"Wag" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... guidance," as she called it, through the world. A pocket Bible, and a small volume of the "Select Edition of Franklin's Maxims," a book in high favor with the good people of the Cape, were got of a bookseller in Barnstable, a queer wag, who had got rich by vending a strange quality of literature and taking fish in exchange. In addition to these good books provided by my mother, I was careful not to forget my "Polite Speech Maker," a book which I confess to have studied much. In truth, like many distinguished ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... thought—indeed, productive of it. Not every officer has this habit, but most acquire it. I have been told that, however weakly otherwise, the calf muscles of watch-officers were generally well developed. There were exceptions. A lieutenant who was something of a wag on one occasion handed the midshipman of his watch a small instrument, in which the latter did not recognize a pedometer. "Will you kindly keep this in your trousers-pocket for me till the watch is over?" At eight bells he asked for it, and, after examining, said, quizzically, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... FIRST WAG. 'T is said they become so dazed by the noise of the city and the rush of such countless numbers, ...
— Children's Classics In Dramatic Form • Augusta Stevenson
... fer you to say as ye'll marry Davi', an' ye ain't had the savvee to wag yer tongue right, I'm goin' to quit. The snow's goin' fast. They dogs o' mine is gettin saft fer want o' work. I'm goin' to light right out o' here, Victor, an' the ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... if he would ask for a share of his meal. His master one day, pretending to be angry and shaking his stick at him, said, "You wretched little sluggard! what shall I do to you? While I am hammering on the anvil, you sleep on the mat; and when I begin to eat after my toil, you wake up and wag your tail for food. Do you not know that labor is the source of every blessing, and that none but those who work are entitled ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... strong alliances above, That 'twere profaneness in us laity To offer earthly aid. I tell thee, Mufti, if the world were wise, They would not wag one finger in your quarrels. Your heaven you promise, but our earth you covet; The Phaetons of mankind, who fire that world, Which you were sent by preaching ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... my Lords, this cause is no joke; Says with a horse laugh my Lord Elliock[13] To have read all the papers I pretend not to brag, Says my Lord Gardenstone[14] with a snuff and a wag. ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... is new," said Kriech, with a wag of his head. "That O Lalala! I have heard that that poker iss very dansherous. That Prince Hanoi of Papeite lose his tam headt to a Chinaman. Something ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... coast. This made my theory of the sleep-walking to the cliffs more plausible. But while we lay low in the clump of trammon trees the appearance of Kit Kermode, with his cat-like walk and his eyes that could wink slander faster than any old woman's tongue could wag it, gave me a theory, or at least a speculation, ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... he said, with an approvingly good-natured wag of the head, as he came up as close as ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... passenger was Sir Cowasji Jehangir Readymoney, an Indian baronet, who inherited immense wealth from a long line of Parsee bankers. They have adopted as a sort of trademark, a nickname given by some wag to the founder of the family, in the last century because of his immense fortune and success in trade. Mr. Readymoney, or Sir Jehangir, as he is commonly known, the present head of the house, was accompanied by his wife, two daughters, their governess, and ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... ceased to wag, tankards to clink. Every man and every dog was quietly gathering about those two central figures. Not one of them all but had his score to wipe off against the Tailless Tyke; not one of them but was burning to join in, the battle once begun. ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... her the fact that these bitter-tongued women whom she despised had dared to assail her—her, the Burra Mem, the Great Lady of their little world. Had dared to? She could not silence them. And what would they say of her, how their tongues would wag, if she ran away from her husband! And they would have a right to talk scandal of her then. The thought made ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... could hardly articulate. When she caught hold of her fork she began to tremble so acutely that she let it fall again. The hunger that possessed her made her wag her head as if senile. She carried the food to her mouth with her fingers. As she stuffed the first potato into her mouth, she burst out sobbing. Big tears coursed down her cheeks and fell onto her bread. She still ate, gluttonously devouring this bread thus ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... When the governor had put that on his paper, he just gave his head a little wag toward Rectus. ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... not have any 'bow-wows' with Rachel," broke in Peachy, "though you just jolly well have to wag your tail the way she wants. She's not bad on the whole, but rather a tyrant, and it would do her all the good in the world if some day somebody had the courage to knock sparks out of her. We do what we can in a mild way," (here the other chuckled) "but she's got the ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... sufferer, how lonesome for you! Nicknames are so homely and cosy. I have about as many as I have toes. One of my friends calls me 'Corney.' He's a bit of a wag—('He,' indeed!)—Another one calls me 'Nelia,'—'Neel-ya!'" She threw a lingering sentiment into the repetition, and chuckled reminiscently. "To most of my chums I'm just 'Neely.' Life's too short for three syllables every day of ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... than this: he was the ship's wag, and so was greeted with shouts and whistles of approval as he stepped on to the stage attired in the burlesque counterfeit ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... say. I'm hyer, and I want to tell the cap'n whar the redskins is; but I don't reckon my story'll spile while Phil tells you about the gal. Go on, boy; wag your tongue as fast as ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... the earth see us with scorn; those who sit in high places wag their heads, and say we are naught, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... a wag of his tail, Splash gave a big jump, nearly throwing Bunny and Sue out of the wagon. Then the big dog began to ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue • Laura Lee Hope
... destruction and ruin being done, the storm abated, the rain ceased to pour and the winds to wag their noisy tongues so furiously. A wolf howl, and of all fearful howls, or yelps uttered by beasts of prey, none can, I think, be more alarming and terrific to the ear than the wolf howl as he scents carnage. A wolf howl broke fearfully ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... toward the German Gardens—since the war, Belgium Gardens—where we were camped, I noticed every one laughing as I went by. After crossing the ridge where the Anglican Cathedral now stands, I went around to the off side, and there saw that some wag, while I was loading, had obliterated a letter on the name of my waggon, which Fitzmaurice had christened the "Townsville Lass." Striking the "L" out gave it a different name. I quickly procured a paint brush and renewed the name as ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... and torn, and chewed most awful, but what the pal said sounded so fine that I wanted to wag my tail, only couldn't, owing to my hanging ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... motion is to the right," Jimmie quoted from the wig-wag lesson he had learned on first becoming a Boy Scout. "It should embrace an arc of ninety degrees, starting at the vertical and returning to it without pause, and should be made in a plane exactly at right angles to the line connecting ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... angel shalt thou see; Yet fear not thou, but speak audaciously.' The boy replied 'An angel is not evil; I should have fear'd her had she been a devil.' With that all laugh'd, and clapp'd him on the shoulder, Making the bold wag by their praises bolder. One rubb'd his elbow, thus, and fleer'd, and swore A better speech was never spoke before. Another with his finger and his thumb Cried 'Via! we will do't, come what will come.' The third he caper'd, and cried ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... cheer the way, From clouds of curling dust which onward fly, In rural splendour break upon the eye. As in their way they hold so gayly on, Caps, beads, and buttons glancing in the sun, Each village wag, with eye of roguish cast, Some maiden jogs, and vents the ready jest; Whilst village toasts the passing belles deride, And sober matrons marvel at their pride. But William, head erect, with settled brow, In sullen ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... despised them. Moreover, the naughty diarist had an ugly habit of recording men's private conversations; and thus a good many sayings which should have been kept secret became public property. A very irreverent wag wrote— ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... of shavings and seated within it; it is then whirled round till the white shreds rise like a ballet dancer's skirt. Gradually the sick person is worked up to a frenzy, and, keeping time with the music, the medicine women sway about and wag their heads. So the proceedings go on, with weird fantastic dancing, nodding, howling, whistling, chanting, for all the hours of the tropical night. Then the medicine women are whirled round in the cone, and one by one they fall into a faint, to be recovered by fanning with the ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... leaves a bad taste in one's mouth;" and he went to the table, took a pull at the tankard, and then threw himself down on the sofa again, as Jack jumped up and coiled himself round by his master's legs, keeping one half-open eye winking at him, and giving an occasional wag with the ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... not say that Van der Kemp received his faithful little servant kindly, and it was quite touching to observe the monkey's intense affection for him. It could not indeed wag its tail like a dog, but it put its arms round its master's neck with a wondrously human air, and rubbed its little head in his beard and whiskers, drawing itself back now and then, putting its black paws on his cheeks, turning his face round ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... that put Jim Leonard in mind of Pony's running off again. All the way home he kept talking to Pony about it, and Pony said he was going to do it yet, some time, but when Jim Leonard wanted him to tell the time, he would only say, "You'll see," and wag his head. ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells
... de melon or de rose. Don't be what yo ain't, jess yo be what yo is, If yo am not what yo are den yo is not what you is, If yo're jess a little tadpole, don't yo try to be de frog; If yo are de tail, don't yo try to wag de dawg. Pass de plate if yo can't exhawt and preach; If yo're jess a little pebble, don't yo try to be de beach; When a man is what he isn't, den he isn't what he is, An' as sure as I'm talking, he's a-gwine ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... rest of the vessels were upset and the water spilt. The old woman seized a stick, and rose up to beat [the animal]; the dog seized the skirt of her clothes, and began to rub his mouth on her feet, and wag his tail; then he ran towards the mountain; again having returned to her, he sometimes seized a rope, and sometimes having taken up a bucket in his mouth, he shewed it [to her]; and he rubbed his face against her feet, and seizing the hem of her ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... heartily tired of this dry prose, Must play the devil again out hollow. [Aloud.] The healing art is quickly comprehended; Through great and little world you look abroad, And let it wag, when all is ended, As pleases God. Vain is it that your science sweeps the skies, Each, after all, learns only what he can; Who grasps the moment as it flies He is the real man. Your person somewhat takes the eye, Boldness you'll find an easy science, And if you on yourself rely, ...
— Faust • Goethe
... irony. You cannot do a thing better than anyone else. People, like water, strike a dead level. No matter how you strive, dozens of others can do the thing you are doing. Were you to die, your place would be filled to-morrow, and the world would wag on just the same. There is always someone just beneath you watchfully waiting, ready to seize your place if you relax your effort for a moment. The term 'big things' is relative. To speak it is merely to refer to something you do not personally understand. Nothing seems really ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... obstinate blindness, this people will wag their poor heads, and attribute their diseases not to ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... tenth of a second in advance of the others, and with a lightning-like gulp, which disturbs the serenity of the surface of the pool, swallows the kicking prey. The energy of the sun's heat and light, stored in grass, transmitted to move muscles in gigantic leaps, will, in a short time, wag a caudal fin and propel the owner ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... ran merrily. Above its barking I sang the praises of the Englishman, with a comfortable feeling that, at least in this, the tail would wag the dog. ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... the place, however, from the poorest fisherman's child to the wealthy widow, Mrs. Meadowsweet, wag expected to come to the Rectory to be feasted and petted, and made much ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... worst of it. The lieutenants are good officers and pleasant messmates: the doctor is a little queer, and the purser thinks himself a wag; the master, an old north-countryman, who knows his duty, and takes his glass of grog. The midshipmen are a very genteel set of young men, and full of fun and frolic. I'll bet a wager there'll be a bobbery ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... father would have called me quixotic had he known. Now, as I read and pondered, I neither blamed him for his own course in fair business war with old Dan Emory, nor did I censure myself for my own hidden act of restitution. Let the world wag its head if it liked, and remain ignorant of other millions given to me before my father's death, unprobated, secret, after the fashion of my pirate parent who buried his treasures and told none but his kin how they might ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... comedy of manners has had an unbroken record of triumphs. A century later it ran one hundred nights in London. Authorities say that it has never been performed without success, not even by amateurs. Like all of Goldsmith's best productions, it was based on actual experience. In his young days a wag directed him to a private house for an inn. Goldsmith went there and with much flourish gave his orders for entertainment. The subtitle of the comedy is The Mistakes of a Night; and the play shows the situations which developed when its hero, Tony ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... a yowling, and last of all made out that it was down the shaft here; and I fetched Master Hardock and we got the engine started, and I went and found the poor dog four steps down, just ready to lick my hand, but he couldn't wag his tail, and that's what ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... a little of a wag, compares her waking-life to the appearance which the sun makes above the horizon on a winter day: only, her morning is about his noon. He says, however, there appears to be no necessary end to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... of sorrows, showing in his countenance the map of extremities. As soon as the shepherds saw him, they did him all the honor they could, as being the flower of all the swains in Arden; for a bonnier boy was there not seen since that wanton wag of Troy that kept sheep in Ida. He, seeing the king, and guessing it to be Gerismond, did him all the reverence his country courtesy could afford; insomuch that the king, wondering at his attire, began to question ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... I know," replied he, "that I am Ralph Jobson? Why it knew me, and seemed to wag its tail; nay, made as though it would lick ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... Dr. Bartolo's tricky ward! What a change matrimony makes in some folks! Old Dr. Bartolo bears not much resemblance to the other Dr. Bartolo, and Don Basilio, a kind of Ecclesiastical lawyer, is quite a rollicking wag as compared with the Basilio of the Barber of Seville. Nothing could be better than the Susanna of Mlle. TELEKI, or sweeter than the duet, heartily encored, between her and the Countess. EDOUARD DE RESZKE is a magnificent representative of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various
... general more inclined to roguery than wit, had once a strong inclination to play the wag with his neighbour the Stork. He accordingly invited her to dinner in due form. But when she came to the table, the Stork found it consisted entirely of different soups, served in broad, shallow dishes, ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... the mountains wild and bar'!' Put yo' crook around our necks, John, an' lead us home with our tails behind us, so as our Bo Peeps'll know us when we come an' gladden us with their soft black eyes! Ain't that the way the poetry runs?" snickered a drunken wag, dropping on the post-office steps and gazing up with a befuddled air at Fairfield, who had removed his hat and ascended ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... and has to forget me," he answered calmly. "You can bring me back to bed when she is through." And to this plea was added a pathetic wag of the brindle tail. ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... fashionable sport. Franco Sacchetti has left us a ludicrous picture of one of these holiday cavaliers—a notary seventy years old. He rides out on horseback to Peretola, where the tournament was cheap, on a jade hired from a dyer. A thistle is stuck by some wag under the tail of the steed, who takes fright, runs away, and carries the helmeted rider, bruised and shaken, back into the city. The inevitable conclusion of the story is a severe curtain-lecture from the wife, who is not a little enraged at these ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... fortunetellers, who prey upon the folly of the superstitious. With a treatise on physiognomy laid on a desk before them, they call out to this man that he has an ill-omened forehead, and to that man that the space between his nose and his lips is unlucky. Their tongues wag like flowing water until the passers-by are attracted to their stalls. If the seer finds a customer, he closes his eyes, and, lifting the divining-sticks reverently to his forehead, mutters incantations between his teeth. Then, suddenly parting the sticks in two bundles, ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... I can hardly crawl, While shivering in the snow and hail; My teeth are dropping, one by one; I scarce have strength to wag my tail. ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... urged her if she had the feelings of a woman immediately to accompany him, and prevent murder; briefly stating, that her 'beauties were the cause and most accursed effect.' In a state of real excitement, mixed up with woman's vanity, she rushed out of the house, and accompanied that wag of wags. A white beaver hat, sweet emblem of her purity, was on her head, and partially concealed her disordered ringlets, hastily gathered together. We arranged with HARLEY always to keep ourselves a certain distance in advance on the pathway bordering the sands. The first thing that ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... collected, each one gazing on the bronze figure, expecting to see the phenomenon. Their imagination supplied the desired marvel, and presently a street full of people fancied that they could see the lion Percy wag ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... take up the tomahawk against our good Canadians. Oh, don't be offended, Mr. Lennox! I have not said I believe such tales. Perhaps 'tis but the tongue of scandal wagging in this way, because it must wag in some way." ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... up a soldier man, I'll buy a pole to wag, With silver top and tassels red and blue; I'll tell my little brother to be carrying the flag, While I call out and tell him ...
— The Bay and Padie Book - Kiddie Songs • Furnley Maurice
... accustomed to it afterwards. The rules of civilised society naturally lapse in prison. Talking is strictly prohibited, "pals" are rigorously kept apart, nobody knows who will be next him in the exercise ring, and any man who wants to wag his tongue must strike up a conversation with his immediate neighbor. "How long are ye doing?" is almost invariably the introduction. This muttered question brings a muttered answer. Confidences are exchanged, and the conversation grows animated, until at last the speakers forget prudence, ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... be always a wag or clown among each group of animals,—some one species in which the amusing or the grotesque is prominent. Among these clownish fellows I should class the black vulture, or john-crow. He is not a crow at all, but gets that name probably ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... a wanton; In the whole world, there is scant one ——Such another: No, not his mother. He hath pluck'd her doves and sparrows, To feather his sharp arrows, And alone prevaileth, While sick Venus waileth. But if Cypris once recover The wag; it shall behove her To look better to him: Or ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... first servant to Humphrey. "It is the canon's order. He will see this nephew of the prior's and inquire more narrowly concerning his journey. And say thou naught of this rescue to any man. We four do the canon's bidding at all times, but our tongues wag not ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... whenever Hyacinth went out they called on every side: "Little Roseblossom is my sweetheart!" Now Hyacinth was vexed, and again he could not help laughing from the bottom of his heart when the lizard would come sliding up, seat himself on a warm stone, wag ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... a meadow at the town's end, where a malefactor hung in gibbets; all gazing at it, one by chance flung a stone, and made it stir, by which accident, the children affrighted ran away; one slower than the rest, looking back, and seeing the stirred carcase wag towards her, cried out it came after, and was so terribly affrighted, that for many days she could not rest, eat, or sleep, she could not be pacified, but melancholy, died. [2147]In the same town another child, beyond the Rhine, saw a grave ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... doll; not one of those splendid specimens of wax, modelled from the Princess Royal, with distinct fingers and toes, eyes that shut, and tongues that wag. No; such I have only contemplated from a respectful distance as I lay on my stall in the bazaar, while they towered sublime in the midst of the toys, the wonder and admiration of every passing child. ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... long, however, to wonder about the big machine, for Tuvvy, giving a sudden wag of his head towards it, said: "The elevator's my next job, soon as hay harvest's over. ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... reprimanded her with a sober face as she again repeated "me no gwine home," at the same time untwisting the handkerchief from about her waist, but when she had left the room I should have shaken the bed, if that had been my style of laughter. Robert is a great wag in his way, though we do not see so much of his fun, as, having been used to the house in "Secesh time," he is utterly undemonstrative before white people and is only gradually thawing into a little more communicativeness. But we overhear him sometimes talking with ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... he to save his life have got a picture into the Royal Academy exhibition? He built two organs and could play the Minuet in Samson on one and the March in Scipio on the other; he was a good carpenter and a bit of a wag; he was a good old fellow enough, but why make him out so much abler ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... my wanton, smile upon my knee; When thou art old there 's grief enough for thee. Mother's wag, pretty boy, Father's sorrow, father's joy; When thy father first did see Such a boy by him and me, He was glad, I was woe; Fortune changed made him so, When he left his pretty boy, Last his sorrow, first his ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... out, 'Mind what you are doing, such-and-such gang!' Yet there you stand-blinking over your task like an object dried stiff! It's not to blink that you're here, but to play the watchdog upon us, and to keep an eye open, and your tongue on the wag. So issue ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... his means are not always happy. Thus, though the humours of Truga may have been suggested by the character of Dipsa in the Jealous Lovers, she is probably introduced into Cowley's play as the counterpart of Dorylas in Amyntas. Randolph trod on thin ice in some of the speeches of the liquorish wag, whose 'years are yet uncapable of love,' but censure will not stick to the witty knave. On the other hand, Cowley's portrait of incontinent age in Truga fails wholly of being comic, and appears all the loathlier for the fact that the author himself was still a mere schoolboy—though ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... hard to drag any sort of information from a Boer, whether bond or free, but from what I can pick up they are perfectly satisfied with what they have done up to date. They think that President Kruger has astonished the world, and they wag their heads, and give one to understand that the same old gentleman has a good many more surprises in store for us. It is impossible to get a direct statement of any kind from them, but by patching fragments together I incline to the opinion that ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... think that an eclipse consists in an attempt on the part of a monstrous jaguar to swallow the sun—have as much right to their opinion as he has, he would consider the person who advanced such an argument either a wag or a fool. Only a wag or a fool, again, would argue that a Fijian has just as much right as we have to his opinions on medical matters, or on the morality of polygamy, infanticide, and cannibalism. Yet when we come across a dirty, malodorous savage, so stupid that ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Don't meddle with what doesn't concern you. You've been brought to row, now row. And if you let your tongue wag, no good will come of ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... we looked upon the deed. We stopped our ears and held our leaping hands, but they—did they not wag their heads and leer and cry with bloody jaws: Cease from Crime! The word was mockery, for thus they train a hundred crimes while we do cure one. Turn again our captivity, ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... Christy was lifeless, and Kitty Lacy had not taken the trouble to learn the lines properly and broke down at least once in every long speech, thereby justifying the popular inversion of her name to Lazy Kitty, a pseudonym which some college wag had fastened upon her early in her ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... their dry jests with plenty of Botargos and dried neats' tongues. It is like Camacho's wedding in Don Quixote, where Sancho ladled out whole pullets and fat geese from the soup-kettles at a pull. The flagons are setting a running, their tongues wag at the same time, and their mirth flows as a river. How Friar John roars and lays about him in the vineyard! How Panurge whines in the storm, and how dexterously he contrives to throw the sheep overboard! How much Pantagruel behaves like a wise king! How Gargantua mewls, and ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... downfall to Euripides. Poetry was gradually superseded by rhetoric, sublimity by earnestness, pathos by reasoning. Thus, Iphigenia and Macaria give so many good reasons for dying, that the sacrifice appears very small, and a modern wag in the upper regions of the theatre would, at the end of the speech of the latter heroine, almost have exclaimed, "Then why don't ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... would see it, you'd better say," said Doctor Wharton. "No matter how she took it, you fellows would wag your ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... Mr. Pickwick!' exclaimed the Grand Master, letting the hand fall in astonishment. 'Never in Ba-ath! He! he! Mr. Pickwick, you are a wag. Not bad, not bad. Good, good. He! ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... foot-cloths—an expression which was soon communicated to his master. Rizi immediately administered a wholesome practical rebuke, by commanding the attendance of Antinolez on his Majesty's service, and ordering him to execute a piece of painting in distemper. The unlucky wag, being quite ignorant of the mode of performing the work, and too proud to confess it, worked for a whole day, at the end of which he had merely spoiled a large piece of canvas. "So, sir," said Rizi, quietly, "you see painting foot-cloths is not so easy after all;" and turning to his servant, added, ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... with the Marquis of Santa Cruz. The wedding-guests were numerous; they sang and danced, and rejoiced beyond measure. Senor Alvaro, said I, are you not ashamed to be so joyous at such a time? 'Friend,' was his answer, 'let the times wag—they are certainly bad enough, but must soon change. All things have an end. We rejoice in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... no answer to this. The old man left me to take the wheel, and I noted his head wag from side ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... offences, To me you cannot reach. You play the Spaniell, And thinke with wagging of your tongue to win me: But whatsoere thou tak'st me for; I'm sure Thou hast a cruell Nature and a bloody. Good man sit downe: Now let me see the proudest Hee, that dares most, but wag his finger at thee. By all that's holy, he had better starue, Then but once thinke his place becomes ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... A sort of buffoon.] though not without scruple, since everybody must recognize something intentional in it,— just as people had before glossed on the previous external deportment of Von Plotho, so much prized in other respects, and, when once inclined towards him, had admired him as a wag, who, like his king, would place himself above all ceremonies,—one nevertheless gladly returned to ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... entered a small chamber, with two windows looking towards the north. Between these windows are the marks of a fixed sofa: on that couch Napoleon died. The apartment is now occupied by a threshing machine; 'No bad emblem of its former tenant!' said a sacrilegious wag. Hence we were conducted onwards to a large room, which formerly contained a billiard-table, and whose front looks out upon a little latticed veranda, where the imperial peripatetic—I cannot style him philosopher—enjoyed the luxury of six paces to and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 549 (Supplementary issue) • Various
... May, 1844, Lord Ballindine and Fanny Wyndham were married. The bishop "turned 'em off iligant," as a wag said in the servants' hall. There was a long account of the affair in the "Morning Post" of the day; there were eight bridesmaids, all of whom, it was afterwards remarked, were themselves married within two years of the time; an omen which was presumed to promise much ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... to have originated in a custom among the squaws, in the early settlement, of wearing men's hats, as is still done among many tribes. "Hence," as we are told by an old governor, who was somewhat of a wag, and flourished almost a century since, and had paid a visit to the wits of Philadelphia, "hence arose the appellation of man-hat-on, first given to the Indians, and afterwards to the island"—a stupid joke!—but well enough ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... to totter from weakness, and finally sat down upon the floor. Here he gathered his quilt about him, and began to smile and chuckle and wag his head and pick at his fantastic dress as before. The words which he muttered were inaudible, and those which could be heard were utterly incoherent. The subject that had been presented to his mind by the entrance of Reginald was now forgotten, and his ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... wag, husband,' she said, and cried in French for the rogues to be gone. When the door closed upon the lights she said in the comfortable gloom: 'I dote upon thy words. My first was tongue-tied.' She beckoned him to her and folded her arms. 'Let us discourse upon this ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... That merry wag Will Stutely was in command; and when he saw the palefaced Sheriff being led in like any culprit, he took his cloak and laid it humbly upon the ground and besought the Sheriff to alight upon it, as the ground of Sherwood was unused ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... me their hopes, For writing pamphlets, and for roasting Popes; Yet lo! in me what authors have to brag on! Reduc'd at last to hiss in my own dragon. Avert in Heav'n! that thou, my Cibber, e'er Shouldst wag a serpent-tail in Smithfield fair! Like the vile straw that's blown about the streets, The needy poet sticks to all he meets; Coach'd, carted, trod upon, now loose, now fast, And carry'd off in some dog's tail at last. Happier thy fortunes! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... himself alone in his chamber for a time, making his preparations for departure. He says he shall come back in two months, but some of us think they will be two long months which will eat themselves up like money borrowed of the Jews." A wag, moreover, posted a large placard upon the door of Granvelle's palace in Brussels as soon as the minister's departure was known, with the inscription, in large letters, "For sale, immediately." In ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... mark the deid, Wi' lengthened lip, the sarious read; Syne wag a moraleesin' heid, An' then an' there Their hirplin' practice an' their creed ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... home pack that snarled and growled hostility for this invasion. Then, they came once more to the stile. As they climbed out, Samson South reached up and stroked a tawny head, and the bloodhound paused a moment to wag its tail in friendship, before it jumped down to the road, and ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... close of a wearisome day Homeward disheartened, you moodily stray, What would you take for your little dog Tray? Take for the wag of his tail? ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... was not only the village Radical: he was also the village wag, with a reputation for humour which rendered him enormously popular. He was about thirty-five years old; a small man with sandy hair, a serious, not to say solemn, expression of countenance, and twinkling light grey eyes, which he ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... They wag as though they were Panting for joy Where they shine, above all care, And annoy, And demons ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... the woods and snuff the autumnal winds with the highest rapture; then return into the house and cast a quick and attentive look at the rifle, which was always suspended to a joist by a couple of buck-horns or little forks. The hunting dog understanding the intentions of his master, would wag his tail, and by every blandishment in his power, express his readiness to ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... work. She had been known, on occasion, to acquaint even the collie with her state of mind, and had assured the head of the family afterwards that there was more sense of understanding of a woman's trials in one wag of a dog's tail than in ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... One thing alone could cheer her. I could do it, and I did. I applied for Letters of Naturalisation. Some weeks later I became a French citizen, and received a letter from M. ADOLPH CREMIEUX, then Minister of Justice, and never suspected of being a wag. He wrote: "Your application for Naturalisation in the midst of our great disasters, is for me the signal of a new life for us. A country which in the midst of such catastrophes recruits citizens like you, is not to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... the name of an old pedant who has written a tiresome book; and the adventures of this book form the subject of the poem. Some wag relates how he read it a month ago, having come into the garden for that purpose; and then revenged himself by dropping it through a crevice in a tree, and enjoying a picnic lunch and a chapter of "Rabelais" on the grass close by. To-day, ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... the youths who are led out, and carried home, or who stumble through the "German," this is a sober matter. My friend told us we should see the "best society." But he is a prodigious wag. Who make this country? From whom is its character of unparalleled enterprise, heroism, and success derived? Who have given it its place in the respect and the fear of the world? Who, annually, recruit its energies, confirm its progress, and secure its triumph? Who are its characteristic children, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... to-night, Skirting lawns of sleep to chase Shifting dreams in mazy light, Somewhere then I'll see your face Turning back to bid me follow Where I wag my arms and hollo, Over hedges hasting after Crooked smile and baffling laughter, Running tireless, floating, leaping, Down your web-hung woods and valleys, Garden glooms and hornbeam alleys, Where the glowworm stars are peeping, Till I find you, quiet as stone On a hill-top all alone, Staring ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... still hanging to the skin of the face, and the features were still discernible. A merchant, travelling with the kafila, suddenly exclaimed, "That was my slave I left behind four months ago, near this spot." "Make haste! take him to the fsug (market)," said an Arab wag, "for fear any ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... a less stringent union? Indeed, is it worth while? We are all INCOMPRIS, only more or less concerned for the mischance; all trying wrongly to do right; all fawning at each other's feet like dumb, neglected lap- dogs. Sometimes we catch an eye - this is our opportunity in the ages - and we wag our tail with a poor smile. "IS THAT ALL?" All? If you only knew! But how can they know? They do not love us; the more fools we to ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... likes a bit of sport above measure, & had some pretensions to the lady besides as being but a cousin once removed,—clapped & halloo'd them on; and as fast as their indignation cooled those mad wag's, the Ember Days, were at it with their bellows, to blow it into a flame; & all was in a ferment: till old Madame Septuagesima {who boasts herself the Mother of the Days} wisely diverted the conversation with a tedious ...
— A Masque of Days - From the Last Essays of Elia: Newly Dressed & Decorated • Walter Crane
... (he said to himself)—instinct tells me that there is one, for when I think about Him I find that I unconsciously wag my tail a little. But I must not reason on that basis, which is too puppyish. I like to think that there is, somewhere in this universe, an inscrutable Being of infinite wisdom, harmony, and charity, by Whom all my desires and ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... my dear? Even the settling with our old creditors—the creditors of Grimes & Morrell—made suspicion wag her tongue more eagerly than ever. I paid every cent, with interest compounded to the date of settlement. Grimes had long since had himself cleared of his debts and started over again. I do not know even ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... young man with a delicate appetite, you do very well," laughed the Professor. "It wag less than two months ago, if I remember correctly, that the doctors thought you were not going to live, you ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... real people—or mere animals, perchance—if they have human institutions, reasonable aspirations or finite intelligences. We take temperatures, make blood counts and record blood pressure, reckon the heart-beats, and think we are wondrous wise. But wig-wag as we may, signal with what mysterious wireless of evanescent youth-fire we still hold in our blood, we get nothing but vague hints, broken reminiscences, and a certain patchwork of our own subconscious chop logic of middle age in return. There ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... man may come to me so thick-like, And shake my hand where once he pass'd me by, And tell me he would do me this or that, I can't help thinking of the big boy's trick-like, And then, for all I can but wag my hat, And thank him, I do ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... these birds of prey, vultures, condors and such like, with crows, as well as the smaller Republican eagles born since, are humble enough to him now. The British lion himself having been so often scratched and clawed by this fowl, has learned to shake his mane and wag his tail rather amiably in our eagle's presence, even if he has to give an occasional growl to keep his hand in. We are proud of this bird, though we are far from home, and to-day send our heartiest good wishes across the sea to the land we ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... the door and followed Bert outside. At a word from the farmer Tige stopped barking and began to wag ...
— The Bobbsey Twins - Or, Merry Days Indoors and Out • Laura Lee Hope
... It's up-the-spout and Charley-Wag With wipes and tickers and what not! Until the squeezer nips your scrag, Booze and the blowens ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... taking passage in larger ships than mine. Still, I will do my best to make you comfortable, and I can assure you that Leon, my cook, is by no means a bad hand at turning out dainty dishes. He was cook in an hotel, at one time; but he let his tongue wag too freely and, having to leave suddenly, was glad enough to ship with me. Fortunately he likes the life, and I do not think anything would tempt him to go back ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... pointed at the dog. 'I've made a bet with myself he won't wag his tail within the next ten minutes. I beg of you, Harrington, to remain silent for both ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... as it had on the steps of the machine. A tail to wag wasn't really necessary, Stern decided, when there was so much ...
— Martians Never Die • Lucius Daniel
... watery blue eyes met her own. Then the eyeglass dropped from its place, the jaw fell, with a wag of the fair beard, and a look of stony astonishment and blank disappointment came into all the great features, while Madame Bonanni broke into a peal ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... sweet pudding to replace the cold meat, would wag a facetiously warning head at the young lady behind the back of the unconscious Mr. Gibbon. "Don't you go leading that nice young chap on to make a fool of hisself over you, Miss Bessie," she would caution the girl, the ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... the round hole do quite as great and as lasting injury as he does from the pulpit. The right man for the work—that must be the ideal of the Church, that man and no other, whatever be the consequence in the way of offending well-to-do supporters whose dream it has been that son of theirs shall "wag his head in a pu'pit," whatever be the disappointment caused to the uninspired ambitions of callow youth or the conceit of later years. The pulpit is not for sale! The honour of standing there is not to be dispensed as a reward or allowed as a compliment. Wealth has no rights and ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... those amongst his friends who offered him a wager he would not persist in wearing it long. At this the king stated his resolution afresh of never changing; but before the month was out he had made an alteration, for inasmuch as the vest being slashed with white, was said by a wag to make the wearers look like magpies, his majesty changed the colour of the silk to black. This "manly and comely habit" might have become permanently the fashion, if the King of France, by way of ridiculing the merry monarch, ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... beside herself with grief. Cinders, in the midst of his pain, tried gently to wag his tail. His brown eyes, faithful, appealing, full of love, gazed up at her. He had never seen his mistress in such trouble before, and the instinct to comfort her urged him even then, in the midst of his own. Again he made piteous efforts to crawl into her arms, but ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... coming into the presence of him they mean to salute, they put off their shoes, so that they are barefooted, for they wear no stockings. Then putting their right hand within the left, they hold them down to their knees, bending their bodies, then wag or swing their joined hands a little to and fro, making some small steps to one side from the person they salute, and say augh! augh! I immediately led them into my cabin, where I had prepared a banquet for them, and entertained them with a good concert of music, to their great delight. I ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... waiting, sapped his enthusiasm. At night, in the wards, the men recovering from all manner of wounds would try to speed the lagging hours by telling stories, singing songs, and inventing the wildest of rumors. Occasionally, when the lights were out, some wag would begin an imitation of a machine gun, with its rat-tat-tat-tat, and another, catching the spirit of the mimic warfare, would make the whistling sound of a high angle shell. In a few moments the ward would be a clamorous inferno of mimic ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... got the right exposure here to the south and sou'-west," says the Sergeant, with a wag of his grizzled head, and a streak of pleasure in his melancholy voice. "This is the shape for a rosery—nothing like a circle set in a square. Yes, yes; with walks between all the beds. But they oughtn't to be gravel walks like these. Grass, ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... birds is mere cant," sez this wobbling old wag. From Arran he'd tramp to Dunrobin without the least chance of a bag! "Peaceful hills," that's his patter, my pippin; no gillies, no luncheons, no game! Wy, he ought to be tossed in a blanket; it fills a true ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 30, 1890. • Various
... for a time, because when Maret and Metternich met, the former urged the matrimonial bond as a consideration. "The marriage," rejoined the latter, with a cough—"yes, the marriage; it was a match founded on political considerations, but—" and the conclusion of the sentence was a significant wag of the head. ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... market-cross, that had let his tongue run too freely. And I can tell you, I'm not one of that sort. You're welcome to stay while you behave decently, as I see you've been a help and comfort to my women here: but one word against the priests, or one wag of your head in irreverence to the holy mass, and out you go, bag and baggage!—ay, down ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... free themselves from the entangling lassos, they were instantly seized and other ropes of raw-hide were deftly twisted about their limbs and bodies, until in less than a minute they were so tightly and securely trussed up that they could scarcely wag a finger; after which they were each hoisted upon the shoulders of four Indians and borne with songs of triumph and rejoicing to the canoes, into which they were tumbled with scant ceremony. Then, with further ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... and licked his master's face so energetically that the boy dived under the bedclothes to escape from the rough tongue. A rap on the floor from below made both jump up, and in ten minutes a shiny-faced lad and a lively dog went racing downstairs,—one to say, "Good-mornin', ma'am," the other to wag his tail faster than ever tail wagged before, for ham frizzled on the stove, and Sancho ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... is a shame and a scandal that a poor woman may not go to make prayer to her Gods except she be jostled and insulted by all the refuse of Hindustan—that she must eat gali [abuse] as men eat ghi. But I have yet a wag left to my tongue—a word or two well spoken that serves the occasion. And still am I without my tobacco! Who is the one-eyed and luckless son of shame that has not yet prepared ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... self-control that the former could refrain from uttering certain blasphemous suggestions that rose into his mind, respecting the communion supper. He absolutely trembled and turned pale as ashes, lest his tongue should wag itself, in utterance of these horrible matters, and plead his own consent for so doing, without his having fairly given it. And, even with this terror in his heart, he could hardly avoid laughing, to imagine how the sanctified old patriarchal deacon would ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... sometimes varied by the command "Simon says wig-wag!" when all the thumbs must be waggled ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher |
