"Jest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was puzzled for a moment, then opened his mouth from ear to ear in a guffaw that made the glasses ring. His humour was perverse. He was wit-proof and fun-proof; but at a feeble jest would sometimes roar like a lion inflated with laughing-gas. Laughed he ever so loud and long, he always ended abruptly and without gradation—his laugh was a clean spadeful dug out of Merriment. He resumed his gravity and his theme all in an instant. "White arsenic she won't look at for I've tried ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... not jest. The colonel has decided to blow your brains out as soon as he sees you. And you may be sure that he does not threaten idly. I spoke of a duel and he answered: "No, I tell you that I will ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... life I had never seen woman fit to strew rushes before my Lady AElueva,' the knight replied, quite simply and quietly. 'As I looked at her I thought I might save her and her house by a jest. ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... for those who think that 'life is a jest,' (and a bitter, sarcastic one it must be to them,) to mock at all nobler feelings and sentiments of the heart. None do they more contemn than friendship. I would not 'sit in the seat' of these 'scornful,' however ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... the skull.] Alas, poor Yorick!—I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kiss'd I know not how oft. Where ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... Like journalists nearer home, when the day's news were scanty, these would make the more of it in words; and I have known one to fill up a barren morning with an imaginary conversation of two dogs. Sometimes the king deigns to laugh, sometimes to question or jest with them, his voice sounding shrilly from the cabin. By his side he may have the heir-apparent, Paul, his nephew and adopted son, six years old, stark naked, and a model of young human beauty. And there will always ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... influence very clearly. The imagery is profuse, but too distinct and without the romantic chiaroscuro. "The Water Lady" is a manifest imitation of "La Belle Dame sans Merci," and employs the same somewhat unusual stanza form. Hood—incorrigible punster—who had his jest at everything, jested at romance. He wrote ballad parodies—"The Knight and the Dragon," etc.—and an ironical "Lament for the Decline ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... its mirror looked the lean Thing I'd become, each wrinkle and score The image of me that I had seen In jest there fifty years before. ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... the gods beneath the very highest are in receipt even of human sacrifice. Even among barbarians the highest deity is very rarely worshipped with sacrifice. Through various degrees he is found to lose all claim on worship, and even to become a mere name, and finally a jest and a mockery. Meanwhile ancestral ghosts, and gods framed on the same lines as ghosts, receive sacrifice of food and of human victims. Once more, the high gods of low savages are not localised, not confined to any temple or region. But the gods of ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... "and I suppose now in your country things will be so-and-so." And the whole group of my cousins would titter joyously. Repeated receptions of this sort must be at the root, I suppose, of what they call the Great American Jest; and I know I was myself goaded into saying that my friends went naked in the summer months, and that the Second Methodist Episcopal Church in Muskegon was decorated with scalps. I cannot say that ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was a born master of men. There was one other chum of ours, but I'll tell you about him later. Boys together, we had many escapades and some serious problems, until by the time our college days were over we were bound together by those ties that are made in jest and broken with choking voices and eyes full ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... filled with joy. He knelt down and kissed the soil of his native land. "Tell me, is it true," he said, "that I am in my own beloved Ithaca? I pray thee, goddess, do not jest with me." ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... the glass! There lies the slime! 'Tis but a jest; I but keep time, Thou hellish pest, To thine own chime! [While the WITCH steps back in rage and astonishment.] Dost know me! Skeleton! Vile scarecrow, thou! Thy lord and master dost thou know? What holds me, that I deal not now Thee and thine apes a stunning blow? ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... "What new jest has your Excellency in hand?" asked the Rev. Mather Byles, whose Presbyterian scruples had not kept him from the entertainment. "Trust me, sir, I have already laughed more than beseems my cloth at ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... have not brought you here to jest with you, nor yet, as you think, to condemn you to die, though your life is justly forfeit to me and my people, whom you would have betrayed again to their oppressors. Now, listen! You brought me back from death to life, and for my life I will give you yours, and for Golden Star's I will pay ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith
... Massa Swift, but I looked up jest now, an' dere he be, in dat air-contraption ob his'n he calls de Hummin' Burd. He's ketched up fast on de balloon shed roof, an' dere he's hangin' wif sparks an' flames a-shootin' outer de airship suffin' scandalous! It's jest spittin' fire, dat's what it's a-doin', ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... contaminated by the publicity of her fall; she had a feeling of degradation oppressing her; but she resolved to be circumspect, and try to regain in a measure what she had lost. Then some foul tongue would jest of her shame, and averted looks and cold greetings disheartened her. She saw she could not bury in forgetfulness her misdeed, so she resolved to leave her home and seek another in the place ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson
... state, seemed up to this point to have prospered, and the protectionists had a definite existence. The ministers were nearly all new to public office, and seventeen of them were for the first time sworn of the privy council in a single day. One jest was that the cabinet consisted of three men and a half—Derby, Disraeli, St. Leonards, and a worthy fractional personage ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... away a great deal from the Value of their Judgment, by dashing it with some splenetick Reflections. Like a certain Nobleman mention'd by my Lord Verulam, who when he invited any Friends to Dinner, always gave a disrelish to the Entertaiment by some cutting malicious Jest. ...
