"Wit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Cod Lead, where Colonel Gideon Ward and Eleazar Bodge were languishing. It was probable that those marooned gentlemen had lighted a fire in their desperation in order to signal for assistance. The Cap'n reflected that it was about as much wit as landsmen ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... beauty and wit I should like to remain," replied John with increasing gallantry, still holding his cap in his hands, "but who can tell where he will be a week hence in ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... had the compensating advantage of forcing him to think long and intently about every sentence, and thus enabling him to detect errors in reasoning and in his own observations, or in those of others. He disclaimed the possession of any great quickness of apprehension or wit, such as distinguished Huxley. He protested, also, that his power to follow a long and purely abstract train of thought was very limited, for which reason he felt certain that he never could have succeeded with metaphysics ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... cart, whilst their colleague from another state— the very state they were assisting—was roughing it in a war- chariot. These latter seem to have connoted, for military organization purposes, a strength of 75 men each, and four horses; to wit, three heavily armed men or cuirassiers in the chariot itself, and 72 foot-soldiers. At least in the case of Tsin, a force of 37,500 men, which in the year 613 boldly marched off three hundred or more English miles ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... position, which left me no retreat, but I was afraid to change. Then I saw I had made a worse mistake about the lantern, which I should have left lighted, so that I could have had a crack at Case when he stepped into the shine of it. And even if I hadn’t had the wit to do that, it seemed a senseless thing to leave the good lantern to blow up with the graven images. The thing belonged to me, after all, and was worth money, and might come in handy. If I could have trusted the match, I might have run in still and rescued it. But who ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... show you the true nature of this reason, to wit, That Jesus Christ would have mercy offered, in the first place, to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... cometh of strength in the craft and self-restraint.' Then he bade her sing; and she said, 'Hearkening and obedience.' So she took the lute and tightening its strings, smote thereon a number of airs, so that she confounded Ishac's wit and he was like to fly for delight. Then she returned to the first mode and sang thereto ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... strongly differentiated forms to the smaller and simpler ones, even if these latter should have appeared contemporaneously or even later than the former. Here we have again to refer to the fact that has already been mentioned, to wit, that Oriental art remained stationary throughout long periods of time. In point of fact, the simpler forms are invariably characterized by a nearer and nearer approach to the more ancient patterns and also to the natural flower-forms of the Araceae. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... theatrical performances, &c. This inclination to illusion is perfectly normal with them, and should be permitted. The graceful kingdom of Art is developed from it, as also the poetry of conversation in jest and wit. Although this sometimes becomes stereotyped into very prosaic conventional forms of speech, it is more tolerable than the awkward honesty which takes everything in its simple literal sense. And it is easy to discover whether children in such play, in the activity of free ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... began, with easy wit, That half concealed his terror: "Pooh!" said the Judge, "I only sit In Banco or in Error. Can you suppose, my man, that I'd O'er Nisi Prius Courts preside, Or condescend my time to spend On anything ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... the case in my own intercourse with him. He always attacked me in a bantering way, but, I thought, half in earnest too. Hence I never found it advisable to enter into argument with him. How can you argue with a man, a brilliant wit and an accomplished theologian, who continually flashes back and forth between first principles and witticisms? When I would undertake to grapple with him on first principles he would throw me off with a joke, and while I was parrying ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... in accumulating individual wealth, and this in one way, to wit, as agricultural laborers—and this is, perhaps, the most useful purpose to which their labor can be applied. The effect of slavery has not been to counteract the tendency to dispersion, which seems epidemical among our countrymen, invited by the unbounded extent of fertile ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... found fitter place For courtly wit and modish grace, Than by the Indus. There right well His facile talent served his Chief; And England hears with genuine grief ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... is so skilled in the true sport of love and so renowned a knight, has never talked to her of love (ll. 1487-1524). "You ought," she says, "to show and teach a young thing like me some tokens of true-love's crafts; I come hither and sit here alone to learn of you some game; do teach me of your wit while my lord is from home." Gawayne replies that he cannot undertake the task of expounding true-love and tales of arms to one who has far more wisdom than he possesses. Thus did our knight avoid all appearance ...
— Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight - An Alliterative Romance-Poem (c. 1360 A.D.) • Anonymous
... instructed on the 18th instant to wait on the President elect to notify him of his election, reported that the committee had, according to order, performed that service, and addressed the President elect in the following words, to wit: ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson
... thoughts that had seemed new and beautiful to me fell flat and lustreless on the soul of others. If I was approved, it was often for what I condemned myself; and I found that the trite commonplace and the false wit charmed, while the truth fatigued, and the enthusiasm revolted. For men of that genius to which I make no pretension, who have dwelt apart in the obscurity of their own thoughts, gazing upon stars that shine not for the dull sleepers ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... priceless to me, with Dr. Roger S. Tracy, then a sanitary inspector in the Health Department, later its distinguished statistician, to whom I owe pretty much all the understanding I have ever had of the problems I have battled with; for he is very wise, while I am rather dull of wit. But directly I get talking things over with him, I brighten right up. I met Professor Charles F. Chandler, Major Willard Bullard, Dr. Edward H. Janes—men to whose practical wisdom and patient labors in the shaping of ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... twenty-fifth day of July, A. D. 1820, in the forty-fifth year of the Independence of the United States of America, HENRY BOWEN, of the said district, has deposited in this office, the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as Proprietor in the words following, to wit: ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... in the street, dipping their brooms into the creek, and flourishing water over the side-walks, and on the fronts of the low edifices. This light but daily duty was relieved by clamorous collisions of wit, and by shouts of merriment, in which the whole street would join, as with one joyous and reckless movement of ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... course.... So much the deeper revenge for me. And she loves that monk. I saw it in her eyes there in the garden. So much the better for me, too. He will dangle willingly enough at Orestes's heels for the sake of being near her—poor fool! We will make him secretary, or chamberlain. He has wit enough for it, they say, or for anything. So Orestes and he shall be the two jaws of my pincers, to squeeze what I want out of that Greek Jezebel.. And then, ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... go. I like not ill words. Write thy letter, but put out of thy mind all bad thoughts first. A love letter from a bitter heart is not lucky. And of all thy wit thou wilt have great need if to a woman ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... might have converted Hume and Gibbon to a belief in Christianity. But Dean Swift did not deserve a wife, from the way in which he broke the heart of Jane Waring first, and Esther Johnson afterward, and last of all "Vanessa." The great wit of the day, he was ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... The girl's quick wit had discovered the right way to get rid of Jack. He accepted the suggestion with enthusiasm. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "that's a good idea! It would never have entered ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... full wit enow That vision to explain; If to the Hvenish land ye go There'll many ...
— Grimhild's Vengeance - Three Ballads • Anonymous
... could I do?" asked Lydia, at her wit's end. "I don't dare leave Ariadne with those awful things from the employment agencies, and 'Stashie's not coming back till ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... old woman should have had the wit to guess it I could never tell, but she found out that he was inside that there churn. Without saying a word she took hold of the winch (it was turned by handpower then), and round she swung him, and Jack ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... an "Asylum," nor a "Retreat," nor by any of those names which savor of restraint and espionage—not even a "Home," as spelled with a capital H—but simply by the name of the spot upon which it is erected—to wit, ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... "Wit. Primitive Power. Perception of the disjunction or incongruity of ideas; the analytical faculty. Uses: Separation of compound or general ideas into those that are elementary or more simple; knowledge of characteristic ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 346, December 13, 1828 • Various
... air, and such inimitable ease and composure in his flight and movement! He is a poet in very word and deed. His carriage is music to the eye. His performance of the commonest act, as catching a beetle, or picking a worm from the mud, pleases like a stroke of wit or eloquence. Was he a prince in the olden time, and do the regal grace and mien still adhere to him in his transformation? What a finely proportioned form! How plain, yet rich, his color,—the bright russet of his back, the ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... during the week that ensued after his proposal of marriage to Madaline, Lord Arleigh looked in wonder at the duchess. She seemed so unlike herself—absent, brooding, almost sullen. The smiles, the animation, the vivacity, the wit, the brilliant repartee that had distinguished her had all vanished. More than once he asked her if she was ill; the answer was always "No." More than once he asked her if she was unhappy; the ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... of the people of both Republics, to authorise the Governments to conclude peace on the following basis, to wit: The retention of a limited independence with the offer, in addition to what has already been offered by the Governments in their negotiations, ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell
... Destructiveness, Combativeness, Secretiveness, Acquisitiveness, Constructiveness, Cautiousness, Approbativeness, Self-Esteem, Firmness, Religion, Benevolence, Hope, Marvellousness, Poetry, Ideality, Imitation, Wit or Mirthfulness, Eventuality, Individuality, Perceptive Organs, Time, Comparative Sagacity, Causality, Tune, Constructiveness, Language—Comments ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various
... alone a rational being can be an end in himself, since by this alone is it possible that he should be a legislating member in the kingdom of ends. Thus morality, and humanity as capable of it, is that which alone has dignity. Skill and diligence in labour have a market value; wit, lively imagination, and humour, have fancy value; on the other hand, fidelity to promises, benevolence from principle (not from instinct), have an intrinsic worth. Neither nature nor art contains anything which in default of these it could put in their place, ...
— Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals • Immanuel Kant
... to Niccolo da Correggio, that all-accomplished gentleman who laid down his pen and sword to design elaborate devices for his mistress's new gowns. We read her merry letters to her husband and sister, letters sparkling with wit and gaiety and overflowing with simple and natural affection. We see her rejoicing with all a young mother's proud delight over her first-born son, repeating, as mothers will, marvellous tales of his size and growth, and framing tender phrases for his infant ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... a continuation of Gregory of Tours' work, added details which deserve reproduction, first as a picture of manners, next for the better understanding of history. "As he was not allowed to see Clotilde," says Fredegaire, "Clovis charged a certain Roman, named Aurelian, to use all his wit to come nigh her. Aurelian repaired alone to the spot, clothed in rags and with his wallet upon his back, like a mendicant. To insure confidence in himself he took with him the ring of Clovis. On his arrival at Geneva, Clotilde received him as a pilgrim ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... is probably more than he deserves. They cannot be the meek, for special allusion is made to the meek in this same group of specially designated persons. Neither can it refer to people who are usually called poor-spirited persons, to wit, those who are too devoid of what is commonly designated as spirit, for these are properly classified as peace-makers, and have a similar though not ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... with a soldier's quick wit, and spurring his jaded horse from the yard. "They will have taken a cross-road or by-lane. We shall track them by the hoofs of the horses or the ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... for what you have said!" was the reply of the daughter, with that species of iteration which displays no wit but ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... Troll; "I should admire to have such a little servant as you are. It is too much work for me to think, and you have wit enough for both; so begin with the trial. Here are my two buckets,—go and get the water to ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... Conjectures, yet (as I said last year) they many times come out too True to make a jest of." Then he goes on: "I have read of a story which Thaurus is said to relate of Andreas Vesalius, a great Astrologer who lived in the reign of Henry the VIII.; to wit, that he told Maximilian the Day and Hour of his Death, who, giving credit thereto, ordered a great feast to be made, inviting his Friends, sat and Eat [ate?] with them; and afterwards, having distributed his Treasures among them, took leave of them and Dyed ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... accept no offices or titles, the ordinary prizes of political life. But they themselves could not contend that they are truly representative of three-quarters of Ireland in any other sense than that they are Home Rulers. Half of the wit, brains, and eloquence of their best men runs to waste. Some of them are merely nominated by the party machine, to represent, not local needs, but a paramount principle which the electors insist rightly on setting above ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... that when he reached his goal two policemen, not devoid of rude wit, who had been conferring together as they bumped in their saddles, arranged an entertainment for his behoof. It consisted of first one and then the other entering his room with prodigious details of war, the massing ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... it may be feared, believed in his heart that she went because he was going. And he resolved to bestow his society on her rather than on Ethel and Mrs. Romaine on Sunday. It was decidedly more amusing to waken that still sweet face to animation than to engage in a war of wit ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... very early one. Of the infants baptized in it, one at least obtained a rather unenviable celebrity—Dr John Wolcot, better known as 'Peter Pindar.' His bitter satires earned for him a harvest of hatred and abuse, but nobody denied his wit. 'There is a pretty story of the older Pindar that a swarm of bees lighted on his cradle in his infancy and left honey on his lips; but we fear in the case of our hero they were wasps that came, and that they left some of ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... the little party of older people seemed stunned by the quick way in which he talked. His airy manner and flimsy wit impressed them with a sense of his knowledge of life. He represented the world to them, the World with a capital W, and they were all more or less conscious of a certain awe in his presence. His utter disregard of the little observances ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... the brilliancy of his position in Paris, the death of Chopin was a great shock to the artistic world, and he was buried with most impressive ceremonies. His grave is not far from those of Bellini and Cherubini. He was a man of fine wit, aristocratic presence, distinguished manners, and a highly sensitive and poetic nature, all of which qualities reached expression in ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... the Secretary of War ad interim to the application made by the Senators, was entirely unsatisfactory to me. It appeared to me to be not only a rejection in advance of the main proposition made by these Senators, to wit, that "an arrangement should be agreed on between the authorities of South Carolina and your Government, at least until the 15th of February next, by which time South Carolina and the States represented by the Senators might, in convention, ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... am sorry your last letters give us no greater hopes of that which we so much long for, to wit, your Excellence's speedy return home; it seeming by them that the treaty was not much advanced since your last before, notwithstanding the great care and diligence used by your Excellency for the promoting thereof, as also ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... characters out of our principal five have already left the mimic scene, it will now be my duty only to show, as nature and society do, how, of those three surviving chief dramatis personae, two of them—to wit, our hero and heroine of Heart—gathered many friends about their happy homestead, did a world of good, and, in fine, furnish our volume with a suitable counterpoise to the mass of selfish sin, which (at its height in the only remaining character) ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... Victorine working as usual, whilst Caliste was seated near her, her employment cast from her, and her whole appearance expressing the utmost dejection. At sight of her uncle she roused herself, and for a short time her excessive mirth, and even the great wit with which she spoke, astonished him. The quiet man was somewhat startled by her manner, and he looked at her earnestly, half alarmed by her wild and extravagant merriment. He soon remarked that the ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... Wyoming, and on the hereinbefore mentioned 13th day of July, Anno Domini 1880, did inflict to, at, upon, by, contiguous to, adjacent to, adjoining, over and against the body of him, the said James Smith, commonly called Windy Smith, one certain deadly, mortal, dangerous and painful wound, to-wit: Over, against, to, at, by, upon, contiguous to, near, adjacent to and bisecting the intestines of him, the said James Smith, commonly called Windy Smith, by reason of which he, the said James Smith, commonly ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... a fine flush of health, and cuckolds her husband with a simplicity that has infinitely more merit than the witty malice of the most experienced ladies. This play cannot indeed be called the school of good morals, but it is certainly the school of wit ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... unsparing hand; money burning a hole in one's pocket. Phr. amor nummi [Latin]; facile largiri de alieno[Lat]; wie gewonnen so zerronnen [German]; les fous font les festins et les sages les mangent [French]; "spendthrift alike of money and of wit" [Cowper]; "squandering wealth was his ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... to their station, out of remembrance for the past. Her mother was annoyed at her timidity. She ought to dance a lot, be lively and bold, like the other girls, crack jokes, even if they were doubtful, that the men might repeat them and give her the reputation of being a wit. It was incredible that with the bringing up she had had, she should be so insignificant. The idea! The daughter of a great man about whom people used to crowd as soon as he entered the first salons in Europe! ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... truth, his little bit of mother-wit was quite gone. When and where had it been ever heard that one person could pray another to death? Then they might pray them to life again. Shall she ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... selected a word, suppose "notwithstanding," each party sets to work to see how many different words they can make of the same letters. (Thus from the word above suggested may be made "not, with, stand, standing, gin, ton, to, wig, wit, his, twit, tan, has, had, an, nod, tow, this, sat, that, sit, sin, tin, wink, what, who, wish, win, wan, won," and probably a host of others.) A scrutiny is then taken, all words common to both parties being struck out. The remainder are then compared, and the ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... a sphere where bullying was a novelty with a direct traceable salutary effect. But whatever harshness was visible in him was tempered by his wife, who was New England, Boston itself, at its best. She had a grave charm, a wit, rather than humor, which irradiated her seriousness, and gave even her tentative remarks an air ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... her eyes on him. "The ingenuity of your companions, love, plays in the air like the lightning, but flashes round your head only, by good fortune, to leave it unscathed. Still, you have after all your own strange wit, and I'm not sure that any of ours ever compares with it. Only, confronted also with ours, how can poor Mr. Longdon really choose which ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... African Republic will be liable for any balance which may still remain due of the debts for which it was liable at the date of Annexation, to wit, the Cape Commercial Bank Loan, the Railway Loan, and the Orphan Chamber Debt, which debts shall be a first charge upon the revenues of the Republic. The South African Republic will moreover be liable to Her Majesty's Government for L250,000, which will be a ...
— Selected Official Documents of the South African Republic and Great Britain • Various
... it the less original with me? Not long since I should have fretted over the possibility, for my living depended on an avoidance of even seeming plagiarism. Now I am at one with Lord Foppington, and much disposed to take pleasure in the natural sprouts of my own wit—without troubling whether the same idea has occurred to others. Suppose me, in total ignorance of Euclid, to have discovered even the simplest of his geometrical demonstrations, shall I be crestfallen when some one draws ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... looking as if they had slept in their clothes, can get by quite nicely because they are amiable and suave. There are others who, for all that they excite adverse comment by being fat and uncouth, find themselves on the credit side of the ledger owing to their wit and sparkling humour. But this Glossop, I regret to say, falls into neither class. In addition to looking like one of those things that come out of hollow trees, he is universally admitted to be a dumb brick of the first water. No soul. No conversation. In short, any girl ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... at each other face to face. The intuition and ready wit of the woman pierced the disguise which had baffled ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... see that Lincoln ruled his own spirit; and we also behold the fact that he could rule others. 5 The letter shows frankness, kindliness, wit, tact, ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... nevertheless take a strange interest in all that concerns them, it having been from time immemorial their practice, more especially of the dissolute young nobility, to cultivate the acquaintance of the Gitanos as they are popularly called, probably attracted by the wild wit of the latter and the lascivious dances of the females. The apparition therefore of the Gospel of Saint Luke at Madrid in the peculiar jargon of these people was hailed as a strange novelty and almost as a wonder, and I believe ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... Deffaud was a very different personage to Madame Geoffrin, whose great enemy she was. When Horace Walpole first entered into the society of the Marquise, she was stone blind, and old; but retained not only her wit, and her memory, but her passions. Passions, like artificial flowers, are unbecoming to age: and those of the witty, atheistical Marquise are almost revolting. Scandal still attached her name to that of Henault, of whom Voltaire ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... composer was a big man, both physically and mentally. A friend describes his countenance as full of fire; "when he smiled it was like the sun bursting out of a black cloud. It was a sudden flash of intelligence, wit and good humor, which illumined his countenance, which I have hardly ever seen in any other." He could relish a joke, and had a keen sense of humor. Few things outside his work interested him; but ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... intolerance of the dominant "Auld Lichts." The fact that Burns had personally suffered from the discipline of the Kirk probably added fire to his attacks, but the satires show more than personal animus. The force of the invective, the keenness of the wit, and the fervor of the imagination which they displayed, rendered them an important force in the ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... mornin', beatin' it for N' Orleans. But he was n't travelin' wit' any moll that Hep ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... ought to be in ecstasies over her wit and over the repertory of ready-made phrases she ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... India as he actually lives. His Soldiers Three—Mulvaney, the Irishman, Ortheris, the cockney, and Learoyd, the Yorkshireman—are so full of real human nature that they delight all men and many women. Mulvaney is the finest creation of Kipling, and most of his stories are brimful of Irish wit. Of late years Kipling has written some fine imaginative stories, such as The Brushwood Boy, They and An Habitation Enforced. He has also revealed his genius in such tales of the future as With the Night Mail, a remarkably graphic sketch of a voyage ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... losing some of your wit, Dick. He didn't want to see us break the rules. I suppose if he had seen us he would have felt it was ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... or rather a hostage, and would gladly return to my home if I had permission. Persevering efforts have been made to pervert me, but I have had grace to remain firm to the true faith, and now I am simply exposed to the shafts of ridicule, and the wit and sneers of those who hold religious truth in contempt. You may be astonished at my thus venturing to speak to you, a perfect stranger, but I am sure that I may trust Mary Seton's cousin; and if you have the opportunity, I will beg you to tell my father or the good admiral what I ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... to Olivia, who happened to, be nearest him. "He fancies impudence is wit. He's devoid of moral sense or even of decency. He's a traitor to his class and shouldn't be tolerated ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... writer of this age some degree of unfortunate and deplorable advantage over his predecessors. Recent events have accumulated more terrible practical instruction on every subject of politics than could have been in other times acquired by the experience of ages. Men's wit, sharpened by their passions, has penetrated to the bottom of almost all political questions. Even the fundamental rules of morality themselves have, for the first time, unfortunately for mankind, become the subject of doubt and discussion. I shall consider it as my duty to abstain from ...
— A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations • James Mackintosh
... general an almost universal flogging match. My admiration naturally led to its probable result, a desire to imitate—I firmly resolved to become a Peregrine. I soon promoted myself to be the leader of every mad prank that the wit of a spirit suddenly excited to activity could devise. In the first fortnight I got flogged for tying a huge mass of brown paper to the tail of the favourite cat of the master's lady, with which she rushed with an insane and terrifying distraction into the drawing-room. We ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 274, Saturday, September 22, 1827 • Various
... was among the first of them to picture peasant, burgher, alewife, and nobleman in all scenes and places. Nothing escaped him as a subject, and yet his best work was shown in the handling of low life in taverns. There is coarse wit in his work, but it is atoned for by good color and easy handling. He was influenced by Rubens, though decidedly different from him in many respects. Brouwer (1606?-1638) has often been catalogued with the Holland school, but he really belongs with Teniers, in Belgium. He ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... that he is half disgusted with them before he can rightly say why," answered Sir Richard with a smile. "There is too much hatred and bitterness in Nicholas Trevlyn's religion to endear it to his children. The boy has had the wit to see that the Established Church of the land uses the same creeds and holds the same cardinal doctrines as he has been bred up in. For the Pope he cares no whit; his British blood causes him to think scorn of any foreign potentate, temporal or spiritual. He has the making ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... labor of years, and which placed him at once in the front rank of poets. About the same time, whether before or after remains uncertain, is to be placed his incomparable volume of epistles, which in grace, ease, good sense and wit mark as high a level as the odes do in terseness, melody, and exquisite finish. These two works are Horace's great achievement. The remainder of his writings demand but brief notice. They are the "Carmen Seculare;" a fourth book of odes, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... principle for which much might be pleaded. There were not fifty members in the House with the leisure or the ability to understand what it was which had actually happened, and if they had understood it, they would not have had the wit to see what was the rule which ought to have decided the case. Yet, whether they understood or not, they were obliged to vote, and what was worse, the constituencies also had to vote, and so the gravest matters were settled in utter ignorance. This has often been adduced as an argument ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... heads were turned with distinctions, and art and science were all the rage. But the narrow-minded leaders of a time of great intellectual progress all of them detested art and science. They had not even the wit to present religion in attractive colours, though they needed its support. While Lamartine, Lamennais, Montalembert, and other writers were putting new life and elevation into men's ideas of religion, and gilding ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... work—said she was very fond of France, loved driving in the streets of Paris, there was always so much to see and the people looked gay. She was very fond of the theatres, particularly the smaller ones, liked the real Parisian wit and gaiety better than the measured phrase and trained diction of the Francais and the Odeon. She spoke most warmly of Marshal MacMahon, hoped that he would remain President of the Republic as long as the Republicans ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... excursion into the regions of historical romance, amongst the well-beaten highways and byways of which he still manages to discover an untrodden path, or to embellish a familiar one by the sparkle of his wit and industry of his researches. The majority of his books convey the idea of being written currente calamo, and with little trouble to himself; and these have a lightness and brilliancy peculiar ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... mountains, fighting the Indians, freezing and starving, and always full of a keen enthusiasm for his work and of noble devotion to his duty. The construction train and the Irish boss are not forgotten, and in the stories of their doings we find not only courage and adventure, but wit and humor.—The Railroad Gazette. ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... was so startling, from his own daughter, that Pierson took refuge in an attempt at wit. "I should like notice of that question, Nollie, as ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... gained the esteem of the officers, and was admired by the soldiers. Having no less wit than courage, he so far advanced himself in the sultan's esteem, as to become his favourite. All the ministers and other courtiers daily resorted to Codadad, and were so eager to purchase his friendship, that they neglected the sultan's sons. The princes could not but resent this conduct, and all ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... considers withal, and sees clearly this, that neither they that shall follow us, shall see any new thing, that we have not seen, nor they that went before, anything more than we: but that he that is once come to forty (if he have any wit at all) can in a manner (for that they are all of one kind) see all things, both past and future. As proper is it, and natural to the soul of man to love her neighbour, to be true and modest; and to regard nothing so much as herself: which is also the property of the law: whereby ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... walked with them, laughing and talking; forced one's way through crowds; cheered, shouted; stood up on platforms before a sea of faces; roused applause, filling and emptying one's lungs; met interruptions with swift flash of wit or anger, faced opposition, danger—felt one's blood surging through one's veins, felt one's nerves quivering with excitement; felt the delirious thrill of passion; felt the mad joy of ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... wit ought to be exhausted before we presume to invoke divine interposition,' said the lady. 'I observe that Jesus was as fond of asking questions as of performing miracles; an inquiring spirit will solve mysteries. Let me ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... Antiquity,—such as no other can, in any sense, lay claim to: a Literature,—which is absolutely without a rival: a Terminology,—which reflects the very image of all the ages: Professors,—of loftier wit, from the days of Athanasius and Augustine, down to the days of our own Hooker and Butler,—men of higher mark, intellectually and morally,—than adorn the annals of any other Science since the World ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... two daughters was blind of one eye, and her only son was so simple that the loungers in the antechamber of the Pope were accustomed to amuse themselves with his want of wit. She is said to have died of a broken heart after the death of this son, and her portrait of him is considered ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... appeared to him that the priest held up the Body for a great space, and in that long time Master Richard understood many things that had been dark to him before. Of some of the things I have neither room nor wit to write; but they were ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... which he most readily did, adding the following literal translation: "Presence, [or face.] of the world—protector, salutation to thee: A poor dervish and world-wanderer I am; that I have come from a kingdom far, to-wit, from the kingdom of Ingliz-stan, which historians ancient, relation have made, that kingdom said, in the end of the west was, which the mother of every island of the world ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... plea, sacrificed without some kind of a struggle to help her. At the present writing I feel about as effective as a February lamb, and every move calls for tact. Wish I had been born with a needle wit instead of a Roman nose! For if Uncle has a glimmer of a suspicion that I would befriend Sada at the cost of his plans, so surely as the river is lost in the sea, Sada would disappear from my world until it was too late for me ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... every word capable of number is better provided therewith in this language, then [sic] by any other: for instead of two or three numbers which others have, this affordeth you four; to wit, the singular, dual, plural, ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... her. Of late, it had been brought home to her that the charm of Laodice for the stranger from Ephesus, to whom the Greek knew the girl had fled, had been her purity. Why should it matter so much about virtue? she had asked herself. Why should it weigh so immeasurably more than the noble gifts of wit and beauty and strength and charm? Behold, she was wise enough to educate a barbarous nation, beautiful enough to bewitch potentates—for a time—strong enough to take a city; yet Hesper, who best of all could appreciate the value ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... of securing better international arrangements regarding copyright. Having been elected a member of this, I had the satisfaction of hearing most interesting speeches from Victor Hugo, Tourgueneff, and Edmond About. The latter made the best speech of all, and by his exquisite wit and pleasing humor fully showed his right to the name which his enemies had given him— "the Voltaire of ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... of the powers given in the said antenuptial deeds the trustees therein named, on March 31, 1787, agreed upon a partition of the said lands, which agreement was with the approbation and consent of the cestui que trusts, to wit: Earl and Lady Abingdon, and Charles Fitsroy and Ann his wife, the said Susannah Skinner the second not then having arrived at age. In making the partition, the premises were divided into three parts on a survey made thereof and marked A, B and C; and it was agreed that such partition ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... handed him in charge, so that he spent the next hour in the charge office instead of at chapel. On the Monday morning he was convicted by the East Rand Magistrate and fined 1 Pound for trespassing on a private place, to wit, a church. And that was a Dutch Reformed church, the State Church of South Africa. Others had reproached him before me for such utterances, he said, but he will have "no more of our religious mockery with its theoretical ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... him ambitious. Having vanquished with the sword, he tried the pen. "You may grant the freedom of the city to your barbarians," said a wit to him one day, "but not to your solecisms." Undeterred he began a tragedy entitled "Ajax," and discovering his incompetence, gave it up. "And what has become of Ajax?" a parasite asked. "Ajax threw himself on a sponge," replied Augustus, whose father, it is to be regretted, ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... succeeded in forcing the Laird to listen to the dictates of prudence, and to act with sufficient caution, till it came to what he called the dirty part of the work, to wit, the valuation of small articles, and then was the blood of the Dymocks all up; nor would he hear of requiring a bond for the payment of this last sum, such a document, in fact, as should bind the purchaser down to payment without dispute. He contented himself only with such a note from the ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... common necessaries of life for a period of more than two years next preceding the commencement of this action, although having the ability so to do; awarding to said plaintiff the care, custody and control of the two minor children, the issue of the marriage between you and said plaintiff, to wit: G.L.G. and R.O.G.; and for general relief, as alleged and described in the complaint of said plaintiff now on file in said action in the office of the Clerk of the above named court, and to which said complaint reference is thereby made ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... spite of the danger of such employment, moved thereto not so much by the hope of a reward as from his great loyalty to his majesty, and a desire to avert from him his great danger from popish plots. Having succeeded in entering Sir Marmaduke's service, he soon discovered that six gentlemen, to wit, myself and five friends, were in the habit of meeting at Lynnwood, where they had long and secret talks. Knowing the deep enmity and hostility these men bore towards his gracious majesty, he determined to run any hazard, even to the loss ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... far end of the row lives 'Omadhaun Pat.' He is a 'little sthrange,' you understand; not because he was born with too small a share of wit, but because he fell asleep one evening when he was lying on the grass up by the old fort, and—'well, he was niver the same thing since.' There are places in Ireland, you must know, where if you lie ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... furbished up for the benefit of the Republicans who now control the Third French Republic. However true it may, or may not, have been of the Comte de Provence and the Comte d'Artois, Henri IV., who was certainly a Bourbon of the Bourbons, had a quick wit at learning, and upon occasion also a neat knack of forgetting. He thought Paris well worth a mass, heard the mass, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... no pacts, Cathbarr. My name is Brian Buidh. I made pact with the Dark Master, and now I am sorry for it; yet it must be held to, for I see no way out of it. But wait—I have a cunning man whose wit may help ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... closed ears thou dost not becalm sight and wit, they cease not to fructify under suasion of childhood impregnations. I fear not for thee, if thou art forewarned. If thou art taken to the King, he will straightway be enamoured of thy beauteous ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... of her bright vivacity, quick wit and keen sense of humor, therefore I sat listening to her pleasant chatter. Exiled as I was in a foreign land, I seldom spoke English save with Hutcheson, the Consul, and even then we generally spoke Italian if there were others ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... water," the boatman said, "but while swimming zey have a good deal. See, ze whole body of zat squid isn't more zan two feet long, an' yet if he'd got a hold of you in ze water, specially with ze bigger suckers on ze t'ick part of ze arms, you might have had some trouble. Zose big fellows wit' bodies twenty feet long an' arms t'irty feet, mus' be one horrible t'ing to meet ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... was received with something more than coldness by certain sections of the community. Men of wit, taste, and discrimination among the aristocracy gave it a hearty welcome, but the aristocracy in general were not likely to relish a book that turned their favourite reading into ridicule and laughed at so many ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... step was to approach Oliver, and that was more difficult, for he was such a queer fellow there was no knowing where to have him. However, Pembury's wit helped him over the ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... the Emperor's court together, we gave ourselves to learn horsemanship of Gio. Pietro Pugliano; one that, with great commendation, had the place of an esquire in his stable; and he, according to the fertileness of the Italian wit, did not only afford us the demonstration of his practice, but sought to enrich our minds with the contemplation therein, which he thought most precious. But with none, I remember, mine ears were at any time more laden, than when (either angered with slow payment, ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... imprisoned their superior, Ricci, in the castle of Saint Angelo, the Bastille of papacy. Severe only towards exaggerated zealots, he enchanted the Christian world by the evangelical sweetness, the grace of his understanding, and the poignancy of his wit; but pleasantry is the first step to the profanation of dogmata. The crowd of strangers and English whom his affability attracted to Italy and retained at Rome, caused, with the circulation of gold and science, the inflowing of scepticism ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... dramatizing a dry fact, of putting it into flesh and blood, and the instantaneous conception of Joe as a human thermometer, seem to us more like the poetical faculty than anything else. It is, at any rate, humor, and not mere quickness of wit,—the deeper, and not the shallower quality. Humor tends always to overplus of expression; wit is mathematically precise. Captain Basil Hall denied that our people had humor; but did he possess it himself? for, if not, he would never find it. Did he always ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... sketches on the black-board. The disappointed authoress took it with what calm she could muster. She knew they meant to tease, and the fewer sparks they could raise from her the sooner they would desist and let the matter drop. It would probably serve as a target for Addie's wit till the end of the term, unless the excitement of the newly formed ambulance class chased it from her memory. The Woodlanders were trying to do their duty by their country, and all the girls were enthusiastically ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... reply. She was looking before her down the hedge-bordered road. Always a girl of sudden impulses, she had just made a curious discovery, to wit that she was enjoying herself. There was something so novel and exhilarating about this midnight ride that imperceptibly her dismay and resentment had ebbed away. She found herself struggling with ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... and uncertainty of mind which I am not often troubled withal. It was partly astonishment, in truth, that confused me. Little Ugly and I actually exchanging ideas! I shall call her Little Ugly still, however, for I could not make her look at me as she spoke, nor answer my wit by a ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... complete the triumph of Justice but the apprehension of Perrier and his associate, to whose adventures it is now time that we return, in order to display the severe justice of Providence, and the admirable methods by which it disappoints all the courses that human wit can invent in order ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... walked in the flock, sometimes with this one, sometimes with that, that the fresh night air was producing staggerings and serpentine courses among the men who had partaken too freely; some of the more careless women also were wandering in their gait—to wit, a dark virago, Car Darch, dubbed Queen of Spades, till lately a favourite of d'Urberville's; Nancy, her sister, nicknamed the Queen of Diamonds; and the young married woman who had already tumbled down. Yet however terrestrial and lumpy their appearance just now to the ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... green after the haymaking. There was a fresh wandering air, which fluttered the ribbons in Molly's hat, as she danced on ahead, frisking in her short white skirt beside her uncle, her hand in his. Charles was the essence of wit to Molly, with his grave face that so seldom smiled, and the twinkle in the kind eyes, that always went before those wonderful, delightful jokes which he alone could make. Sometimes, as she laughed, she looked back at Ruth and Dare, half a field ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... remember well to be of that shark type: "In answer to your letter of the 28th of August, I beg to say that I do not see the necessity of giving you a Government wagon, because, through some carelessness in your business arrangements, you have lost one of your own." There is wit as well as rebuke in that communication. On the whole we repeat that, though he had a task of unusual difficulty, French laid the foundation of the Force, and gave the superstructure a trend that affected for good the after history of the famous corps. It was this man who was ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... The visible mission adds something to the apparition, to wit, the authority of the sender. Therefore the Son and the Holy Ghost who are from another, are said not only to appear, but also to be sent visibly. But the Father, who is not from another, can appear indeed, but ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... of the second objection. But it must be observed, when Avicebron argues thus, "There is a mover who is not moved, to wit, the first maker of all; therefore, on the other hand, there exists something moved which is purely passive," that this is to be conceded. But this latter is primary matter, which is a pure potentiality, just as God is pure act. Now ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... Gawaine, I will discover me unto your person. In Sir Launcelot and you I most had my joy and mine affiance, and now have I lost my joy of you both, wherefore all mine earthly joy is gone from me." "My uncle King Arthur," said Sir Gawaine, "wit you well that my death's day is come, and all is through mine own hastiness and wilfulness, for I am smitten upon the old wound that Sir Launcelot du Lake gave me, of the which I feel that I must die; and if Sir Launcelot had been with you as he was, this unhappy war had never begun, and of all ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... wit is brevity; we want a place for an approaching combat between my friend here and a brave from town. Passing by your broad acres this fine morning we saw a pightle, which we deemed would suit. Lend us that pightle, and receive our thanks; ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... had so long suffered in this quest, Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ So many times among "The Band"—to wit, The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed 40 Their steps—that just to fail as they, seemed best, And all the doubt was now—should I ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... admiration, and unanimously lauded the unparalleled sagacity of the future ruler of Israel.—The Queen of Sheba's "hard questions" (already referred to, p. 218) were probably of a somewhat similar nature. Such "wit combats" seem to have been formerly common at the courts and palaces of Asiatic monarchs and nobles; and a curious, but rather tedious, example is furnished in the Thousand and One Nights, in the story of Abu al-Husn ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... gold, though, if necessary, he could squander it like a caliph. He had even a respect for very rich men; it was his only weakness, the only exception to his general scorn for his species. Wit, power, particular friendships, general popularity, public opinion, beauty, genius, virtue, all these are to be purchased; but it does not follow that you can buy a rich man: you may not be able or willing to spare enough. A person or a thing that you perhaps ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... wit and humor and real philosophy which rank their possessor among those humorists who have really made a genuine contribution to permanent literature."—HARRY THURSTON PECK, ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... roadster was considered an evidence of the terribly reckless extravagance of his habits, but it was really nothing more than a sort of pocketbook, since all his money went into it, and a very shabby one at that. He had a cheap wit and swaggeringly condescending air which he practiced on the simple inhabitants of Everdoze, and in his banter he was not always kind. Yet notwithstanding that he was tawdry both in dress and speech the villagers did not venture much into the conversational arena with him because they ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... meanwhile with fruitage of the vine, To-wit the mellow grape, scarce breathed to see The nut-brown maid, and gasped, 'Where is ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... a fine name once one has got hold of it." This does not prevent Phinuit from altering Theodora into Theosophy, and calling the person in question Theosophy! I could easily give other examples of Phinuit's wit. But on this point I must remark that the word "Theosophy" astonishes me in Phinuit's mouth, even when he is making a joking use of it. Evidently Mrs Piper knows the name and the thing well. But at the time when Dr Phinuit ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... novelty. The Circassian was undeniably most beautiful; but, without vanity, she was by no means to be compared to me; she had the advantage of novelty, and I hoped no more, for I felt what a dangerous rival she might prove if her wit and talents were equal to her personal charms. The sultan came, and I exerted myself to please, but, to my mortification, I was neglected; all his attentions and thoughts were only for my rival, who played her part to ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... elusive element in writing and the inability of instructors to impart it that make many journalists say news writing cannot be taught. Delicacy of expression is not effeminacy. It is originality; it is cleverness; it is nimbleness of wit and beauty of phrase; it is grace; it is simplicity; it is restraint; it is tact. It is all these, and more. It is that intuition in a star man which forbids his beginning the same kind of story day after day with a fixed, hackneyed type of sentence, which makes him avoid triteness of expression. ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... of call a nameless, cliff-sheltered sand beach which in his heart he christened from afar Port Adventure, Jim Kendric was richly content. With huge satisfaction he looked upon the sparkling sea, the little vessel which scooned across it, his traveling mate, the big negro and the half-wit Philippine cabin boy. If anything desirable lacked Kendric could not put the name ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... is not a brakeman in or out of work; wearing the black, soft hat tilted forward to shelter—as a counter does the contempt of a clerk—that expression which the face does not dare wear quite in the open, asserting the possession of supreme capacity in wit, strength, dexterity, and amours; the dirty handkerchief under the collar; the short black coat always double-breasted; the eyelids sooty; one cheek always bulged; the forehead speckled; the lips cracked; horrible teeth; and the affectation ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... enrichment." Quoth Khalifah, "I not Al-Rashid he in whose Palace I was imprisoned?" "Yes," answered she; and he said, "By Allah, never saw I more niggardly wight than he, that piper little of good and wit! He gave me an hundred blows with a stick yesterday and but one dinar, for all I taught him to fish and made him my partner; but he played me false." Replied she, "Leave this unseemly talk, and open thine ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... eye of Jennings and turned away with a shrug. He was apparently glad to get away. Jennings looked after him with a smile. "I'll catch the whole gang," he murmured, and took his departure, having learned what he wished to know—to wit, that ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... chance if it came was not ma way. It's no man's way who gets anywheres in this world, I've found. There are men who canna e'en do so much—to whom chances come they ha' neither the wit to see nor the energy to seize upon. Such men one can but pity; they are born wi' somethin' lacking in them that a man needs. But there is anither sort, that I do not pity—I despise. They are the men who are always waiting for a chance. ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... in status that we have described, and of the dreads and hesitations that go therewith. The American is marked, in fact, by precisely the habits of mind and act that one would look for in a man insatiably ambitious and yet incurably fearful, to wit, the habits, on the one hand, of unpleasant assertiveness, of somewhat boisterous braggardism, of incessant pushing, and, on the other hand, of conformity, caution and subservience. He is forever talking of his rights as if he stood ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... mad girl?" said brother Michael. "Has she not beauty, grace, wit, sense, discretion, dexterity, ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... form of expression, as well as a system of manners, different from that which is proper to mankind at large. In Elizabeth's reign, the court language was formed on the plan of one Lillie, a pedantic courtier, who wrote a book, entitled "Euphues and his England, or the Anatomy of Wit;"[3] which quality he makes to consist in the indulgence of every monstrous and overstrained conceit, that can be engendered by a strong memory and a heated brain, applied to the absurd purpose of hatching unnatural conceits.[4] It appears, that this fantastical person ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... Allan, that in thy dream or vision thou didst seem to appear before thyself seated on a throne and in that self to find thy judge. That is the Truth whereof I spoke, though how it found its way through the black and ignorant shell of one whose wit is so small, is more than I can guess, since I believed that it ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... This financier, a fashionable wit, great at charades, capping verses, and posies to Chlora, lived in society, was a hanger-on to the Duc de Nivernais, and fancied himself obliged to follow the nobility into exile; but he took care to carry his money with ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... "Ay!" replied the wit; "if we wants more we kin go back to the larder agin. It's a kind o' meat that eats ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... wit you took away Our former adoration: The Iliad, you may us say, Was mere conglomeration. Think it not crime in any way: Youth's fervent adoration Leads us to know the verity, And feel the ...
— Homer and Classical Philology • Friedrich Nietzsche
... think they have been over-estimated in comparison with the rest of Schnitzler's production. "The Puppet Player," "The Gallant Cassian" and "The Greatest Show of All" (Zum grossen Wurstel) have charm and brightness and wit. But in regard to actual significance they cannot compare with plays like "The Lonely Way," ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... you, knowing I have but one object in submitting to association with you in any way, to wit, the recovery of the jewels of Madame de Montalais and their restoration to that lady, have not had sufficient wit to prevent my securing those jewels under ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... woman named Euphrosyne, a niece of the archbishop, married to one of the richest Greek merchants, and noted for wit and beauty. She was already the mother of two children, when Mouktar became enamoured of her, and ordered her to come to his palace. The unhappy Euphrosyne, at once guessing his object, summoned a family council to decide what should be done. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... voice and a lively manner, which stood him in good stead in proclaiming the merits of his wares. He could sing a ballad in taking style, and became so widely known for his songs and stories that he was often invited into gentlemen's houses to entertain company. His voice and his wit ended in making him a prince of the empire, a favorite of the czar, and in the end ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... of the Virtues Are Fittingly Set Down As Effects of Baptism, to Wit—Incorporation in Christ, Enlightenment, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... you would, Mr. Holmes. It's my first big chance, and I am at my wit's end. For goodness' sake come down ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... it, the more perplexed it is, and the more intricate, even so it befalls many unsober and presumptuous spirits, who, not being satisfied with the simple truth of God, clearly asserting that this is, endeavour to examine it according to reason, and to solve all the objections of carnal wit and reason, (which is often "enmity against God,") not by the silence of the Scriptures, but by answers framed according to the several capacities of men. I say, all this is but daring to behold the infinite glory of God with ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... warn the accused to utter no rash word which may be used against him; in France the first principle is to draw from him every rash word that he can be made to bring forth. This was the method employed with Jeanne. Her judges were all Churchmen and dialecticians of the subtlest wit and most dexterous faculties in France; they had all, or almost all, a strong prepossession against her. Though we cannot believe that men of such quality were suborned, there was, no doubt, enough of jealous and indignant feeling among them to ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... yeeres after that, to wit, the last yeere the saide Burgomasters of Hamburrough sent Sebastian Berghen their Secretarie and Agent with letters vnto the Queene of England, desiring that vnder the colour and title of Newtralitie, they might freely passe into Spaine ...
— A Declaration of the Causes, which mooved the chiefe Commanders of the Nauie of her most excellent Maiestie the Queene of England, in their voyage and expedition for Portingal, to take and arrest in t • Anonymous |
