"Jesting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mean what I say," she continued in a low voice that vibrated with emotion, for her obvious distress was enhanced by his evident belief that she was jesting. "I have given my word—written it—entered into a most solemn obligation. Somehow, the prospect of reaching a civilized place to-morrow induces a more ordered state of mind than has been possible since—since the ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... Remusat, III., 75, 155: "When the minister of police learned that jesting or malicious remarks had been made in one of the Paris drawing-rooms he at once notified the master or mistress of the house to be more watchful of their company."—Ibid., p.187 (1807): "The emperor censured M. Fouche for not having exercised ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... hastily. She lifted her hand with a gesture of entreaty, and Hector was startled to see how seriously she had taken his jesting words. "Don't laugh at me! I've been dreaming of it so long, and it's such a dear, dear dream. Do you realise that in all my life I have never had a permanent home? It has been a few years here, a few years there, with ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... jesting. "It is not exactly a story for boys," he said. "I go on then. The sign, as you call it, was not very plentiful but very much to the purpose, and when Mr Powell heard (at a certain moment I felt bound to ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... my feelings were that evening—of my murderous hatred of that smirking, jesting Jezebel who sat opposite me at dinner, my wrathful indignation at the thought of the poor little expected heir defrauded ere his birth; of the crushing contempt I felt for myself and the bishop as a pair of witless idiots unable to see our way out of the dilemma; all this boiling and surging through ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... tell me, Hamish," said he, in the same jesting way, "whether my eyes have followed the example of my ears, and are playing tricks. Do you think they are bloodshot, with my lying on deck in the cold? Hamish, what do you see ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... this declaration was beyond measure. She could not believe her ears. She had not heard me rightly. She compelled me to repeat it. Still I was jesting. I could not possibly mean what my ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... of the paved court waiting for him, for he had sold his horse and cart to a trader for two marks. Then they set forth upon their way, the Sheriff riding upon his horse and Robin running beside him. Thus they left Nottingham Town and traveled forward along the dusty highway, laughing and jesting together as though they had been old friends. But all the time the Sheriff said within himself, "Thy jest to me of Robin Hood shall cost thee dear, good fellow, even four hundred pounds, thou fool." For he thought he would make at least that much ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... him. This made Rawlins suspect that the renegade gunner had betrayed him; and he stepped back and drew out his knife, also taking the gunner's out of its sheath; so that the Turk, seeing him with two knives, threw down his sword, saying he was only jesting. But the gunner, seeing that Rawlins suspected him, whispered something in his ear, calling Heaven to witness that he had never breathed a word of the enterprise, and never would. Nevertheless, Rawlins kept the knives in his sleeve all night, and was somewhat troubled, though afterwards ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... these poor pages of notes and memories, accustomed to hear speak of expeditions organised for the purpose of penetrating into inhospitable lands or into regions encompassed by all the terrors of the unknown, will perhaps think that I was jesting when I gave the inventory of my luggage in the last chapter and that from sheer vaunt I did not mention the support of some Geographical or Commercial Society and neither the tons of goods which would follow in my wake, nor the ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... with thy jesting, good sir; thou art a traveller from afar, and lookest the part to perfection. I am at mine ease at home going to pay a call to a pretty neighbour. Let us be jogging; 'tis a long walk to Newnham, and the afternoon is ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... in the East India Company's service, as you see," I answered, jesting to conceal the fullness ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... some impertinent observations, to punish which I told him the next day that I would point-tie him when he married. It so happened that he had the intention of uniting himself with a servant girl who lived in the neighbourhood, and although I had threatened him merely in a jesting manner, it made so strong an impression upon him that although, when married, he felt the most ardent desire to enjoy his connubial rights, he found himself totally incapacitated for the work of love. Sometimes when ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... moment, he looked at her, in doubt whether or not she was jesting. Then as her face suggested no humorous ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... men also used to come to Voronok's house. There were still others, a ragged, grumbling lot, who appeared to carry an air of eternal injury with them, as if they had lost all capacity for smiling and jesting. Voronok took great pains to read the pamphlets with them, and to explain to them anything that was not especially clear. Regular hours were allotted for these readings and conversations. By such means Voronok succeeded in developing the desired mood in his visitors; ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... oft on death); round the setting was engraved "O mors, ero mors tua" (Death, I will be thy death). This ring is preserved at Dresden. Shakspere, in his Love's Labour's Lost (Act V. scene 2), makes his jesting courtier, Biron, compare the countenance of Holophernes to "a death's face in a ring." We have already adverted to a similar ring worn by ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... of the chief are wise, and I obey. Red Eagle has proved many and many a time that he is the best fitted of all men to be the head chief of the Shawnees. Wyatt, I was only jesting. You and I must be good ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... curiosity. Some of his servants have instructions to observe you narrowly, lest your glance should fall too often on his wife or children. The other guests' men perceive your amazement at the novel scene, and exchange jesting asides. From the fact that you do not know what to make of your napkin, they conclude that this is your first experience of dining-out. You perspire with embarrassment; not unnaturally. You are thirsty, but you dare not ask for wine, lest you ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... wholly pleased, that he seems as if made to feel a degree of inferiority. Such also is the case with children; and little Wilton felt that the Earl was making a sort of playful investigation of his mind, even while he was jesting with him. I have said felt, because it was feeling, not thought, that discovered it; and, therefore, though he loved the Earl notwithstanding all this, he was glad to go where he heard there were many such young ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... span of the bridges with golden dots, fling long reflections on its surface. Overhead, more peaceful lights are shining. All about us is the rush of tumult and change, men drifting here and there, struggling, weeping, jesting, passing away; but over all God watches, and His ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... about right? She's just too good to live—and he's not much better—ha! ha!" She checked her jesting mood. "Yes, sur, they're very peaceable, quiet people. They're just ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... make the terrible story of the murder of the Duke of Guise quite realistic, we were first taken to the great council chamber, before one of whose beautiful chimney places Le Balfre stood warming himself, for the night was cold, eating plums and jesting with his courtiers, when he was summoned to attend the King. Henry, with his cut-throats at hand, was awaiting his cousin in his cabinet de travail, at the end of his apartments. As the Duke entered the King's chamber he was ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... about the rest," he said, and she wondered if he could be half in earnest or if he were wholly jesting, "but, by Jove, I went overboard in her eyes and ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... comical, amusing, droll, laughable, farcical, witty, jocular, jocose, ludicrous, burlesque, facetious, risible, absurd, waggish, humorous, jesting. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... be confessed, is sad stuff even for a laureate of twenty, and is jesting with difficulty. Every man, says Johnson, has at one time or other of his life an ambition to set up for a wag, but that a man who had completed the Life of Johnson should in after years complacently refer to this character of himself ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... would baffle me with jesting answers as often as I sought to find out who and what she was. Nor had I better fortune with her mother, for whom I had small liking, and who had, as it seemed, no more for me. For she was short in her talk, and frowned to see me with her daughter. Yet she saw me, I must confess, ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... "Othello" and did not try to verify the remark of "jesting" Pilate. The only instruction that I gave myself was to "begin at ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... the King's Son, "thou art jesting with me; thou and thy might and thy wisdom, and all that thy wisdom may command, to be over- mastered ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... innocent enjoyment to disturb or alarm him? Had some note in his own conscience been struck by an act which, in his cooler moments, he may have looked upon as a species of sacrilege? Or had some whisper from the past reached him amid the feasting, the laughing and the jesting, to render these old walls henceforth intolerable to him? He never said, but whatever the cause of this sudden aversion, the effect was deep and promised to be lasting. For, one morning, not long after this event, ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... explained in different ways. It might be that what was in her heart for him was really a sort of "old home week" feeling; that to her it was a relief to see any one who spoke her own language, who did not need to have it explained when she was jesting, and who did not think when she was speaking in perfectly satisfactory phrases that she ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... but the beetling cliffs meeting together. No human foot could scale them. If no outlet offered in that direction, then, indeed, might the jesting allusion of Caspar be realised. They might be imprisoned between those walls of black granite, with nought but ice for their bed, and the sky for their ceiling. It was a fearful supposition, but all three did not ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... Macquart was in a jesting mood, glowing with wild exultation. The money he had in his pocket, the treachery he was preparing, the conviction that he had sold himself at a good price—all filled him with the self-satisfaction ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... him in utter perplexity. The words could only have been said in jest, and yet they seemed to savour of a tone the furthest remove from jesting. There was his face plain to her eyes, but no information of any kind was to ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... contrary, was an error in me, and which became very perceptible, was a pleasure which I had, not in jesting with, but in playing with my best feelings, and in regarding the understanding as the most important thing in the world. The rector had completely mistaken my undisguisedly candid and sensitive character; my excitable feelings were made ridiculous, and thrown ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... may pass through various landscapes, but it is the same river, and, at the last, it brings to us, as "the banks fade dimmer away" and "the stars come out" "murmurs and scents" of the same infinite Sea. Yes, there is only one Philosophy, as Disraeli said, jesting; and Matthew Arnold, among the moderns, is the one who has been allowed to put it into his poetry. For though, before the "Flamantia Moenia" of the world's triple brass, we are fain to bow our heads inconsolably, there come those moments when, ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... bitter suffering there may have come upon her the actual paroxysm of madness. On the other hand it may have been that with sound sense and calm mind she was mocking at the clerks of Rouen; she was quite capable of it, for she had mocked at the clerks of Poitiers. At any rate she had a jesting air, and the bystanders noticed that she pronounced the words of her abjuration with a smile.[2490] And her gaiety, whether real or apparent, roused the wrath of those burgesses, priests, artisans, and men-at-arms who ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... "you haven't come here to see the pictures, but to see me. Have a good look at me. Why study copies of nature when you can look at such a remarkable original as I?" But there were to be no more days of mirth and gaiety for the jesting grocer. His appeal was rejected, and he was ordered for execution on ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... a wretched infant sucking her shriveled breast at his side; I say I have no conception how he can behold such a sight, with indifference; how, unagonized and convulsed with rage and indignation, he can have the barbarity to descend to jesting! Notwithstanding, your observations upon the Negroes, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... disaster which had befallen the Lacedaemonians, for the Theban victory was the most complete ever won by one Greek state over another, the courage of the vanquished is nevertheless as much to be admired as that of the victors. Xenophon remarks that the conversation of good and brave men, even when jesting or sitting at table, is always worth remembering, and it is much more valuable to observe how nobly all really brave and worthy men bear themselves when in sorrow and misfortune. When the news of the defeat at Leuktra arrived at Sparta, the city was celebrating the festival of ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... ludicrous, sounded silly enough to provoke a shrug of the shoulders, sounded like one of those sentences which only an imbecile or a lunatic could utter. And yet Valenglay remained impassive. He knew that, in such circumstances as the present, the man before him was not the man to indulge in jesting. ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... after his hair brought him to grief, he was reduced to ordinary humanity. He felt his loss keenly. I ventured to compliment him on features which I had never seen till then, and he answered, with asperity, that it was "no jesting matter." ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... virtual ruler of the State, always believing in his loyalty—if not to Gustave of Maasau, at least to Maasau the Free. Any dimmest doubt of Selpdorf's patriotism had never during all that period entered into the soddened brain of his master. But to-night, as the Duke recalled the half-jesting proposal to disband the Guard, made by the Chancellor on the day of the review, and added to that hint the pregnant significance of Valerie's speech, he realised that evil days were overtaking him, that his most trusted minister had been ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... perhaps) has been scrambling up or down on a very large scale, and so rubbed off every corner which was inclined to come away, till the solid core of the rock was bared. And may not those mysterious giants have had a hand in carrying the stones across the lake? . . . Really, I am not altogether jesting. Think a while what agent could possibly have produced either one ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... jesting, Davie. That is one way of fighting the good fight—is it not? And I want to have a good ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... require sympathy. Besides, the overpowering love he bore to the child seemed to demand fuller vent than tender words; it made him like, yet dread, to upbraid its object for the fearful contrast foretold. Still Squire Griffiths told the legend, in a half-jesting manner, to his little son, when they were roaming over the wild heaths in the autumn days, "the saddest of the year," or while they sat in the oak-wainscoted room, surrounded by mysterious relics that gleamed strangely forth by the flickering fire-light. The legend was wrought into the boy's ...
— The Doom of the Griffiths • Elizabeth Gaskell
... advance boldly into the retreats of our flowery meads, let him mingle in our dances, let him give vent to jesting, to wit and to satire. Enough of junketing, lead forward! let our voices praise the divine protectress[430] with ardent love, yea! praise her, who promises to assure the welfare of this country for ever, in ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... say that he would not reach the house that evening before 11 o'clock. He explained that he expected an art dealer. In reality he had just recalled his promise to stop at the house of Mimi. Herman, suspecting his design, made some jesting allusion to it, which caused Olga to ask what he meant. He evaded her question, and Millar, seeing another excellent opportunity to point a moral, declared that he ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... goodness, that is over!" says Jurgen, to himself. "Of course, she may be listening still, and it is dangerous jesting with the Leshy: but really they do not seem to be very intelligent. Otherwise this irritable maunderer would have known that, everything else apart, I am heartily tired of the responsibilities of youth under any such constant surveillance. Now all is changed: there is no call to avoid a suspicion ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... these beginnings of poetry amongst the Grecians, but only these representations of Satyrs who carried canisters and cornucopias full of several fruits in their hands, and danced with them at their public feasts, and afterwards reading Horace, who makes mention of his homely Romans jesting at one another in the same kind of solemnities, might suppose those wanton Satyrs did the same; and especially because Horace possibly might seem to him to have shown the original of all poetry in general (including ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... have in your hands substantial proof of his having laid himself at my feet, and that I refused both him and his services, he will be ready to quarter himself to serve you, for fear you should blab." I thought the Emperor was jesting: he perceived it, and resumed: "No, I tell you; don't burn that letter, or any of those from persons of the same description: I give them to you for your protection."—"But, Sire, they will accuse me of having ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... mine attire, Though inwardly licentious enough, And apt for any kind of villany. I am none of these common pedants, I, That cannot speak without propterea quod. Y. Spen. But one of those that saith quando-quidem, And hath a special gift to form a verb. Bald. Leave off this jesting; here my ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... into the Rhine to avoid suitors'?" roared the baron, purple with rage. "Hark ye, nephew! I like not this jesting. Thou knowest I married one of the Schonberg girls, as did thy father. How 'coy' they were is neither here nor there; but mayhap WE might tell another story. Thy father, as weak a fellow as thou art where a petticoat ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... rankled in Patty's mind, but, though it both hurt and angered her, she had no intention of showing her feelings. So, she went to the other extreme and was madly gay and merry, laughing and jesting with everybody and enjoying herself ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... climbed on each other's shoulders to get nearer her, others even began to swarm up the pillars supporting her balcony. To the delight of the audience the noisy mob eventually clambered up to the railing of the balcony and, jesting, laughing, uttering weird cries, perched on it and shouted and jeered ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... he said, in a jesting tone, "that I asked her to marry me. After all, I had saved her son, had I not?... So... I thought. What a rebuff!... It produced a coolness between ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... I'm going to put his heart in a sling," said Smith, laughing heartily at what he thought would be taken as a brilliant piece of jesting. But he erred. Anderson went home in a great flurry and privately cautioned every member of the household, including Rosalie, to treat Bonner with every consideration, as his heart was weak and liable to give him great trouble. ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... given me this cup to drink? Since she is false, then let Thy Heaven's fairest gifts, faith and love, become the jesting by-words of traitors ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... last of the Georges, to effect an improvement in the general aspect of our churchyards, which was certainly very much needed. Culpable neglect, it may be added, was sometimes shown in the admission of jesting or profane epitaphs. The inscription on Gay's monument in Westminster Abbey is a well-known example. One other instance, in illustration, will be abundantly sufficient. Imagine the carelessness of supervision which could allow the following buffoonery to be set up (1764) in the ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... in our power to fulfil their conditions. He had promised to be only her friend, and not to think of her as a mistress; and yet he could not deny that he was mortified and disgusted with the sight of any other visiter. His ill-humour was particularly excited by hearing her, in a jesting manner, enumerate the good or bad qualities of some favourite, and after having shown much good sense in pointing out his blemishes, neglect her friend, and prefer ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various
... must have been taken from the fable, and the Martyrology of Donegal gravely refers to the Voyage as well as to the Life as an authority upon the subject, although I confess I can hardly believe that Cuimin of Condeire was not jesting when he ...
— Brendan's Fabulous Voyage • John Patrick Crichton Stuart Bute
... simplest and most primal emotions, with love and joy and wonder, the half-fearful triumph of swift inertia, attained at last in the full element of life. The others were different; they were dimpling and laughing and jesting in their unintelligible guttural. Their faces knew nothing of the seriousness of the bride's. One of them was exceedingly pretty, with a beauty unusual in her race. Her high cheek-bones were covered with the softest rosy flesh, her wide mouth was outlined by curves. She wore ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... that stood packed outside. My Lords had thrown out the Exclusion Bill by above two-thirds of their number—which was ninety-three. Presently His Majesty came out by his private way, laughing and jesting aloud with two or ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... ethical question arose between them that Edith was disquieted, feeling sometimes as if she were looking into black deeps of immorality. The principles which to her were most sacred, were to him light subjects upon which, she was well aware, only her presence prevented his jesting. The most obvious laws of rectitude were but thistle-down before the whirlwind of his subversive theories; and Edith found argument impossible with one who ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... a few lines in the name of Burton, being a conceit of "Diabolic Possession." Burton was a man often assailed by deepest melancholy, and at other times much given to laughing and jesting, as is the way with melancholy men. I will send them you: they were almost extempore, and no great things; but you will indulge them. Robert Lloyd is come to town. He is a good fellow, with the best heart, but his feelings are shockingly unsane. Priscilla meditates going to see Pizarro at Drury ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... respected and the most feared man in the region, but of all the good Dozier qualities Bill inherited only their fighting capacity. He fought; he loved trouble; and for that reason, and not because he needed the money, he was now acting as a deputy sheriff. He was jesting with Buck Heath in a rather superior manner, half contemptuous, half amused by Buck's alcoholic swaggerings. And Buck was just sober enough to perceive that he was being held lightly. He hated Dozier for that treatment, but he feared him too much to take ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... Jesting apart, I heartily wish your plans success, and if there are any more definite ways in which I can help, let me know, and I will do my best. You will want, I should think, a physical and a philological committee to organise schemes: (1) for systematic ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... minutes she found out. Jack Kilmeny, in evening dress, was jesting in animated talk with India when the engaged couple reentered the room. He turned, the smile still on his face, to greet Joyce as she came forward beside Verinder. The little man was strutting pompously toward ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... on the jesting way a while farther, and said, "Prithee, do not talk of dying; how do we know we shall ever ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... Some have been killed on the occasion they expected, while others who appeared equally certain of being summoned away have come out of action without scratch. Others, again, whom I have seen laughing and jesting as if they had a long lease of life before them, have, within a few hours perhaps, been stretched lifeless on the deck. I have come to the conclusion, therefore, that no one can tell when his last moment is to come, and that consequently it behoves ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... when we came back again, John Kitchen struck up Mr. Edward Norris his heels and mine, and fell upon me, and catched me by the throat, and held me so long till he had almost stopped my breath. And I said unto John Kitchen, 'This is not good jesting.' And John Kitchen replied, 'This is nothing: I do owe you more than this of old: this is not half of that which you shall have afterwards.' After this, he went into his house, and he took stinking water and threw upon us, and took me and ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... electrical principles, and then proceeded to demonstrate mathematically the IMPOSSIBILITY of doing WHAT EDISON HAD ACTUALLY DONE. This critic concludes with a gentle rebuke to the inventor for ill-timed jesting, and a suggestion ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... said d'Artagnan, "do not let us lose our time in jesting. Let us separate, and let us seek the mercer's wife—that is the ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... in one or another of the airy tent cottages, sometimes before the cheerful blaze of the logs in the fireplace of the parlors, but oftenest of all they flocked into Number Six of McCormick Building, where David was confined to his cot. Always there was laughter in Number Six, merry jesting, ready repartee. So it became the mecca of those, who, even more assiduously than they chased the cure, sought after laughter and joy. In the parlors the guests played cards, but in Number Six, deferring silently to David's calling, they pulled out checkers and parcheesi, ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... beauty out of the woods. We could do nothing. We kept what fire we could, regummed the seams of the canoes, and for the rest ate, sulked, and tried to sleep. The men gambled among themselves, and I grew weary of the click, click of their balls and the sound of their stupid boasts and low jesting. Yet I had no ground for stopping them, for the woman understood almost nothing of their uncouth speech. Indeed, she was little in sight or hearing. She stayed in her bark shelter, and I could hear her moving about, trying to keep ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... brother, it cannot be; thou art jesting;—not, at least, the Wilfred of Aescendune I once knew, and by whom I fear I dealt somewhat hardly; he died, and was buried at Oxenford thirty years agone. I saw his dead body; I beheld his burial; I have joined ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... what it will; nay, tho he were a Priest of Baal, as may be prov'd a little further, for here his Zeal shews itself not only for Christians, but the very Turks too; and cavils again with Jacinta, in the Mock Astrologer, for jesting with Alla, and honest Mahomet, for he was a Brother Priest too: [Footnote: Collier, p. 61.] But stay, what's worst of all, have but patience to walk to another Page, and here you will find him just sinking into ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... youngest saw the young chief sitting in the top boughs of the tree; and she at once called up to him, "Ah! you shall be my husband;" but the eldest sister exclaimed, "You shall be mine," and they began jesting and disputing between themselves which should have him for a husband, for he was a ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... had a thousand half-pouting, half-jesting complaints to urge. She put them forth rather incoherently; in fact, she talked for five minutes without giving her husband opportunity for a single word. Yet she loved him dearly, and had in her heart no objection to ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... departed, to have prayers, and my thoughtless Jack began to imitate the sound of church-bells—"Ding, dong! to prayers! to prayers! ding, dong!" I was really angry, and reproved him severely for jesting about sacred things. Then, kneeling down, I prayed God's blessing on our undertaking, and his pardon for us all, especially for him who had now so grievously sinned. Poor Jack came and kneeled by me, ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... by this accident the youth got himself a capital bride. And after he had married her he went back to his parents. They had long ago counted him as lost to them for ever. And indeed it was no subject for jesting; he had been away from home three whole years, and yet it seemed to him that he had not in all spent more than twenty-four hours with ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... the reverie in which he was plunged. Robertet, the secretary of State, two marshals of France, Vieilleville, and Saint-Andre, and the keeper of the seals, were collected in a group before the chancellor. The courtiers present were not precisely jesting; but their talk was malicious, especially among those who were ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... shows devotion indeed; but you forget your rle, don't you? Where has he been for the past hour? You haven't told us that! Surely you have not forsaken him now, when it may be the hour of his extremity." Her tone is jesting, but all through it Rylton can ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... entertainments were marked by a certain earnestness and seriousness. He set, indeed, all his guests at ease by his courtesy and the interest he took in each; and yet all felt that in his presence loud laughter would be out of place and loose jesting impossible. Enghien, on the other hand, being a wild and reckless young noble, one who chose not his words, but was wont to give vent in terms of unbridled hatred to his contempt for those whom he ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... fearlessly, laughing at the absurdity—the senor was accustomed to fooling her with his jests. Her father said that the Febrers were all as serious as judges, but ever in a good humor. He was jesting at her expense again, as he had done when he had told about his clay sweetheart up there in his tower who had been waiting for him a ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Christ in Gethsemane; and so the sorrow of Gethsemane may be endured by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the most sensitive person of the Godhead. He is called the "Mother—heart" of God. The context of this passage (v.31) tells us how the Spirit may be grieved: by "foolish talking and jesting." Whenever the believer allows any of the things mentioned in this verse (and those stated also in Gal. 5:17-19) to find place in his heart and expression in his words and life; when these things abide in his ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... between Telemachus and his father; the day was drawing on, and they cared not now to bandy words with the wooers. And so the merry feast came to an end with jesting, and mirth, and laughter; and after a few short hours they were to sit down to supper—such a supper as they had never tasted before, with a hero and a goddess to spread ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... little Bible in hand, Jeff asked him to read it aloud, and the boy gladly complied. It was a striking sight, as the men inclined their heads and reverently listened to the impressive words from the Book of Life. There was no jesting or badinage, for that chord which the Creator has placed in every human heart was touched, and responded with sweet music. Many an hour was thus passed—let us hope with profit to every one of the ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... grimly, 'let me remind you once again, that the habit of light jesting—persiflage—is so essentially Irish, you should keep it for your countrymen; and if you persist in supposing the career of a private secretary suits you, this is an incongruity that will totally ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... truly a great one. Since the time of OLAF, the Northman, our Anglo-Saxon-Celtic race has loved its jesting philosophers. No fools are they, in fact, even when to that name they 'stoop ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... their al-fresco lodging. Large fires had been lighted, composed in great part of odoriferous shrubs and bushes abounding in the neighbourhood, which scented the air as they burned; and around these the soldiers were assembled cooking and eating their rations, smoking, jesting, discussing some previous fight, or anticipating the result of the one expected for the morrow, and which according to their sanguine calculations, could only be favourable to them. Here was a seemingly ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... wish my Spanish American was here! What makes you think it's a good plan? Why should I disappoint my father's hopes again, and wring my mother's heart by proposing to leave them for any such uncertain good as this scheme promises?" He still challenged his friend with a jesting air, but a deeper and stronger feeling of some sort trembled in ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... house to be scattered with profane and wicked Books, such as stir up to lust, to wantonness, such as teach idle, wanton, lascivious discourse, and such as has a tendency to provoke to profane drollery and Jesting; and lastly, such as tend to corrupt, and pervert the Doctrine of Faith and Holiness. All these things will eat as doth a canker, and will quickly spoil, in Youth, &c. those good beginnings that may be putting forth ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... charming story of romance, supported through the length of a whole play by all the adventitious aids which Greene can command. One of the minor characters, Ralph Simnell, invites passing notice as the rough sketch of a type which Shakespeare afterwards perfected, the Court Fool: his jesting questions and answers may be compared with those of Feste in Twelfth Night. Disguised as the prince, to conceal the identity of the real prince at Oxford, he is served by the merry nobles and proves himself humorously unprincely. But that which has given most ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... it. A jest book it certainly is, and the most prosperous of jest books, but undoubtedly never meant for such by the author. A man whose lips are livid with anger does not jest, and does not understand jesting. Still, the Edinburgh Reviewer is right about the proper functions of the book, though wrong about the intentions of the author. The fact is, the man was maniacally in error, and always in error, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... Marcus, Lucius, and the like, in representation of the way in which they called to one another when they went out in such haste. In the next place, the maid-servants, gaily dressed, run about, playing and jesting upon all they meet, and amongst themselves, also, use a kind of skirmishing, to show they helped in the conflict against the Latins; and while eating and drinking, they sit shaded over with boughs of wild fig-tree, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... "A truce to jesting," he said; "excuse me, sir, I was only amusing myself by observing once more how quickly decent people, who have a little peccadillo on their conscience, are disturbed when they think they have been found ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... home who report to you about your household. Moreover, so far as my concerns go, there is absolutely nothing new. There are two kinds of letters left which please me very much: one, of the informal and jesting sort; the other, serious and weighty. I do not feel that it is unbecoming to adopt either of these styles. Am I to jest with you by letter? On my word I do not think that there is a citizen who can laugh in these days. Or shall I write something of a more serious ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... "the night when I handed you the rough sketch I had made of the scarabaeus. You recollect, also, that I became quite vexed at you for insisting that my drawing resembled a death's head. When you first made this assertion I thought you were jesting; but afterwards I called to mind the peculiar spots on the back of the insect, and admitted to myself that your remark had some little foundation in fact. Still, the sneer at my graphic powers irritated me—for I am considered a good artist—and, therefore, ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... the fifteenth volume of his works, the poet sends it to his friends Yuuan Chen1 and Li Chien, with a jesting poem.] ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... to see if he spoke in earnest. In spite of his jesting tone, he seemed to be serious, for he was pacing the floor, his head bent ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... it well: three times at least he shows his knowledge; once it is but flashed upon us and received with the laughter of Fouquet himself, in the jesting controversy in the gardens of Saint Mande; once it is touched on by Aramis in the forest of Senart; in the end, it is set before us clearly in one dignified speech of the triumphant Colbert. But in Fouquet, the waster, the lover of good ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... every day, no matter in what mood of merry jesting or practical modernity we set out, an hour of riding in the open air brings us back to the mystical charm of the Holy Land and beneath the spell of its memories and dreams. The wild hillsides, the flowers of the field, the shimmering olive-groves, the brown ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... Gunilla, "all that may be very good, but——" But just then the coffee came in, with biscuits and gingerbread, which made an important diversion in the entertainment, which now took a livelier character. Mrs. Gunilla imparted to Elise, with jesting seriousness, a variety of good counsel on the education of her children. She sent for and recommended particularly a certain Orbis Pictus, which she herself had studied when a child, and which began with the words, ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... was stiff and expressionless. He wanted to drink, to get rid of his forethought and afterthought, to set the moment free. But he could not. The suspense only tightened at his heart. The jesting and joviality and jolly, broad insinuation of the guests only coiled him more. He could not hear. That which was impending obsessed him, ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... brows the boldest eye goes down; Not more submissive Israel heard and saw At Sinai's foot the Giver of the Law. Less stern he seems, who sits in equal Mate On the twin throne and shares the empire's weight; Around his lips the subtle life that plays Steals quaintly forth in many a jesting phrase; A lightsome nature, not so hard to chafe, Pleasant when pleased; rough-handled, not so safe; Some tingling memories vaguely I recall, But to forgive him. God forgive ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... closely allied. ERASMUS acquaints us, that Sir THOMAS MORE had something ludicrous in his aspect, tending to a smile,—a feature which his portraits preserve; and that he was more inclined to pleasantry and jesting, than to the gravity of the chancellor. This circumstance he imputes to Sir Thomas More "being from a child so delighted with humour, that he seemed to be even born for it." And we know that he died as he had lived, with a jest on his lips. The hero, who came at ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... trouble. I was only jesting. But for God's sake do not look on me as a despot or a spy; it was mere curiosity. God be with you ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... upon rather a tender point. Might I ask how you know, and how much you know?' He spoke now in a half-jesting fashion, but a look of terror still lurked at ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... respect and marked the man who would not let himself be imposed upon or put out of countenance; his eyes twinkled at the slightest occasion with an expression of subtle roguishness, evidence of the general American inclination for jesting ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... delight in jesting on the most serious things, and who spare nothing, either sacred or profane. The histories of the Old and New Testament, the most sacred ceremonies of our religion, the lives of the most respectable saints, are not safe ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... exclaimed with a loud laugh. "My hand upon it Navarrete. I'll keep silence, but you! Don't gossip about that! Not on any account! The jesting blow might do the master harm. Excuse me for to-day; there is a great deal of writing to be done for ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... years to commemorate the introduction of measures to abolish the slave trade. It was derisively called Bobalition Day, and the orderly convention of black men was greeted with a fusillade of rotten fruit and eggs and much jesting abuse. It was at one of these Bobalition-Day celebrations that this complimentary toast was seriously given and recorded in honor of the newly elected governor: "Governor Brooks—May the mantelpiece of Caleb Strong fall on the ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... your letter, and I really don't know what to say to you. I should not even have answered you at all, if it had not been that I fancied that under your jesting remarks there really lies hid a feeling of some friendliness. Your letter made an unpleasant impression on me. In answer to your rigmarole, as you call it, let me too put to you one question: What ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... deputy is known to him only who knoweth all; but when a man hath so many showing friends, and so many unshowing enemies, who learneth his end here below? I say, do not you meddle in any sort, nor give your jesting too freely among those you know not; obey the lord deputy in all things, but give not your opinion; it may be heard in England. Though you obey, yet seem not to advise in any one point; your obeysance may be, and must be, construed well; but your counsel ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... held mine again. No, he was not jesting at my expense; rather he seemed waiting with anxiety for me to make some decision upon which much depended. He was in ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... grieve and astonish me! You surely must be jesting, in dishing up this long rigmarole, about Miss Houghton's accomplishments! After what I have told you, I cannot conceive how you can fail to understand, that I am not in a mood for jesting. As for the girl, I very much desire to meet her, that I may ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... know me so little as to apprehend my jesting in a serious sense? Know that two of those whom you saw on my right hand are spies of the Landgrave. Their visit to me, I question not, was purposely made to catch some such discoveries as you, my friends, would too surely have thrown in their way, but for my determined rattling. ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... medicines produce no effect on them, and all we can do is, like quacks, to increase the dose. Of course, if ten boxes of Morison's pills have killed a man, it only proves that—he ought to have taken twelve of them. We are jesting, but, as an Ulster Orangeman would say, "it ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... because they interpreted it as a mark of contempt for so illustrious a teacher. Thenceforth they secretly sought to influence him against me, and by their vile insinuations made me hated of him. It chanced, moreover, that one day, after the exposition of certain texts, we scholars were jesting among ourselves, and one of them, seeking to draw me out, asked me what I thought of the lectures on the Books of Scripture. I, who had as yet studied only the sciences, replied that following such lectures seemed to me most useful in so far as the salvation of the soul was ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard
... are talking about, Sally,' her husband replied good-humouredly, for he was a man of excellent temper, and a little given to jesting. 'But I suppose you thought it good for you last christmas, when ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... jesting now. Go back ... into my apartments. I'll lock the door (Samuel Richardson. Great writer) and come back to you (Leander Cross. Couldn't read a signboard. What use writing letters to him?) when I have handed (Mrs. Margarita Bays. They don't know she has moved to Indianapolis, ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... Dionysius asked him "which was the best kind of bronze," answered, "That of which the Athenians made statues of Harmodius and Aristogiton." For this unpleasant and bitter kind of language profits not those that use it, nor does scurrility and puerile jesting please, but such kind of speeches are indications of an incontinent tongue inspired by hate, and full of malignity and insolence, and those who use such language do but ruin themselves, recklessly dancing ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... "you are jesting, or you are jealous. You do yourself less, and me more, than justice; but the compliment is so great, that I am obliged to ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... exacted for a miss, the successful spinner claiming for his forfeit the favor of one of the women on the other side. Ume was merely a method of choosing partners by the master of ceremonies touching with a wand, called the maile, the couple selected for the forfeit, while he sang a jesting song. The sudden personal turn at the close of many of the oli may perhaps be accounted for by their composition for this game. The kaeke dance is that form of hula in which the beat is made on a kaekeeke instrument, a hollow bamboo cylinder ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... and obscure manner as to be out of the comprehension of those that heard it, and so equivocal as to fit almost any circumstance that might happen afterwards. It is conceiving very irreverently of the Almighty, to suppose he would deal in this jesting manner with mankind; yet all the things called prophecies in the book called the Bible ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... I knew you were jesting. Now, uncle, all that Kate and myself wish at present, is that you would oblige us—as regards the time—you know, uncle—in short, when will it be most convenient for yourself that the wedding ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... think you are jesting," said Belle; "but I can hardly entertain your offers; however, young man, I ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... jesting, Father Francis," she said, finding voice, which for a moment had failed ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... was summoned to be a member of the royal household, and was retained about the person of the queen, who condescended to acts of much familiarity, jesting, capping verses, and playing at the court games of the day with him, not a little, it is believed, to the chagrin of the haughty and unworthy favorite, Dudley, ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... men of Siloam was visited on them for sins not unlike those which seem to invite a similar judgment from offended Heaven upon our modern Siloams, and is no jesting matter. Nay, in view of the many recent terrible visitations which have fallen upon different parts of our country, many voices have already been raised proclaiming them as marks of Divine wrath against national sins, perpetrated ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... French throne. On the other hand, it is fair to suppose that in the dashing and attractive Count of Narbonne she was willing to keep away certain things which were unfamiliar and so alarming to her, such as the lighter graces, the jesting spirit of the old court, and doubtless too the melancholy presentiments attached, in her mind, to everything that recalled Versailles and the daughters of Louis XV., who had become the aunts of Marie Antoinette. ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... time was over, anyhow. But Lily was rather difficult those days. She seemed, in some vague way, resentful. Her mother found her, now and then, in a frowning, half-defiant mood. And once, when Mademoiselle had ventured some jesting remark about young Alston Denslow, she was stupefied to see the girl march out of the room, her chin high, not to be ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... 'Hudibras,' &c.,) say, that it seemed to him that he writ with the very same spirit that Shakspeare did, and was contented enough to be thought his son;" he adds that "his mother had a very light report." It was Pope who told Oldys the jesting story he had obtained from Betterton, of little Will running from school to meet Shakspeare, in one of his visits to Oxford, and being asked where he was running, by an old townsman, replied, to "see my godfather Shakspeare." "There's a good boy," ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... prosperous event, he proceeded in his impiety. When he landed at Peloponnesus, he went into the temple of Jupiter Olympius, and disrobed his statue of a golden mantle of great weight, an ornament which the tyrant Gelo[283] had given out of the spoils of the Carthaginians, and at the same time, in a jesting manner, he said "that a golden mantle was too heavy in summer and too cold in winter;" and then, throwing a woollen cloak over the statue, added, "This will serve for all seasons." At another time, he ordered the golden beard ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... laughed thinking that Bes was jesting according to his fashion. But when that night, chancing to go round the corner of the house, I came upon him with a circlet of feathers round his head and his big bow in his hand, addressing three great black ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... Cartesians had any desire to go to heaven, it was out of curiosity. "Talk to the Cardinal (de Retz) a little of your MACHINES; machines that love, machines that have a choice for some one, machines that are jealous, machines that fear. ALLEZ, ALLEZ, you are jesting! Descartes never intended to make us believe ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... to see his face, It had such a jesting look; But while I made up my mind to speak, A small case-bottle he took: Quoth he, "Though I gather the green water-cress, My drink is ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... words are a bad medium. The light jesting tone that saves a quip from offense can not be expressed; and remarks that if spoken would amuse, can but pique and even insult their subject. Without the interpretation of the voice, gaiety becomes levity, raillery becomes accusation. Moreover, ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... be that you are jesting," she said at last. "You, who are the most amiable person in the world,—it is not possible that you can have ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... am jesting you must have it as you please. But tell me all the same how you live, and how you ...
— Father Sergius • Leo Tolstoy
... God's death, my masters, you will find it ill jesting in this presence! What in the fiend's name! Think ye, Elizabeth of England may be tricked and cozened—made game of by a scurvy ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... laugh," said I, "but to have a mythical being out of Olympiodorus quartered on you for life is no jesting matter." ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... face, he warned me, if I correctly understood him, of more yet to come, and furthermore said, if ever I again dared introduce his name to print, in either my own or any other public journal, he would cut off my left ear (and I do not think he was jesting) and send me home to my family a visibly mutilated man, to be a standing warning to all low-lived puppies who seek to blackmail gentlemen and to injure their good names. And when he did so operate, he ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of Prussia because he knew that the latter was in the habit of jesting upon his mistress, and the kind of life he led. It was Frederick's fault, as I have heard it said, that the King was not his most steadfast ally and friend, as much as sovereigns can be towards each other; but ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 2 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... to the ladies' chambers, and that he had therefore put a cloth over the padlock of the door and sealed it. There was a stove in the room, and the maidens began to pack up their clothes there, an operation that lasted till eight o'clock; while Helen's friend stood there, talking and jesting with them, trying all the while to hide the files, and contriving to say to Helen: "Take care that we have a light." So she begged the old housekeeper to give her plenty of wax tapers, as she had many prayers to say. At last every one was gone to bed, and there only remained in the room ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... out into a hearty laugh. When she had finished laughing, she said, "Ah! I see you are like all men—a hypocrite and a jester. Much truth is in your jesting words. I am the sun of your life! Without me life would be worth nothing! Indeed, without me, you would be sacrificed to a snake!" She seated herself, and said, "Be not afraid: swear to me by the Prophet that you will take me for your wife, and you shall ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... that the man was a poseur, and that his affectations were the result of living in a small and admiring coterie. If, when one begins to write and talk in that jesting way, there is some one at your elbow to say, "How refreshing, how original, how rugged!" I suppose that one begins to think that one had better indulge oneself in such absurdities. But readers outside the circle turn away ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... into the night, men with coats over their arms and straw hats in their hands, young girls thinly clad in white, bare-headed, moving two and two with dragging steps and scarcely spirit left even for common coquetry or any response to the jesting oafs ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... led Reuben early abroad that day, but he made use of his time to undo as far as he was able the mischievous jesting of Frederick's ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... countryman—the man who had dared to champion their cause, and to tell the world the story of their miseries; the other was blithe of air, gay with the uniforms of officers and the bright dresses of Spanish ladies, the men jesting and laughing, the women shamelessly applauding with waving handkerchiefs and clapping palms, all alike triumphing openly in the death of the hated 'Indian,' the 'brother of the water-buffalo,' whose insolence ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... thought that Choulette was mocking. But he denied the charge, indignantly, and Miss Bell said that Madame Martin was wrong. It was a fault of the French, she said, to think that people were always jesting. ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... daily contact with him,—saw him in consultation with his Cabinet, at play with his children, receiving office-seekers of all kinds, granting many favors to poor and friendless people, snubbing Secession insolence, and bearing patiently much impertinence from every source,—jesting, laughing, lamenting. It is singular that, in all these aspects of his character, there is no want of true dignity, though there is an utter absence of state,—and that we behold nothing of the man Lincoln was once doubted to be, but only a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... which he talked so airily, that had all the honor of crowning him king of fate and poet of the world. Long after midnight, upon such and many other occasions, would he and his companions sit laughing and jesting and drinking, some saying witty things, and all of them foolish things and worse; inventing stories apropos of the foibles of friends, and relating anecdotes which grew more and more irreverent to God and women ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... frequent offence to grave and serious men, who don't think public affairs should be lightly handled, and are constantly falling into the error that when a person is arguing the most conclusively, by showing the gross and ludicrous absurdity of his adversary's reasoning, he is jesting, and not arguing; while the argument is, in reality, more close and stringent, the more he shows the opposite picture to be grossly ludicrous—that is, the more effective the wit becomes. But, though all this is perfectly true, it is equally ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... "I am so pleased, dear! And yet—yet, do you know, I wish that you had not done it. It has given me a shock. I shall never be quite sure whether you are jesting or serious. I shall never feel that I really ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... woman! this is no matter for jesting. No: though she used me ill, I would not believe her dead ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... surely our benevolent Creator would not have provided risibles, and made it a source of health and enjoyment to use them, if it were a sin so to do. There has been a tendency to asceticism, on this subject, which needs to be removed. Such commands as forbid foolish laughing and jesting, "which are not convenient" and which forbid all idle words and vain conversation, can not apply to any thing except what is foolish, vain, and useless. But jokes, laughter, and sports, when used in such a degree as tends only to promote health and happiness, are neither vain, foolish, ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... upon his bed, and closed his eyes. They had not been jesting altogether. So long a life in the open made summer skies at night welcome, and roofs and walls almost took from ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and the Virgin, and that there was at Rome a picture of the Transfiguration, painted by order of St. Peter. After the murder of Leo, his successor, Michael the Stammerer, showed no encouragement to either party. It was affirmed that he was given to profane jesting, was incredulous as to the resurrection of the dead, disbelieved the existence of the devil, was indifferent whether images were worshipped or not, and recommended the patriarch to bury the decrees of Constantinople and Nicea equally in oblivion. His successor and son, however, observed no such ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... his usual light jesting manner but very seriously. Hugh's lips parted,—Mrs. Rossitur looked with a sad thoughtful look at Fleda,—Mr. Rossitur walked up and down looking ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... fool! Why talk rubbish, lout that you are—a real peasant!" came rebukes from all sides addressed to the jesting soldier. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... matter for jesting, after all," said Frank; "but I saw Sir Thomas often, and I cannot believe he was in his senses, so frantic was his vanity and his ambition; and all the while, in private matters as honorable a gentleman as ever. ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... village gipsies who made bricks during the week and played on Sundays, were already there, leaning against one of the wooden pillars of the porch in front of the house, and tuning their fiddles. The lads crowded together, shouting jesting remarks to the group of girls, who answered them promptly and to the point. One after another the young men left their companions and took from the laughing bevy of maidens a partner, who, as village custom required, at first resisted, but finally yielded to the gentle ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... to have filled his office as preceptor with no servility to the capricious fancies of the princely boy. Desirous, however, of cherishing the generous spirit and playful humour of Henry, his tutor encouraged a freedom of jesting with him, which appears to have been carried at times to a degree of momentary irritability on the side of the tutor, by the keen humour of the boy. While the royal pupil held his master in equal reverence and affection, the gaiety of his temper sometimes twitched the equability or the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... too dubious to be entirely palatable to my feminine pride; but I was careful not to hint this to Miss Darrell, and she went on in the same light jesting way. ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Hosmer laughed at the jesting implication, whilst disclaiming it, and Fanny looked moodily at them both, jealously wondering at the cause ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... tot and said, tenderly: "Well, little one, you must run back to mamma. You're in bad company." The innocent eyes smiled into his own, and then—a foolish proceeding, which only bachelors are guilty of—he held her above the rail in jesting menace. "Shall I drop you over to the fishes, baby?" he asked, while his features softened to an unwonted smile. The child gave a little scream of fright, and at that instant a young woman appeared around the ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson |
