"Jest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... coolly and distinctly assert that such a man has a right to the produce, and that neither for God's sake nor in the name of justice need he leave to the worker more than a bare subsistence, I am compelled to ask myself whether you, an authority in Freeland, are pleased to jest, or whether what we have hitherto seen and heard here rests upon ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... self-centring line. A kindly adviser suggested a gymnasium to keep him in condition for professional purposes. He took the advice, and in the course of time became a splendid young animal, a being so physically perfect as to be what the good vicar of Bludston had called him in tired jest—a lusus naturae. But though proud of his body as any finely formed human may honorably be, a far higher arrogance saved him from Narcissus vanity. It was the inner and essential Paul and not the outer investiture that was ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... at the Bellairs' Fancy Ball (I went as Louis the Nineteenth) last week, you know, and had an explanation, and sort of made it up, but I'm afraid, like that uncomfortable old king, though he smiled at the jest, he ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... you, and you, Happiness crowned the night; I too, Laughing and looking, one of all, I watched the quivering lamplight fall On plate and flowers and pouring tea And cup and cloth; and they and we Flung all the dancing moments by With jest and glitter. Lip and eye Flashed on the glory, shone and cried, Improvident, unmemoried; And fitfully and like a flame The light of laughter went and came. Proud in their careless transience moved The changing faces that ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... dignity in her aspect, that composure in her motion, that complacency in her manner, that if her form makes you hope, her merit makes you fear. But then again she is such a desperate scholar, that no country-gentleman can approach her without being a jest. As I was going to tell you, when I came to her house I was admitted to her presence with great civility; at the same time she placed herself to be first seen by me in such an attitude, as I think you call the posture of ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... shutting out a world which clamored to participate in their pleasures, and looked on themselves as being not forgotten, but too selfish in keeping to themselves. It kept little streams of mirth purling through Kate's soul, and at each jest or supposed brilliancy she laughed twice—once with them and once at them. But they were unsuspicious—her friends. They were secretly sorry for ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... "Well, general," replied Mirabeau, "since you will have it so, let her live! A humbled queen may be fit for something, but a queen with her throat cut is only good as the subject of a bad tragedy!" This atrocious remark, which treated the bloodshed of a woman as a jest, was subsequently known by the queen, who however forgave Mirabeau, and did not allow it to interfere with her liaisons with the great orator. But the cold-blooded infamy must have found its way to her heart as an ominous warning of ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... mean time, an overgrown youth, apparently belonging to the house, who sat in one corner, tilting his chair, said, addressing all of us at once, 'Wal, you've got the wust half the road before yer now. Thur's a hill a mile an' a half long, jest out here a little ways. You'll have to break yer own roads, I reckon; there's nothin' else goin' along to-day. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... a-shooting against us in the grove, And their long lances toward the pious Federates move: Hei! the jest it was not sweet, With branches from the lofty pines down rattling ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... my part, I see no good and sufficient reason for discriminating against the only woman one has sworn to love and cherish and honor. It is true that several hundred people witnessed the promise, with a perfect understanding of the jest, and that the keeping of this oath involves a certain breach of faith with society. Eh bien! let us, then, deceive the world—and the flesh—and the devil! Let us snap our fingers at this unholy trinity, and ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... him to jest, or his father before him, went out in a muddled frame of mind, leaving Doggie to struggle into his dress trousers as best ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... last, "I'm goin' to make a move. You jest sit here, and hold on to the trunks. I'll go an hunt up one of them one-hoss shays. There ain't nothin' else that I can do. Hold on now, hard and ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... sleepin' sound, Es only a cowboy knows how to sleep; An' Tommy's snores would hev made a old Buffalo bull feel kind o' cheap. Wal, pard, I reckin' thar's no sech time For dwind'lin' a chap in his own conceit, Es when them mountains an' awful stars, Jest hark to the tramp of ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... Hannah would sniff back. "His way! Keepin' you all on rye meal one spell, an' not lettin' you eat a mite of Injun, an' then keepin' you on Injun without a mite of rye! Makin' you eat nothin' but greens an' garden stuff, an' jest turnin' you out to graze an' chew your cuds like horned animals one spell, an' then makin' you live on meat! Lettin' you go abroad when he takes a notion, an' then keepin' you an' Charlotte in the house ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... "Jest then I begun to think whur I wur agoin'. The hul country appeared to be under water: an' the nearest neighbour I hed lived acrosst the parairy ten miles off. I knew that his shanty sot on high ground, but how ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... to awe you by this thought; I do not mean that because you will have so many witnesses and watchers, you are never to jest, or do anything gaily or lightly; on the contrary, I have pleaded, from the beginning, for this art of yours, especially because it has room for the whole of your character—if jest is in you, let the jest be jested; ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... day of public fasting and humiliation for the tyranny of his father and the idolatry of his mother. And while he was acquiescing to each fresh demand with a shrug of his shoulders and a whispered jest to Buckingham, and in his heart as much hatred for his humiliators as he was capable of feeling for anybody, he was all the while urging on Montrose to strike that wild blow for his crown which was to lead the brave marquis to the scaffold. The deaths of Hamilton and Huntly had preceded the ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... The jest practised so successfully upon our friend the Buck occasioned a general laugh at his expense, a circumstance which filled, him with serious mortification, if not with actual resentment, for it so happened, that one of his great foibles was ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Sometimes I tell them I will not marry, and then they laugh at me; sometimes I say, "Not yet," and they laugh more, and would make me believe I shall be old within this twelvemonth. I tell them I shall be wiser then. They say 'twill be to no purpose. Sometimes we are in earnest and sometimes in jest, but always saying something since my brother Henry found his tongue again. If you were with me I could make sport of all this; but "patience is my penance" is somebody's motto, and I ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... of jest, the serious makes its entry. Impulses depend on the first chance word. The spirit of each is sovereign, jest suffices to open the field to the unexpected. These are conversations with abrupt turns, in which the perspective ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Scogan's Jest. Scogan and some companions, being in lack of money, agreed to the following trick: A peasant, driving sheep, was accosted by one of the accomplices, who laid a wager that his sheep were hogs, and agreed to abide by the decision of the first ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... replied Menteith, "you have repeatedly urged this jest, for so I trust it is meant, somewhat beyond bounds. Annot Lyle is of unknown birth,—a captive,—the daughter, probably, of some obscure outlaw; a dependant on the hospitality of ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... these insults except the Prince, who laughed and said that he thought the jest coarse but clever. But worse was to happen. It seems that a soldier with wine in him had done insult to a Hebrew maiden who came alone to draw water at a canal. The news spread among the people and some thousands of them rushed to the camp, shouting ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... himself, repeating to him the stories in circulation, with the air of one who believed them "What treason is this," said the general, "that you have meditated against me,—me, who have ever treated you with honor, confiding in your words, as in those of a brother?" "You jest," replied the Inca, who, perhaps, did not feel the weight of this confidence; "you are always jesting with me. How could I or my people think of conspiring against men so valiant as the Spaniards? Do not jest with me thus, I beseech you."19 "This," continues Pizarro's secretary, ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... surprised at the statement I will point out that this life secured for the mind of him who embraced it the inestimable advantages of solitude and silence. Marlow had the habit of pursuing general ideas in a peculiar manner, between jest and earnest. ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... late Sir William D'Avenant. It being forbidden him in the rebellious times to act tragedies and comedies, because they contained some matter of scandal to those good people, who could more easily dispossess their lawful sovereign, than endure a wanton jest, he was forced to turn his thoughts another way, and to introduce the examples of moral virtue, writ in verse, and performed in recitative music. The original of this music, and of the scenes which adorned his work, he had from the Italian operas; ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... which was the same as falling into the hands and mouths of a legion of devils; and thus braying spread far and wide, insomuch that the natives of the town of Bray are as well known and distinguished as the negroes are from white men. And this unhappy jest has been carried so far that our people have often sallied out in arms against their scoffers, and given them battle: neither king nor rook, nor fear nor shame, being able to restrain them. Tomorrow, I believe, or next day, those of our town ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the baker jogged along, All alone, with ne'er a song, Or a jest; and nothing tempted him to stay. But he went from bad to worse, For he never found the purse, And for all I know he is wandering to ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... as the great author often called her, half in jest, half in earnest, lived to be very old, surviving many members of her family, and the brilliant circle over which she had long reigned as a queen. But she was not too lonely; the young girls whom she guided as an older sister, the orphan children who found in her a second mother, ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... my mind," said Josiah Bean, with a sigh. "Ye see, the money is comin' to my wife. She writ to 'em that I was comin' to collect an' they writ back it would be all right, only I would have to be identified. Jest as if everybody in Haydown Center don't know I'm Josiah Bean an' a piller in the Union Church down there, an' a cousin ...
— Joe The Hotel Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.
... Jest contrariness that's all. Hit my shack once, and 'cause 'twas raining, bored holes in the roof so the place ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... that you had invited Teen Balfour to your estate; is she there yet?' he asked; and Gladys did not know whether he asked in scorn or in jest. ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... done the yellin'," she said. "She was scart crazy from the start. He jest come in, and set in the chair and he's been ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest; They had bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast! "Now keep good watch!" and they kissed her. She heard the dead man say— Look for me by moonlight; Watch for me by moonlight; I'll come to thee by moonlight, though ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... get seasick in one o' my boats any more'n you could on land," averred the runner. "We jest go out around by the Sugarloaf—we're ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish
... Alcohol tightens his grasp on the merry company, the toasters and speakers lose more and more their control over speech and actions. What was at first mischievous abandon and merry jest, gradually degenerates into loquaciousness, coarseness and querulous brawls. Here and there one of the maudlin crowd drops off in the stupor ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... this! but oh! that all the rest Of his dire reign had thus been spent in jest! And all that time such trifles had employ'd In which so many nobles he destroy'd! He safe, they unrevenged, to the disgrace Of the surviving, tame, patrician race! But when he dreadful to the rabble grew, Him, who so many lords had ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... who would bother a good woman like Aunt Hannah deserves to be kicked. She's made up her mind to give me a chance jest 'cause she thinks it's something that ought'er be done; but I ain't goin' to play mean with her. It's lucky I happened to hear what was said, else I'd have jumped at the chance of stayin' when ...
— Aunt Hannah and Seth • James Otis
... minds. Blondet would share his purse with a comrade he had affronted the day before; he would dine, drink, and sleep with one whom he would demolish on the morrow. His amusing paradoxes excused everything. Accepting the whole world as a jest, he did not want to be taken seriously; young, beloved, almost famous and contented, he did not devote himself, like Finot, to acquiring the ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... only playing," he said suavely. "A little discussion—a mere jest. Our friend Stefanone ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... discussed all things in heaven or earth with a baffling lightness, turned philosophy into a witty jest and made a sort of slang of classical terminology. Amongst a clever set in London she reigned supreme when she chose; but a false note or a pose offended her immediately, and the poseur or the insincere person would generally receive one of her exquisite snubs which cut like acid ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... similar story to this in one of our old English jest-books, Tales and Quicke Answeres, 1535, as follows (I have modernised the spelling): As an astronomer [i.e. an astrologer] sat upon a time in the market place, and took upon him to divine and to show what their fortunes and chances ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... He could not explain in any way the change in the Prince's demeanour. And he would have been inclined to take his strange answers for a not too delicate jest, had not the frigid, impenetrable expression of his face at once excluded ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... seems that when they began to set to work about noon yesterday, the Duchess of Milan could not contain her amazement at seeing my wife sewing with as much vigour and energy as any old woman. And my wife told her that, whatever she did, whether it were jest or earnest, she liked to throw her whole heart into it and try and do it as well as possible. Certainly in this case she succeeded perfectly, and the skill and grace with which she carried out her idea gave ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... thee, Nym, and send thee a wise council!" said she, half in earnest and half in jest. "The whole realm ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... I jest heard where you are and how you are. You are alone and I'm alone. We are both two old ships that have sailed the seas alone and now we're nearing port. Why can't we make the rest of the voyage together? I have a home ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... frequently remarked when for purposes of business he wished to air his Biblical knowledge, "I jest takes the Scripter fur my motter an' foller that ol' passage where it says, 'Make hay while the sun shines, fur the night cometh when no man ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... the jubilant patentee told me that it was the quickest scheme for extinguishing life ever invented—patented Anno Christi Eighteen Hundred Ninety-five. Verily we live in the age of the Push-Button! And as I sat there I heard a laugh that was a quaver, and the sound of a stout cane emphasizing a jest struck against the ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... Wittenberg, enjoying a harmless jest at Jena by the way. There his disguise of red mantle and doublet so deceived fellow-travellers that they told him their intention of going to see Martin Luther return, without realizing that they were speaking to ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... this as a jest; for over the shoulders of the Indian fell immense masses of jet black hair, which seemed to give contradiction to the statement of his being ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... each other. This seemed a heartless jest indeed! And it wasn't a bit like their father to tease them when they were in trouble. And real trouble ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... custom, he went into her room that evening, he soon became aware that Miss Burgoyne did not at all treat this matter as a jest. ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... and brisk discourse as by the air of Campanian wines; and our faces and our heads may as well be anointed and look pleasant with wit and friendly intercourse as with the fat of the balsam tree; and such a conversation no wise man ever did or ought to reprove. But when the jest hath teeth and nails, biting or scratching our brother,—when it is loose and wanton,—when it is unseasonable, and much, or many,—when it serves ill-purposes, or spends better time,—then it is the drunkenness ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... o' me, Mr. Johns, for droppin' a word about this matter?" says the Deacon, rising to leave. "And while I think on 't, Parson, I see the sill under the no'theast corner o' the meetin'-house has a little settle to it. I've jest been cuttin' a few sticks o' good smart chestnut timber; and if the Committee thinks best, I could haul down one or two on 'em for repairs. It won't cost nigh as much as pine lumber, and it's every ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... follow them, and comply with their humor as far as decency will permit; knowing very well that men cannot exercise their rhetoric unless they speak, but may their philosophy even whilst they are silent or jest merrily, nay, whilst they are piqued upon or repartee. For it is not only (as Plato says) the highest degree of injustice not to be just and yet seem so; but it is the top of wisdom to philosophize, yet not appear to do it; ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... faults, your intoxication, your passion for gambling; I have not dismissed you, although you have deserved it a hundred times; and now, when for the first time you can be useful to me, you have not the courage. I wished to try you. What I said was only a jest. To-morrow, Julio, you will leave my service. You are a liar ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... she wanted the matter treated confidential," explained Judge Priest. "So I respected whut I took to be her wishes in the matter. But wasn't it fur all the world jest ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... have a man drubbed if you want to laugh, and do your rogueries with a pleasant grin if you are inclined to heroism. Ridolfo, reading Selvaggia's sheaf of rhymes that night, was for running Master Cino through the body, jurist or no jurist; but Ugolino saw his way to a jest of the most excellent quality, and prevailed. He was much struck by the poet's preoccupation with his ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... opinions, always in the wrong, Was everything by starts and nothing long; But in the course of one revolving moon, Was chymist, fiddler, statesman and buffoon.... Beggar'd by fools, whom still he found too late, He had his jest, but they ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... laughable occurrence took place while we were on shore. The cutter was at anchor about ten yards from the beach. Two of the crew having an argument, one of them drew his bayonet, and made a lunge at the other in jest. Observing the natives looking on with amazement, and fancying that the men were engaged in deadly fray, it drew our attention to the scene. They no doubt came to the conclusion that we must be a desperate set of fellows, and killed one another upon the slightest provocation. At all ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... wonder-land of Perrault and d'Aulnoy; Murat, the veritable Prince Fanfarinet. She was presented to him in a fancy court-dress, devised for the occasion by her mother, an exact imitation of her father's uniform in miniature, with spurs, sword, and boots, all complete. The Prince was amused by the jest, and took a fancy to the child, calling her his little aide-de-camp. After a residence of several weeks in this abode, whose splendor was alloyed by not a little discomfort and squalor, the return-journey had to be accomplished in the height of summer, amid every sort of risk; ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... agricultural labors the Igorot is industrious, yet his humor, ever present with him, brings relief from continued toil. The harvest field is no exception, since there is much quiet gossip and jest during ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... that night in Schwarzburg. Occasionally, a roar of laughter arose in the distance, where some unlucky burgher had found his way into a group of students and was being made the butt of a good-humoured jest. And beneath the high, laughing tones, the perpetual hum of a thousand talking voices neither rose nor fell, but droned unceasingly like the long pedal in a fugue, whose full deep note stands still amidst the strife of moving sounds, as the sun stood while the battle was fought ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... "They stood around me in a ring. Norman Leofwinesson said he would carry me before a priest and marry me, so that Avalcomb might be his lawfully, whichever king got the victory. I said by no means would I wed him; sooner would I slay him. All thought that a great jest and laughed. While they were shouting I slipped between them and got up the stairs into a chamber, where I bolted the door and would not open to them, though they pounded their fists sore and cursed at me. After a while the pounding became an exertion to them, and one began ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... zed one neyam ez jest zo vittun vor'n as tother; and he lowz a ben caal'd straddlebob ever zunce the Island was ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat
... room, and slept upon the rug. He knew his friends, and valued them; but perhaps his most remarkable quality was his impartiality. He dispensed his favors with an even hand. He had few favorites, and called no man master. He never outstayed his welcome "and told the jest without the smile," never remaining with one person for more than two or three days at most. A calmer character, a more balanced judgment, a better temper, a more admirable self-respect,—in a word, a profounder sense of what belongs to a gentleman, was never known in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... desiring to be King of Poland, at others a bishop or a monk. Of him we read that "he put out an eye to free it from a blemish which diminished his beauty. Banished by his rival, he ran to meet death in battle, and returned with glory." Another pleasant little jest was that perpetrated by Suwarrow, who, after the bloody battle of Tourtourskaya, announced the result to his mistress in an epigram of two doggerel lines. This was the terrible warrior who used to sleep almost naked in a ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... Origins of Religion in the style which might suit a study of the life of ballet dancers; the two MM. Halevy, the learned and the popular, would make a blunder if they exchanged styles. Yet Gibbon never denies himself a jest, and Montesquieu's Esprit des Lois was called L'Esprit sur les Lois. M. Renan's Histoire d'Israel may almost be called skittish. The French are more tolerant of those excesses than the English. It is a digression, but he who would fail can reach his end by not taking himself ...
— How to Fail in Literature • Andrew Lang
... Clarence, "I thought yesterday that you were in jest; but you must be aware that I cannot accept presents from any gentleman so much,—so much a stranger ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... then there is truth in a jest. Even yesterday, O king, as I have told thee, the beggar which thou now hearest crying aloud in the street was slain by thy soldiers with ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... that's a merry jest," says I, "call up Aunty. Why, say, before we get through with this tea stunt of hers that Djickyns party will be runnin' his studio works day and night shifts and rebuildin' Belgium! We're a great team, me and dear old Aunty. We've ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... Wellesly disregarded Haney's jest and looking him squarely in the eyes said: "I suppose, Mr. Mullford, if we keep on in this direction a matter of some twenty-five thousand miles we might reach Muletown. But don't you think we would save time if we were to turn around and travel ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... walked with such monotonous and terrible fidelity. He would stand off in the shadows and see her go by, sometimes alone, but more often in obscene company. And in those moments he tasted the concentrated bitterness of life. Was this really a malicious jest or a test of his endurance? To what black purpose had belated love sprung up in his heart for this woman of the streets? And to think that once he had fancied that so withering a passion was as much a matter of good form as of cosmic urging! There had been conventions in love—and styles and ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... "I've jest whispered to Billy Wriggs to go round t'other side, sir, along o' Mr Panton, and if you and me and Master Drew was to do the same here, I dessay ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... much mixed up wi' 'em. He's another cut. Oh, they ain't a-foolin' me this season of the year," he continued, as Teague Poteet shook his head doubtfully; "he ain't mustered out'n my mind yit, not by a dad-blamed sight. I'm jest a-tellin' of you; he looks spry, an' he ain't no sneak—I'll swar to that on ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... jest at any thing of importance: if you deliver any thing witty and pleasant, abstain from laughing ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... glass—sir, here's to your tragedy. Now, pray, no more interruption; for this scene is one continual joke, and if you open your lips in it you will break the thread of the jest. ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... that they must be talking chiefly of things from which great troubles might arise, in case they should be carried out. [Sidenote: Snorri's advice] He (Snorri) spoke to them: "This I misdoubt me now, that it be neither a vain thing nor a matter of jest you are talking about for such long hours together, and I hold you quite excused, even if such should be the case. Now, be so good as to tell it me and not to hide it away from me. We shall not, when gathered all together, be worse ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... the hands of the King, he must make known to us the guarantees, by which we are to be secured. If they be agreeable to us, then we may deliberate but if we open our gates without conditions, and previous to the arrival of Alexander, Wellington and the Bourbons will make a jest of their promises, and oblige us to submit to the will of the conqueror without pity. Besides, why should we despair of the safety of France? Is the loss of a single battle, then, to decide the fate of a great nation? Have we ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... many times, for a lark, disguised yourself as an ordinary country proprietor or small farmer and mingled with the crowd at a fair without being recognized. What you have done for an evening in jest now attempt in earnest and for as long a period as is necessary. And to begin with, vanish from here at once ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... acquired the homely trick of hanging up their hats on the floor. "Flamby!" he said reproachfully, "I know you are joking, but I don't like you to say such a thing even in jest." ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... really a Westerner an' that's why I'm so different from most of 'em. Take your regular bonie fide Westerner an' when he dies he don't turn to dust, he turns to alkali; but when it comes my turn to settle, I'll jest natchely become the good rich soil o' ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... jesting, thought Elizabeth; but then Percival was in the habit, when he was in a good humour, of turning his deepest feelings into jest. The submission with which she listened to him, roused him after a time to a perception that his words were somewhat painful to her; and he relapsed into a silence which he broke by saying in an entirely different ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... us all a very merry jest, and we laughed with the same inextinguishable laughter which a practical joke, according to Homer, always used to raise in Olympus. It is one of the charms of life in the woods that it brings back the high spirits of boyhood and renews the youth of the world. Plain fun, ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... who was plucky enough when he understood the nature of the threatened danger. "Golly, I jest reckon dis nigger got to stay and ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... him to see if he was in jest or earnest. Her look staggered him a little, but he repeated his question. She cast ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... him. Not improbably a little of it was coquetry, as natural as a laugh to any pretty woman. But that was not what hurt him. It was to see Ruth or Rebecca, as the case might be, full of life and fun, thoroughly enjoying some jest or play, all of a sudden be strangely recalled from the wholesome pleasure of a girl to become a deep and somber woman. The crimes in the name of religion! How he thought of the blood and the ruin laid at the door of religion! ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... and to lie with the king's concubines. But at the end of the five days he was stripped of his royal robes, scourged, and hanged or impaled. During his brief term of office he bore the title of Zoganes. This custom might perhaps have been explained as merely a grim jest perpetrated in a season of jollity at the expense of an unhappy criminal. But one circumstance—the leave given to the mock king to enjoy the king's concubines—is decisive against this interpretation. Considering the jealous seclusion of an oriental despot's harem we may be quite ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... declared the ferryman with a chuckle. "Scairt, were you? Why didn't you git them young Winsted fellers, that jest started up, to rescue yer? Might a ben quite ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... dropped the jewel-case? Was it because I was startled by the jocular remark which identified the mysterious man with the person who had disturbed the steersman? That remark was made in mere jest. Yet I could not help thinking that it contained the truth. Nay, I knew that it was true; I knew by instinct. And being true, what facts were logically to be deduced from it? What aim had this mysterious man in compelling, by ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... man born within the sound of Bow bells. That is, he was a man born within the immediate appeal of high civilisation and of eternal religion. Shakespeare, in the heart of his fantastic forest, turns with a splendid suddenness to the Cockney ideal as being the true one after all. For a jest, for a reaction, for an idle summer love or still idler summer hatred, it is well to wander away into the bewildering forest of Arden. It is well that those who are sick with love or sick with the absence of love, those who weary of the folly of courts or weary yet more of their wisdom, ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... my telegram they, knowing the difficulties of my mission, deemed it incredible that I had succeeded within a day, so when my telegram came they thought I was attempting some jest. Upon my arrival in London, walking into Mac's room—he being still in bed—I announced that I had in my pocket Rothschild's bill for L6,000, drawn on the London house. He flatly refused to believe me, but when he, ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... done more than it had seemed possible for anyone to do? From the first she had overflowed with silent gratitude to him. There was wonder yet in the apparent ease with which he had sauntered into the prison of her life and, with a laugh and jest, set her free. He had shown her, for the first time in her life, the blessedness of receiving. Those whose nature it is to give greatly are not ungenerous to the giving of others. It is a small and selfish mind which fears to take, and Desire was neither ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... serious or in jest, might have caused Philemon to conceive a very great awe of the elder stranger, if, on venturing to gaze at him, he had not beheld so much beneficence in his visage. But, undoubtedly, here was the grandest figure that ever sat so humbly beside a cottage door. When the stranger ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... never was such a man before! She actually said to Caroline Lee, who was trying to jest with her a little, that Fisher was one of the most pure-minded, honourable ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... now you know for truth at least, One thing more than groan of witless beast, One thing more than jest at mumming feast, Pain is still increased, increased, increased Marking life like ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... might be expected to set the Thames on fire. This said with a sneer, should go splendidly at a second-rate Radical luncheon-party. On the 14th, if you receive an uncomplimentary missive, say it is less suggestive of Valentine than Orson. This capital jest should make you a welcome guest in places where they laugh until the end ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., January 3, 1891. • Various
... and he treats me none the better fer it. A week come Tuesday he stalks into the bar here, and, before my customers, he threatens to put me into the road if I fail to have the amount fer him on the due date. I jest talked back to him with no fear in me eye, and he cooled off wonderfully. I have since got the money together, and a hundred dollars to pay on the principal, and to-morrow I'm goin' to give it to him ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... shrugged expressively, an angry light in his dark, bold eyes. "It pleases my lord to jest," he complained; "but am I a ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... out that way," he says. "I'd jest spied it when you spoke o' giein out. Whar thar's hills, thar's a likelihood o' streams. Sposin', Frank, you stay hyar, whiles I make tracks torst them. They look like they wa'n't mor'n ten miles off anyhow. ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... who is afraid to laugh and jest with her husband, lest she should appear bold and wanton, resembles one that will not anoint herself with oil lest she should be thought to use cosmetics, and will not wash her face lest she should be ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... tiger, carrion to the kite, And rags and bones to wicked wolves without the wall at night. Naught he found too lofty, none he saw too low— Parbati beside him watched them come and go; Thought to cheat her husband, turning Shiv to jest— Stole the little grasshopper and hid it in her breast. So she tricked him, Shiva the Preserver. Mahadeo! Mahadeo! turn and see! Tall are the camels, heavy are the kine, But this was Least of Little Things, ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... 'Oh Adam!' sez she, 'Oh Adam! 'aven't I got enough to bear but you must make it 'arder for me?' An' I see the tears in her eyes while she said it. Me make it 'arder for her! Jest as if I wouldn't make things lighter for 'er if I could,—which I can't; jest as if, to help Miss Anthea, I wouldn't let 'em take me an'—well, ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... boys never growl at me, because I love them; and he does not look as if he really had a leg to stand on," she replied smilingly. But the boy nervously persisted. "Please let him go—his legs is all right. He looks kind o' run down jest now 'cause he"—the boy felt a tightening at his throat, and winked hard to keep the tears from starting again—"'cause he ain't got much appetite. But when he's eatin' good his legs is jest great. Why, there ain't no other dog in Golconda that's got as strong legs as Baldy when ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... Jest about the time when Fall Gits to rattlin' in the trees, An' the man thet knows it all, 'Spicions frost in every breeze, When a person tells hisse'f Thet the leaves look mighty thin, Then thar blows a meller breaf! Ingin ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... most of the animals were very thirsty, and in a great hurry to drink, they did not care to dispute the matter, but gabbled off the words without a second thought. Even the royal tiger, treating it as a jest, repeated the jackal's rhyme, in consequence of which the latter became quite cock-a-hoop, and really began to believe he was ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... jest like ye, Niece Ruth," he responded coolly. "You think you have all the money in the world. That's because ye didn't aim what ye got—it ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson
... of those who are playing games, the merry laughter, the jest, the shouting, place this type of activity on a ...
— School, Church, and Home Games • George O. Draper
... creature," she replied, "do not think me such a simpleton as to be always wanting to confine him to my elbow. It would be hideous to be always together; we should be the jest of the place. And so you are going to Northanger! I am amazingly glad of it. It is one of the finest old places in England, I understand. I shall depend upon a ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... faltering accents, "jest not with my feelings. Be not cruel in your pity. Tell me ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... kept near the poor, timid girl, aiding her to bind up the full-eared corn, and carrying it himself for her to the mows, into which they were hastily forming the sheaves for fear of rain. He could not resist occasionally alluding to Mr David Jones, but receiving no encouragement to carry out the jest, and finding her as silent and shy as a frightened child, he gave up the subject, and with it all attempt at conversation. He declared afterwards that she worked like a slave, and knew all about harvesting as ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... front door, crocheting a lamp-mat when I saw her last," said "Bill." "She's older'n she was, Miss Posie. But everything in the house looked jest the same. Your ma asked me to set down. 'Don't touch that willow rocker, William,' says she. 'It ain't been moved since Posie left; and that's the apron she was hemmin', layin' over the arm of it, jist as she flung it. I'm in hopes,' she goes on, 'that Posie'll ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... sword, and a command is to thee, if thy heart cannot acquiesce with all things, with meekness and patience to suffer. Discontent in the mind sometimes puts discontent into the mouth; and discontent in the mouth doth sometimes also put a halter about thy neck. For as a man speaking a word in jest may for that be hanged in earnest, so he that speaks in discontent may die for it in sober sadness. Above all, get thy conscience possessed more and more with this, that the magistrate is God's ordinance, and is ordered of God as such; ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... frolic wind that breathes the spring Zephyr, with Aurora playing, As he met her once a-Maying— There, on beds of violets blue And fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew Fill'd her with thee, a daughter fair, So buxom, blithe, and debonair. Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful jollity, Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek; Sport that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... much of a man without a wife as with one, is just as reasonable as to expect a half-finished house to be as beautiful as a finished one. It is impossible for an unmarried man, other things being equal, to be as agreeable a companion as a married man; and lest I be suspected of a jest in this statement, I wish to assure my reader that I am entirely in earnest. Intimate contact with the nature of a good woman, in the relation of marriage, is just as necessary to the completeness of manhood, as the details of an architectural design are to the homely ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... the reveries of boating-parties on the Nerbada. The Marble Rocks are often resorted to by pic-nic parties in the moonlit evenings; and one can easily fancy that to have a dusky dead body float against one's boat and sway slowly round alongside in the midst of a gay jest or of a light song of serenade, as is said to have happened not unfrequently here, is not an occurrence likely to heighten the spirits of revelers. Occasionally, also, the black, ugly double snout of the magar (or Nerbada ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... "I weep over his recreancy? It is a far-fetched jest, my Blanche; can you invent no better? The ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... spoke in jest, laddie,' said Archie, gravely; 'when we get to the Deil's Lead we may find ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... companions. Even these latter were at length sensible that they had gone too far, and, as their better feelings returned, they sought to assure the offended object of their pleasantry that what they had uttered was merely in jest; but finding he received these disclaimers in moody silence, they renewed their attack, nor discontinued it until they separated for their mutual quarters ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... "you may think I'm young to be a'visin' o' you, Sir. But jest mark my words—you cawn' be too keerful what comp'ny yer gits familyer with. I gits off 'ere. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... do! You have arrived at such a pitch of folly or madness or—I know not what to call it: I am tempted often to think that some evil genius is driving you to ruin—that for the sake of scandal or envy or jest or any other cause, you command hirelings to speak (some of whom would not deny themselves to be hirelings), and laugh when they abuse people. And this, bad as it is, is not the worst; you have allowed these persons more liberty for their political ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... dejected. It happened even (very rarely however) that Fyodor Pavlovitch went at night to the lodge to wake Grigory and fetch him for a moment. When the old man came, Fyodor Pavlovitch would begin talking about the most trivial matters, and would soon let him go again, sometimes even with a jest. And after he had gone, Fyodor Pavlovitch would get into bed with a curse and sleep the sleep of the just. Something of the same sort had happened to Fyodor Pavlovitch on Alyosha's arrival. Alyosha "pierced his heart" by "living with him, seeing everything and blaming nothing." Moreover, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... glee, for, if all went well, his little jest would be a brilliant success, and by daybreak his would be the foremost vessel of the squadron, and therefore the first to come up with the ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... deserve to be treated as anything but vassals. When we show you a kindness, see how you abuse it. We extend to you our little finger and you instantly lay claim to the whole arm. Because last night I permitted myself to exchange a jest with you, because I chance to be kind to you again to-day, you repay me ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... upon little gallantries. Presented to Mme. Tallien, he was frequently seen at her receptions. He was at first shy and reserved, but time and custom put him more at his ease. One evening, as little groups were gradually formed for the interchange of jest and repartee, he seemed to lose his timidity altogether, and, assuming the mien of a fortune-teller, caught his hostess's hand, and poured out a long rigmarole of nonsense which much amused ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... been equally imprudent in his utterances on some of the certainties of Calvinistic divinity. It was easy to collect any amount of evidence under both these heads. The system of kirk discipline offered a ready-made machinery of espionage and delation. The standing jest of the fifteenth century on the "governante" of the cure was replaced, in Calvinistic countries, by the anxiety of every minister to detect his brother minister in any intimacy upon which a scandalous construction could ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... is that the Negro has such a contagious brand of humor that many people never realize that this plays only on the surface. The real background of the race is one of tragedy. It is not in current jest but in the wail of the old melodies that the soul of this people is found. There is something elemental about the heart of the race, something that finds its origin in the forest and in the falling of the stars. There is something grim about it too, something that speaks of the lash, of ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... though I hardly think Mr. Thurston would agree with you. For instance?" asked Millicent, finding his humor infectious, for English Jim could gather all the men in camp about him, when half in jest and half in earnest he began one of ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... "Buff, you're jest what old Jim said you was," thundered Rea, as he surveyed the gray pile. "Here's winter meat, an' I'd not have given a biscuit for all the meat ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... was, too, my lads, to run through a gap that way. And now look here, you, jest recklect all this; you've both got your necks in nooses, and Mr Brymer here's got hold o' the other ends of the ropes, so as he can pull 'em any time he likes, and he will too if you don't stick pretty close to your dooty. That's ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... man, so don't say anything more about it. If you was the only feller in this city what had passed a lead nickel, perhaps this thing would look different to me; but the way I reckon it is, that the man what put the advertisement in the paper jest 'cause he'd been done out'er five cents is a mighty poor citizen, an' I stand ready to do all I can towards keepin' ...
— Aunt Hannah and Seth • James Otis
... glory and the imperishable hope of man. He looked up into the vast countenance of the crouching Sphinx and vainly tried to read the meaning of her calm eyes and smiling mouth. Was it, indeed, the mockery of all effort and all aspiration, as Tigranes had said—the cruel jest of a riddle that has no answer, a search that never can succeed? Or was there a touch of pity and encouragement in that inscrutable smile—a promise that even the defeated should attain a victory, and the disappointed should discover a prize, and the ignorant should be made wise, ...
— The Story of the Other Wise Man • Henry Van Dyke
... wrinkelder, older and grayer Right now than my parents was then, You strike up that song "Do They Miss Me," And I'm jest a youngster again!— I'm a-standin' back thare in the furries A-wishin' fer evening to come, And a-whisperin' over and over Them words "Do They Miss Me ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... a jest. "Let us talk seriously," he said to Prince della Mirandola. "Tell me what merit one can have in telling God that one is persuaded of things of which in fact one cannot be persuaded? What pleasure can that give God? Between ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... the universe. Almost with a fierce haste it lays its empire on the man. In the language of the Koran, "God said, the heaven and the earth, and all that is between them, think ye that we created them in jest, and that ye shall not return to us?" It is the kingdom of the will, and by inspiring the will, which is the seat of personality, seems to convert the ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... ther ghost come out yere jest ez easy ez he kin' go inter ther house—that is, if he's a ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... spoken by me before, O blessed lady, even in jest. What need then be said of (such a solemn occasion as) preparing sanctified food with the aid of Vedic formulae after igniting the fire? It was ordained of yore by Destiny, O amiable one! I have ascertained it all by my penances. All the descendants of thy father ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... see anythin', old man, but I 'll scout 'round thar a bit, jest ter ease yer mind, an' see ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... thither and invited them all, in jest, to some ladies' punch, hot, strong and sweet. As they said they never took anything strong, he opened three bottles of lemonade for them. Then he asked one of the young men to move aside, and, taking hold of the decanter, filled out for himself a goodly measure of whisky. The young men ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... we'se dun surrounded. I was jest a-gittin' de grapes when I seed a'most a thousand Injuns a-comin,' an' I dun run my life a'most out a-gittin' here. Dey did not see me, but I seed dem, an' I tell you dey's de biggest Injuns you ever did see. I 'clar dey's mos' ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... Chambers Street, expecting him every moment to join them. Perhaps he was detained, he might come yet at twelve, they said, trying to comfort Katy, who, with a sad foreboding, went back into the parlor, and tried to join in the laugh and jest which seemed almost like mockery. Something had happened to Wilford she was sure when the night train did not bring him; and all the next day, while the Sunday bells pealed their music in her ears, and the sounds of thoughtless mirth came up from the room below, where the elaborate dinner was ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... cried the man, half in jest and half in earnest. "This kind of thing will never do. You mustn't joke about that, old girl, else I'll have you up for breach ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... contemporary with them, and unto those who came after them, and a warning to the pious. And when Moses said unto his people, Verily God commandeth you to sacrifice a cow;[28] they answered, Dost thou make a jest of us? Moses said, God forbid that I should be one of the foolish. They said, Pray for us unto thy Lord, that he would show us what cow it is. Moses answered, He saith, She is neither an old cow, nor a young heifer, but of a middle-age between both: do ye therefore ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... jest this. These here tew have been holding me off and on for three days, wanting me to get 'em a ship to take 'em to Esquimalt. First they wanted to go for ten, ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... thou'rt the favored guest Of every fair and brilliant throng; No wit like thine to wake the jest, No voice like thine to breathe the song; And none could guess, so gay thou art, That thou and ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... social entertainment, (especially by music, play, and jest): nom. sg. r ws gidd ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds. |