— Discourse on Criticism and of Poetry (1707) - From Poems On Several Occasions (1707) • Samuel Cobb
... full often cold;* *mischievous, unwise Womane's counsel brought us first to woe, And made Adam from Paradise to go, There as he was full merry and well at case. But, for I n'ot* to whom I might displease *know not If I counsel of women woulde blame, Pass over, for I said it in my game.* *jest Read authors, where they treat of such mattere And what they say of women ye may hear. These be the cocke's wordes, and not mine; I can no harm of no woman divine.* *conjecture, imagine Fair in the sand, to bathe* her merrily, *bask Lies Partelote, and all her sisters by, Against the ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... power to understand them, worth no more than a street serenade, or the breath of a cigar? One remembers again the trumpet-text in the Koran—"The heavens and the earth, and all that is between them, think ye we have created them in jest?" As long as the question is of talent and mental power, the world of men has not his equal to show. But when the question is to life, and its materials, and its auxiliaries, how does he profit me? What does it signify? It is ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... care, however, and felt that Miss Wildmere was making too much use of the liberty she had provided for. She, like many others, could be half hysterical while the violence of the storm lasted, and yet, when quiet was restored, was capable of making a jest of her fears and the most of a delightful conjunction of affairs, which placed two eligible men at her beck, to either of whom she could become engaged before she slept. The arrival of her father had turned the scale decidedly in favor of Mr. Arnault, for the latter, without ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... had stifled his qualms, and had taken his own peculiar methods of keeping the disease hidden, and securing money profit for his ship. He had even gone so far as to carry a smile on his dark, oily face, and a jest on his tongue. But this prospect of being shut up with the disorder till it had run its course inside the walls of the ship, and no more victims were to be claimed, was too much for his nerve. He fled like some frightened animal to his room, and deliberately ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... never said a word. Finally, my boy Tom and his wife, and Len and Josie and the children, they all drove by on their way to Pitcher's; and Len—he's a good deal older'n Chess, you know—he says to me, 'You'd oughter leave Chess come along with the rest of us, ma; jest because he's married ain't no reason he's forgot how to dance!' Well, I burst right out laughing, and I says, 'Why didn't he say he wanted to go?' and Chess run upstairs for his other suit, and ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... and the absolute repose of all the lines of the young gentleman's face bordered too nearly on contempt to encourage the lady to pursue her jest any further. ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... taking augury would not eat, in contempt of the omen threw them overboard, as if they should drink at least, if they would not eat; and then engaging the enemy, was routed. After his defeat, when he (194) was ordered by the senate to name a dictator, making a sort of jest of the public disaster, he named ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... that you figure I might have missed my aim?" said Kiddie. "Not very complimentary to my shootin'. Why did I let it go loose? Well, I jest notioned it would be some cowardly ter shoot while I held the brute that way. Beside, I didn't want ter shatter the skull too much. Biggest rattler I've seen—seven feet long if it's an inch, and worth preservin'. Say, those bees look like givin' us trouble. Best ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... proceed through the thronged thoroughfare, obstructed by crowds who came to gaze upon the pageant, many a significant sneer or half-uttered jest would convey to Haman a sense of his degradation in appearing as the groom of ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... memory.' Having carved for himself a high reputation, he came to the court of King James, to find that his fame had preceded him, and he received the honour of knighthood at the time of the King's coronation. This gave the old knight a chance for a little jest, which his son must have found rather exasperating. When he came home, his father received him with all ceremony, though 'more jocularly than seriously ... saluted him with his title of Sir Edward Giles at every word, and by all means would place him above him, as one dignified ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... of refined education, refined companionship, and, I fear, naturally, of refined tastes; but a sojourn at a good French conventual school will do wonders, and I hope to manage by-and-by. In the meantime we jest at our misfortunes, and love one another, I ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... experiences in the lonely little home they had made on the edge of the desert, when Mrs. Ware's quest of health led them to Arizona. But it was a life that had been lifted out of the ordinary by the brave spirit which made a jest of poverty, and held on to the refining influences even while battling back the wolf from the door. It had made a family of philosophers of them, able to extract pleasure from trifles, and to find it where most people would never ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... imprudent, and permitted Las Casas and Avila to be at large, disdaining to be under any apprehensions from them; but they concerted a plan with some of the soldiers for putting him to death. Las Casas one day asked him, as if half in jest, for liberty to return to Cortes; but De Oli said he was too happy to have the company of so brave a man, and could not part with him. "Then" said Las Casas, "I advise you to take care of me, for I shall kill you one of these days". De Oli considered ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... We laugh, we jest, not meaning what we say; We hide our thoughts, by light words lightly spoken, And pass on heedless, till we find one day They've bruised our hearts, or left ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the stories of Mr. W. W. JACOBS, apart from their mere hilarity, is their triumphant vindication of the right to jest. They spread themselves before me like a pageant representing the graceful submission of the easy dupe. They tempt me to filch away chairs from beneath stout and elderly gentlemen who are about to sit down. Take the case of ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 11, 1914 • Various
... ain't," said Louis. "Jest watch me," and he walked up and tossed a copper at the orator's head and Abdul, the mighty man of the desert, caught it with a grin and in ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... quite tired of the contest, and shutting it, 'I perceive,' cried I, 'that none of you have a mind to be married.'" We should like to have seen the dinner-party, and the two Miss Flamboroughs ready to die with laughing. "One jest I particularly remember: old Mr Wilmot drinking to Moses, whose head was turned another way, my son replied, 'Madam, I thank you.' Upon which the old gentleman, winking upon the rest of the company, observed that he was thinking of his mistress; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... sentence of an Act of Parliament, and found that, beginning with "Whereas" and ending with the word "repealed," it was precisely the length of an ordinary three-volume novel. To offer the reader that sentence on the present occasion would be rather a heavy jest, and as little reasonable as the revenge offered to a village schoolmaster who, having complained that the whole of his little treatise on the Differential Calculus was printed bodily in one of the ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... The goddess approached raining flowers on every side and diverse kinds of sweet perfumes. She who loved to reside on the breast of Himavat advanced in this guise towards her great lord. The beautiful Uma, with smiling lips and desirous of playing a jest, covered from behind, with her two beautiful hands, the eyes of Mahadeva. As soon as Mahadeva's eyes were thus covered, all the regions became dark and life seemed to be extinct everywhere in the universe. The Homa rites ceased. The universe became suddenly deprived ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... was a good-natured crowd. In all my wandering in it I heard not an unpleasant word, not a jest at my expense, almost no evidence of anti-foreign feeling, which seems not indigenous to the peon, but implanted in him by those of ulterior motives. Nor did they once ask alms or attempt to push misery forward. The least charitable would be strongly tempted to succor any one ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... any relief whatsoever; his jest sadder than his earnest; while, in Elizabethan work, all lament is full of hope, and all ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... but hair and whiskers as white as snow. Sorry-looking rooster—seems like he's lost all his friends on earth, and wa'n't jest sure where to find ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... feign'd themselves lame, some feign'd themselves clapt, At last finding all themselves by themselves trapt, The King most unanimously they addrest, And told him the Truth, 'twas all but a Jest. ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... saw what a sorry jest had been played upon him, he said to Petru: "Hark ye, this is no fair fight! Fight honestly, ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... dafy you to see in hany curracle,) I crisn'd Hull and Selby, in grateful elusion to my transackshns in that railroad. My riding Cob I called very unhaptly my Dublin and Galway. He came down with me the other day, and I've jest sold him at ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... passed about four weeks in New Salem, after which she returned to Kentucky. Three years later, and perhaps a year after Miss Rutledge's death, Mrs. Able, before starting for Kentucky, told Mr. Lincoln probably more in jest than earnest, that she would bring her sister back with her on condition that he would become her—Mrs. Able's—brother-in-law. Lincoln, also probably more in jest than earnest, promptly agreed to the proposition; for he remembered Mary Owens as a tall, handsome, dark-haired girl, with fair ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... laughter broke from the group of Carthaginian officers that had ridden behind and who now clustered around him. The calm that no devotion, no suffering, no danger of men could move, was gone; the schalischim had turned from his measuring of the enemy to smile and jest with his friends. Thereupon they threw back their heads and laughed loud and long; and then the Africans noted it, and hoarse cries of joy broke from their ranks. "The schalischim must be sure of victory. Praise ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... He thought with a thrill that was not of pity, of a bird hit in full flight and mortally hurt, panting out its life in the heather, its gay plumage limp and dishevelled. The jewels and outrageous dress had become a jest that had turned against her. A shadow of the empty, good-humoured smile still lingered on a painted mouth palsied with fear. She was swaying slightly, rhythmically, backwards and forwards, and rubbing the palms of her hands on the carved arms of her chair, and he could hear ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... beauty made strange contrast with the faces on each side and in front of her—faces of rude intelligence, faces of fathomless stupidity, faces degraded into something less than human. But all were listening, all straining towards her. There were a few whispers of honest admiration, a few of vile jest. She began ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... "Jest as I was a-puzzling my brains as to the reason of these fog banks and the stench they brought with them, Gil Saul came on deck too, and sheered up alongside of me as I was looking out over the side. His face was a worse sight ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... jesting with me, husband," she replied; "but it is a cruel jest. I am all seriousness, I do assure you. Peace of mind can never be mine until my question is ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... "A bitter jest, indeed, and plucked ere half ripened. St. Bulwer! but thou wilt be a mother's blessing when thou ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... myself," quoth the youth, in a tone that might have been in jest, "upon becoming acquainted with a character at once so respectable and so novel; and, to return your quotation in the way of a compliment, I cry out with the most fashionable author of ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Splendor"; I see him sitting on a chest Heavy with padlocks, bolts, and cording, Where Untold Treasures hidden rest, Treasures of Untold Yarns he's hoarding. Oh, Rudyard, please unlock that chest! With hope deferred we're growing hoary; Or was it all an empty jest ...
— Confessions of a Caricaturist • Oliver Herford
... of humor at a dinner-table talk is one thing; a report of it in the morning papers is another. One needs the lamplight and the scenery. These failing, what was meant in jest assumes ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... dice, and when a wrangle arose from the throwing of the cubes, he taught them to wind it up with a fatal affray. And so, by means of this peaceful sport, he spread the spirit of strife through the whole ship, and the jest gave place to quarrelling, which engendered bloody combat. Also, fain to get some gain out of the misfortunes of others, he seized the moneys of the slain, and attached to him a certain rover then famous, named Koll; and a little after returned in his company to his own land, where he was ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... forgot the tone of my Florentine acquaintance. I know I should have translated it to them: you remember what admirable work I used to make of such stories in broken Italian. I have heard old Churchill tell Bussy English puns out of jest-books: particularly a reply about eating hare, which he translated, "j'ai mon ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... of witty jests, for in that respect M. de Bernis was a true Frenchman. I have travelled much, I have deeply studied men, individually and in a body, but I have never met with true sociability except in Frenchmen; they alone know how to jest, and it is rare, delicate, refined jesting, which animates ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... innumerable anecdotes, which he made peculiarly his own, and which he told with inimitable grace and unction. I am sure nobody will ever tell them again as he told them; for, contrary to the proverb, the prosperity of the jest in his case lay, nine-tenths, in his way of relating it—though it ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... jest dish yeah way, Massa Tom," began the colored man. "I had jest been feedin' mah mule, Boomerang. He were pow'ful hungry, Boomerang were, an', when I give him some oats, wif a carrot sliced up in 'em—no, hole on—did I gib him a carrot t'day, or was it yist'day?—I ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... and West The Last Suttee The Ballad of the King's Mercy The Ballad of the King's Jest The Ballad of Boh Da Thone The Lament of the Border Cattle Thief The Rhyme of the Three Captains The Ballad of the "Clampherdown" The Ballad of the "Bolivar" The English Flag Cleared An Imperial Rescript Tomlinson Danny Deever Tommy Fuzzy-Wuzzv Soldier, Soldier ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... commissioners of the various powers were sitting at Vienna rearranging the landmarks and boundaries obliterated by the French inundation, news was brought to them that Napoleon had escaped from Elba and was in France. At first the members of the Congress were incredulous, regarding the thing as a jest, and were with difficulty convinced of ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... made and unmade at his pleasure; the constitution of our Parliaments changed by his writ and proclamation; our persons imprisoned; our property plundered; our lands and houses overrun with soldiers; and the great charter itself was but argument for a scurrilous jest; and for all this we may thank that Parliament; for never, unless they had so violently shaken the vessel, could such foul dregs have ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... that black rock, Jig," he said, taking Gaspar to the designated stone as he spoke, and removing the noose from the latter's neck. "Black is a sign you're going to swing in the end. Jest ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... him, but I doubt it. I have told Tempie and she says she is glad to have us," she added as Mrs. Buchanan turned and looked in the direction of the kitchen regions. They all smiled, for the understanding that existed between Phoebe and Tempie was the subject of continual jest. ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Are forced their empire to resign; The wanton sport, the jest obscene, The ignoble sway of sleep and wine, And all the plagues of languid sense Feel the strict ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... were at length sensible that they had gone too far, and, as their better feelings returned, they sought to assure the offended object of their pleasantry that what they had uttered was merely in jest; but finding he received these disclaimers in moody silence, they renewed their attack, nor discontinued it until they separated for their mutual quarters ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... it was that she had seen it in Mr Sherwood's hand in the cedar walk, and that he did not leave it when he went away. She looked for it in the library and in the drawing-room, but it was nowhere to be seen. She had a great objection to asking him for it. Mr Sherwood sometimes condescended to jest with the young lady on some subjects about which they did not agree; and she did not like his jests. So time passed ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... the look of hatred were so unsuited to Lida, gracious, feminine Lida, that Sarudine instinctively recoiled. He had not quite understood their import, and sought to pass them by with a jest. ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... and to interest her audience. Her voice, notwithstanding its sweet inflections, was broken, or "cracked," as singers term it, a circumstance occasioned, perhaps, by the constant use she made of it, for she was not a little remarkable for that volubility which a rude jest attributes to her sex in general. She was a very successful beggar, too, amongst the rest of her accomplishments, for munition and strong drink. Just before the battle of Dodowah commenced, she passed along the ranks, encouraging her people with an appropriate harangue, and waving ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... honoured by the Signoria and robed in brocade, was mocked at, in passing through Vacchereccia, where there were then many goldsmiths' shops, by certain old friends, who, having known him in youth, did this either in scorn or in jest; and that he, turning in the direction whence he had heard the voice, made a gesture of contempt with both his hands and went on his way without saying a word, so that scarcely anyone noticed it save those who had derided him. By reason of ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... all fair and square, suh. I bought the place, you know, when it went at auction jest a few years after the war. I bought and paid for it right down, and that settled ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... humorous articles, fables, and fairy tales are offered for your choice, with subjects as diverse as the styles; but however the laugh is gained, in whatever fashion the jest is delivered, the laugh-maker is a public benefactor, for laughter is the salt of life, and keeps the whole ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... you! they was as good as merried for ten year, an' he was goin' all the time, an' then, jest at the last minute, to be 'racked! It's 'most always so, when people goes to sea," added she, in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... trivial minds find it; a thing, on the contrary, to be gone into with slow spelling, and face knitted up into savage sternness, especially now, when, as he gravely explained to Margret, "in HIS opinion the crissis was jest at hand, and ev'ry man must be seein' ef the gover'ment was carryin' out the views of ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... fortune. Another age, or juster men, will acknowledge the virtues of his studies, his wisdom in dividing, his subtlety in arguing, with what strength he doth inspire his readers, with what sweetness he strokes them; in inveighing, what sharpness; in jest, what urbanity he uses; how he doth reign in men's affections; how invade and break in upon them, and makes their minds like the thing he writes. Then in his elocution to behold what word is proper, which hath ornaments, which height, ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... deliberately as hard a slap in the face as his strength would permit. Half crying with the pain, and yet not wishing to be thought quarrelsome, I asked, with good-natured humility, whether that was done in jest or in earnest. The little insolent replied, in his school-boy wit, "Betwixt and between." I couldn't stand that; my passion and my fist rose together, and hitting my oppressor midway between the eyes, "There's my betwixt and between," said I. His nose began to bleed, and when I went down into the ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... of the Holy Ghost, he goes his way Wisdom his motley, Truth his loving jest; The mills of Satan keep his lance in play, Pity and innocence his ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... Chucked it right into the tea, Missie, jest like it didn't cost nothin', and it was a good ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... "Jest see how she throwed dirt an' water on them boots," said another, extending an enormous ugly boot. "Them boots ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... him to resign up to him his birthright; and he, being pinched with famine, resigned it up to him, under an oath. Whence it came, that, on account of the redness of this pottage, he was, in way of jest, by his contemporaries, called Adom, for the Hebrews call what is red Adom; and this was the name given to the country; but the Greeks gave it a more agreeable pronunciation, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... still reckon with the unforeseen; and that is why the Nabob suddenly found himself blinded by a rush of blood to his eyes, while a cry of rage was stifled by the sudden contraction of his throat. His mother, his old Francoise, was dragged into the infamous jest of the "flower boat" at last. How well that Moessard aimed, how well he knew the really sensitive spots in that heart, so ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... to go very far with the bishops, but still less was she fervent for God's glory and public Reformation. Accordingly, on the first Court day she handed Knox's letter, perhaps unread, to the Bishop of Glasgow, with the words, 'Please you, my Lord, to read a Pasquil.' The unwise jest came to Knox's ears, and some years after he published his letter with resentful additions and interpolations. In these he assumed—much too soon—that there was no longer hope of the Regent becoming personally convinced of the Evangel. But he at the same time modified his ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... understand the irresistible attraction of fine, embroidered stockings, the exquisite charm of shades, the witchery of valuable lace concealed in the depths of their underclothing, the exciting jest of hidden luxury, and all the subtle delicacies of female elegance, never understand the invincible disgust with which words that are out of place, or ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... anticipate this brilliant success, when they caused to be imported from farther in the country some straight poles with their tops cut off, which they called Sugar-Maples; and, as I remember, after they were set out, a neighboring merchant's clerk, by way of jest, planted beans about them. Those which were then jestingly called bean-poles are to-day far the most beautiful objects noticeable in our streets. They are worth all and more than they have cost,—though one of the selectmen, while setting them out, took the cold which occasioned his death,—if ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... hall, reeking with tobacco smoke and stale beer, the men and women with painted faces and blackened eyes leering and languishing at each other, the snatches of suggestive song and jest, ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... Ha, ha, that were a jest! You know a virgin may continue there A twelve month and a day only on trial. There shall my daughter sojourn some three months, And in mean time I'll compass a fair match Twixt youthful Jerningham, the lusty heir Of Sir Raph Jerningham, ...
— The Merry Devil • William Shakespeare
... Teddy. I'll ce'tainly shake hands with you on that. But life's jest meetin' and partin', old hawss. I got to take you away for good, ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... inform me of last night: you must needs have heard of the amour between madam la Boissy and the chevalier de Mourenbeau? frequently, replied Charlotta; her ridiculous jealousies of him have long been the jest of the whole court; and I never go to Marli or Versailles, but I am told of some new instance of it. And yet to relate a long story of her passion, and his ingratitude, said mademoiselle de Coigney, was I last night dragged into a dark corner, and deprived for an hour together of all ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... sleepin' sound, Es only a cowboy knows how to sleep; An' Tommy's snores would hev made a old Buffalo bull feel kind o' cheap. Wal, pard, I reckin' thar's no sech time For dwind'lin' a chap in his own conceit, Es when them mountains an' awful stars, Jest hark to the tramp of his ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... ain' pressed for time. Maybe you got some friend back there. Goin' back to git married?" He winked genially to point the jest and the ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... enjoyed my visit in spite of everything. Kate was a host in herself. She was twenty-eight years old—eight years my senior—but the difference in our ages had never been any barrier to our friendship. She was a jolly, companionable, philosophical soul, with a jest for every situation, and a merry solution for every perplexity. The only fault I had to find with her was her tendency to make parodies. Kate's parodies were perfectly awful and always ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... rude and shameless words, and this is quite clear, for the women we had known, perhaps, never deserved any better words. But of Tanya we never spoke ill. Not only did none of us ever dare to touch her with his hand, she never even heard a free jest from us. It may be that this was because she never stayed long with us; she flashed before our eyes like a star coming from the sky and then disappeared, or, perhaps, because she was small and very beautiful, and all that is beautiful commands the respect ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... charges with counter-charges against Ord, whom he accused of purloining Father Pandoza's shoes, when the soldiers in their fury about the ammunition destroyed the Mission. At the time of its destruction a rumor of this nature was circulated through camp, started by some wag, no doubt in jest; for Ord, who was somewhat eccentric in his habits, and had started on the expedition rather indifferently shod in carpet-slippers, here came out in a brand-new pair of shoes. Of course there was no real ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... "Jest a leetle mo' flour," she said, "den it'll be stiff enough an' ready fo' de oven. An' after it's baked yo' kin mix up de sugar-icin' t' go on ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Home • Laura Lee Hope
... a German, who having been strung up in jest and cut down, declared it was 'a fery pad choke.' The best 'choke' of the season was issued by our friend the Boston Traveller, who in commenting on the remark of the London Times, to the effect that Mr. Lincoln is eating ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... I'll tell you in brief, If you will but listen a while; For this very jest, among all the rest, I think it may cause ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... the night, they arrived at the confines of the beautiful "Blue Grass country," and when the sun arose, clear and brilliant, a lovely and smiling landscape had replaced the lowering, stony, dungeon like region whence they had at last escaped. The contrast seemed magical—the song, jest and laugh burst forth again and the men drew new life and ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... is all very true. You are exceedingly handsome; I never denied it, except in jest; and you are decidedly agreeable, except now and then; and you have a noble heart,—I never doubted it; and a fine intellect,—though I do not know much about that; and any woman might be proud of you,—that is, I ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... Harnett, that I've lost the old place I was raised on, and all for the lack of a little money. You know that I helped poor Tom set himself up in business by mortgaging the farm. If the poor boy had lived, he would have paid it all; but jest when we thought he was gettin' along so famously, he died. I've walked the streets of this town all day, hopin' I could find some one who would help me make up the balance I owe; but the fire yesterday makes everybody feel poor, I s'pose, an' I couldn't ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... the Sulphite, is unnecessary. These remarks would all be in his Index Epurgatorius, if one were necessary. Except in jest it would never even occur to him to use any of the ...
— Are You A Bromide? • Gelett Burgess
... Courteneys: "I allowed to make it to this young gentleman first, alone, an' get his advice—an' the commodo's if he'd give it; but the' ain't anybody in this small crowd but what's welcome to hear it, even this young lady, considerin' that she's jest heard so ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... Duke of Ormond, I would speak to him; and if it come in my head I will mention it to Ned Southwell. They have no patents that I know of for such things here, but good security is all; and to think that I would speak to Lord Treasurer for any such matter at random is a jest. Did I tell you of a race of rakes, called the Mohocks,(3) that play the devil about this town every night, slit people's noses, and beat them, etc.? Nite, sollahs, and ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... would be incorrect to call him a liar, because he is wanting in that sense of truth by violating which a man makes himself a liar. We cannot call him a traitor, for his heart knows no country; nor an infidel, for all the serious and high concerns of man are to him a jest. Defective is the word to apply to such as he. As far as he goes, he is good; and if the commodity in which he deals were cotton or sugar, we could commend his enterprise and tact. He is like the steeple of a church ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... you are not tired of that old jest, Charles," said Waverton with a dignity which did not permit him to ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... Yes, I found you not guilty; and I jest tipped you a wink, from the box, to let you know as it were all right; but my eye! what a game we had had of it. Never had such a game, in ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... Miss Bell, her propriety really shocked at the idea of a young girl declaring herself, even in jest, in love with a man who had said nothing to justify ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... opposition on his part; his faculties became concentrated on a sound without, of a big car gathering headway in front of the door. Mr. Heatherbloom listened; perhaps he would have liked to retreat then and there from that house; but it was too late! Fate had precipitated him here. A mad tragic jest! He did not catch the amount of his proposed stipend that was mentioned; he even forgot for the moment he was hungry. He could no longer hear the car. It had gone; but, it would return. Return! And then—? His head whirled at ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... windows to you, say not it is because I have dared. It is because I have not dared. I have said I will protect my soul with the street. I will have my vow written on my forehead. I will throw open my window to the passer-by. Fling it in! I beg you, oh world, whatever it is, be it prayer or hope or jest. It is mine. I have vowed to live with it, to live out of it—so long as I feel your footsteps under my casement, and know that your watch is upon my days, and that you hold me to myself. I have taken for my challenge or for my comrade, I know ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... century, we find recorded Brunet's stinging sarcasms, and the consequent reprimands and even imprisonments be incurred. "L'Empereur n'aime que Josephine et la chasse!" was his exclamation when Napoleon's project of divorce was first bruited about; and for days Paris rang with the sharp jest. "Le char l'attend!" he cried, pausing before the triumphal arch on which stood the horses and empty chariot, the spoils of Venice. But the license of Monsieur Brunet's tongue was little relished by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... doubtless intended in the title of the Gest of Robyn Hode. A further corruption may be noticed even in the titles of the later texts as given above; Copland adds the word 'mery,' which thirty years later causes White to print a 'Merry Jest.' ...
— Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series • Frank Sidgwick
... agreeable sweetmeat, such as a man may trifle with at the end of a long dinner; for a substantial meal I have no use for it. The rest of the food-supply, in a destitute atoll such as Fakarava, can be summed up in the favourite jest of the archipelago—cocoa-nut beefsteak. Cocoa-nut green, cocoa-nut ripe, cocoa-nut germinated; cocoa-nut to eat and cocoa-nut to drink; cocoa-nut raw and cooked, cocoa-nut hot and cold—such is the bill of fare. And some of the entrees are no doubt ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... He steps back, and casts about him for some sort of we'pon; he hadn't a thing in his fist but a roll of paper, and if ever a chap hankered arter a stick or a stun, they say he did. But it was all jest perairie grass; nary rock nor a piece of timber within three mile. Snake seemed to 'preciate his advantage, and flattened his head and whirred his rattle sassier 'n ever. Surveyor chap couldn't stan' that. So what does he dew, like a blamed fool, but jest off with his boot and hurl it, ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... could rarely be quite sure when Kenelm Chillingly was in jest or in earnest, the parlour-maid paused a moment and attempted a pale smile. Kenelm lifted his dark eyes, unspeakably sad and profound, and said mournfully, "I should be so sorry for the baby. Bring the chops!" The parlour-maid vanished. The boy laid down ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... about the track, men on horseback in the distance. One of the Massachusetts guard last night challenged his captain. Captain replied, "Officer of the night" Whereupon, says Stephe, "The recruit let squizzle and jest missed his ear." He then related to me the incident of the railroad station. "The first thing they know'd," says he, "we bit right into the depot and took charge." "I don't mind," Stephe remarked,—"I don't mind life, nor yit death; but whenever I see a Massachusetts boy, I stick by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... in earnest. She would make one doubt whether she has any earnest. Yesterday evening she so treated, the subject that I was on the point of saying, "Reply not to me with a fool-born jest." And how do you think she answered my father, when he asked her if she knew what she undertook? As my namesake said, "I shall wash all day and ride out on the great dog ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Well, I jest told 'em that if you boys made such a fuss about anythin' like they did about their Gospel outfit, an' I ain't sayin' anythin' agin it, you'd put up seven hundred ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... jest.] Isn't it awful! You can't make him jealous! I think it's a positive flaw in his character! Not ...
— The Girl with the Green Eyes - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... all, and prefers some "kindhearted play-book," or at times the Town and County Magazine. Poor Lamb has not a little to answer for, in the revived relish for garbage unearthed from old theatrical dungheaps. Be it jest or earnest, I have little patience with the Elia-tic philosophy of the frivolous. Why do we still suffer the traditional hypocrisy about the dignity of literature—literature, I mean, in the gross, which includes about equal parts of what is useful and what is useless? Why ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... Co! You'll wake Iry, and then he'll hev to hev something, and if he sleeps right through, thar'll be jest so much more fer you. 'Twon't hurt him to miss what he don't know about. All right, Cory, you can hev cake and jell. That's a good boy, Bud, to give her two tastes of the cream, and ma'll give you two more. Bobby? Sandwiches and pickle. Milt? Chicken and salid. Flammy ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... met with mortals only—that he stood still and helpless, listening. Then came to him the thought of what to do, when he heard the talk of either ransom or drowning and knew that we were not slain. So even as Olaf had bidden him in jest, he had turned his cloak and ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... is nice," he said, heartily, after hearing his wife's brief explanation. "Never can have too many little gals 'round to suit me, an' as fer this young man," he lifted Little Brother gently as he spoke, "he fits into this fam'ly jest like a book. Ted here's gettin' most too much of a man to be our ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... "I cannot jest on so serious a matter," he said, resolving to make the attempt to re-establish his dignity with Alice. "I think, Miss Groff, that you perhaps hardly know how absurd your supposition is. There are not many men of distinction in ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... we seen Done at the Mermaid; heard words that have been So nimble and so full of subtle flame, As if that every one from whom they came Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, And had resolved to live a fool the rest Of his dull ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... something that made me laugh, and then I could scarcely help it. He was sharp enough very soon to find out this; and then he did a thing which was most unfair, as I found out long afterward. He bought an American jest-book, full of ideas wholly new to me, and these he committed to heart, and brought them out as his own productions. If I had only known it, I must have been exceedingly sorry for him. But Uncle Sam used to laugh and rub his hands, perhaps for old acquaintance' ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... themselves into the representation—that all the others were more conscious than she of the wide-hipped incongruity of their role. To the man who beheld her there in an absolutely new world of light and color and course jest it seemed that she was perfectly oblivious of any other, and that her personality was the most aggressive, the most ferociously determined to be made the most of, on the stage. As the chorus ceased a half-grown youth remarked ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... doubt it—yet I think not you: You know you could not tell if it were true, Your love might be a jest. ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... these foreign hordes. It was the custom at the time of the Restoration to say that the complaints and narrations of those who were exposed to these excesses were exaggerated by fear or hatred. I have even heard very dignified persons jest pleasantly over the pretty ways of the Cossacks. But these wits always kept themselves at a distance from the theater of war, and had the good fortune to inhabit departments which suffered neither from the first nor second ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Turandot!" said Otto; "the stony heart itself was forced to break and bleed. There is really a jest in having the marble painted. She stands before future ages as if she lived—a stone image, white and red, only a mask of beauty. She is a warning ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... Thoughts I, it must be 'im! 'Ow goes it, my bo-oy? You 'ardly reckonise me, I dessay, and I couldn't be sure as it was you till I'd 'ed a good squint at yer. I've jest called round at your lodgin's, and they towld me as you ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... Antony she quickly took the measure of the man. She fell at once into his coarse soldier ways, and answered him jest for jest. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... whilst he bowed gracefully before her, "I fear me this lengthy conversation hath somewhat fatigued you.... This merry jest 'twixt my engaging friend and myself should not have been prolonged so far into the night.... Monsieur, I pray you, will you not give orders that her ladyship be escorted back ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... he was refreshed, and restored. Forthwith, as soon as I could speak with him (and I could, so soon as he was able, for I never left him, and we hung but too much upon each other), I essayed to jest with him, as though he would jest with me at that baptism which he had received, when utterly absent in mind and feeling, but had now understood that he had received. But he so shrunk from me, as from an enemy; and with a wonderful and ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... first was insignificant. And this time it was curious: he could not subdue her physique, as he did before; she was ready for him each day, and she was animated, much more voluble, she was ready to jest. The reason being, that she fought now on plausibly good grounds: on behalf ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was a playful jest on the long-winded story-telling of the old romances, and had specially in mind Thomas Chestre's version of Launfal from Marie of France, and the same rhymer's romance of "Ly Beaus Disconus," who was Gingelein, a son of Gawain, called by his mother, ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... during a season of profound calm. The uniform and steady pull of the crew, directed in their time by the wild chaunt of the steersman, with whom they ever and anon join in fall chorus—the measured plash of the oars into the calm surface of the water—the joyous laugh and rude, but witty, jest of the more youthful and buoyant of the soldiery, from whom, at such moments, although in presence of their officers, the trammels of restraint are partially removed—all these, added to the inspiriting ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... crowning all its loveliness. In the Middle Ages hardly anything but vice could be caricatured, because virtue was always visibly and personally noble: now virtue itself is apt to inhabit such poor human bodies, that no aspect of it is invulnerable to jest; and for all fairness we have to seek to the flowers, for ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... glanced at each other in appreciation of the jest; and he chirped, "You're worse than Reverend Benlick! He don't hardly ever strike me for more than ten dollars—at ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... her power to console him in his disappointment.—There was plenty of jealous people always that wanted to keep young folks from rising in the world. Never mind, she didn't believe but what Gifted could make jest as good verses as any of them that they kept such a talk about.—She had a fear that he might pine away in consequence of the mental excitement he had gone through, and solicited his appetite with her choicest appliances,—of which he partook in a measure ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... I. M. is immediately made aware that the lady in question has overheard his ill-timed jest, while the ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... of its eyes. The drawn mouth was the color of stale milk. Nothing remained to summon either pity or sorrow. The only possible emotion in the face of that revolting human disaster was an incredulous and shocked surprise. It struck like a terrible jest, a terrible, icy reminder, into the forgetful warmth of living; it mocked at the supposed majesty of suffering, tore aside the assumed dignity, the domination, of men; it tampered ferociously with the beauty, the pride, the innocent and gracious pretensions, ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... it songs of endless Spring Which the frolic Muses sing, Jest, and Mirth's unruly brood Dancing to the Phrygian mood; Be it love, or be it wine, Myrtle wreath, or ivy twine, Or a garland made of both; Whether then Philosophy That would fill us full of glee Seeing that our ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... in the city, they passed through the crooked streets, sometimes so narrow that the geese were packed from wall to wall. Oft some jovial soldier sent a jest or a query to them across the now gray backs of the geese. But Gretchen looked on ahead, purely ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... "They jest clapped him in the bilboes and kept him there for one while," interjected Tom. "For me, I'd rather pick all day at the tarred rope though it was ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... he, "strange as it may seem, ma's kinder stuck on comin' to town to live. How she'll feel after she's tried it fer a month 'r so, with no chickens 'r turkeys 'r milk to look after, I'm dubious; but jest now she seems to ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... The rude jest at her expense did not seem to his withered and toughened taste in the least out of the way. Indeed it was a delectable bit of humor from ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... is entertaining; the speculations, whether sound or unsound, are always ingenious; and the style, though too stiff and pompous, is somewhat easier and more graceful than that of his early writings. His prejudice against the Scotch had at length become little more than matter of jest; and whatever remained of the old feeling had been effectually removed by the kind and respectful hospitality with which he had been received in every part of Scotland. It was, of course, not to be expected that an Oxonian Tory should praise the Presbyterian polity and ritual, or that ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... jest—Nancy's telling Aunt Bell that her reason for going to Edom was too foolish to give even to herself. At least such reticence to self is often sincerely and plausibly asserted by the very inner woman. Yet no sooner had her train ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... had each in their turn favored him with some music, he rose, and taking the vacant seat at the piano, asked if we would not like to hear an English song. His sisters laughed heartily, thinking him to be only in jest; but their amusement changed to wonder and admiration when, after running his fingers lightly over the keys, he began playing a soft and melodious prelude. It seemed that when a boy of fifteen, he had as a sort of amusement learned the rudiments ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell |
