"Banter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... each of them are nothing else but science.' 'You are munificent indeed,' said Socrates; 'for when asked for one thing, you have given many.' I almost think," continued Harrington, "that, if Socrates were here, he would do what I should not presume to do,—banter you in a somewhat similar way. He would say, that, having asked what a miracle was, Mr. Fellowes told him that half a dozen things were miracles, but did not tell him what every miracle was; that is, never told him what made all miracles ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... mocking spirit with clever imitations of the style and affectations of familiar poets. They are witty; they are humorous; they are good-natured; and they are artistic and extraordinarily clever. His satirical banter shown in these verses—most of which are real poems as well as parodies—has been classed as "refined common-sense," and "the exuberant playfulness of a powerful mind and tender and manly nature." It contains also independent literary skits ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... stamping his foot, "thinkest thou to banter me,—see!" As his foot shook the floor, the door opened, and a man with his arms bare, covered from head to foot in a black gown of serge, with his features concealed by a hideous mask, stood ominously ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... difficulty in keeping their buggy in sight. Sometimes Bartley stopped long enough for them to come up, and then, after a word or two of gay banter, was ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... he may have had of passing unobserved. She was glad of the opportunity to show the company that she was on familiar terms with a man so well known, and she had on her tongue what she regarded as a piece of banter quite in keeping with ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... you mid meet in your journey might notice the set of it, I suppose. Fancy, men in love don't think so much about how they look to other women." It is difficult to say whether a tone of playful banter or of gentle reproach ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... the young fellow retorted, and their banter took a course that left Miss Axewright and Gaites to themselves. The dancers began to stray in again from ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... Travels in Peru has been quoted as exhibiting exaggeration in the description of the condor surpassing anything that can be laid to Polo's charge here; but that is, in fact, only somewhat heavy banter directed against our traveller's own narrative. (See Travels in Various Parts ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... he could not see her face. It was very cruel in him, but he deliberately took her chin in his hands, and gently but firmly turned her face up to his. Then, as he kissed the shamed eyes and furiously blushing cheeks, he dropped the tone of banter and said, with moist eyes, in a voice of ...
— A Love Story Reversed - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... barely made good our retreat when the boat arrived alongside, and her occupants were in another moment in possession of the felucca's deck. A torrent of ribald banter and raillery—of the sort which, coming from a drunken man, is expected to be received as jovial humour, but which a chance word or inadvertent glance of misappreciation may in a moment cause to be exchanged ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... back a well-heeled bird, nor to color my fancy for a horse. As for a mistress, or for those fugitive affairs of the heart which English fashion countenanced—nay, on which fashion insisted—I had no part in them, and brooked much banter from the gay world in consequence. It was not merely lack of money, nor yet a certain fastidiousness implanted, nor yet the inherent shrinking of my English blood from pleasure forbidden, for my Renault blood was hot enough, God wot! It was, I think, all of these ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... horse back and forth in front of his men, as if to banter me, and I concluded to accept the challenge. I galloped towards him for fifty yards and he advanced towards me about the same distance, both of us riding at full speed, and then, when we were only about thirty yards apart, I raised my rifle and fired; his ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... quiet during the evening. Ward had appointed him to order the dinner, and he had attended to this duty without mingling much in the conversation. When Ward asked him why he did not join the banter, he said: ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... although there is a pleasing relish on the curb at his discomfort, yet it must not be assumed that all the humor on the street rises from misadventure. Rather, it arises from a general acceptance of the day and a feeling of common partnership in the storm. The policeman in his rubber coat exchanges banter with a cab-driver. If there is a tangle in the traffic, it comes nearer to a jest than on a fairer day. A teamster sitting dry inside his hood, whistles so cheerily that he can be heard at the farther sidewalk. Good-naturedly he sets his tune as a ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... well! This is like you. You banter me as you use to do. You make a Game of me. You joke upon me. You satyrize me. You treat me with a Sneer. I see how you jeer me well enough. You only jest with me. I am your Laughing-stock. I am laugh'd at by you. ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... questions about their subject their answer was—not always—but in so many cases a solemn owllike "yes-and-no" that I soon learned my place. They did not expect or want a woman to know anything and preferred light banter and persiflage. I like that, too, when it is well done; but I was accustomed to ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... allowed it to pass, as she thought it might be construed either as a compliment or a banter. Visitors flocked in, and the insufferable Mrs. Downe Wright declared to all that her Ladyship was astonishingly well; but without the appropriate whine, which gives proper pathos, and generally accompanies ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... foolish banter merely to show how safely, even on his most sensitive points, one might ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... sort of thing. But to a certain extent he had laid himself open to banter by the lasting character of his impressions which were connected with the passion of love and, perhaps, were not of such a rare kind as he seemed to think them. What made his comrades tolerant of his rhapsodies was the fact that they were connected ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... ears instead of their nose; and blotches of breast-pin. Pictures on the wall cut out of the Police Gazette. A slush of beer on floor and counter. A pistol falls out of a ruffian's pocket. By the gas-light a knife flashes. Low songs. They banter, and jeer, and howl, and vomit. An awful goal, to which hundreds of people better than you ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... the boys should drive away Little sweet maidens from the play, Or love to banter and fight so well, That's the thing I ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... say," replied Maud; but though it was couched in a tone of banter, the smile that accompanied this pertinent remark seemed ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... carried on in low tones, had passed under cover of noisy mirth, snatches of song, banter, and gigglings; nobody paid heed to the two men talking in a corner. Yet the stranger lowered his voice to a ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... merry banter faded from the Virile Benedict's brown eyes, and was replaced by the commanding look of one who has taken a brilliant degree in all ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... with a laugh the cool, light scorn of her banter. Yet something in him warmed to his environment. He had the feeling of having come into more intimate touch with her past than he had yet done. The sight of that plain little bed went to the source of his emotions. How many times had his love knelt beside it in her night-gown and offered up ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... always clever enough to make her believe that he trembled like a college youth who asks his first partner at a ball: "Do you like dancing?" But he could also be terrible when necessary; he could draw his sword and destroy skilled soldiers. There was banter in his simplicity and laughter in his tears, for he could weep as well as any woman who says to her husband: "Give me a carriage or I ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... young, and backward; but he had a temper, and this kind of banter roused it easily. The red ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... the same token you are all sweetness and blue eyes and dearness and dimples," he punished her. Then the banter in his tones died ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... to detect how much of conviction and how much of banter there was in his treatment of men engaged in the actual intellectual movement of our times. I found such to be the case in my own intercourse with him. He always attacked me in a bantering way, but, I thought, half in earnest ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... is that it is really schoolboy humour belatedly prolonged. Vituperation is the schoolboy's idea of friendly banter. The schoolboy does not so much consider the feelings of his victim as his companions' need for amusement. But I am sure that the tendency nowadays is, somehow or other, to prolong the hobbledehoy days. There is so much more organisation ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... rolls his eye at you when he wins," explained Judge Colfax as we went out into the sunlit street again, and he patted me on the shoulder in gentle banter. ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... exclaims. From the high rostra a report comes down, And like a chilly fog, pervades the town: Each man I meet accosts me "Is it so? You live so near the gods, you're sure to know: That news about the Dacians? have you heard No secret tidings?" "Not a single word." "O yes! you love to banter us poor folk." "Nay, if I've heard a tittle, may I choke!" "Will Caesar grant his veterans their estates In Italy, or t'other side of the straits?" I swear that I know nothing, and am dumb: They think me deep, miraculously mum. And ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... the handle of her parasol. Here was her lover saying to her all that she had dreamed he might say, saying in an earnest, trembling voice that he loved her; in a voice so different to his customary tone of banter, that she for a moment almost believed in his sincerity; yet as she averted her face and looked over the bay she could see clearly in her mind's eye the little picture which had remained in it from yesterday—her lover holding ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... of talk was a sample of life at Temple Camp for seven days past. Those who were not given to jollying and banter had fallen back on checkers and dominos and other wild sports. A few of the more adventurous and reckless made birchbark ornaments, while those who were in utter despair for something to ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... due to the sting of defeat. As the Bar-20 man was known to be given to moods at times this was accepted as the true explanation and gave promise of hotly contested games for revenge later on. The banter which the defeated puncher had to endure stirred him and strengthened the reserve, although he was careful not ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... example the "Io son si vaga della mia bellezza." To this all the others spontaneously dance while singing the refrain in chorus. Another time the queen of the day, Emilia, invites Dioneo to sing a canzona. There is much pretty banter, while Dioneo teases the women by making false starts at several then familiar songs. In another place Dioneo with lute and Fiametta with viol play a dance. Again one sings while Dioneo accompanies her ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... truth, cogency of logical reason. Those who insist on charm, on winningness in style, on subtle harmonies and fine exquisiteness of suggestion, are disappointed in Burke: they even find him stiff and over-coloured. And there are blemishes of this kind. His banter is nearly always ungainly, his wit blunt, as Johnson said, and often unseasonable. As is usual with a man who has not true humour, Burke is also without true pathos. The thought of wrong or misery moved him less to pity for the victim than to anger against the cause. Again, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... contemptuous term "square-head" to his competitors from northern Europe. The word "Boche" cannot be translated by anything except "Boche," any more than our word "Wop," meaning an Italian, can be turned into French. The same attitude, half banter, half race contempt, lies at the heart of ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... gave sweetness to their labour, and the responsibilities devolving upon them imbued the sacred holiday with a meaning and charm that it had never had before for them. They bubbled over with importance and with the glory of it. A sister and a brother could not meet without a friendly banter. ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... ditto of yellow soap, a comb and brush for the head, and nothing for the teeth. Everybody uses the comb and brush, except myself. Everybody stares to see me using my own; and two or three gentlemen are strongly disposed to banter me on my prejudices, but don't. When I have made my toilet, I go upon the hurricane-deck, and set in for two hours of hard walking up and down. The sun is rising brilliantly; we are passing Mount Vernon, where Washington ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... Senate, which illustrious body he had on all occasions deliberately treated with contumely and hatred,—but to the private revenge of an insulted soldier. The weak thin voice of Cassius Chaereas, tribune of the praetorian cohort, had marked him out for the coarse and calumnious banter of the imperial buffoon; and he determined to avenge himself, and at the same time rid the world of a monster. He engaged several accomplices in the conspiracy, which was nearly frustrated by their want of resolution. For four whole days they hesitated, while day after day, Caius ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... banter in good part. Born with a forgiving, noncombative disposition he seldom took offence and although Janoah Eldridge, who knew him better perhaps than anyone else on earth did, acclaimed that this tranquil exterior concealed, as did ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... the Calvinistic faith, which Kennedy upheld without stint. The Conversations add little to what we already know of Byron's religious opinions; nor is it easy to say where he ceases to be serious and begins to banter, or vice versa. He evidently wished to show that in argument he was good at fence, and could handle a theologian as skilfully as a foil. At the same time he wished if possible, though, as appears, ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... confession. St Augustine, Rousseau, De Quincey, have not quite equalled this. He found it had been made the subject of serious criticism and ludicrous banter. But his one object, as he tells 'serious criticks,' has been to delineate Johnson's character, and for this purpose he appeals from Philip drunk to Philip sober, and to the approbation of the discerning reader. Later ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... There was none of the bluster of the armchair Jingo, none of the loud hectoring and swaggering and bravado that distinguish the carpet warrior. On the contrary, when they were talking of the war amongst themselves they had an air of quiet determination, of good-humoured banter, and of easy, serious confidence far more ominous for an enemy than any amount of fluent rant. After the world of politics, with its hair-splitting and word-mincing, it was good to be with soldiers—the men who do the work. They knew no fine political shades, they bandied ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... stroll out to them after his daily visit, and lying on the grass, his arms crossed behind his head, and a big cigar between his lips, would gently banter everybody. Tea came at five o'clock, and then Mrs. Decie appeared armed with a magazine or novel, for she was proud of her literary knowledge. The sitting was suspended; Harz, with a cigarette, would move between the table and the picture, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... elapsed before down the hill came Grace and Skeets, the latter stumbling several times, nearly pitching headlong and yet most mirthful over her own near misfortune; but little Miss Hooper seemed unusually serious-minded. A lively exchange of jests and jolly banter commenced between Skeets and Gus, who could use his tongue if forced to; but presently Grace left her laughing chum and came over to where Bill had resumed ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... transcribe, from his excellent work, a distinguished passage in support of the Christian Revelation. After shewing, in decent but strong terms, the unfairness of the INDIRECT attempts of modern infidels to unsettle and perplex religious principles, and particularly the irony, banter, and sneer, of one whom he politely calls 'an eloquent historian', ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... jocular mask—one might have counted him the most serene and careless of vagrants, and in his words only the ordinary voice of banter spoke to the Governor. A good woman, it may well be, would have guessed before this the sensitive soul in the blundering body, but Barker saw just the familiar, whimsical, happy-go-lucky McLean of old days, and so he went gayly and innocently on, treading upon holy ground. "I've got it!" ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... steps of the Piazzetta to receive the oncoming barges, for the "Calza" were the very darlings of their eyes, and never had they been more brilliant. With true Venetian comradery the crowd tossed them light banter on the names of their divisions, with pantomimic interpretation, in ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... conversation, books, and newspapers. The Dutchman hates to be interfered with, and resents the advice of candid friends, and cannot stand any 'chaff.' He has his kind of humour, which is slow in expression and material in conception, but he does not understand 'banter.' He is liberal in theories, but intensely conservative in practice. He will agree with a new theory, but often do as his grandfather did, and so in Holland there may be seen very primitive methods ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... girls are slim, supple and strong as the young men, the mothers and older women rather stiff, and usually hampered by at least one child, which they carry on their backs or on their hips, while another holds on to the garment which replaces our skirts. There is plenty of laughter and banter with the men, who look on unmoved at the efforts of the weaker sex, only rarely offering a ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... The donkey was enjoying it. I think he was asleep!" The day had been an unusually hard one, and the patient little schoolmistress was just then struggling with a distracted sense of unavailing effort. Arnold's grim banter had brought the tears, as blood follows a blow. He got down from his horse, looking wretched at what he had done. "I am a brute, I believe,—worse than any of the pack. You have so much patience with them,—please have a little with me. Trust me, I am not utterly blind to ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... with a jabber of strange terms, a bright smile and ready banter, and I could see that he was to be a quick favourite. I envied him for his ease of manner, a thing I could never compass. Presently he returned ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... he swallowed. "Heard you ever anything to equal that? He has the appearance of a boy who has been released from a lesson. I wish that you had been here to see him at meal-time. So full of jests and banter was he that I could scarcely eat for laughing. Yet when I took courage from his good-nature to ask him concerning his plans for the future, he pretended that he did not hear me, and put an end to questioning by bidding Ulf come ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... glasses" always. Our discourse was generally composed of much lighter elements, especially when Mr Mawley and I did not come in contact—argument being then, naturally, as a dead letter. Our conversation during these peaceful interregnums mainly consisted in friendly banter, parish news, and gossip. Scandal Miss Pimpernell never permitted; indeed, no one would have had the heart to say an ill-natured thing of anybody ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... pursued the nephew, with a short laugh, relapsing into that light tone of banter which was his most natural mode of expression; "when, one fine day, a hired coach clattered up Sir Rupert Landale's avenue and deposited upon his porch a tattered mariner who announced himself, in melancholy tones that would have befitted the ghost no doubt many took him for, as the rightful ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... banter. One fellow would begin teasing another about his girl. The whole table would take it up, every man doing his best to insult and enrage the victim. It was all fun until some fellow's temper broke under the strain. Then a rush, ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... smartened attire and doleful countenance that an affair of the heart was forward. And 'twas true; 'twas safely to be predicted, indeed, in season and out, of the fool of our harbor: for what with his own witless conjectures and the reports of his mates, made in unkind banter, his leisure was forever employed in the unhappy business: so that never a strange maid came near but he would go shyly forth upon his quest, persuaded of a grateful issue. 'Twas heroic, I thought, and by this, no less than by his attachment, he ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... cap something perfectly funny with something so flat that you are obliged to turn the conversation. Dryden does the same thing, not with jokes, but with his sublimer passages. But sometimes a child's deliberate banter is quite intelligible to elders. Take the letter written by a little girl to a mother who had, it seems, allowed her family to see that she was inclined to be satisfied with something of her own writing. The child has a full and gay sense of the sweetest kinds ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... swilling mob are employing their muddled minds on frivolity or obscenity, or worse things still. You will hear hardly an intelligent word; you will not catch a sound of sensible discussion; the scraps of conversation that reach you alternate between low banter, low squabbling, objectionable narrative, and histories of fights or swindles ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... morning there was a little banter on the subject of painting. Could not the distinguished painter remain over one day and give his hosts a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... he might tax her, if possible, with a humorous attitude toward the preacher or a quizzical treatment of his flock. He had not yet pardoned her "ways" along Main Street, on the occasion of one or two shopping excursions. She had not hesitated to banter the admiring young clerks that held their places behind those shop-fronts of galvanized iron in simulation of red brick and of cut limestone, and she had been startlingly free in her accosting of several time-honoured ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... taught him rhythm, Prior ease, Praed buoyancy and banter; What modern bard would learn from these? ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... she said to her father in affectionate banter, then, with a wave of her hand and a bright nod to Mr. Turner, ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... visitors had observed that we always drank His Majesty's health as soon as the cloth was removed; but they were by this time become so fond of wine that they would frequently remind me of the health in the middle of dinner by calling out King George Earee no Brittannee; and would banter me if the glass was not filled to the brim. Nothing could exceed the mirth and jollity of these people when they ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... but it excludes it from the larger European view. Oddly enough, Ibsen believed, or pretended to believe, that The League of Youth was a "placable" piece of foolery, which could give no annoyance to the worst of offenders by its innocent and indulgent banter. Perhaps, like many strenuous writers, he underestimated the violence of his own language; perhaps, living so long at a distance from Norway and catching but faintly the reverberations of its political turmoil, he did not realize how sensitive the native patriot must be to any chaff of "de ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... the only philosophers, and whenever he is combating Epicureanism his language is that of a Stoic. Some of Vergil's most eloquent passages seem to be inspired by Stoic speculation. Even Horace, despite his banter about the sage, in his serious moods borrows the language of the Stoics. It was they who inspired the highest flights of declamatory eloquence in Persius and Juvenal. Their moral philosophy affected the world through Roman law, the great masters of which were brought up under its influence. So ...
— A Little Book of Stoicism • St George Stock
... as yet touched it. Wise people said that when she did fall in love sparks would fly. Hitherto her friendships with men, whatever the men in question may have wished, had existed upon a basis of good-natured banter and prowess in games. Men were absolutely necessary to Miss Blythe to play games with, because women who could "give her a game" were rare as ivory-billed woodpeckers. It was even thought by some, as an instance, that little Miss Blythe ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... trivial one, but it diverted attention for a time from the fact of Paul's absence, and when the religious went back to the house and found Brother Andrew returned to his old duty as doorkeeper, the laughter was renewed, and there was some playful banter. ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... to serve at the ready-set tea-table as a butt for banter; otherwise it was apprehended well that Mrs. Sumfit would have scorched the ears of all present, save the happy veteran of the furrows, with repetitions of Dahlia's name, and wailings about her darling, of whom no one spoke. They suffered from her in spite ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... weeks; they vext the souls of deans; They rode; they betted; made a hundred friends, And caught the blossom of the flying terms, But missed the mignonette of Vivian-place, The little hearth-flower Lilia. Thus he spoke, Part banter, part affection. 'True,' she said, 'We doubt not that. O yes, you missed us much. I'll stake my ruby ring upon ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... and began to banter her. The gentleman who was sent to try the slipper looked earnestly at Cinderella, and, ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... think, sir, that I have wasted my time!" rejoined Lecoq in a tone of angry banter, a scarlet flush mantling at the same time over his features. "Such is not my opinion. This scrap of paper undeniably proves that if any one has been mistaken as regards the prisoner's identity, it is ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... welcome the newcomers. They were four of the Mill girls and they crowded into the room, staring curiously about them and at Robin, whose greeting they answered awkwardly. Spying Adam Kraus, they rushed to him with noisy banter and laughter that ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... all their banter the old windmill, perhaps because it was the only thing stirring, held them and sobered their thoughts as it would not have done elsewhere. Perhaps they felt a sort of consciousness of its lonely position and fancied ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... thus disdainful," said the Queen, in a gay tone of banter; "give me here this poor token that thou dost so despise, when many a maiden would be distraught with delight and gratitude. Let ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... subject to athletics, and was in the highest spirits the rest of the day; but underneath all his fun and banter the question constantly arose in his inner consciousness: How could he elude his roommate's watchfulness and on the coming Saturday escape ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... was not himself. He liked an engagement of banter; it amused him to call out Irene's spirit, and to conquer in the end by masculine force in guise of affectionate tolerance. To-day he seemed dull, matter-of-fact, inclined to vexation; when not ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... the field on the other side of the heap; but his jest failed. The earnestness and devout emotion of the boy to the vision of reality which his imagination, aided by the hues of sunset, had thus exalted, were too much for the gross spirit of banter, and the speaker shrank back into his dust-hovel, and affected to be very assiduous in his work as the day was drawing to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... rough banter in excellent part. He sipped his beer, and grinned like a cat at his own expense. But after the guffaws had subsided, he said, "Thee's not told un about that five pound yet, ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... about in congratulation and good-humored banter. Everybody was glad of the boy's success, he was an all round favorite, and some of the men who had won his money felt ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... and Barnes, is a Banter on Criticks, and Genealogists, who make such a Pother about the Orthography of Names and Things, that many Times, three Parts in four of a Folio Treatise, is taken up in ascertaining the Propriety of a Syllable, by which Means the Reader is left undetermined; having nothing but the various Readings ...
— A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (1726) • Anonymous
... other's society. To Phillis his relation continued that of an elder brother: he directed her studies into new paths, he patiently drew out the expression of many of her thoughts, and perplexities, and unformed theories—scarcely ever now falling into the vein of banter which she was so ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... regarded it rather as owing to his own hurried and unfinished declaration. It was true that he hadn't said half what he intended to say; it was true that she might have misunderstood it as the conventional gallantry of the situation, as—terrible thought!—the light banter of the habitual love-making American, to which she had been accustomed; perhaps even now she relegated him to the level of Greyson, and this accounted for her singular impassiveness—an impassiveness that ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... gravely to the swains in turn, and makes demure but provoking answers, raising each to the height of hope, and then casting them both down into the depths of despair; finally she refuses both, yet without altogether killing hope. Her first answer is a good specimen of her banter and of ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... laughed, ready to be pleased at the smallest joke, and banter was the only form of humour ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... badinage to all corners of the room. Afterward, as they wheeled from time to time in their chairs, they bitterly insulted each other with the utmost good-nature, taking unerring aim at faults and riddling personalities with the quaint and cynical humour of a newspaper office. Throughout this banter, it was strange to note how infrequently the men smiled, particularly when ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... the victor and vanquished as they walked slowly back to the marquees; but it was with somewhat of a crestfallen air that Montague advanced to present Sylla with the cup that she had won. He feared that she would be merciless in this her hour of triumph, and dreaded the banter to which he might be subjected. But Sylla knew well the virtue of moderation, and was, besides, far too pleased with her success to be hard ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... speak to him, then? for you see I am in no need of help," retorted Phillis, who was sore all over, and wanted to get rid of him, and yet would have been offended if he had taken her at her word. But Mr. Drummond, who felt his position an uncomfortable one, and was dreadfully afraid of the colonel's banter, was not mean enough to take advantage of her dismissal. He had joined himself to her company out of pure good nature, for it was a hot day and the parcel was heavy, but she would have none of ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... then, and makes his main attacks on my logic and metaphysics. He says, that in writing his first book, he knew no characteristics of me, except that I was "a gentleman, a scholar, and a very indifferent metaphysician" At the risk of encountering yet more of banter and insult, I shall here quote what the third "Prospective Reviewer" says on this topic. (Vol. x. ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... slow recognition, long struggle, and ultimate success; also of his occasional critical intolerance. Commander-in-chief of the "red artillery," he sets too little store on the graceful yet sometimes decisive charges of the light brigades of literature. He feels nothing but contempt for the banter of men like Jerrold; despises the genial pathos of Lamb; and salutes the most brilliant wit and exquisite lyrist of our century with the Puritanical comment, "Blackguard Heine." He deified work as he deified ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... burying her nose in it, passed it to Irene. The latter ought to have realized it was not her own property, but unfortunately didn't. She calmly appropriated the bunch, and distributed it in portions to those nearest her. Peachy's cheeks flamed. She was a hot-tempered little soul underneath her gay banter. ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... never would be an end to the stream of leisurely people who answered his banter with laugh and joke. But finally the last of them were fairly on the stair, and he turned to Agnes Maine with ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... it lovely for the people who can do those things!" said Miss Lord, who was governess in a very wealthy household, and liked to talk of the city's prominent families. "Some day you and I will have to find a million dollars and run away for a year in Italy! I wonder, Sue," the mild banter ceased, "if you could get Mary's dinner? I hate to go into the kitchen, ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... would be the very last thing we should ever think of doing. The officer went on ahead quite unconvinced and in high dudgeon. That we should select one of the myrmidons of the All-Highest as a target for our banter was the offence of offences in his estimable conceit. When we reached the entrance to the field we had to pass a small office in which we were registered and we discovered the immature upstart loudly and excitedly dwelling ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... walls. But Richard, for this present whim of his, chose out a companion devil as heedless as himself, Mercadet namely, his brown Gascon captain, of like proportions, like mettle, like foolhardiness; and with him made the daily round, never omitting an exchange of grim banter with Saint-Pol. It was terrible to see him, without helm on his head, or reason in it, canter within range of ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... banks of the Rhine. The three Rhine-maidens are disporting themselves in the river while they lament the loss of their beautiful treasure. Siegfried, who has strayed from his companions in the chase, now appears, and they beg him for the ring upon his finger, at first with playful banter, and afterwards in sober earnest, warning him that if he does not give it back to them he will perish that very day. He laughs at their womanly wiles, and they vanish as his comrades appear. After the midday halt, Siegfried tells Gunther and his vassals the story of his life. In the midst ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... promise, thus committing the first of that series of offences which, in the poet's vindictive memory, marked him down for elevation to the throne of Dulness which was rendered vacant by the deposition of King Tibbald."[16] There is a rumour that Gay, in revenge for Cibber's banter of "Three Hours After Marriage," personally chastised the actor-dramatist,[17] but there is nothing definitely known about this. Anyhow, Gay was so irritated by the failure of this play that he did not produce anything at a theatre ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... rough-shod over inferior men all his life; he liked to ride rough-shod; he was never pleased when his path crossed people over whom he could not ride rough-shod. Generally she had accepted his classification of those who opposed him strongly as "blamed idiots"; sometimes with a little of her laughing banter, but usually, his superiority standing out sharp and clear when opposed to the dull Canaanites, endorsing his opinion. "I sort of wish," he went on, with that keen, wire-edged exasperation still sawing ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... laughing. He was a singular man in all respects; he might not have been quite in earnest, but that the short, hard, rapid manner in which he shot out these cinders of principles, as if it were done by mechanical revolvency, seemed irreconcilable with banter. ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... his gay banter in monosyllables, and kept her dancing eyes veiled by their own long-fringed lids, but this only ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... upon us, the town," says the Gentleman's Magazine for January 1752, "has been lately entertained with a kind of farcical performance, called 'The Old Woman's Oratory,' conducted by Mrs. Mary Midnight and her family, intended as a banter on Henley's Oratory, and a puff for the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... so close that her stool touched the chair. She bent her cheek upon the shrivelled hand resting upon the arm. The excitement and feverish banter of Truedale affected her painfully. She reproached herself bitterly for having left him to the mercy of his loneliness and imagination. Her interest in, her resentment for, Conning faded before the pitiful display of feeling expressed in every ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... indeed, at the time when he sent me those melancholy verses, "There's not a joy this world can give," &c. felt some vague apprehensions as to the mood into which his spirits then seemed to be sinking, and, in acknowledging the receipt of the verses, thus tried to banter him out of it:—"But why thus on your stool of melancholy again, Master Stephen?—This will never do—it plays the deuce with all the matter-of-fact duties of life, and you must bid adieu to it. Youth is the only time when ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... Nae banter frae Lord Deas, Nae promises o' fees That never will be paid afore the judgment-day, Nae lies dubbed "information," From the worst rogues in the nation,— The days o' my Circuits are a' ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... the evening passed with the banter that invariably took place when Rube was of the party. It was late when they left the Squire's, the constable going along with them, and all singing merrily as ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... cheered and inspired him to know that his country was represented in the fighting. He had to pause in the street to let a company of them pass by on their way northward to the trench line and it did his heart good to hear their cheery laughter and typical American banter. ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... blue-birds, warblers of many species, sparrows of different kinds, shore birds and ducks, the sweet-songed thrushes. Little tepid breezes wandered up and down, warm in contrast to the faint snow-chill that even yet lingered in the shadows. Sounds carried clearly, so that the shouts and banter of the rivermen were plainly audible up the reaches of the river. Ashore moist and aggressive green things were pushing up through the watery earth from which, in shade, the last frost had not yet departed. At camp the fires ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... I fancy they have had a talking-to that they won't forget in a hurry. So they have been well punished, and Tommy has been wired to to come home at once, so he has been punished. And Hilary's punishment here is to come. It will take the form of such endless banter and chaff from her brothers and sisters that it will be a long time before she thinks of playing private detective to any one ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... to the memory, like a saying of Talleyrand's. His umbrae, who have put but little of allaying Tiber in their cups, grow boisterous and abusive, and having insulted nearly everybody at the table by coarse personal banter, the party breaks up, and we are glad to get out with flushed cheeks and dizzy head into the cool air of an early summer night—all the more, that for the last half-hour young Piso at our elbow has been importuning us with whispered specimens of his very rickety elegiacs, and trying to settle ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... to own that his cutlets could not be relished, even by hungry men. They began to banter him about his "Olympian dish," and indulge in jokes at his expense; but all he cared about was to find out how it happened that the flesh of the guanaco, which was certainly good and eatable food, had turned out so badly in his hands. At last light broke ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... eye the bodily size of Rolf, and smitten with great wonder thereat, proceeded to inquire in jest who was that "Krage" whom Nature in her beauty had endowed with such towering stature? Meaning humorously to banter his uncommon tallness. For "Krage" in the Danish tongue means a tree-trunk, whose branches are pollarded, and whose summit is climbed in such wise that the foot uses the lopped timbers as supports, as if leaning on a ladder, and, gradually advancing to the higher parts, finds the shortest ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... continued, not a bit grieved at the knight's banter, "I even heard the King's fool remark that since the man was so good, the master need must be. And then and there he hazarded a shrewd guess that if this master were not the King, nor Sir Launcelot, then it ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... Throwing banter aside, as much as he could, Adrian spoke to Richard. "You want to reform this woman. Her manner is open—fair and free—the traditional characteristic. We won't stop to canvass how that particular honesty of deportment ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of the great art of banter. It is a marvellous force; it kills sanctity, unveils sophistry, travesties wisdom, cuts through the finest shield, and turns the noblest impulses ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... cloaks and capes, and the men, following their example, took off their coats and sat in their shirt-sleeves. Whereupon ensued much banter of a not particularly edifying kind respecting the garments which each person would like to remove—which showed that the innuendo of French farce is not so unknown to the upright, honest Englishman as ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... in the same grave tone, which might have passed for banter, had Jack ever bantered. "I'll maintain and prove it. I don't see how he can be otherwise. It is as necessary for a man to be a gentleman before he can turn highwayman, as it is for a doctor to have his diploma, or an attorney his certificate. Some of the finest gentlemen of their ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... bridal and in fair I 've braced me wi' pride, The bruse I hae won, and a kiss of the bride; And loud was the laughter, gay fellows among, When I utter'd my banter, or chorus'd my song. Dowie to dree are jesting and glee, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... passion got the better of courtesy. Moreover, as Paula had herself observed, they did not marry at the end of the piece, as in Shakespeare's other comedies. Somewhat calm in this assurance, he waited on while the other couples respectively indulged in their love-making, and banter, including Mrs. Camperton as the sprightly Rosaline. But he was doomed to be surprised out of his humour when the end of the act came on. In abridging the play for the convenience of representation, ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... naive enough to renew his banter. She took her seat on the corner sofa, and looked straight into his face: "Do we really intend to remain friends, Daniel?" ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... world would she, at this stage of the affair, have revealed her anxiety to her brother, who held the even tenor of his way, whatever he felt—never obtrusive and never negligent. He treated Bessie like the girl of sense she was, with courtesy, but without compliments or any idle banter; and Bessie certainly began to enjoy his society. He improved on acquaintance, and made the hours pass much more pleasantly at Brentwood when he was there than they passed in his absence. This was promising. The evening's ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... "then we could get wood in abundance, and perhaps," he added, looking slyly over to the stove where some bread-soup was in preparation for their very temperate repast, "some better fare for dinner. But," he continued in a tone of humorous banter, which he frequently adopted, and pushing back his chair a few paces as he spoke, "while you superintend the household concerns, and give the necessary orders to the cook, I will withdraw into my ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... trader had not been sure, by a certain good-humored twinkle in the large eye, that all this banter was sure, in the long run, to turn out a cash concern, he might have been somewhat out of patience; as it was, he laid down a greasy pocket-book on the cotton-bales, and began anxiously studying over certain papers in it, the young man standing by, the while, looking down on him with an air ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... you propose, Mrs. Marteen, to effect this little business deal without compromising either of us?" His tone was half banter, but her reply was to ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... hour a day to the King of Prussia to touch up a bit his works in prose and verse; I am his grammarian, not his chamberlain ... Never in any place in the world was there more freedom of speech touching the superstitions of men, and never were they treated with more banter and contempt. God is respected, but all they who have cajoled men in His name are ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... not imagine any such disagreeable thing!" said Antonius, in a sickly effort to make banter at the ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... change in Philippa's face. The banter which had served her with so much effect, which she had relied upon as her defensive weapon, was suddenly useless. Lessingham had created an atmosphere around him, an atmosphere ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sunlight-flooded room, and, as one after another of the men glanced up from the table, they saw standing in the doorway a man of such malignant aspect that his look fell across the company like a menace. The swing of their banter slowed suddenly; it was as if the cold of a new-turned grave had struck across the June sunshine checking their roughshod fun. None of them had the hardihood to joke with a man that stood in the shadow ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... necessary pins, we hurriedly and sneakingly enter the drawing-room, and find all our guests already come together. Mother gives us an almost imperceptible glance of gentle reproach, but father is so occupied in bantering a strange miss—banter in which the gallant and the fatherly happily join to make that manner which is the envy and admiration of the neighborhood—that he seems unconscious of our entrance. An intuition, however, tells us that this is not the case, ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... of her long checkered apron then needed close scrutiny and folding for some unknown purpose, and this duty diverted her thoughts from the subject, but she turned to Dolly, who enjoyed this banter in her own quiet little way, which seldom rippled into a loud laugh, for her own quiet little face was too pale and too pinched to invite such freebooters. "Come, come, Little Scout," she said. "Is she warm now, and were the rations ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... of it!" was Falconer's caution, serious beneath its air of banter, and on the other hand Billy perceived in the cautioner a latent uneasiness considered so irrational that he was doing his sensible best to ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... speech he poked rare fun at the dinner-debating members who were so ready to participate in the festivities of the society and so lax in attending the discussions. He not only did this with delicious banter and pointed sarcasm; but, with an audacious touch all his own, he coupled the toast with the name of one member present. This brought the ruffled gentleman up on to his legs, and, smarting under Mr. Chamberlain's ironical philippics, he ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... While he continued his banter she served him and attempted to serve Kate behind the curtains. By persistent, almost despairing pantomime, Kate dissuaded her from this. But at that moment the front door opened again, a brisk greeting was called out and ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... discussions in the little store wended their uneasy way along, a spark of humour was often injected into them by the delightful banter of a rollicking, good-natured Irishman, a big two-fisted fellow, generous- hearted and lovable, whom we affectionately called "Big Phil." I can see him now, standing like a great pyramid in the midst of the little group, ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... attention of the Secretary of State would be drawn to the desires of the district. Earl Grey was triumphantly elected, and when the news went home it caused some merriment. He was jokingly asked in the House of Lords when he would sail for Sydney. And for several weeks he underwent so much banter on the subject that his attention was fully aroused to the long-neglected question. He weighed the matter carefully, and, resolving to do the people of Port Phillip full justice, sent out word that he would at once prepare a Bill for the Imperial ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... deep-laid political scheme for centralizing the government and setting up a hereditary aristocracy. The press teemed with invective and ridicule, and the feeling thus expressed by the penny-a-liners was shared by able men accustomed to weigh their words. Franklin dealt with it in a spirit of banter, and John Adams in a spirit of abhorrence; while Samuel Adams pointed out the dangers inherent in the principle of hereditary transmission of honours, and in the admission of foreigners into a secret association possessed of political ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... capacity of any Juan in literature, and glowing with poetry of a splendour and fertility which neither Browning himself nor the great English poet who had identified his name with that of Juan, and whom Browning in this very poem overwhelms with genial banter, ever surpassed. The poem inevitably challenged comparison with Byron's masterpiece. In dazzling play of intellect, in swift interchange of wit and passion, the English nineteenth century produced nothing more comparable to the Don Juan of Byron ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... loiterers in the lobby glanced curiously at the two young men. These strangers strode in laughing in a way of mutual banter, as if their sudden decision to see the show ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh |
