"Jesting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... change into the butler's pantry? This in substance was Dickens's account to me next day, and his reason for having been very careful in his acknowledgment of the toast of "the Novelists." He was nettled not a little therefore by a jesting allusion to himself in the Daily News in connection with the proceedings, and asked me to forward a remonstrance. Having a strong dislike to all such displays of sensitiveness, I suppressed the letter; but it is perhaps ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... more newes, brother; the late jesting Monsieur Makes now your brothers dying prophesie equall At all parts, being dead ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... glad to hear through Mrs. Clayton that reaction has occurred, and that you manifest repentance for your recent violence toward one who always means you well. A little jesting on the part of your guardian, my dear girl, should meet with a very different reception, and handsome women must submit to compliments with a good grace, or run the risk of being called prudes or viragos. Not that I mean to apply either term to you by any means. Your father's daughter ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... in no humor for jesting. Damas. I see you understand something of the grammar; you decline the non-substantive "small-swords" with great ease; but that won't do—you must ...
— The Lady of Lyons - or Love and Pride • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... "Are you jesting with me?" Wallace exclaimed. "Is the Bruce really waiting to see me? Why, this would be well ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... I derived from them; I will have done with adventures, and at the fitting moment I will act with calmness, prudence, and all the benignity possible. It is better so. My coalition, half-serious, half-jesting, with the army, had for its object to protect me against the violence of the Orbajosans and of the servants and the relations of my aunt. For the rest, I have always disapproved of the idea of what we call ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... of the banquet? The courses were very well arranged—mouldy bread, bacon-rind, tallow candle, and sausage—and then the same dishes over again from the beginning: it was just as good as having two banquets in succession. There was as much joviality and agreeable jesting as in the family circle. Nothing was left but the pegs at the ends of the sausages. And the discourse turned upon these; and at last the expression, 'Soup on sausage-rinds,' or, as they have the proverb in the neighbouring country, 'Soup on a sausage-peg,' was mentioned. ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... did so—exactly in the proportion in which we smoothed all hindrances—exactly in that proportion would it cease to be known or felt that there had ever been any hindrances to be smoothed. This, however, is digression, to which I have been tempted by the interesting nature of the grievance. In a jesting way, this grievance is obliquely noticed ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... hemlocks, oaks, and dogwood thrived as if conscious that theirs had been no ordinary transplanting; while Minturn's half- jesting prophecy concerning the travellers in ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... believe in self-expression And disdain to be a law-abiding man, You must cultivate a hobby of insulting ev'ry bobby Whenever you conveniently can. You'll find him quite impervious to jesting, But he has another less attractive side, Elemental, unalluring and arresting When his patience is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various
... voice in the joyous jesting of youth. And—marvel and miracle—then and there, those lean brown folk did take up the jest, and laughingly gathered on the sun-seared sands. They formed sets and danced—danced a dance of the indomitable, at high noon, the heat blinding, the sand hot under ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... would have feigned, at least, some interest in the boy who championed my cause. I was wrong, even in merry jest, to touch on such a subject, but I thought that as French gentlemen you would understand that I was half serious, half jesting at myself for this girlish love of mine. He is not here to defend himself against your uncourteous remarks; but, Monsieur le Duc, allow me to inform you that the fact that the person who insulted me paid for it almost with his life was no proof of his great want of skill, for monsieur my ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... that day in the neighbourhood of Capua, and Andreas had acquitted himself well, and was in high good-humour, giving now little thought to the sinister things that Charles of Durazzo had lately whispered, laughing and jesting with the traitor Morcone at his side. Behind him in close attendance stood his servant Pace, once a creature of Durazzo's. The Queen sat on his right, making but poor pretence to eat; her lovely young face was of a ghostly pallor, her dark eyes were wide and staring. Among the guests were the black-browed ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... tinge of literary merit seems at once to excite his worst suspicions." But with a censor whose sympathies were too purely literary, literary in too narrow a sense, would not scruples of some other kind begin to intrude themselves, scruples of the student who cannot tolerate an innocent jesting with "serious" things, scruples of the moralist who must choose between Maeterlinck and d'Annunzio, between Tolstoi and Ibsen? I cannot so much as think of a man in all England who would be capable of justifying the existence ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... found out. Jack Kilmeny, in evening dress, was jesting in animated talk with India when the engaged couple reentered the room. He turned, the smile still on his face, to greet Joyce as she came forward beside Verinder. The little man was strutting pompously toward Lady Farquhar, the arm of the young ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... American, it was also cosmopolitan, and had its laughing way not merely with our British kinsmen, but with alien peoples across the usually impenetrable barrier of translation. The fortune of his jesting lay not in his ears, but in the hearts of his hearers. It was at once appealing and revealing. It flashed its playful light into the nooks and corners of our own being, and wove close bonds with those ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... to say; "with my wife so near at hand I could not let a day go by without inflicting my presence upon her for some small part of it," he concluded in a half jesting tone, and with a fond look down into the sweet, troubled face; for he was standing ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... I, "but to have a mythical being out of Olympiodorus quartered on you for life is no jesting matter." ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... look at the matter most superficially regard paradox as something which belongs to jesting and light journalism. Paradox of this kind is to be found in the saying of the dandy, in the decadent comedy, "Life is much too important to be taken seriously." Those who look at the matter a little more deeply or delicately see that paradox is a thing which especially ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... Turenne's entertainments were marked by a certain earnestness and seriousness. He set, indeed, all his guests at ease by his courtesy and the interest he took in each; and yet all felt that in his presence loud laughter would be out of place and loose jesting impossible. Enghien, on the other hand, being a wild and reckless young noble, one who chose not his words, but was wont to give vent in terms of unbridled hatred to his contempt for those whom he ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... sold three times a week. The price was a penny, and the form was so unpretentious that deprecators spoke of its "tobacco-paper" and "scurvy letter." Like Defoe's review, it was strong in Foreign War intelligence, but beyond this the aim was to attract readers, not by political sarcasm or coarse jesting, but by sparkling satire on the foibles of the fashionable world. Addison says that the design was to bring philosophy to tea-tables, and to check improprieties "too trivial for the chastisement of the law, and too fantastical for the cognizance of the pulpit," ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... Marian had paused directly in front of the lens of the camera. Maid Marian looked up and made a light, jesting remark, gazing straight into the midshipman's eyes. Dave, smiling, bent forward to hear ...
— Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis - Or, Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters" • H. Irving Hancock
... good deal of such "scurril jesting" in the paper, especially in a department called "Prattle." There were verses on all manner of subjects—mostly the nobility and their works and ways, from the viewpoint of disapproval—and epigrams, generally ill-humorous, like the following, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... stranger, and of the dance, and of all the new and wonderful emotions that had filled her heart on that eventful day, to Amrei was a sacred one indeed; for weeks she thought of it by day and dreamed of it by night. The jealous, sneering remarks of Rose, and the half-serious, half-jesting utterances of other people, who had been present at the wedding, meant nothing to her; she went about her work all the more diligently and ignored it all. Black Marianne could offer her no encouragement in her hope that the stranger would some day appear again ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... a morning Babbitt came bouncing and jesting in to breakfast. But things were mysteriously awry to-day. As he pontifically tread the upper hall he looked into Verona's bedroom and protested, "What's the use of giving the family a high-class house when they don't appreciate it ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... tale-telling, jesting talk, ribaldry, buffoonery, P; harlatrye, jesting Lat. scurrilitas (eutrapelia), W; ...
— A Concise Dictionary of Middle English - From A.D. 1150 To 1580 • A. L. Mayhew and Walter W. Skeat
... I think, in a free, off-hand, even jesting,[234] manner ('enkindle' meaning merely 'excite you to hope for'). But then, possibly from noticing something in Macbeth's face, he becomes graver, and goes on, ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... his door, they hurried off the half-dressed general. A soldier escaping from the house gave the alarm, but the laughing guard assured him he had seen a ghost. They soon, however, found it to be no jesting matter, and vainly pursued the exultant Barton. This capture was very annoying to Prescott, as he had just offered a price for Arnold's head, and his tyrannical conduct had made him obnoxious to the people. General Howe readily parted with Lee in ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... but La Palferine would have been frozen by his reception, and disconcerted by the lady's first efforts to rid herself of her cavalier, by her chilly air, her curt speeches; but no gravity, with all the will in the world, could hold out long against La Palferine's jesting replies. The fair stranger went into her milliner's shop. Charles Edward followed, took a seat, and gave his opinions and advice like a man that meant to pay. This coolness disturbed the lady. ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... saw it wrecked this afternoon. There was no excitement, no hurry, no shouting. A crowd collected, apparently without concerted action, but as if by common impulse. There was no prearrangement or system about it and no "French" excitement. Most of the raiders were women. There was some jesting, and some dry wit, but ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the most sensitive person of the Godhead. He is called the "Mother—heart" of God. The context of this passage (v.31) tells us how the Spirit may be grieved: by "foolish talking and jesting." Whenever the believer allows any of the things mentioned in this verse (and those stated also in Gal. 5:17-19) to find place in his heart and expression in his words and life; when these things abide in his heart and actively manifest themselves, then the Spirit is sad ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... that, thanks to the nautical cart, which though the subject of much jesting, did the work, a month from the time of landing found all that remained of the adventurers' outfit transferred to the cabin. Not once during this time was the bear seen in the vicinity of the cache, though sometimes fresh tracks ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... the queen's chamber, sharing with the Countess of Provence, the Princesse de Lamballe, and the Count d'Artois the task of keeping order and quiet in the sick-room till eleven at night. Though there was no scandal, there was plenty of jesting at so novel an arrangement. Wags proposed that in the case of the king being taken ill, a list should be prepared of the ladies who should tend his sick-bed. However, the champions were not long on duty: at the end of little more than a week their patient was convalescent. She herself ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... dazzled by the bright daylight striking him full in the eyes, still overwhelmed with fatigue, and surprised at the jesting tranquillity of the ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... your highness, and listen to me! I foresee misfortune for you. Believe my prophecy, and that misfortune may yet be averted. Mark the signs by which fate would warn you! Did you not yesterday see Elizabeth driving through the streets, chatting and jesting with the soldiers, who crowded around her sledge? Have you not heard how the grenadiers of the Preobrajensky regiment shouted after her? Has it not been told you that Lestocq holds secret intercourse with the French ambassador, and know you not that Lestocq ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... "Who's jesting? I'm not. It's a mighty serious thing for me. I want to get away. The only thing that's keeping me in this forsaken place is this delay. These people are obviously going to fire me sooner or later. Why on earth can't they do ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... saw Chapman gravely following me. The cheer and laughter had disappeared from his face, the jesting gayety had fled, and he seemed enfeebled. I hastened to him, and he raised his face with ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... my parent, testily, "I'm in no humour for jesting. Go away, and let me get to bed and pillow my head ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... was quite in earnest, and met his questioning eyes with the most pathetic ignorance of having said anything extraordinary. Indeed, her faith in what she had said was so patent that he found it impossible to answer her with a light or jesting speech. ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... ever won by one Greek state over another, the courage of the vanquished is nevertheless as much to be admired as that of the victors. Xenophon remarks that the conversation of good and brave men, even when jesting or sitting at table, is always worth remembering, and it is much more valuable to observe how nobly all really brave and worthy men bear themselves when in sorrow and misfortune. When the news of the defeat at Leuktra arrived at Sparta, the city ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... occasions answered in the same tone—"And who says I have not a lover?" So Cousin Betty's lover, real or fictitious, became a subject of mild jesting. At last, after two years of this petty warfare, the last time Lisbeth had come to the house Hortense's first question ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... jesting to the fools who prate of life without comprehending its first beginnings. I do not jest with you—put me to the proof! Obey my rules here but for six months and you shall pass out of these walls with every ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... "jesting out of the question, a man is nothing in public life, or worse than nothing, a trimmer, unless HE JOINS a party, and unless he abides by ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... she expostulated, not at all reciprocating the jesting tone in which I spoke. "If you would consent to give such a promise, it is just one of those we should wish unmade. How could I ask you to promise that I may behave as ill as I please? I dare say I shall be frightened to tears when you are angry; but I shall never wish you to ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... here in England, whose sign was the crown, and he was a merry man. Now he had a boy, of whom he used to say, when he was jovial among his guests, This boy is heir to the crown, or this boy shall be heir to the crown; and if I mistake not the story, for these words he lost his life.26 It is bad jesting with great things, with things that are God's ordinance, as kings and governors are. Yea, let them rather have that fear, that honour, that reverence, that worship, that is due to their place, their office, and dignity. How Paul gave honour and respect unto those ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... believe That I neither am happy nor wise? 'twould relieve And enlighten, perchance, my own darkness and doubt." For which purpose a feeler he softly put out. It was snapp'd up at once. "What is truth? "jesting Pilate Ask'd, and pass'd from the question at once with a smile at Its utter futility. Had he address'd it To Ridley MacNab, he at least had confess'd it Admitted discussion! and certainly no man Could more promptly have answer'd the sceptical Roman Than Ridley. Hear some street ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... much confused. He would have greatly preferred to spend the festal day in solitude, but this was not possible, and he did his best to join in the rejoicings with a glad face. His efforts were successful, and he made a speech at the family dinner, half jesting, half in earnest, as he proposed Hilda's ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... curiosity. Some of his servants have instructions to observe you narrowly, lest your glance should fall too often on his wife or children. The other guests' men perceive your amazement at the novel scene, and exchange jesting asides. From the fact that you do not know what to make of your napkin, they conclude that this is your first experience of dining-out. You perspire with embarrassment; not unnaturally. You are thirsty, but you dare ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... was her unconsciousness of self. Even though she might be talking of herself, frankly admitting her beauty, she was really thinking of other people, how she could get to them to help them. This I must emphasize, because, apart from jesting, I would not have it thought that I had fallen under the spell of a beautiful countenance, combined with a motor-car and a patrician name. There were things about Sylvia that were aristocratic, that could be nothing else; ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... differences of taste is idle; but it is not idle to observe that when Lamb is read, as he surely deserves to be, as a whole—letters and poems no less than essays—these notes of fantasy and artificiality no longer dominate. The man Charles Lamb was far more real, far more serious, despite his jesting, more self-contained and self- restrained, than Hazlitt, who wasted his life in the pursuit of the veriest will-o'-the-wisps that ever danced over the most miasmatic of swamps, who was never his own man, ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... proof that you're as clever as I say!" I was encouraged by this to remark that he would clearly be pained to part with it, and he confessed that it was indeed with him now the great amusement of life. "I live almost to see if it will ever be detected." He looked at me for a jesting challenge; something far within his eyes seemed to peep out. "But I ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... in waiting at the door—the very carriage and pair of chestnut ponies which I myself had given her as a birthday present. Ferrari offered to assist her in mounting the step of the vehicle; she put his arm aside with a light jesting word and accepted mine instead. I helped her in, and arranged her embroidered wraps about her feet, and she nodded gayly to us both as we stood bareheaded in the afternoon sunlight watching her departure. The horses started at a brisk canter, and in a couple of minutes the dainty equipage was ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... again Georgiana turned upon them in her old jesting way, which yet had in it, as they all felt, a quality which was new. "Stop it, girls. No, I'll not sell one of you a rug of any size, shape, or colour. I'm far behind, as I told you. But—I'll send Madge a gorgeous one for a wedding present, if she'll tell me her preferences, and I'll do ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... d'Artagnan, "do not let us lose our time in jesting. Let us separate, and let us seek the mercer's wife—that is the ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... austere air, and never once looked at him. She seemed intentionally to ignore him. A kind of serious, cold enthusiasm appeared to possess her. For some reason or other Lavretsky felt inclined to smile, and to utter words of jesting; but his heart was ill at ease, and at last he went away in a state of secret perplexity. There was something, he felt, in Liza's mind, which he could ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... German princess, Lady D——, going one day to Mr. ——'s studio and finding his fire out, falling down on their own fair knees, and with their own fair hands kindling it again for him. After this, how could he paint anything less than a countess? Jesting apart, however, my dear Hal, the terms Mr. —— asks are very high; and though he is a very elegant and graceful portrait-painter, I would rather, upon the whole, sit to Richmond, whose chalk drawings are the same price, and whose style is as good ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... sprouting grass,'" answered the hemp-dresser in a slightly hoarse but terrible voice. "You must be jesting, my poor friends, singing us such time-worn songs. You see very well that we can stop you ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... that their losses in killed have been extraordinarily light during two years of warfare. How are these admitted and certain facts compatible with any general refusal of quarter? To anyone who, like myself, has seen the British soldiers jesting and smoking cigarettes with their captives within five minutes of their being taken, such a charge is ludicrous, but surely even to the most biassed mind the fact ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... obscured by the shadow, the tones of his voice had made too powerful an impression on him the first time he had heard them for him ever again to forget them, hear them when or where he might. It was more especially when this man was speaking in a manner half jesting, half bitter, that Franz's ear recalled most vividly the deep sonorous, yet well-pitched voice that had addressed him in the grotto of Monte Cristo, and which he heard for the second time amid the ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... joists and couples aboon my head night after night.- -And then I have a queer humour o' my ain, that sets a strolling beggar weel eneugh, whase word naebody mindsbut ye ken Sir Arthur has odd sort o' waysand I wad be jesting or scorning at themand ye wad be angry, and then I wad be just ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... platonic, not to say brotherly. When he had repeated it more earnestly, she had laughed at him, and he had laughed with her in a way which disarmed all her suspicions. But each time that he said it he laughed less, until she realized that he was not jesting. Then she reproached herself a little for having let the intimacy grow, and determined to persuade him by gentle means that he had made a mistake. She felt that she was responsible for his conduct, because she had not been wise enough to stop him at the outset, and she therefore felt also that ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... battle therefore was certain. The letter to her, from its mention of the weather as thick, must have been written in the forenoon. His expectation that the morrow would prove the decisive day was reinforced by one of those prepossessions for coincidences, half jesting, half serious, which are natural to men, but fall too far short of conviction to be called superstitious. On the 21st of October, 1757, his uncle Maurice Suckling had commanded one of three ships-of-the-line which had beaten off ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... said old man Minick, and while his tone was light and jesting there was in his old face something stern, something ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... "Ah—always jesting! Frankly, I believe the men of your province are most inventive, my son," said Father Griffen, smiling mischievously, and emptying his glass in ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... several times; which, when omitted, occasion some little obscurity, but give a grace to the style. Those who used affected language, or adopted obsolete words, he despised, as equally faulty, though in different ways. He sometimes indulged himself in jesting, particularly with his friend Mecaenas, whom he rallied upon all occasions for his fine phrases [237], and bantered by imitating his way of talking. Nor did he spare Tiberius, who was fond of obsolete and far-fetched ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... not smile. I fancied he never smiled, and I wondered whether John Marshall Glenarm had played upon the man’s lack of humor. My grandfather had been possessed of a certain grim, ironical gift at jesting, and quite likely he had amused himself by experimenting upon his ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... what my feelings were that evening—of my murderous hatred of that smirking, jesting Jezebel who sat opposite me at dinner, my wrathful indignation at the thought of the poor little expected heir defrauded ere his birth; of the crushing contempt I felt for myself and the bishop as a pair of witless idiots unable to see our way ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... from his swoon, it was late in the afternoon; he was alone; the faint tinkling of the sheep-bell had again replaced the sound of the human chorus of expectation, and dread, and jesting; all was peaceful, he could not understand why he lay there, feeling so weak and sick. He raised himself tremulously and looked around, the turf was cut and spoilt by the trampling of many feet. All his life ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... "interpreter" of the holy places to show to the people. The sacred way which led from Athens to Eleusis was rich in such memorials. The nine days of the wanderings of Demeter in the Homeric hymn are the nine days of the duration of the greater or autumnal mysteries; the jesting of the old woman Iambe, who endeavours to make Demeter smile, are the customary mockeries with which the worshippers, as they rested on the bridge, on the seventh day of the feast, assailed those who passed by. The torches in the hands ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... touch of his deft, strong hands, and heard again the tender cadence of his voice as he said: "I hope you are not in pain? We will release you very soon." She dwelt long upon the final scene at the table, when, with a jesting word on his lips, but with love in his eyes, he took her hand to remove the marks of her bonds; and the flush that came to her was not one of anger—it rose from the return of her joy of those few moments of ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... afraid to marry," said a young lady, half jesting and half in earnest, replying to ...
— Married Life; Its Shadows and Sunshine • T. S. Arthur
... when suddenly it remembers us, thinking apparently to please us, it makes an enormous, miraculous, but at the same time clumsy and superfluous movement, which upsets all that we believed we knew, without teaching us anything. Is it making fun of us, is it jesting, is it amusing itself, is it facetious, teasing, arch, or simply sleepy, bewildered, inconsistent, absent-minded? In any case, it is rather remarkable that it evidently dislikes to make itself useful. It readily performs the most glamorous feats of sleight-of-hand, provided that ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... walking and jesting, in which last accomplishment he proved singularly expert, judging from the peals of laughter to which her mistress occasionally gave vent. Then it had become riding, hawking and, worst of all, reading. Lately Louise, learned, as has been set forth, in the ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... I knew you were jesting. Now, uncle, all that Kate and myself wish at present, is that you would oblige us with your advice as—as regards the time—you know, uncle—in short, when will it be most convenient for yourself, that the wedding ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... "Nay, I am not jesting," said the Minister. "You were called two years since, and your defence in the case of Simeuse and Hauteserre had raised you high ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... had dined at Roselands. They were nearly all gentlemen, and were now collected in the drawing-room, laughing, jesting, talking politics, and conversing with each other and the ladies upon various worldly topics, apparently quite forgetful that it was the Lord's day, which He has commanded to be kept holy in thought and ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... rear. His master observed that Toussaint was rather romantic, and did not like jesting on domestic affairs. He was more prudish about such matters than whites fresh from the mother-country. Whether he had got it out of his books, or whether it really was a romantic attachment to his wife, there was ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... his own should last for ever—he and his mule-driver alike now!—one upon another. Well-nigh the whole court of Antoninus is extinct. Panthea and Pergamus sit no longer beside the sepulchre of their lord. The watchers over Hadrian's dust have slipped from his sepulchre.—It were jesting to stay longer. Did they sit there still, would the dead feel it? or feeling it, be glad? or glad, hold those watchers for ever? The time must come when they too shall be aged men and aged women, and decease, and fail from their places; and what shift ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... "you are jesting; I am quite sure you are jesting. It cannot be real; you would not ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... silence, never removing her eyes from her son's face. He made every effort not to betray his emotion; but whenever the officer laughed, his fingers twitched strangely, and the old woman felt how hard it was for him not to reply, and to bear the jesting. This time the affair was not so terrorizing to her as at the first search. She felt a greater hatred to these gray, spurred night callers, and her hatred ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... But now, leave jesting out of sight! I tell you, once for all, that speed With this fair girl will not succeed; By storm she cannot captured be; We must make ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... not shoot the deer instead of hallooing him away, thou great idiot?" demanded Standish in jesting anger, while, with such a rush as the animal sore athirst makes when he scents the water springs, all the men but three of the party burst through the undergrowth and found themselves in a lovely little dale so sheltered by hills and trees ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... the soldiers was busy preparing breakfast, and the others were grouped around jesting ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... was made by a body of cavalry just on the crest of a smoothly-sloping hill. Not anticipating serious resistance, we did not wait for the artillery to come up and dislodge them, but deploying a brigade we rode on, jesting and gay, expecting to see them disperse when we came within range and join the rabble beyond. We were mistaken. Just when we got within easy charging distance, down they came, pell-mell, as dashing ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... "Oh crows, I take you for witnesses and revengers of my death." And so it fell out, some days afterwards, as these same thieves were drinking in an inn, a flight of crows came and lighted on the top of the house; whereupon the thieves, jesting, said to one another, "See, yonder are those who are to avenge the death of him we despatched t'other day," which the tapster overhearing, told forthwith to the magistrate, who arrested them presently, and thereupon ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Achilles order'd in the corridor Two mattresses to place, with blankets fair Of purple wool o'erlaid; and on the top Rugs and soft sheets for upper cov'ring spread. They from the chamber, torch in hand, withdrew, And with obedient haste two beds prepar'd. Then thus Achilles spoke in jesting tone: "Thou needs must sleep without, my good old friend; Lest any leader of the Greeks should come, As is their custom, to confer with me; Of them whoe'er should find thee here by night Forthwith to ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... for that. But, if you remember, when you had finished telling me about it, you added that I was not to take the story in earnest, for that you were not really in love with a country girl, but were only jesting; and I was dull and thick-headed enough to believe you. But so fate decreed, and there is ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... vocation, the other of a tormenting craving to astonish and mystify his kind. The first was wanting in common sense; the second was wanting in seriousness. The Frenchman was violent, arbitrary, domineering; the German was a jesting Mephistopheles, with a horror of Philistinism. The Breton was all passion and melancholy; the Hamburger all fancy and satire. Neither developed freely nor normally. Both of them, because of an initial ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... patronising air towards YORICK's successor, a Court Fool, apparently so youthful that he may still be supposed to be learning his business. So when His Royal Highness Hamlet has what he considers "a good thing" to say, Mr. TREE places the novice in jesting near himself, and pointedly speaks at him; as e.g., when, in reply to the King's inquiry after his health, he tells him that he "eats air promise-crammed," adding, with a sly look at the Court Fool, "you cannot feed capons so." Whereat the Fool, put ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 16, 1892 • Various
... usury, lost it, and hanged himself. He wrote satirical pieces, which are lost; some said that they were the joint work of two friends, Dionysius and Zopyrus of Colophon, in whom it was one jest the more to ascribe their jesting to Menippus. These pieces were imitated by Terentius Varro ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... they had got into the saloon and taken their seats; but De Vlierbeck, nervous as he was, had considerable doubt as to the tone of Denecker's remarks, and whether he was jesting or serious. ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... his usual light jesting manner but very seriously. Hugh's lips parted,—Mrs. Rossitur looked with a sad thoughtful look at Fleda,—Mr. Rossitur walked up and down looking at nobody. ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... much astonished if any one should say to him, 'Only fancy, my boy, the governor gives us forty sous for our breakfast;' 'Pshaw! it is impossible,' he would say. 'It is so possible that he has announced it to me, Chalamel, in my own person.' 'You are jesting.' 'I jest! This is the way it occurred: during two or three days which followed the death of Madame Seraphin, we had no breakfast at all. We liked that well enough, for no breakfast at all was better than that she gave us; but, on the other hand, our luncheon cost us money. However, we ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... conversation of the previous evening. She recalled that the men she had intended should spend the evening waiting on her and paying her pretty compliments had spent it eating like hungry men, laughing and jesting with Linda and Marian, giving every evidence of a satisfaction with their entertainment that never had been evinced with the best brand of attractions she had ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... make this their home. One day they moved off some distance from the lodge for the purpose of hunting, having left the wampum captured with the woman. They were very successful, and amused themselves, as all young men do when alone, by talking and jesting with each other. One of them spoke and said, "We have all this sport to ourselves; let us go and ask our sister if she will not let us bring the head to this place, as it is still alive. It may be ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... Mr. Brown say, but I was in no humor to talk, or even to listen; and yet I can now frankly confess that if he had not made light of my misfortune I should have suffered ten times the amount of mental agony that I did. His jesting style of treating the affair was alone sufficient to make me keep up my spirits, and imagine the matter as one of less consequence ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... who presumed so far would at least be plain or physically feeble, or unhappily married by way of apology, but the idea of so much civility seems never to have entered Crichton's head. He will come into a room where we are jesting perhaps, and immediately begin to flourish about less funny perhaps but decidedly more brilliant jests, until at last we retire one by one from the conversation and watch him with savage, weary eyes over ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... country except Pedro himself and Quashy and Spotted Tiger and—and—Manuela, but of course he could not refer to the last, for who ever heard of a governor inviting an unknown Indian girl to a ball! No; Pedro must have been jesting. He would not go! ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... store-keeper, bought tobacco and ammunition—a most usual procedure, and clumped out again. Young Pete strolled to the door and watched them enter the adobe saloon across the way—Tony's Place—the rendezvous of the riders of the high mesas. Again a group of cowboys arrived, jesting and roughing their mounts. They entered the store, bought ammunition, and drifted to the saloon. It was far from pay-day, as Pete knew. It was also the busy season. There was some ulterior reason for so many riders assembling in ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... jesting. "It is not exactly a story for boys," he said. "I go on then. The sign, as you call it, was not very plentiful but very much to the purpose, and when Mr. Powell heard (at a certain moment I felt bound to tell him) when he heard that I had known Mrs. Anthony before her marriage, that, ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... man laughed derisively. He had resumed his seat by the other's side. "Pho!" he said, "you'll be jesting. For the power, it's but a name. If he were to use, were it but the thin end of it, it would run into his hand! The boys would rise upon him, and Flavvy'd be the worst of them. It's in the deep bog he'd be, before he knew where he ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... not. I'm going to put his heart in a sling," said Smith, laughing heartily at what he thought would be taken as a brilliant piece of jesting. But he erred. Anderson went home in a great flurry and privately cautioned every member of the household, including Rosalie, to treat Bonner with every consideration, as his heart was weak and liable to give him great trouble. Above all, ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... that these things belong to an earlier covenant, that laughter and jesting are "not convenient" under the Gospel of Him who came not to destroy the law but to fulfil it, there is, perhaps, ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... again. No, he was not jesting at my expense; rather he seemed waiting with anxiety for me to make some decision upon which much depended. He ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... he gives, furthermore, a place to the descriptions of love, which fill so many lines in the later romances, but which are absent from Geoffrey's pages. Gawain, for instance, who is "valiant and of very great moderation," declares that jesting and the delights of love are good, and that for the sake of his lady a young knight performs deeds of chivalry.[8] In addition to these changes, which are to be attributed to his personal bent and surroundings, Wace ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... sidelight upon the domestic habits of the late Sergeant Duveen, as Paul did not fail to note; and in the masculinity of Flamby's jesting he glimpsed something of the closeness of the intimacy which had existed between father and daughter. But, taking the drawing from her hands, he was astonished at the skill which it displayed and which surpassed that of any work he had seen outside the best ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... questions, and Grace had sighed with relief. That bad time was over, anyhow. But Lily was rather difficult those days. She seemed, in some vague way, resentful. Her mother found her, now and then, in a frowning, half-defiant mood. And once, when Mademoiselle had ventured some jesting remark about young Alston Denslow, she was stupefied to see the girl march out of the room, her chin high, not to be seen ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... it is fair to suppose that in the dashing and attractive Count of Narbonne she was willing to keep away certain things which were unfamiliar and so alarming to her, such as the lighter graces, the jesting spirit of the old court, and doubtless too the melancholy presentiments attached, in her mind, to everything that recalled Versailles and the daughters of Louis XV., who had become the aunts of Marie Antoinette. In a word, Marie Louise, cold and calm, ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... talking very idly," said St. George, then, softening his falcon's glance. "Pray excuse such savage jesting. I should like to share my grandfather's estate with you, the adopted child of his elder grandson. It looks fairly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... at which he was bored by the jesting of Vatinius with Nero, Lucan, and Seneca, he took part in a diatribe as to whether woman has a soul. Rising late, he used, as was his custom, the baths. Two enormous balneatores laid him on a cypress table covered with ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... is a matter of some concern, and my friends, I hope, won't take it ill if I inquire a little into the means by which they intend to deliver me. A rope and a noose are no jesting matters! ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... kind from me, for you have correspondents and messengers from home who report to you about your household. Moreover, so far as my concerns go, there is absolutely nothing new. There are two kinds of letters left which please me very much: one, of the informal and jesting sort; the other, serious and weighty. I do not feel that it is unbecoming to adopt either of these styles. Am I to jest with you by letter? On my word I do not think that there is a citizen who can laugh in these days. Or ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... of the discussions between Benjamin and John Collins upon important subjects. When other boys were accustomed to spend their time in foolish talking and jesting, they were warmly discussing some question in advance of their years, and well suited to improve their minds. One of the subjects was a singular one for that day—female education. Legislators, ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... every day, no matter in what mood of merry jesting or practical modernity we set out, an hour of riding in the open air brings us back to the mystical charm of the Holy Land and beneath the spell of its memories and dreams. The wild hillsides, the flowers of the field, the shimmering olive-groves, the brown villages, the ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... dead, with a bottle of strychnine by the bedside. The affair, so far as the circumstances indicated suicide, was hushed up, and his death represented as a natural one. The English officer seems to have been an unscrupulous fellow, jesting thus with the fresh memory of his dead commander; for it is impossible to believe a word of the story. Even if Lord Raglan had wished for death, he would hardly have taken strychnine, when there were so many chances of being honorably shot. In Wood's Narrative of the Campaign, it is stated ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that existed much more in public imagination than in reality. He liked society, and was extremely kind and amiable, when calm. Instead of being gloomy, he was, on the contrary, of a very gay disposition, and was fond of jesting; it even amused him to witness comic scenes, such as quarrels between vulgar buffoons, to make them drink, or lead them on in any other way to show their drolleries. In his writings, certainly, he loved to paint a character more or less the work of his imagination, ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... down to the desk and the men who had preceded them gave way to let her pass. She registered her name, meanwhile making some gay answer to a jesting remark from Jepson who laid aside his dignity to laugh. The clerk joined the merriment, whereupon it was instantly assumed that the lady was quite correct. But women, so they say, are preternaturally quick to recognize an enemy of the home. As Mary gazed down she became suddenly ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... these descriptions the jesting gentleman felt that he had fully diagnosed the madness of our knight, and thought it only fair play to beguile the journey to the burial-place by listening to his absurdities. Now and then he would put in a word or ask a question in order not ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... far from jesting," I said. "I will do this thing because it is the wish of the Empress that it should be done, and because it is the command of the Empress that a symbol of it shall remain for ever as an example for others. Lead your ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... certain persons who delight in jesting on the most serious things, and who spare nothing, either sacred or profane. The histories of the Old and New Testament, the most sacred ceremonies of our religion, the lives of the most respectable saints, are not safe from ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... that, The object of derision is always some evil or defect. Now when an evil is great, it is taken, not in jest, but seriously: consequently if it is taken in jest or turned to ridicule (whence the terms 'derision' and 'jesting'), this is because it is considered to be slight. Now an evil may be considered to be slight in two ways: first, in itself, secondly, in relation to the person. When anyone makes game or fun of another's evil or defect, because it is a slight ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... her, let the chair go up and go down and sway about very unsteadily, besides that every step was with a jolting motion. It kept Daisy in constant uneasiness. Dr. Sandford walked on just before with his gun; Alexander Fish came after, laughing and jesting with the ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... the above "article" gave the Committee his name they were amused and thought that he was simply jesting, having done a smart thing in conquering his master by escaping; but on a fuller investigation they found that he really bore the name, and meant to retain it in Canada. It had been given him when a child, and in Slavery he had been familiarly called ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... jesting. If you do not abandon this evil purpose, then our intercourse must end. More than that, I ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... theme for jesting. I hate these tricks of hiding in strange corners," said Fareham. "Now, show me where ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... plan? Why should I disappoint my father's hopes again, and wring my mother's heart by proposing to leave them for any such uncertain good as this scheme promises?" He still challenged his friend with a jesting air, but a deeper and stronger feeling of some sort ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... sought to ruffle his (Dale's) feathers, as he elegantly termed it, by urging him to join the expedition; on the contrary, to the secret but carefully concealed consternation of Rex and Lance, the prime movers in the matter, Mr Dale seemed more than half disposed to yield to Brook's jesting entreaties that he would make one of the party. It almost seemed as though this intensely selfish and egotistical individual were at last becoming ashamed of his own behaviour and had resolved upon ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... with thy jesting, good sir; thou art a traveller from afar, and lookest the part to perfection. I am at mine ease at home going to pay a call to a pretty neighbour. Let us be jogging; 'tis a long walk to Newnham, and the afternoon is ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... together!" She turned me all round as she spoke, and could scarcely say anything more for laughing. Meanwhile, the lovely Lady fair was quite silent, and could hardly raise her eyes for shame and confusion. It seemed to me that at heart she was provoked at all this jesting talk. At last her eyes filled with tears, and she hid her face on the breast of the other lady, who first looked at her in surprise and then clasped her ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... be as well, sir," Captain Griffiths assented grimly. "I am glad to find you in the humour for jesting." ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... counted one hundred and ninety. All this time the ordinary amount of water was coming over the cliff and accumulating in the air, swedging and widening and forming an irregular cone about seven hundred feet high, tapering to the top of the wall, the whole standing still, jesting on the invisible arm of the North Wind. At length, as if commanded to go on again, scores of arrowy comets shot forth from the bottom of the suspended mass as if escaping from ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... the example of well-kept cemeteries, have combined, since the time of the last of the Georges, to effect an improvement in the general aspect of our churchyards, which was certainly very much needed. Culpable neglect, it may be added, was sometimes shown in the admission of jesting or profane epitaphs. The inscription on Gay's monument in Westminster Abbey is a well-known example. One other instance, in illustration, will be abundantly sufficient. Imagine the carelessness of supervision which could allow the following ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... proffering her fan, or her essence-bottle, or in some quiet way ministering to their egotism, she now stepped freely forth upon the field of action, nodding and smiling at the young men to whom she might have been at some time introduced; whispering and jesting with some marked young lady, while she made an occasion to arrange her berthe or her ringlets, and adding herself, as if by accident, to any trio or quartette of pre-eminent distinction. She had at length the anxiously desired ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... Monsieur Calvert! That is the second one you have given me. If you are not more careful I shall begin to doubt your sincerity! I am not jesting, sir," she says, suddenly serious. "I know not quite why I trust you so implicitly, but so it is, and, as sincerity is a rare virtue in our world, I should hate to lose my belief in yours. It takes no very keen vision to see my faults, sir. I recognize and deplore ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... temperate, sober, meek: owe no man anything; give no reason for complaint. Avoid taverns and dancing, as occasions of evil. The women among you I charge to be modest in manners and apparel, to keep themselves free from foolish jesting and levity of the world, especially in respect of falsehood and oaths. Keep your maidens, and see that they wander not; beware of suffering them to deck and adorn themselves. 'We serve the Lord Christ.' 'Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong!' ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... him the last solace to his conscience. All his future destiny was thus at the mercy of an accident most likely to happen. The second cause of his disquietude was the jealous hatred of Madame Campvallon toward the young rival she had herself selected. After jesting freely on this subject at first, the Marquise had, little by little, ceased ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... and did not try to verify the remark of "jesting" Pilate. The only instruction that I gave myself was to "begin ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... it to be stuffed and crammed with so many dainty bits, savory dishes, and toothsome rarities, if after all this epicurism, the eyes, the ears, and the whole mind of man, were not so well foisted and relieved with laughing, jesting, and such like divertisements, which, like second courses, serve for the promoting of digestion? And as to all those shoeing-horns of drunkenness, the keeping every one his man, the throwing high jinks, the filling of bumpers, the drinking two in a hand, ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... the pretty silly flowers bewailed their slavish condition, and longed for release and freedom: and at last they began to be afraid that the Wind had only been jesting with them, and that he would never come to help them, as he had promised. However, they were mistaken; for, at the edge of the dawn, there began to be a sighing and a moaning in the distant woods, and by the time the sun was up, the clouds were driving fast along the sky, and the trees were bending ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... prudent, if it be metaphysically possible,' said Herbert. 'Do you know that I have always been of opinion, that Pontius Pilate has been greatly misrepresented by Lord Bacon in the quotation of his celebrated question. 'What is truth?' said jesting Pilate, and would not wait for an answer. Let us be just to Pontius Pilate, who has sins enough surely to answer for. There is no authority for the jesting humour given by Lord Bacon. Pilate was evidently of a merciful and clement disposition; ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... shall, all of the afternoon's events, all of the ride outside the walls, of the grand fete given by Hugh de Meung, of the feasting and the drinking in which I took little part. Only of the end of the adventure will I write, which begins with where I stood jesting with Philippa herself—ah, dear God, she was wondrous beautiful. A great lady—ay, but before that, and after that, ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... Has a dull and solemn trend Might enjoy, as relaxation, Jesting with a female friend; But, corrupted by the money That my written humours bring, How on earth can I be funny For ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 15, 1914 • Various
... at his fears, called him provincial, full of affection for the city in which she had been born, in which she had grown to chaste young womanhood, and that gave her in return those vivacities, those natural refinements, that jesting good-humour which incline one to believe that Paris, with its rain, its fogs, its sky which is no sky, is the veritable fatherland of woman, whose nerves it heals gently and whose qualities of intelligence and patience ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... horrible oath, that he did not like such jesting, and a violent altercation ensued, which was, at length, silenced by the thunder, whose deep volley was heard afar, rolling onward till it burst over their heads in sounds, that seemed to shake the earth to its centre. The ruffians paused, ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... appointed he sought the place where Helge sat, black as a thunder-cloud, with his warriors around him, and foolish Halfdan, jesting as usual, and playing with his sword, stood by his side. And Frithiof stood forth and said: "Not yet is thy kingdom free, O Helge, from the threat of battle. Give me then thy sister and my strong ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... we departed, to have prayers, and my thoughtless Jack began to imitate the sound of church-bells—"Ding, dong! to prayers! to prayers! ding, dong!" I was really angry, and reproved him severely for jesting about sacred things. Then, kneeling down, I prayed God's blessing on our undertaking, and his pardon for us all, especially for him who had now so grievously sinned. Poor Jack came and kneeled by me, weeping and begging for forgiveness from me and ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... jesting on so serious a subject. He decided that in Angela's case he would drop the ceremonial form, and ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... hastily. She lifted her hand with a gesture of entreaty, and Hector was startled to see how seriously she had taken his jesting words. "Don't laugh at me! I've been dreaming of it so long, and it's such a dear, dear dream. Do you realise that in all my life I have never had a permanent home? It has been a few years here, a few years there, with always the certainty of another ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... continued, in the jesting tone in which it had begun, and M. M——, an esprit fort, went so far as to condemn the supernatural in the name of the general and permanent laws which govern nature, and to look upon miracles ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli |
