power balanced anywhere else than on the continent of Europe? That, if we studied history in any other language than our own, we should know was the gibe which other peoples flung at our addiction to the Balance of Power. We wanted, they said, to see a Balance of Power on the continent of Europe, to see one half of Europe equally matched against the other, because the more anxiously Continental States ... — Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... a new-made Mayor's unwieldy State; Where change of Fav'rites made no Change of Laws, And Senates heard before they judg'd a Cause; How wouldst thou shake at Britain's modish Tribe, Dart the quick Taunt, and edge the piercing Gibe? Attentive Truth and Nature to descry, And pierce each Scene with Philosophic Eye. To thee were solemn Toys or empty Shew, The Robes of Pleasure and the Veils of Woe: All aid the Farce, and all thy Mirth maintain, Whose Joys are causeless, ... — The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... often. Ye know they're traitors to the land that raised them, nourished them. They've taken life as a loan, and treated it as a gift they had the richt to throw awa' when they were done wi' the use of it. And it is no sae! The life God gives us he gibe's us to hand on to ithers—to our children, and through them to generations still to come. Oh, aye, I've heard folk like those I'm thinkin' of shout loudly o' their patriotism. But they're traitors to their country—they're ... — Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... sensations but what we feel, no mental powers but what we possess, the inference would be precarious enough. The Anthropomorphist in the strict sense—the man who thinks that God or the gods must have human bodies—no doubt renders himself liable to the gibe that, if oxen could think, they would imagine the gods to be like oxen, and so on. But the cases are not parallel. We have no difficulty in thinking that in other worlds there may be colours which we have never seen, or whole groups of sensation different from our own: we ... — Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall
... met the gibe unfaltering. "I know it's a chance that doesn't come every day, and I know you mean well by him. I shan't put any hindrance ... — Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... square of St. Mark began to lose a portion of its gaiety. The cafes were now occupied by parties who had the means, and were in the humor, to put their indulgences to more substantial proof than the passing gibe or idle laugh; while those who were reluctantly compelled to turn their thoughts from the levities of the moment to the cares of the morrow, were departing in crowds to humble roofs and hard pillows. There remained one of the ... — The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... incidentally, in a moderate way, for the nominal beneficiaries; and, in the case before us, the brethren being so comfortably provided for, the Master is likely to be at least as comfortable as all the twelve together. Yet I ought not, even in a distant land, to fling an idle gibe against a gentleman of whom I really know nothing, except that the people under his charge bear all possible tokens of being tended and cared for as sedulously as if each of them sat by a warm fireside of his own, ... — Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... know we have taught him, therefore," he added slyly, "let your young men watch him so that they may learn how to fish in deep and rough water, such as ours." These remarks were of course duly made public, and caused much indignation, neither the minister nor his flock liking the gibe about the deep, rough water; also the insinuation that anything about fishing was to be learnt from the new white man ... — By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... not to lose a word. I knew my Raffles so well that I felt almost capable of reporting his speech before I heard it. Never was I more mistaken, even in him! So far from a gibe for a gibe and a taunt for a taunt, there never was softer answer than that which A. J. Raffles returned to Nipper Nasmyth before the staring eyes and startled ears of all assembled. He courteously but firmly ... — A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... reasonably occupied, lent herself to Lingen's murmured conversation, and felt for it just so much tolerance, so much compassion, you may say, as to be able to brave Mabel's quizzing looks from across the room. Mabel always had a gibe for Francis Lingen. She called him the Ewe Lamb, and that kind of thing. It was plain that she scorned him. Lucy, on the other hand, pitied him without knowing it, which was even more desperate for the young man. It had never entered Lingen's head, however, that anybody could pity him. True, ... — Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... home, the sick, tall, yellow Duchess Was left with the infant in her clutches, 90 She being the daughter of God knows who: And now was the time to revisit her tribe. Abroad and afar they went, the two, And let our people rail and gibe At the empty hall and extinguished fire, 95 As loud as we liked, but ever in vain, Till after long years we had our desire, And back came the Duke and ... — Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... I was scared, friends! Call me fool and coward, but nothing worse! Jeer at the fool and gibe at the coward! 'Twas ever the coward's curse That fear breeds fancies in such: such take their shadow for substance still, —A fiend at their back. I liked poor Parkes,—loved Vincent, if ... — Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... was convinced that that beloved person was a lover, and she found herself unable to say a word to explain to him that this other person, the person she loved, did not even know of her love—Ramage grew angry and savage once more, and returned suddenly to gibe and insult. Men do services for the love of women, and the woman who takes must pay. Such was the simple code that displayed itself in all his thoughts. He left that arid rule clear of the least mist ... — Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... and a decadent, though as distinctively from Melbourne, it was possible to note the breaking up of this sentiment. It was plain after all that no standard of ideality was to be maintained or struggled after. The relief was palpable; nevertheless, when Pilate's wife cast a shrewish gibe at him over the shoulder of her exit, the audience showed but a faint inclination to be amused. It was to be a play evidently like any other play, the same coarse fibre, the same vivid and vulgar appeals. It is doubtful whether this ... — The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... "The gibe is unworthy of you," said the other, lifting the hat which had been drawn down closely over his ... — An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... gem gibe germ tinge edge urge huge serge judge singe ledge large barge fudge lodge dodge ridge cringe lunge budge hedge badge sledge nudge wedge fringe range bridge merge grudge trudge mange smudge ... — The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... jest and worse than jest and grim defiance are exchanged between the trenches when they are within such easy hearing distance of each other; but always from a safe position behind the parapet which the adversaries squint across through their periscopes. At the gibe business the German is, perhaps, better ... — My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... upon which she was employed, had, with her crew, become the butt and laughing-stock of every stupid and scurrilous jester on the coast, and many a time had we been made to writhe under the lash of some more than ordinarily envenomed gibe; but now the laugh was to be on our side; we were going to demonstrate to those shallow, jeering wits the superiority of brains over a clean ... — A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... of exacerbaverunt: and here a cognate language will show us the way. Icelandic geip, futilis exaggeratio; atgeipa, exaggerare, effutire: aegype, then, means to mock, to deride, and is allied to gabban, to gibe, to jape. In the Psalter published by Spelman it is rendered: hi gremedon spraece godes. In Notker it is widersprachen, and in the two old Teutonic interlinear version of the Psalms, published by Graff, verbitterten and gebittert. Let us hear our own interesting ... — Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850 • Various
... night or day; Sprang up the bank, tore through the furze, Threaded copse and dingle, And heard her penny jingle Bouncing in her purse,— Its bounce was music to her ear. She ran and ran As if she feared some goblin man Dogged her with gibe or curse Or something worse: But not one goblin skurried after, Nor was she pricked by fear; The kind heart made her windy-paced That urged her home quite out of breath with haste ... — Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... let any vague feeling of gratitude overweigh his own deep sense of injury. He was incompetent, and he knew it, but Kettle had been tactless enough to tell him so; and, moreover, Kettle had thrown out the national gibe about Waterloo, which no Belgian can ever forgive. Commandant Balliot gritted his teeth, and rubbed at his scrubby ... — A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... free land, Faust shall be willing to say to the moment: "Stay, thou art so fair"; and Mephistopheles shall harshly cry out: "The clock stands still"; and the graybeard shall sink in the dust; and the holy angels shall fly away with his soul, leaving the Fiend baffled and morose, to gibe at himself over the failure of all his infernal arts. But, meanwhile, it remains true of the man that no pleasure satisfies him and no happiness contents, and "death is desired, ... — Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... him the stern faces of Mr Hippetts and Mr Sibery, with the jeering crowd of schoolfellows, who could laugh at and gibe him for his downfall, and be sure to call him Gentleman Coleby, as long as they were together, the name, under the circumstances, being ... — Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... alongside the wharf, and the Englishmen mounted and formed up on the quay, the mob, which consisted of about two hundred wharf labourers, with a small sprinkling of half-breed women and fifty or sixty boys, gave back sullenly and scowlingly with a few low-muttered threats and an occasional hissing gibe of hereticos! But there was no attempt at violence except when some half-dozen boys began to throw stones. But the stringing of the Englishmen's bows, and the fitting of a few arrows to the strings, ... — Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... Indian Poet Amir Khusru, puts in the mouth of his king Kaikobad a contemptuous gibe at the Mongols with their cotton-quilted dresses. (Elliot, ... — The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... not that; I know how folk would gibe If one of us pushed courtesy so far. She has always loved love's fashions well; you wot, The marshal, head friend of this Chastelard's, She used to talk with ere he brought her here And sow their talk ... — Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Street towards Brook Street when a carter who saw them called out: "What! Billy Pitt! and with a parson too!" Thereupon Frere burst out with the daring jest, "He thinks you are going to Tyburn to be hanged privately!" But Pitt was too pre-occupied to notice the gibe. Again, after the ceremony, in the vestry Pitt was so nervous as to be unable to sign as a witness, and Canning had to whisper to Frere to sign without waiting for him.[622] They ascribed his strange inaction to extreme regard for Canning. But surely another explanation ... — William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... is open spoken, and no respecter of persons; and a woman may forgive an injury, but never a scornful gibe. It is this that has brought both France and Russia on him. Madame Pompadour, who is all powerful, hates Frederick for having made disrespectful remarks concerning her. The Empress of Russia detests him, for the same reason. She of Austria has a better cause, for she ... — With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... "the pilgrims did find no answer to the riddle, and the Clerk of Oxenford thought that the Prioress had been deceived in the matter thereof; whereupon the lady was sore vexed, though the gentle knight did flout and gibe at the poor clerk because of his lack of understanding over other of the riddles, which did fill him with shame and make ... — The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... clothed him like armour, and he never really emerged from it save when a fiendish sense of humour tempted him. This, and this alone, so it seemed to Babbacombe, had any power to draw him out. And the instant he had flung his gibe at the object thereof, he would retreat again into that impenetrable shell of silence. He never once spoke of his past life, never ... — The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... cause to acknowledge, beyond the most melancholy mood of Montaigne into one of far sterner and more stringent pessimism, an absence or infrequency of suggestions of Montaigne in the plays between 1605 and 1610 would be a very natural result of Jonson's gibe in VOLPONE. That gibe, indeed, is not really so ill-natured as the term "steal" is apt to make it sound for our ears, especially if we are prepossessed—as even Mr. Fleay still seems to be—by the ... — Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... Parliament repelled the gibe of its critics that it has ceased to represent the people. Lords and Commons united in praise of our sailors and soldiers and all the other gallant folk who are helping us to win the War, and passed the formal Votes of ... — Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 153, November 7, 1917 • Various
... the Yankee trickery, The Yankee gibe and sneer, Till Yankee insolence and pride Know neither shame nor fear; But ready now with shot and steel Their brazen front to mar, We hoist aloft the Bonnie Blue Flag That ... — War Poetry of the South • Various
... say, "is life; we have seen and see, And with a living pleasure we describe; And fits of sprightly malice do but bribe The languid mind into activity. Sound sense, and love itself, and mirth and glee, Are foster'd by the comment and the gibe." 20 Even be it so: yet still among your tribe, Our daily world's true Worldlings, rank not me! Children are blest, and powerful; their world lies More justly balanced; partly at their feet, And part far from them:—sweetest melodies Are those that are by distance ... — Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... with the living language and the genius of the people. Their prose was an artificial language, the language of a polite chronicle with the best, that of a vulgar feuilletonist with the worst. Their poetry justified Goethe's gibe: ... — Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... The gibe brought no response; yet slowly, so gradually that it was not possible to tell when it began, a look that was wholly rational came into his eyes. He blinked, touched his dry lips with his dry tongue and, turning his head, ... — The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... it you who fling such a taunt to shame your own kin? If there is aught of impropriety in what this man Sir John has done, is it not our affair with him in place of a silly gibe ... — The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... household worlds, with homelier and more piquant phrase and saucier tongues, scoffed him for the miserable work he was doing; but in spite of the popular uprising, now almost swelled to the dimensions of a mob, and the verbal uproar, through the hoarse murmur of which the boy's gibe, the woman's taunt and the strong man's curse, came and smote upon him in volleys, still he clutched the rope and rushed along, threatening the crowd that was closing in ahead of him with his club, and so making headway on his dreadful errand, while the poor old man, unable to keep up with ... — How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... hours. Only his great strength and physical endurance had pulled him out of the arms of violent death. There had been no shot fired from the shops. The strikers saw the utter futility of forcing armed men, so they had hung about with gibe and ribald jeer, waiting for some one careless enough to pass them alone. This Bennington did. His men had forgotten him. Bennington's injuries had been rather trivial; it had been his personal appearance that had terrified the women. He had fallen asleep half an hour ... — Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... fire, heart of a lion at bay, Patience to plan for tomorrow, valor to serve for today, Mournful and mirthful and tender, quick as a flash with a jest, Hiding with gibe and great laughter the ache that ... — The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... to consent to this on the ground that in all likelihood Bill's claim would last but a few years, anyway. It seemed too good an opening for Brick to lose; but instead of refreshing himself with his customary gibe, the huge fellow sat dark and glowering, his eyes staring upward at the crevice in the rock roof, the lantern-light showing his forehead deeply ... — Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... command, and some he cannaI daresay he wad gar them keep hands aff me(and troth, I think they wad hardly venture on that ony gate)and he wad gar them gie me my soup parritch and bit meat. But trow ye that Sir Arthur's command could forbid the gibe o' the tongue or the blink o' the ee, or gar them gie me my food wi' the look o' kindness that gars it digest sae weel, or that he could make them forbear a' the slights and taunts that hurt ane's spirit mair nor downright misca'ing?Besides, I am the idlest auld carle that ... — The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... Sabior. Trus' Him. He lead yuh. He show yuh de way. Dat all yuh got tuh do. Beliebe—pray—praise. Ebery night befo' I lay on my bed I git on my knees an' look up tuh Him. Soon I wake in de mornin' I gibe Him t'anks. Eben sometime in de day I git on my knees an' pray. He been good to me all dese years. He aint forget me. I aint been sick for ober twenty-five years. Good t'ing too, nobody left tuh tek care of me. Dey all ... — Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... yesterday—" and Duke repeated a bit of gossip that had a gibe at the Lorrigans for its point. "He got it over to Hitchcocks. It come from the Douglases. I guess Mary Hope don't want nothing of us—except what she can get out of us. We been a good ... — Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... they might look for trouble with him, as he seemed ein wilder Kamerad. They were mistaken, and Goethe was to prove one of Stilling's warmest friends. Stilling himself relates how, when one at the table directed a gibe at him, it was Goethe who rebuked the railer. When Stilling was in despair at the news of the illness of his betrothed, it was to Goethe he flew for comfort, and he found him a friend in need. At a later date Goethe published Stilling's Autobiography without ... — The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... face flushed under this gibe, but before he could set his retort in order Tom had turned to Wilson, and was saying, with placid indifference of ... — Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Here is no gibe at the physical sciences. To sneer at them were just as foolish as to sneer at religion. What we could do on this expedition in a "scientific" way we did laboriously and zealously. We would never have thought of attempting the ascent of the ... — The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... speaks to the King without an insult, or to Polonius without a gibe; the Hamlet who storms at Ophelia and speaks daggers to his mother; the Hamlet who, hearing a cry behind the arras, whips out his sword in an instant and runs the eavesdropper through; the Hamlet who sends his 'school-fellows' to their death and never troubles his ... — Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... of a nation, the sense of it does not exist in the national mind. Except in the form of caricature, it is hardly traceable in the English work of the present day; but the minds of our workmen are full of it, if we would only allow them to give it shape. They express it daily in gesture and gibe, but are not allowed to do so where it would be useful. In like manner, though the Byzantine influence repressed it in the early Venetian architecture, it was always present in the Venetian mind, and showed itself in various ... — The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... not take this pleasantry as one might suppose he would. His own primitive aversion to the strange, deformed child made him weakly sensitive. He recoiled from Falstar's gibe with a sneaking shame he dared not defend ... — Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... members of the cast including the author, were greatly depressed when the curtain went down with the auditorium already nearly empty. Glover undoubtedly had his bad quarter-of-an-hour that night, but the next morning he regained his usual equipoise, and cast off his chagrin with a characteristic gibe, at his own expense. A sympathetic friend ventured to ask if the fiasco was caused, perhaps, by too much blood and ... — My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... the gibe—and some smack of an evil jest lurked in his tone—he played the host so far as to urge his bewildered companion along the passage and into the living-chamber on the left, where he had seen from without that his orders to light and lay were being executed. ... — Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... this gibe; but he trusted to Lapham's unliterary habit of mind for his security in making it, and most other people would consider it ... — Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... that it was not going to be one of his worst efforts. He knew almost exactly where the punctuations of laughter and applause would burst in, he knew that nimble fingers in the Press Gallery would be taking down each gibe and argument as he flung it at the impassive Minister confronting him, and that the fair lady of his desire would be able to judge what manner of young man this was who spent his afternoon in her garden, lazily chaffing ... — The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... called the plague, and he died, and his body had to be committed without much delay or ceremonial to the sea. He had built his monument to no purpose. He was never to occupy it. It stood a vast and solid gibe at ... — The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... the force of that Stentorian sound, Rose Belcour, dressed, and soon the lobby found. About the door a throng of varlets stood, A grinning and ill-favoured brotherhood, That scoff and gibe at every wight that wears Linen less black, or better coat than theirs. For these, young Belcour was too fair a mark; 'Make way,' cries one, 'he's going to the Park: His horses wait; he's going for a ride.' 'Fool, 'tis his tilbury,' another cried; 'D'ye think his lordship ... — Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... And so she had grown to be a kind of miraculous old pet, the plaything of people seventy or eighty years younger than herself, who talked and laughed with her as if she were a child, finding great delight in her wayward and strangely playful responses, into some of which she cunningly conveyed a gibe that caused their ears to tingle a little. She had done getting out of bed in this world, and lay there to be waited upon like a queen ... — Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... I had plenty goods, and dey did not like de man dat was here, dey made me chief in my fader's place. I told dem dat I no accept de place unless dey promise to behave bery well, to mind what I said to dem, and to listen to my words; but dat if they do dat I gibe dem plenty goods, I make dem comfortable and happy, and I teach dem de way ob de Lord. ... — By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... some of the bristly tribe, Who felt so touched by the peeper's gibe, Their backs were up; for they thought, at least, It aimed at them the low, mean beast: And they challenged Chick to her tiny face, In their sharp, high notes, ... — The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... porch, a jocund crowd, They rush, with heart-born laughter loud; And still the merry mimesters call, With jest and gibe, "Laugh, ... — The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... tone of these letters, the constant comparison between the two peoples, with many a gibe at the English, but always turning to their advantage, the preference given to the philosophical system of Newton over that of Descartes, lastly the attacks upon religion concealed beneath the cloak of banter—all this ... — A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... he had originally entered the room. It had been well for Ser Peppe had he let him go. But the fool, who loved his mistress dearly, and had many of the instincts of the faithful dog, loving where she loved and hating where she hated, could not repress the desire to send a gibe after the retreating figure, and inflict another wound ... — Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... looking, instead, out into the dark indifferently, as if the heresies which the old man hurled at him were some old worn-out song. Seeing, however, that the schoolmaster's flush of enthusiasm seemed on the point of dying out, he roused himself to gibe it ... — Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... mask, I assure you." And Trotto put aside the cover, only to let it fall with a little crash as he stared at the white thing, and glanced up to meet my eyes, and hear my gibe. ... — Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... would not go to the Opera, his general faculty of enjoyment was unimpaired, and, as always, he loved a gibe at the clergy. On the 30th of November 1841, Samuel Wilberforce wrote to a friend about George Augustus Selwyn,[140] ... — Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... carmen whistle, and sware they were his fancies or his good-nights. Then he had the honour of having his head burst by John o' Gaunt, for crowding among the Marshal's men in the Tilt-yard, and this was matter for continual gibe from Falstaff and the other boys. Falstaff was in the van of the fashion, was witty himself without being at that time the cause that wit was in others. No one could come within range of his wit without being attracted and overpowered. ... — Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... smilingly told me "I was a crank about my American public." I took his little gibe in good part; for while he knew foreign audiences, he certainly did not know American ones as well as I, who have faced them from ocean to ocean, from British Columbia to Florida. Two characteristics they all share in common,—intelligence and fairness,—otherwise they vary ... — Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... received his tribute from those warrior boys who had come out to fight for the flag that meant to them some old village on the Sussex Downs, where a mother and a sweetheart waited, or some town in the Midlands where the walls were placarded with posters which made the Germans gibe, or old London, where the 'buses went clanging ... — Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... one thing to hold up their heads at the shanty, and quite another to hold them up on the noisy, swarming campus where they knew nobody, and where the ill-bred bullies of the school felt free to jeer and gibe at their poor clothing ... — The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger
... this morning, and I have a sort of backsliding feeling. The truth is, Tombs and Virginia reels don't seem to gibe in together. ... — Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... Pacifists of any kind have ever urged that war is impossible is due either to that confusion of thought just touched upon, or is merely a silly gibe of those who deride arguments to which they have not listened, and consequently do not understand, or which they desire to misrepresent; and such misrepresentation is, when not unconscious, always ... — Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... a tragedy of which few men know the existence and certainly no man in these woman-ridden isles can ever have experienced. Men always treat with derision the woman anxious for matrimony, and gibe equally at the spinster who fails to attain it. Heaven alone knows why, since by men's laws and traditions the married state has been made to mean everything desirable for a woman, and the unmarried condition everything undesirable. 'People think women who do not want to ... — Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... "when a boy, I was one morning playing at marbles in the village ball alley, with a light heart and lighter pocket. The gibe and the jest went gaily round, when suddenly there appeared amongst us a stranger, of a very remarkable and very cheerful aspect; his intrusion was not the least restraint upon our merry little assemblage, on the ... — The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... want thee, humorous Hogarth! Thou, I hear, a pleasant rogue art. Were but you and I acquainted, Every monster should be painted: You should try your graving tools On this odious group of fools; Draw the beasts as I describe them: Form their features while I gibe them; Draw them like; for I assure you, You will need no car'catura; Draw them so that we may trace All the soul in every face. Keeper, I must now retire, You have done what I desire: But I feel my spirits spent With the noise, the sight, the scent. "Pray, be patient; ... — Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... of others must have shared le Secret de Polichinelle. Yet none hints at it, and only a very weak cause could catch at so tiny a straw as the off-chance that Davies KNEW, and used "Terence" as a gibe. {149a} ... — Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... the cheerful voice of aid? Begins the time, his heart has prayed, When men may reap and sow? Ah, God! back to the cold earth's breast! The sages chuckle o'er their jest! Must they, to give a people rest, Their dainty wit forego? The tyrants sit in a stately hall; They gibe at a wretched people's fall; The tyrants forget how fresh is the pall Over their dead and ours. Look how the senators ape the clown, And don the motley and hide the gown, But yonder a fast rising frown On the ... — Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... his opponent to pay his flippant gibe the honor of repartee, he was disappointed. To be sure, Hobart, admirably erect in his slender grace, was moved to a slight, disdainful smile, but it evidenced scarcely the appreciation that anybody ... — Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... rose on the Goose-herd's cheeks as he listened, but when he answered it was in a grave and quiet voice: "It ill becomes an aged man to mock and jeer at the young, nor is it more seemly that the holy should gibe at ... — A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... to give the only reply possible to such a gibe. These breakfast interludes had not lost piquancy in all these months. "I'm half a mind to go to this thing. I would, if it didn't break up my ... — Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... bin drim. My word—good drim. Subpose you gibe one fowl he make lucky—we get good pearl. Must be white fowl. Black fow!"—(and here he lowered his voice to a mysteriously confidential whisper) "no good; ... — My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... and talk Minky served the requirements of his customers, wrapped in sphinx-like reserve. His geniality never failed him. He had a pleasant word for everybody. And at every gibe, at every warning, he beamed and nodded, but otherwise could not be drawn into controversy. One remark, and one only, had he for all and sundry who chose him as a butt for ... — The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... children of the century of Voltaire. Condorcet, the youngest of the intimates and disciples of Voltaire, of D'Alembert, of Turgot, was the first to sound bitter warning that Robespierre was at heart a priest. The suggestion was more than a gibe. Robespierre had the typic sacerdotal temperament, its sense of personal importance, its thin unction, its private leanings to the stake and the cord; and he had one of those deplorable natures that seem as if they had never in their lives known ... — Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... was thus becoming assimilated to the enthusiasts, his contempt, in no wise decreasing toward them, grew very fierce against himself; he imagined, also, that every face of his acquaintance wore a sneer, and that every word addressed to him was a gibe. Such was his state of mind at the period of Ilbrahim's misfortune; and the emotions consequent upon that event completed the change, of which the child ... — Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... This gibe is only worth recording as showing the court-house manners of those times. It is no true picture of the honest, faithful and beloved Emory Washburn. He was public-spirited, wise, kind-hearted, always ready to give his service without hope of reward or ... — Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... that there might be something seriously amiss in this protracted, unexplained absence. However, and to a certain degree, the child was allowed to be independent, and she was liable to reappear at any moment and to gibe at their "foolish fear" for her. But to summon her, at once, was the surest way of comforting Mrs. Trent, and Samson went out again to distribute the assembled ranchmen into searching ... — Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... Gilfillan's song is among ourselves, it is much less so to the south of the Border, and I present it to my English readers, as a worthy representative, in these latter days, of those ludicrous songs of our country in the olden time which are so admirably suited to show, notwithstanding the gibe ... — My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... other Bagshaw was always very decent to me, and when he heard that Ward, Dennison, Collier, Lambert and I were going to finish the evening at The Reindeer he asked me to come home in the brake, but that gibe of Dennison's was heavy upon me and I had determined to stick to my promise and do whatever came my way. I did not expect that the evening was going to be anything but a rowdy one, for when Lambert ... — Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... exclamations, his assurance of sympathy, his terror of the commonplace—surely one knows them well? His tolerance of any impertinence, lest he should be thought to have misunderstood a jest, is a great distinction. But Congreve's gibe in the dedication at the critics, who failed 'to distinguish betwixt the character of a Witwoud and a Truewit,' is hardly fair: as Dryden said of Etherege's Sir Fopling, he is 'a fool so nicely writ, The ladies might mistake him for a wit.' Then, Millamant ... — The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... he were going to write, put the pen to his mouth, and bit it, as was his habit in composing. Then he threw his head back, and drew his cloak over it. The Thracian spearmen, who were watching him from the door, began to gibe at his cowardice. Archias went in to him, encouraged him to rise, repeated his old arguments, talked to him of reconciliation with Antipater. By this time Demosthenes felt that the poison which he had sucked from the pen was beginning to work. He drew the cloak from his face, and ... — Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... tapers might be lighted. His fingers were more deft at this business, it would seem, than in the making of arrows. Fitzooth, in the intervals of his eating, took up Robin's arrows one by one and had some shrewd gibe ready for most of them. Of the score only five were allowed to pass; the rest were tossed contemptuously into the black hearth on to the little heap of ... — Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... "Liberals", who employed their Christianity as an electioneering dodge to injure a man whose sturdy Radicalism they feared. Over and over again Mr. Bradlaugh was told that he was an "impossible candidate", and gibe and sneer and scoff were flung at the man who had neither ancestors nor wealth to recommend him, who fought his battle with his brain and his tongue, and whose election expenses were paid by hundreds of contributions from poor men and women in ... — Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... is hard, as give, except in giant, gigantick, gibbet, gibe, giblets, Giles, gill, gilliflower, gin, ginger, gingle, to which may be added Egypt ... — A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... has a pretty wit and I admire it as I admire most of his brilliant qualities, but I fail to see the aptness of this last gibe. At the club this afternoon I picked up an entertaining French novel called En felons des Perles. On the illustrated cover was a row of undraped damsels sitting in oyster-shells, and the text of the book went to show how it was the hero's ambition to make a rosary of these pearls. Now I am ... — The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... Schwab, taking Schmucke's quaint inquiry for a gibe, of which that perfect Christian ... — Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... player to attempt the recovery of his throwing-knife, and the rules did not permit the substitution of fresh weapons. The crowd laughed ironically as the situation dawned upon them, and the discomfited players were compelled to submit to many a gibe. The bull remained master of the field, and the spectators, grown tired of waiting, began to ... — The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... black trousers;—he held in his hand five shillings which had been thrust into his hand when the prison gates had opened to him that morning. He had taken the money and swaggered out with a parting gibe at the constable who closed ... — War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... century," says the strolling player in the Vicar of Wakefield,(7) "Fletcher, Ben Jonson, and all the plays of Shakespeare are the only things that go down." The whole passage is a satire on Garrick(8) and a gibe at Drury Lane: "The public go only to be amused, and find themselves happy when they can enjoy a pantomime under the sanction of Jonson's or Shakespeare's name." But, whatever was done with Shakespeare's plays, they were the very life of the ... — Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... the pair walked on, prostitutes in their gay attire accosted them from the doorways in which they lurked, but looking into Leandro's grim countenance and Manuel's poverty-stricken features the girls let them walk on, following them with a gibe at ... — The Quest • Pio Baroja
... bin ruhig ("I am at peace"). Yet, in spite of the difficulties and impediments besetting him at every step, his promise of greatness and usefulness was not belied. In the Introduction to his commentary on Maimuni's Guide to the Perplexed (Gibe'at ha-Moreh), in which he attempted to reconcile his master's system with that of modern philosophy—even as the master had tried to reconcile Judaism with Aristotelianism—he gave a brief sketch of the development of modern thought. This part of his work was assiduously studied by ... — The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... sarcastic jest with deep earnestness, which must have hushed the audience of sycophants ready to laugh with the king, and evidently touched him and Festus. His whole soul ran over in yearning desire for the salvation of them all. He took no notice of the gibe in the word Christian, nor of the levity of Agrippa. He showed that purest love fills his heart, that he has found the treasure which enriches the poorest and adds blessedness to the highest. So peaceful ... — Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... too, that he was making progress with them. The hated gibe "white slave" was less frequently heard. Sam, passionately bent on making good in the community, weighed every shade of the men's manner toward him, like a lover ... — The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... think you wish to disoblige me,' he answered, laughing scornfully—and a dozen voices echoed the gibe. 'But for your private motives, the devil take them! Is that plain ... — A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... had then endured a quarter of a century was so popular with the awakened intelligence of England, aroused at last to the imminent importance of her call to expansion by sea, that it was greeted by a general pealing of the bells, which drew from the reluctant prime minister, Walpole, that bitter gibe, "Ay, to-day they are ringing their bells, and to-morrow they will be wringing their hands." Howe embarked with Anson's squadron, celebrated for its sufferings, its persistence, and its achievements, to waste ... — Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... starve the little frightened child Till it weeps both night and day: And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool, And gibe the old and grey, And some grow mad, and all grow bad, And ... — Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols
... wore a pair of shoes which had been worn by a man who was hanged, and these shoes, as is well known, leave no tracks which a dog will nose after or a witch follow, or a ha'nt. Small boys did not gibe at Daddy Hannah, you bet you! There was Major Burnley, who lived for years and years in the same house with the wife with whom he had quarreled and never spoke a word to her or she to him. But the list is overlong for calling. With us, in that day and time, town characters abounded ... — The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... are true, and if Madame de Grammont was the culprit, it is a sad confirmation of the old gibe, "Skittish in youth, prudish in age." It can only be pleaded in extenuation that some youth which was not skittish, such as Sarah Marlborough's, matured or turned into something worse than "devotion." And Elizabeth ... — A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... left hand did not leave my throat, but his free right hand began to dart about me, feeling, probing, and rummaging. I lay quite helpless and in the bitterness of great consternation. Rupert found my revolver, drew it out with a gibe, and handed it to Rischenheim, who was now standing beside him. Then he felt the box, he drew it out, his eyes sparkled. He set his knee hard on my chest, so that I could scarcely breathe; then he ventured to loose my throat, and tore the box ... — Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... beyond his control; we all liked him. But now, since Butler's arrival, I believe I am as frantic in secret as the others are openly. I know that war sanctions many hard things, and that both sides practice them; but now we are so completely lost in Louisiana, is it fair to gibe and taunt us with our humiliation? I could stand anything save the cowardly ridicule and triumph of their papers. Honestly, I believe if all vile abusive papers on both sides were suppressed, and some of the fire-eating editors ... — A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... the quickly returning nobleness of his nature made him ashamed of it, as soon as he had clambered back with his trophy. He felt that the sanctity of Saul's office as the anointed of the Lord should have saved him from the gibe. The king goes his way all unawares, and, as it would seem, had not regained his men, when David, leaving his band (very much out of temper no doubt at his foolish nicety), yields to a gush of ancient friendship and calls loudly after him, risking discovery ... — The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... meditation Of the philosophic scribe, From the poet's inspiration, For the cynic's polished gibe, We invoke narcotic nurses In their jargon from afar, I indite these modest ... — Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... loveliest and fullest, brimming over with young life, the streets crowded with caps and gowns, the river and towing-path alive with the "flannelled fools," who have indeed flung back Rudyard Kipling's gibe—if it ever applied to them—with interest. For they had all disappeared. They were in the trenches, landing at Suvla, garrisoning Egypt, pushing up to Baghdad. The colleges contained a few forlorn ... — The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... All the moonlit vale above! Listen! dearest, etc. "Why is't thus, this sylvan Petrarch Pours all night his serenade? 'Tis for some proud woodland Laura, His sad sonnets all are made! But he changes now his measure — Gladness bubbling from his mouth — Jest and gibe, and mimic pleasure — Winged Anacreon of the South! Listen! dearest, etc. "Bird of music, wit and gladness, Troubadour of sunny climes, Disenchanter of all sadness, — Would thine art were in my rhymes. O'er the heart that's beating by me, I would weave a spell divine; Is there ... — Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... erratically into a lighter mood of impudence and daring. There was rain beating furiously in his face and his hair was wet. Well, the car pounding along beneath him had known many such nights of storm and wild adventure. It had pleased him frequently to mock and gibe at death, with the wheel in his hand and a song on his lips, and now wind and storm were tempting him to ride ... — Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... Archias, began to gibe at his cowardice on seeing this movement. Archias went in, renewed his persuasions, and begged him to rise, as there was no doubt that he would be well treated. Demosthenes sat in silence until he felt in his veins the working of the poison he had sucked from the pen. Then ... — Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... on the contrary, his motive for action deserved high praise—it was to compel the rebellious Rumanians to obey the behest of the Conference and withdraw to their frontiers. The plenipotentiaries bore this gibe with dignity, and decided to have recourse once more to their favorite, and, indeed, only method—the despatch of exhortative telegrams. Of more efficacious means they were destitute. This time their message, which lacked a definite address, was presumably ... — The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... it proved; and To-la-go-to-de indulged in more than one sarcastic gibe at his less successful hunters over the manner in which they had been beaten by "No Tongue and the Yellow Head—an old pale-face and a boy." He even went so far as to say to Steve Harrison, "Good shot. The Yellow Head will be a chief some day. ... — The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard
... Where change of favourites made no change of laws, And senates heard before they judged a cause; 60 How wouldst thou shake at Britain's modish tribe, Dart the quick taunt, and edge the piercing gibe! Attentive, truth and nature to descry, And pierce each scene with philosophic eye, To thee were solemn toys or empty show The robes of pleasure, and the veils of woe: All aid the farce, and all thy mirth maintain, Whose joys are causeless, or ... — Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... the millers and hoped that "in a few weeks" the consumer might begin to receive the benefit. The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER excused the delay in publishing the Economy Committee's reports on the ground that the MINISTER OF MUNITIONS was "at sea," and elicited the inevitable gibe that he was not the only one. Sir ERIC GEDDES, with a judicious compliment to the motorists for setting "an extraordinary example of voluntary taxation," got a Second Reading for his Roads Bill; and Sir ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 8, 1920 • Various
... telephone Marie. But Marie could not very well come just now, she knew; and then, too, there was Cyril to be taken into consideration. How Cyril would gibe at the wife who had to call in all the neighbors just because her husband was bringing home a friend to dinner! How he would—Well, he shouldn't! He should not ... — Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... not to me, "Here, but for fate, were thou and she—" Its gibe for once is checked. To-night Silence is queen in grief's despite, And even the longing of my soul Is silent 'neath ... — The Rainbow and the Rose • E. Nesbit
... five of them occupied, with their lids all in place, and one of them yet empty and open. In the act of mounting the steps the condemned craned his head sidewise, and at the sight of those coffins stretching along six in a row on the gravelled courtyard, he made a cheap and sorry gibe. But when he stood beneath the cross-arm to be pinioned, his legs played him traitor. Those craven knees of his gave way under him, so that trusties had to hold the weakening ruffian upright while the executioner snugged the halter ... — From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... Domremy, In thine innocence only strong, Thou seest not the treason before thee, The gibe and the curse of the throng,— The furnace-pile in the market That licks out its flames to take thee;— For He who loves thee in heaven On earth will ... — The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... "Thy gibe is no answer, brother Kenneth," said the Saracen; "for know, that had my assailant been in very deed the Prince of Darkness, thou wert bound not the less to enter into combat with him in thy comrade's behalf. Know, ... — The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... bitter gibe," said Hilda, with the tears springing into her eyes. "But I cannot help it. It does not alter my perception of the truth. If there be any such dreadful mixture of good and evil as you affirm,—and which appears to me almost more shocking than pure evil,—then the good is turned ... — The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... when he wrote that letter? She could almost fancy that she smelled brandy, but it was so easy to fancy what one wanted to. She read it through again—this time, she felt almost sure that it had been dictated to him. If he had composed the wording himself, he would never have resisted a gibe at the law, or a gibe at himself for thus safeguarding her virtue. It was Rosek's doing. Her anger flamed up anew. Since they used such mean, cruel ways, why need she herself be scrupulous? She sprang out ... — Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... that have stayed at thy knees, Mother, go call them in — We that were bred overseas wait and would speak with our kin. Not in the dark do we fight — haggle and flout and gibe; Selling our love for a price, loaning our hearts for a bribe. Gifts have we only to-day — Love without promise or fee — Hear, for thy children speak, from the uttermost parts of ... — Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... Helen did not hear the gibe, being much interested in what Mary Cox was saying to her. Ruth walked beside the ... — Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... Croisier's faction went so far as to use the poisoned weapons of savages—in this warfare the advantages of wit and delicate irony lay on the side of the nobles. But it should never be forgotten that the wounds made by the tongue and the eyes, by gibe or slight, are the last of all to heal. When the Chevalier turned his back on mixed society and entrenched himself on the Mons Sacer of the aristocracy, his witticisms thenceforward were directed at du Croisier's salon; he stirred up the fires ... — The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac |