"Witty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... attire of some picturesque period when dress was an art as well as a fashion; and not only do they look their best, but they somehow manage to put on "manner" with costume, and to become courteous, witty, and graceful to a degree that sometimes causes their own relatives to wonder at them and speculate as to why they have grown so suddenly interesting. Few have read Sartor Resartus with either comprehension or profit, and are therefore ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... letters and in the notes which he added paid his friend many splendid tributes which show him to be a fair critic as well as an ardent admirer. "He had only to speak," he says, "in order to be recognized in the first minute for a witty and charming gentleman, and within the first five minutes for a master ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... matters stood, I resolved to let the captain alone for the future, particularly as he had shown himself so deficient in the ordinary breeding of a gentleman. And I could hardly credit it, that this was the same man who had been so very civil, and polite, and witty, when Mr. Jones and I ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... but why my muse, To rural pastimes so profuse? The crouded city surely yields, More joy than ice and snowy fields? Here folks are witty and well dress'd, And blooming beauty is caress'd In ev'ry form art can devise— } With soothing flattery solemn lies, } And all that nymphs deluded prize } Here fashions reign, and modes prevail, And in twelve moons again grow stale, Thus ever vary, ever change, Yet ever please—a thing ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... hurriedly and, not noticing Hiramani who sat in the shade, asked for a drink of water. Hiramani doubted not that he was Debendra Babu's son-in-law, Pulin by name, who had lately come to live with his wife's family. She introduced herself as a friend of his father-in-law's and, being very witty when she chose to exert herself, soon managed to make a favourable impression on the young man, He asked her to come again whenever she pleased, adding that he was ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... ultra-modern girl, gay, sparkling, witty, brilliant, temperamental; busily enjoying every minute of life; clad always in the most down-to-the-moment styles. He imagined her as popular, colorful, a wonderful companion for a happy, festive mood; a street that looked upon her companion streets as a debutante ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... life of the party. He felt so overjoyed because of the kind fate that had allowed him to be of considerable use to Bessie French, so that their old friendship was renewed, this time to remain, that he seemed to be fairly bubbling over with spirits. He made witty remarks about most of the food they had, and kept the others laughing from the beginning of the meal until it reached its conclusion, with the dishes well ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... introduced smallpox among the Mexican Indians. The other, who seems to have observed the fight between the men of the agent of Velasquez (Narvaez) from the safe and comfortable distance of a neighboring tree, has, because of some witty and flattering remarks which he made to Cortes, received the honor of a paragraph in the Decades ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... games seriously and played them well, and you couldn't point to him as one of those cautious persons who never by any chance drank even one cocktail too many. Indeed, he often became hilarious and witty, and added no end to the gayety of occasions, and was afterward privately reproached by Lucy. Coming from another, the hilarity and wit would have rejoiced her, but, coming from her nearest and dearest, her ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... times with Ada and Edith, and also with Frank himself. There had been the three girls who had called themselves "Beauty and the Beast" and the "Small young woman." The reader will understand that it had not been Ada who had chosen those names; but then Ada was not given to be witty. Her prettiness, such as it was, had sufficed, and Frank had loved her dearly. Then had come her great triumph, and she knew not only that she could sing, but that the world had recognised her singing. "I am a great woman, as women go," she had said to herself. ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... in fact!" cried Elizabeth, clapping her little hands. "How will Munnich curse himself for cruelty which now comes home to himself! That is very witty in you, Herr Lestocq; very laughable, is it not, Alexis? But, Alexis, you do not laugh at all; you look sad. What is the matter with you? Who has disobliged, who has ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... of any memorable scepticism published in a pointed or witty form; as Demosthenes avowed his suspicions "that the Oracle was Philippizing." This was about 344 years B.C. Exactly one hundred years earlier, in the 444th year B.C., or the locus of Pericles, Herodotus (then forty years old) is universally supposed to have read, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Mortemart's grief that life became unbearable to her. Beautiful, witty, and accomplished, she quitted the world where she was beloved, and, at the, age of seventeen, took ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... of the group, was the delight of them all. The carriage of a bantam rooster, the courage of a lion, more brain than he could stagger under; a disposition fiery, mercurial, sanguine, witty; he was made, according to Billy Fairfax's dictum, of "wire and brass tacks," and he possessed what Honey Smith (who himself had no mean gift in that direction) called "the gift of gab." He lived by writing magazine articles. ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... Francis may be very gallant and witty, nephew," cried the General, "but it is not polite to leave the card-table in ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... Paris, and a considerable intimacy arose between her and my mother, whose nature was especially calculated to sympathise with the good qualities which Lady Bulwer unquestionably possessed in a high degree. She was brilliant, witty, generous, kind, joyous, good-natured, and very handsome. But she was wholly governed by impulse and unreasoning prejudice; though good-natured, was not always good-humoured; was totally devoid of prudence or judgment, and absolutely incapable of estimating men aright. She used ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... had passed two years at Paris under the guardianship of Mesdames the daughters of His Most Christian Majesty, and who was the life and soul of the Court of X—-, the gayest of the gay, the idol of her august father-in-law, and, indeed, of the whole Court. She was not beautiful, but charming; not witty, but charming, too, in her conversation as in her person. She was extravagant beyond all measure; so false, that you could not trust her; but her very weaknesses were more winning than the virtues of other women, her selfishness more delightful than others' ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he made a fortune, with which he bought a villa at Twickenham. There he lived in the pale sunshine of literary success, and there he quarreled with every writer who failed to appreciate his verses, his jealousy overflowing at last in The Dunciad (Iliad of Dunces), a witty but venomous lampoon, in which he took revenge on ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... or thieves to make restitution. Probably this was the surest method of recovery, in the absence of the detective system. Joseph Tyler in the "Boston Gazette," Nov. 21, 1761, is inclined to be sarcastic, and Samuel Brazer, of Worcester, in 1802, is witty, but modest. As to stealing psalm-books, no one would dream of doing such a thing in these days. Our modern thieves are not interested in devotional books; ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... moment of his appearance upon the stage of public life, imagine what an impression such a phenomenon must have made upon a people so lost in profligacy and sensuality of all sorts. What wonder that the unprincipled though gifted Demades, the very personification of the witty and reckless libertinism of the age, should deride and scoff at this strange man, living as nobody else lived, thinking as nobody else thought; a prophet, crying from his solitude of great troubles at hand; the ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... contrarieties, turning at times the most serious subjects into ridicule, and moralizing upon the most ludicrous occurrences of life, never failing to conclude his observations with some quaint or witty sentiment to excite risibility; seeming at the same ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... into a wooden pail And sang a country ditty, An innocent fond lovers' tale, That was not wise nor witty, Pathetically rustical, Too pointless ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... plain—lank overgrown girls with long thin legs and overhanging mops of hair like deck-swabs. They were a favourite butt of my men, who chaffed them in the humorous Eastern manner, with remarks that were, I am afraid, more coarse than witty. Kachins are not virtuous. Their customs preclude such a possibility. No Japanese maiden is more innocent of ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... practice. His first novel, "Vivian Grey," appeared in 1826, and thereafter, whenever the business of politics left him leisure, he devoted it to fiction. "Contarini Fleming," "Coningsby," "Tancred," "Lothair," and "Endymion" are the most important of a brilliant and witty series, in which many prominent personages are represented and satirised under thin disguises. His endeavours to enter Parliament as a Radical failed twice in 1832; in 1835 he was unsuccessful again as a Tory. His first seat was for Maidstone in 1837; thereafter he represented Shrewsbury ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... my enterprising gentleman—[Indeed, Louisa, your brother is a bold youth]—snatched an unexpected embrace, with more eagerness than fear, and then fell on one knee, making such a piteous face for forgiveness, so whimsical, and indeed I may say witty, that it was impossible to be serious. However, I hurried away, ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... by the modern historian and traveller as lively, versatile, and witty. "The love of liberty and independence does not seem to be rooted out of the national character by centuries of subjugation. They love to command; but though they are loyal to a good government, they are apt readily to rise when their rights and liberties are infringed. ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... his race. His aid was also invoked as a Shadchan, though he forgot to take his commissions and lacked the restless zeal for the mating of mankind which animated Sugarman, the professional match-maker. In fine, he was a witty old fellow and everybody loved him. He and his wife spoke English with a strong foreign accent; in their more intimate causeries they ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... manifest in frequent expressions from talesmen such as: "I think the defence of insanity is played out," or "I believe everybody is a little insane, anyhow" (very popular and regarded by jurymen as witty), or "Well, I have an idea that when a fellow can't cook up any other defence he claims to ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... reproached by an Episcopal brother for being witty in the pulpit, he replied, "My dear brother in the Lord, do you mean to say that if God had given you any wit you wouldn't have used it?" Let Bishop South stand for the "blasphemer," and his dull brother for the orthodox jury, and you have the moral ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... these poems have been pronounced "without rivals in our language." In the new edition now published, Mrs. Dodge has made a careful revision of the work. Every child should have a copy of these witty ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... bleus!" was the cry from every quarter: and discipline not being the order of the moment for Legionnaires off duty, young soldiers and old soldiers gathered round, making such remarks as occurred to them, witty or ribald. Les bleus were ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... linen and fine raiment; from footgear to hair-oil their wares ranged. They enlivened their auctioneering with conjuring tricks and witty stories, selling watches by the aid of legerdemain, and fancy vests by ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... tall, high-coloured, rather mannish-looking girl, handsome in form, witty in speech, and disposed towards field sports of every kind. She disliked Sophy on sight, and Madame perceived it, and easily worked on the girl's worst feelings. Besides, Marion had no lover at the time, and she had come home with the idea ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... The Lotos Flower is a gem, and the North Sea Pictures shew the fine eye of a poet who, like Byron and Shelley, can create myths, his personifications as a whole are affected, and his personal feeling is forced upon Nature for the sake of a witty effect. ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... youth, nature, learning, witty companionship, Vaughan published his first verses—breathing a love of his art and its pleasures of imagination, paying his tribute to his paternal books in "Englishing," the "Tenth Satyre of Juvenal," and not ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... course, as graceful and elegant, as witty and seductive, as she could possibly manage to be; for here were all the ladies to outshine, and all the gentlemen to charm,—and Mr. Lawrence, especially, to capture and subdue. Her little arts to effect his subjugation ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... calibre of poetical work in point of musical and general execution could be given than the fact that Moore has always with them passed, and still passes, for an eminently melodious poet. What then remains? Chiefly this. In one class of writing, liveliness of witty banter, along with neatness; and, in the other and ostensibly more permanent class, elegance, also along with neatness. Reduce these qualities to one denomination, and we come to something that may be called "Propriety": a sufficiently disastrous "raw ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... most of the great, from the country, all the thrusters after gain, the vulgar, heavy-fingered intellects, the Progressive spouters, the Bileses, the speculating brigandage, and shall give us back from the foggy world of clubs and cab-ranks and geniuses, the poets and painters, all the nice and witty and pretty people, to make towns such as this, conserved and purified, into country-side Athenses; to form distinct schools of letters and art, individual growths, not that universal Cockney mind, smoke-ingrained, stage-ridden, convention-throttled, ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... said the Spider, "You're witty and you're wise; How handsome are your gauzy wings How brilliant ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... most times useless item of cavalry equipment clanking at his heels, the lieutenant gazed with some astonishment upon the attire of his brother-officers there assembled, but found himself the butt of much good-natured and not over-witty "chaff," directed partially at the extreme newness and neatness of his dark-blue flannel scouting-shirt and high-top boots, but more especially at the glittering sabre swinging ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... know not by what destiny) Englishmen are most inferior to most of all other nations: for where they set their delight and bend themselves with an honest strife of matching others to turn into their mother tongue not only the witty writings of other languages but also of all philosophers, and all sciences both Greek and Latin, our men ween it sufficient to have a perfect knowledge to no other end but to profit themselves and (as it were) after much pains in breaking up a gap bestow no less to close it up again." To ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... on Jean de Reszke, his brother douard, and on Lassalle, found all the artistic bliss of which they were capable in listening to their combined voices in "Faust." So popular had Gounod's opera become at this time with the patrons of the Metropolitan Opera House, that my witty colleague, Mr. W. J. Henderson, sarcastically dubbed it "das Faustspielhaus," in parody of the popular title of the theater on the ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Senior class. Among the editors of 1840-41, were J. E. Hood and James O. Adams, both of whom have since gained honorable distinction in a wider field of editorial labor. A few months ago, I received as a present from B. P. Shillaber, the witty and genial author of the 'Life and Sayings of Mrs. Partington,' and other humorous works, a volume of 'The Dartmouth,' which he received from Mr. Hood. It was handsomely bound, and labelled 'Brains' on the back. Mr. Shillaber says of it in a letter, dated July 4, ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... The Hethertons had returned and would remain till after the fifteenth, and since they had come the rector found it even pleasanter calling there than it had been before, with only his bride-elect to entertain him. Sure of Dr. Bellamy, Fanny had laid aside her sharpness, and was exceedingly witty and brilliant, while, now that it was settled, the colonel was too thoroughly a gentleman to be otherwise than gracious to his future nephew; and Mrs. Hetherton was always polite and lady-like, so that the rector looked forward with a good deal of interest to the evenings he ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... relations to so many of the foremost men of his day and his long study in public archives and private libraries bore fruit in this work, which takes rank among the few great, enduring historical treatises of the world. Throughout, it is vigorous and witty, but at the same time profound; everywhere it bears evidences of truthfulness and is pervaded by sobriety of judgment. Its pictures of the efforts or threats by representatives of various great powers to break away from the papacy and establish national ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... of the valorous and witty-knight-errant, Don-Quixote, of the Mancha. Translated out of the Spanish; now newly corrected and amended. London, by Richard Hodkinsonne, for Andrew ...
— The Library of William Congreve • John C. Hodges
... Dr. Lelius to her aid, and she, the German, and Daphne, kept up a sparring conversation, in which Mrs. Barnes, driven on by a secret wrath, showed herself rather noisier than Englishwomen generally are. She was a little impertinent, the Duchess thought, decidedly aggressive, and not witty enough to carry ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Venetian comedies, and in many which he wrote in Italian, appear the standard associates of Facanapa,—Arlecchino, il Dottore. Pantalon dei Bisognosi, and Brighella. The reader is at first puzzled by their constant recurrence, but never weary of Goldoni's witty management of them. They are the chief persons of the obsolete commedia a braccio, and have their nationality and peculiarities marked by immemorial attribution. Pantalon is a Venetian merchant, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... Sunday evening gatherings at their home in New York, where the choice spirits of the literary world held converse after the manner of their kind, as at the assemblies in the Paris salons of the 18th century. In this company Mr. Greeley was at his best, animated, witty and charmingly affable. He realized, only too well, that his best was wasted in the strife which was his daily portion and which ended in the disastrous defeat that cost him his life. The flashes of aroused egotism that sometimes blazed out in red-hot words, were only signs of impatience ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... an hour after their Sunday-noon dinner. She had been to church; had confessed indeterminate sins to a formless and unresponsive deity. She felt righteous, and showed it. Phil caught the cue. He sacrificed all the witty things he was prepared to say about Mrs. Gray's dumplings; he gazed silently out of the window till she wondered what he was thinking about, then he stumblingly began to review a sermon which he said he had heard the previous Sunday—though he must have been mistaken, as he shot several games ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... who are born good just as others are born witty. What I mean is his nature. No simpler, more scrupulously delicate soul had ever lived in such a—a—comfortable envelope. How we used to laugh at Davidson's fine scruples! In short, he's thoroughly humane, and I don't imagine there can be much of any other ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... amusing, being a brilliant talker (for I heard Jack say so) and very witty (for he is constantly laughing at the things she says, and which for the most part ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... pounds to Dekker, Chettle and Haughton for their "Pleasant comodie of Patient Grissil," printed in 1603, reprinted by the Shakespeare Society, 1841. The English authors drew several hints from the French play, but theirs is the best written on the subject (parts of Julia, the witty sister of the Marquis, of Laureo, the poor student, brother of Griselda, as proud ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... at all, although Mr. Sims executed his very best jokes. Maimie was nervous and visibly distressed, and at the earliest possible moment broke up the supper party and engaged in conversation with the lieutenant and his witty friend, leaving Harry and Kate to entertain Ranald. But in spite of all they could do a solemn silence would now and then overtake the company, till at length Maimie grew desperate, and turning to Ranald, said: "What are you thinking of? You are ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... yourself, but with my own brush. But what am I saying? What prospect of leisure have I, especially as I remain at Rome in accordance with his request? But I will see. For perhaps, as usual, my love for you will overcome all difficulties. For my having sent Trebatius to him he even thanks me in very witty and polite terms, remarking that there was no one in the whole number of his staff who knew how to draw up a recognizance. I have asked him for a tribuneship for M. Curtius—since Domitius (the consul) would have thought that he was being laughed at, if my petition had been addressed to him, for ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... musician, intelligent, witty, refined, and received (as a Cadignan) by the Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, that oracle of the noble faubourg, loved by her rivals the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse her cousin, the Marquise d'Espard, and Madame de Macumer,—Madame Firmiani gratified all the vanities which feed or excite love. She was ...
— Madame Firmiani • Honore de Balzac
... "Witty above her sex, but that's not all, Wise to Salvation was good Mistress Hall, Something of Shakespeare was in that, but this Wholly of him with whom she's now in blisse. Then, passenger, hast nere a tear To weep with her that wept with all ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... discovered upon some shores; or golden sands are seen when the waters run low. In others bare rocks, slime, or reptiles. May I never be at low tide with a bore! Despising the Bagatelle, there is the serious regular conversation bore, who listens to himself, talks from notes, and is witty by rule. All rules for conversation were no doubt invented by bores, and if followed would make all men and women bores, either in straining to be witty, or striving to be easy. There is no more certain method, even for him who may possess the talent in the ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... Buttons and Dick were in a remarkably central part of Naples. The landlord was a true Neapolitan; a handsome, gay, witty, noisy, lively, rascally, covetous, ungrateful, deceitful, cunning, good-hearted old scoundrel, who took advantage of his guests in a thousand ways, and never spoke to them without trying to humbug them. He was the father of a pretty daughter who had all her parent's nature somewhat toned down, ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... she was,—that she looked like a child whose favorite toy had been broken, that she was so pretty that he would have liked to kiss her hands in his devotion, and as she seemed to be witty, and very amusing, and as, moreover, he had no objection to such visits being prolonged, when papers had to be looked over, while sitting close together,—Maitre Garrulier appeared to be considering. Taking his chin in his ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... that Mr. Sowerby might marry her. It was not surmised that Miss Dunstable herself had had any previous notice of this arrangement, but it was supposed that the thing would turn out as a matter of course. Mr. Sowerby had no money, but then he was witty, clever, good-looking, and a member of Parliament. He lived before the world, represented an old family, and had an old place. How could Miss Dunstable possibly do better? She was not so young now, and it was time that she should look about her. ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... for the first time very equally, in the level light of the sun at morning. For what he saw was England of the Renascence; England passing from the mediaeval to the modern. Thus he looked forth, and saw many things and said many things; they were all worthy and many witty; but he noted one thing which is at once a horrible fancy and a homely and practical fact. He who looked over that landscape said: "Sheep are ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... less important than the discipline of your faculties, you may, of course, do so, but even here as little as possible. In beautiful drawing of any facility it has a weakening effect, somewhat similar to that produced by a person stopping in the middle of a witty or brilliant remark to correct a word. If a wrong line is made, it is left in by the side of the right one in the drawing of many of the masters. But the great aim of the draughtsman should be to train himself to draw cleanly and ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... the after-piece; but neither the spirit and perfection of the acting, nor the pretty face and plump shoulders of Elmire, nor the soubrette's dimpled arms, nor the ingenue's innocent eyes, nor the noble, witty lines that filled the theatre and roused the audience to fresh attention, could stir his spirit that hung entranced on the ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... side-ache, the train kept getting under her feet, and she was in constant fear lest her earrings should fly off and get lost or broken. She was flirting her fan and laughing at the feeble jokes of a young gentleman who tried to be witty, when she suddenly stopped laughing and looked confused, for just opposite, she saw Laurie. He was staring at her with undisguised surprise, and disapproval also, she thought, for though he bowed and smiled, yet something in his honest eyes made her blush and wish she had ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... "Let's stop being witty. I still haven't a clue as to how Sheridan Hennessey expects me to get to these Galactic Confederation people—or things, or whatever ...
— Combat • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... dinner, especially after Rhone wine, his favourite weakness. He would then remark on the warmth of his feeling for Anastasie, and with inflamed cheeks and a loose, flustered smile, debate upon all sorts of topics, and be feebly and indiscreetly witty. But the adopted stable-boy would not permit himself to entertain a doubt that savoured of ingratitude. It is quite true that a man may be a second father to you, and yet take too much to drink; but the best natures are ever slow to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... difference, methinks, between the cases—have thy way though. I have confidence in thee, Prudence, and believe thee as witty as pretty. Thy own goodness and love for the soldier Joy shall stand by thee like guardian angels, to save from harm. Yet like I not this tampering with anything that looks ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... as he rose to accompany her. Brother Jonah felt himself capable of much more stinging wit than this, but he reflected that there was no use in offending the new proprietor of Stone Court, until you were certain that he was quite without intentions of hospitality towards witty men whose name he was ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... a catcher at words?' said I. 'I thought that catching at words had been confined to the pot-house farmers and village witty bodies.' ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... lad—a mere stripling, Picked up in the field almost dead, With the blood through his sunny hair rippling From the horrible gash in the head. They say he was first in the action: Gay-hearted, quick-headed, and witty: He fought till he dropped with exhaustion At the gates ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... dexterity of plot, glancing play at witty talk, characters really human and humanly real, spirit and gladness, freshness and quick movement. 'Half a Rogue' is as brisk as a horseback ride on a glorious morning. It is as varied as an April day. It is as charming as two ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... seventy-nine, she is spry and jaunty and witty and good humored. Her house is as clean as a pin, and her yard ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... inconsistencies which have since received their ample and memorable punishment, cease to produce any effect on readers of the present day, except to call forth a passing feeling of repugnance at what is shallow and profane, mixed, it may be, sometimes, with an equally passing admiration for what is witty and brilliant. Even in M. Renan's view, Voltaire has done his work, and is out of date. Those who now attack Christianity have to attack it under the disadvantage of the preliminary admission that its essential and distinguishing elements are, on the whole, in harmony and not ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... I have read since I came here. Hear and wonder! I have in the first place read Boccacio's Decameron, a tale of a hundred cantos. He is a wonderful writer. Whether he tells in humorous or familiar strains the follies of the silly Calandrino, or the witty pranks of Buffalmacco and Bruno, or sings ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... of Greece and the Archipelago are again revenans of a new kind. We can hardly persuade ourselves that a nation so witty as the Greeks could fall into so extraordinary an opinion. Ignorance or prejudice, must be extreme among them since neither an ecclesiastic nor any other writer ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... turned away at the last evening session and there was scarcely standing room within the church. A witty and vivacious speech by Mrs. Helen M. Gougar (Ind.) was the first number on the program. Mrs. Julia B. Nelson (Minn.) followed in an original dialect poem, Hans Dunderkopf's Views of Equality. Mrs. Sewall showed the Absurdity of ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... language is well, and no doubt very witty, Sir Thomas; but, believe me, in the end you will find this matter anything but a farce. Now, sir, I crave your attention to a proposal which I am about to make to you on this most distressing subject. Restore this young man to his mother—use whatever means you ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Aunt Esther, for so our saint was known, were of a bright-faced, cheerful, witty, quick-moving little middle-aged person, who came into our house like a good fairy whenever there was a call of sickness or trouble. If an accident happened in the great roistering family of eight or ten children, (and when was not something happening ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... sense of humor and a generous heart, and the smile of amusement on his face told the Gothic chief that he was fully forgiven for his shrewd stratagem. Admiration was stronger than mortification in the Moslem's heart. He praised Theodomir for his witty and successful expedient, and for the three days that he remained at Orihuela banquets and fetes marked his stay, he occupying the position of a guest rather than an enemy. No injury was done to people ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... whom we have already introduced with the object of enlightening Henri de Valois respecting the doubt he had entertained with regard to Sylla—Francois de Joyeuse, young and worldly-minded, handsome and witty, was one of the most remarkable men of the period. Ambitious by nature, but circumspect by calculation and position, Francois de Joyeuse could assume as his device, "Nothing is too much," and justify ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... Congreve,—and defiled the stage. The Pilgrim's Progress of Bunyan (1628-88) is written in a plain, unaffected style, and is the most popular work of that age. In sharp contrast with Bunyan is Butler's Hudibras, a witty satire, in doggerel verse, upon Puritanism. The principal writer, prior to Queen Anne, is Dryden (1631-1700). We have passed now from the Romantic school of poetry, in which Shakspeare is the most exalted name, to ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... reading, the choice of name might have been judicious. A "concealed poet" of high social standing, with a strange fancy for rewriting the plays of contemporary playwrights, might obtain the manuscript copies from their owners, the Lord Chamberlain's Company, through that knowledgeable, witty, and venal member of the company, Will Shakspere. He might then rewrite and improve them, more or less, as it was his whim to do. The actor might make fair copies in his own hand, give them to his company, and say that the improved works were from his own pen and genius. The lie might ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... witty you are. 'Faith, if you knew your duty as well as your arithmetic, it would be betther for ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... lovely and witty. I'll tell Mrs. Andrews that. Well, and then Mrs. Burns has the B booth, and she sells beads and books and baskets and ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... and some don't care for her at all. It depends a good deal on yourself. She likes the ones who work, but she can be dreadfully sarcastic if she thinks you're stupid or lazy. She's fearfully clever, and says such witty things sometimes. Half-a-dozen of the girls absolutely worship her, but she's very fair, and won't have favourites. I like her better than ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... his Duchess, his second wife, by whom he had no issue. Her name was Margaret Lucas, youngest sister to the Lord Lucas of Colchester, a noble family, for all the brothers were valiant, and all the sisters virtuous. This Duchess was a wise, witty, and learned Lady, which her many books do well testify: She was a most virtuous, and loving, and careful wife, and was with her Lord all the time of his banishment and miseries; and when they came home never parted with him in his ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... profound calm. The uniform and steady pull of the crew, directed in their time by the wild chaunt of the steersman, with whom they ever and anon join in fall chorus—the measured plash of the oars into the calm surface of the water—the joyous laugh and rude, but witty, jest of the more youthful and buoyant of the soldiery, from whom, at such moments, although in presence of their officers, the trammels of restraint are partially removed—all these, added to the inspiriting sight of their gay scarlet uniforms, ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... ("Seckendorf's meal," and what other commissariat there may be): a difficult march, to Amberg Country and the top of the Ober-Pfalz. After which are Mountain-passes; Bohemian Forest: and the Event—? "Cannot be dubious!" thinks France, whatever Maillebois think. Witty Paris, loving its timely joke, calls him Army of Redemption, "L'ARMEE DES MATHURINS,"—a kind of Priests, whose business is commonly in Barbary, about Christian bondage:—how sprightly! And yet the enthusiasm was great: young Princes of the Blood longing to be off as volunteers, needing ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... single-handed, with easy gallantry, to encounter and overthrow the charge of three giants of the North combined against him. I believe I am right in saying that, in the progress of the controversy, the most scientific, the most critical, and the most witty, of that literary company, all of them now, as he himself, removed from this visible scene, Professor Playfair, Lord Jeffrey, and the Rev. Sydney Smith, threw together their several efforts into one article of their Review, in order ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... animals might also be blood relations—that is to say, descended from common ancestors—and now he tells us that the ass and horse are in all probability descended from common ancestors. Will a reader of any literary experience hold that so laborious, and yet so witty a writer, and one so studious of artistic effect, could ignore the broad lines he had laid down for himself, or forget how what he had said would bear on subsequent passages, and subsequent passages on it? A less painstaking author than Buffon may yet be trusted to remember his own work well ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... make to you, so small it will not fit on to any of my larger headings. Do not make fun of your friend's little mishaps, little stupidities, losing her luggage, having said the wrong thing, or having a black on her face when she especially wished to look well! Your remark may be witty, but it does not really amuse the victim. I know it is very good for people to be chaffed, and I do not wish them to lose this wholesome bracing. And yet we have a special clinging to some tactful friends who ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... Duras, but at Jones's request it was changed to the Bonhomme Richard. This was in compliment to Franklin, who was often called "Poor Richard" by his admiring countrymen, because for many years he had published "Poor Richard's Almanac," filled with wise and witty sayings. ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... their fortunes, however unequal to their merit; others satisfying themselves with the honour of having access to great tables, and of being subject to the call of every man of quality, who upon occasion wants one to say witty things for the diversion of the company. This treatment never moves my indignation so much, as when it is practised by a person, who though he owes his own rise purely to the reputation of his parts, yet ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... witty Neapolitan, who had so many good friends in the philosophic circle, anticipated the well-known phrase of a writer of our own day. "The author of the System of Nature," he said, "is the Abbe Terrai of metaphysics: ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... that idea that was passing through my own mind. Men and women are anxious to give you the best they have, but it is in order that you may admire their wealth or their taste; and they strive to be witty, amusing, and sarcastic! but that, again, is for the eclat they are to gain. How few really struggle to make those ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... no sense of humour, and I'm sure I hope that Colonel Boucher will thoroughly understand that she has none before he speaks the fatal words. But then he has none either, and I have often noticed that two people without any sense of humour find each other most witty and amusing. A sense of humour, I expect, is not a very common gift; Miss Bracely has none at all, for I do not call romping humour. As for poor Daisy, what can rival her solemnity in sitting night after night round a table with someone who may or ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... is brilliant; she was called the handsomest woman in Washington—dashing, you know, and sarcastic and witty. Ruth, do you believe a ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 6. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... deserted by the fair, will ere long glitter with the brilliant throng, and our sidewalks be swept once more by the gracefully flowing silk. Taper fingers shall condescendingly be extended to us, the smile of beauty beam on us, and witty speech banish our resentful ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... the meantime Michael Angelo prosecuted his studies, showing the result of his labours to the Magnificent each day. In the same house lived Poliziano, a man, as every one knows, and as is testified by his works, most learned and witty. This man recognising the lofty spirit of Michael Angelo loved him exceedingly, and little as he needed it, spurred him on in his studies, always explaining things to him and giving him subjects. One day, amongst others, he suggested ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... great full sentences, so that each one was like the stanza of a narrative ballad. He let me talk, now and then, enough to free my lungs and change my position, so that I did not get tired. That evening he talked of the present state of things in England, giving light, witty sketches of the men of the day, fanatics and others, and some sweet, homely stories he told of things he had known of the Scotch peasantry. Of you he spoke with hearty kindness; and he told with beautiful feeling a story of some poor farmer ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... stage of Ralph Roister Doister and tragedy at that of The Misfortunes of Arthur, they transformed and refined both, lifting them to higher levels of humour and passion, gracing them with many witty inventions, and, above all, pouring into the pallid arteries of drama the rich vitalizing blood of a new poetry. The seven men were Lyly, Greene, Peele, Nash, Lodge, Kyd and Marlowe—named not in chronological sequence but in ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... you, the man who has overcome wicked inclinations is not the best. He has more merit to himself: I would rather trust my money to a man who has no hands, and so a physical impossibility to steal, than to a man of the most honest principles. There is a witty satirical story of Foote. He had a small bust of Garrick placed upon his bureau, "You may be surprized (said he) that I allow him to be so near my gold;—but you will ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... Guido—Raphael—neither stints To raise him to the empyreal, Whilst he is sketching his ideal. He sketches, utters, "That will do: Be pleased, my lord, to come and view." "I thought my mouth a little wider." "My lord, my lord, you me deride, ah!" "Such was my nose when I was young." "My lord, you have a witty tongue." "Ah well, ah well! you artists flatter." "That were, my lord, no easy matter." "Ah well, ah well! you artists see best." "My lord, I only (aside) earn ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... nerves suffered a little; but the young ladies loved him all the better for being witty and wicked; and thought if they could only marry him, how they ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... decrees were sufficiently ridiculous for the amusement not only of his court but of all mankind. The jester was commonly called a fool, but the poets and romancers have ever delighted to represent him as a singularly wise and witty person. In the circus of to-day the melancholy ghost of the court fool effects the dejection of humbler audiences with the same jests wherewith in life he gloomed the marble hall, panged the patrician sense of humor and tapped the tank ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... mighty sober, and the younger and more susceptible of my auditors covered their faces with their hands and seemed to shake with grief and contrition. But, pshaw, pshaw; people don't go to hear either witty agnostics lecture, or preachers preach, to get something for their brain-boxes to reason about. Believe me "—tapping the volume, still in his hand—"this sort of thing won't make anybody reason. After all, the question is one of swapping off Christ ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... delusion of conspiracy against him—also a complacent conviction of the mental instability of others. Yet, at intervals he remained clever and witty ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... for to cry What you lack? But that were not so witty: His cap and coat are enough to note, That he is the Love ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... visited Connie. Carol would have offered it harborage long before. Carol's mind worked best along that very line. It came to Connie slowly, but she gave it royal welcome. Back to her remembrance flashed the thousand witty sallies of Carol and Lark, the hundreds of times she had suffered at their hands. And for the first time in her life, she saw a clear way of getting even. And a millionaire's son! Never was such a revenge fairly crying to ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... grace beginning to speak, said, "Noble damsels, like as in the lucid nights the stars are the ornament of the sky and as in Spring-time the flowers of the green meadows, even so are commendable manners and pleasing discourse adorned by witty sallies, which latter, for that they are brief, are yet more beseeming to women than to men, inasmuch as much and long speech, whenas it may be dispensed with, is straitlier forbidden unto women than to men, albeit nowadays there are few or no women left who understand a ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... brother wits, Addison and Steele. It was strange how many common sayings of to-day were his in origin such as, "There is none so blind as they that won't see," and, "A penny for your thoughts." Like many witty people, he must needs have his little joke. He was made Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin, in 1713, and was accustomed to preach there each Sunday afternoon, and was said to have preached on the same subject on sixteen consecutive occasions. On making his seventeenth appearance he asked ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... heavy—or eye-lids, if the reader should be a critic. He had brought a book from his daughter's book-case. He remembered the volume—it was called A Book of a Thousand Stories—as the one his daughter Mary read aloud one evening, when the witty turns of speech put all the company into the best of humor. But, somehow, the wit had now lost its point—the joke had lost its zest—and let him try as he would to collect his scattered thoughts, and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... and professions were embraced in his comprehensive regard. He spared no toil to make France a happy land. He was a man of genius and of instinctive magnanimity. In conversation he had no rival. His profound and witty sayings which have been transmitted to us are sufficient to form a volume. His one great and almost only fault sadly tarnishes his otherwise ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... planet. Do you remember that story of Plato's—I recall the air-woven subtilties of the delightful idealist, to illustrate, not to prove—that story of the banquet where the ripe wines of the Aegean Isles unchained the tongues of such talkers as Pausanias and Socrates and others as witty and wise, until they fell into a discourse on the origin of Love, and, whirling away on the sparkling eddies of fancy, were borne to that prexistent sphere which, in Plato's opinion, furnished the key to all the enigmas of this? There they beheld the complete and original ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... recite to thee songs and verses and tell thee tales and anecdotes." Replied the Caliph, "My soul inclineth not to aught of this;" and Masrur rejoined, "O my lord, bid pretty boys and the wits and the cup-companions attend thee and solace thee with witty sallies." "O Masrur," ejaculated the Caliph, "indeed my soul inclineth not to aught of this." "Then, O my lord," cried Masrur, "strike off my head;"—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... my conversation were not as instructive as you had hoped, I could at least try to make it amusing—light, gay, witty! I trust you will not ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... and patience that the images and statues in the temples are produced. Among them were some very intelligent faces, somewhat abruties, to use a French word, owing to the life they lead, but exceedingly bright and cheery withal, and often very witty, when one came to talk with them. As for shrewdness and quickness of perception I know no person who has these better at his command than the Corean ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... him; but it is on his own hopes and affections only that he seems to trample, for in social life no human being can be more gentle, patient, and unassuming than Maddalo. He is cheerful, frank, and witty. His more serious conversation is a sort of intoxication. He has travelled much; and there is an inexpressible charm in his relation of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... lightning through the night—how strangely sound and sweet they sleep! (They say the French Voltaire in his time designated the grand opera and a ship of war the most signal illustrations of the growth of humanity's and art's advance beyond primitive barbarism. Perhaps if the witty philosopher were here these days, and went in the same car with perfect bedding and feed from New York to San Francisco, he would shift his type and sample to one ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... knowledge as well as playful life into her conversation. Johnson's regard for the Thrales was very real, and it was heartily returned, though Mrs. Thrale had, like her friend, some weaknesses, in common with most people who feed lions and wish to pass for wits among the witty. ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... alone and listened to the rain against the windows, and smoked until his cigar went out. The mere turning of things over in his mind, and tacking witty labels to them, afforded so much amusement that inactivity and ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... chaps with the trick of saying witty things as if he didn't see the fun in them himself," The Rat summed him up. "Chaps like that are always cleverer than the ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... unfortunate, in consequence of mismanagement by those to whom the getting up of these affairs were committed. These occurrences tended to lower both Chartists and Protectionists in public estimation, as various witty publications lampooned the prominent actors, and exposed them to overwhelming ridicule. The most signal opportunity afforded to the wits in this way was by the Chartists. On the 25th of October they announced ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... to begin again from the beginning? That would be a sure way to make an end of this. For if lovers only find one another, they lose one another! What is love? Say something witty, each one ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... twenty years, and some odd and extravagant expressions which Mr. Choate may have permitted himself to use in the courtroom to divert a sullen juror,—such turns of speech as he certainly never thought were witty, though they raised the desired laugh at the time,—to which he resorted only as a necessary, but to himself unpalatable part of the business of carrying the verdict, and which he of all men would desire to have forgotten,—make up pretty much the sum of Mr. Parker's illustrations ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... things we hear, and use them. Do you see the young person in black and white with the red-nosed man—the one who looks as if he were smelling a rose? Well, she's in our company, and she's very popular at these parties because she's so witty. As a matter of fact, she memorizes the jokes in all the funny papers and springs them as her own. Her men friends say she's too original to ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... her romance into a chair; and she thought of Quimby's warning about the "soiled invisible," and barely suppressed a groan. Involuntarily she stole a glance at this too-visible person, and shuddered. Could she reconcile "C," her visionary, interesting, witty and gentlemanly "C" of the wire, with this musk-scented being of greasy red hair, cheap jewelry and ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... theory and practice, promise and performance," writes another authority. While yet another points out that "Humor is feeling—feelings can always bear repetition, while wit, being intellectual, suffers by repetition." The truth of this is evident when we remember that we repeat a witty saying that we may enjoy the effect on others, while we retell a humorous story largely for our own ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... a large company to dinner, and Aesop was ordered to furnish the choicest dainties that money could procure. The first course consisted of tongues, cooked in different ways and served with appropriate sauces. This gave rise to much mirth and many witty remarks by the guests. The second course was also nothing but tongues, and so with the third and fourth. This seemed to go beyond a joke, and Xanthus demanded in an angry manner of Aesop, "Did I not tell you to provide the choicest dainties ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... boredom. Bored and cross, hardly ever speaking to the person with them, their friends drove up and down every afternoon, and she and Susie did the same, as silent and as bored as any of them. A few unusually beautiful, or unusually witty, or unusually young persons appeared to find life pleasant and looked happy, but they avoided Susie. Her set was made up of the dull and plain; and all the amusing people, and all the interesting people, turned their backs with one ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... clients); belonging properly to no party or—which was much the same—to the party of material interests, which was dominant in the courts and was pleased with the eloquent pleader and the courtly and witty companion. He had connections enough in the capital and the country towns to have a chance alongside of the candidates proposed by the democracy; and as the nobility, although with reluctance, and the Pompeians voted for him, he was elected by ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... worthy manufacturer complained of the length of the four-pound bread-loaves, the height of the houses, the indifference of the passengers in the streets to one another, the cold, the rain, the cost of hackney-coaches, all of which and much else he bemoaned in so witty a manner that the two artists took a mighty fancy to cousin Gazonal, and made him relate his lawsuit from ...
— Unconscious Comedians • Honore de Balzac
... Eric, was golden, and she was white as the snow on Hecla; but her eyes were large and dark, and black lashes drooped above them. For the rest she was tall and strong and comely, merry of face, yet tender, and the most witty of women. ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... Dr. Fell"), who finished the building of Tom Quad in 1665; and then a quiet studious-looking man, a fellow or senior student of the College, who has nothing in his appearance to call attention. But this is Burton, by some accounted a morose person, but by those who knew him intimately a cheery and witty companion. Here, too, with slow and faltering step comes Pusey in extreme old age, and Liddon of ascetic mien. Hark to the laughter! It is Stubbs—historian Bishop—with witty saying falling from ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How
... Godefroid de Beaudenord was respected by his tradespeople, for they were paid with tolerable regularity. The witty woman before quoted—I cannot give her name, for she is still living, thanks to her ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... winter, at night, amidst storms, and through isolation. The table no longer responded by a few words merely, but by sentences and pages. It was usually grave and magisterial, but at times it would be witty and even comical. Sometimes it had an access of choler. More than once I was insolently reproved for speaking to it irreverently, and I confess to not feeling at ease until I had obtained forgiveness. The table made certain exactions. It chose ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... at her thoughtfully. "Could you love such a man as he?" he asked, gravely. "He is young, he is brave, he is witty; he might well ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... times Our knowledge petrifies our rhymes; Ah! for that reckless fire men had When it was witty ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... said merrily and laughingly, but there were times when Huldah could scarcely make up her mind whether Rebecca was trying to be witty, or whether she was jealous; but she generally decided it was merely the latter feeling, rather natural in a girl ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... begin with on a white cloth, and then does a little crochet-work with a collar of some sort, and so with all manner of maidenly tasks. Barbro is not put out by their visit, and all the better; they can talk naturally, and Eleseus can be all on the surface again, young and witty as ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... of Eros"[26] is frenzied fiction again; amnesia, drunkenness, white slavery, sex, are its mingled themes. There is a pretty picture, recognizable in any smart community, of a witty woman of fashion, and a full-length portrait of a bounder. "The Yellow Fay," Saltus's cliche for the Demon Rum, was the original title of this "Fifth Avenue Incident." Romance and Realism consort lovingly ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... London.[313] Pitt resolved to take up the gauntlet flung down by these two powerful Societies. On 24th February 1794 Eaton, a publisher of Newgate Street, was tried for publishing in his periodical pamphlet, "Politics for the People: or Hogs-wash," a little parable with which that witty lecturer, Thelwall, had delighted a debating society. He told how a gamecock, resplendent with ermine-spotted breast, and crown or cockscomb, lorded it greedily over all the fowls of the farmyard.[314] The parallel to George III was sufficiently close ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... (London)—"While affording the easiest of reading, nevertheless touches deep issues deeply and fine issues finely. Not only thinks himself, but makes you think ... wise and witty.... Whether dealing with death and immortality, or riches and Socialism, he always contrives to be pungent and interesting and yet urbane, for there is no attempt either at flashy cynicism or cheap epigram.... We advise our readers to read ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... situations these trees grow to good forest size, even beyond the middle latitudes of Labrador. In latitude 53 deg. a resident told me that trees were found eighteen inches in diameter. This statement was derided when I told it on board, and the witty Judge kept the table in a roar for half an hour with pleasantries about it. But at Hopedale, two and a half degrees farther north, we learned that sticks of timber fifty feet in length were often brought to the station; while one had found its way there which was fifty-six feet long ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... said that, it would sound witty. Why can't you say it wittily? What on earth is the matter with you? Why don't you inspire everybody ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... stage at which he arrives at his mental conclusion as to the "preponderance" of the evidence. Jests and light conversation are out of place when the judge is performing his functions in the courtroom of the mind. An amusing remark or a witty quip at this juncture would suggest that the scales of decision in the salesman's own mind were somewhat unbalanced. Your attitude when you are weighing "Yes" and "No" before the prospect should be pleasant, but ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... "Joe" got awfully chaffed about her by all of his brother officers of the wardroom whose rank permitted them to take such a liberty with him; and, though we could take no share in their personal amenities, we youngsters grinned our approval of the various witty remarks and rejoinders that passed to and fro on our way back aboard the following day—the ball having lasted till long after daybreak the next morning, and Simon's Bay being all astir, with plenty of "Simons," black and white, astir ashore and afloat, as we rowed out to the ship, ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... think that Homer, as we know that Pope, was merely an ingenious fabulist; nay, more than this, that all the nations of past time were ingenious fabulists also, to whom the universe was a lyrical drama, and by whom whatsoever was said about it was merely a witty allegory, or a graceful lie, of which the entire upshot and consummation was a pretty statue in the middle of the court, or at the end of ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... which is the outlet of Lake Tahoe, and runs about northeast in the direction of the Piute reservation, along the course to be followed by us. I mention this fact only in order to bring into the story the terse and witty report of the agent, said to have been made about his discoveries regarding the mill. He said: "He found a dam by a mill site, but he didn't find any mill by ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... are witty, do not talk nonsense over-much. Remember that it is the "little nonsense now and then" that is "relished by the best of men." It is perilously easy to weary people with the "smart" style of talk. But let your cheerful sense, grave or gay, be ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... the light of classic taste and portable gas over the sawdust of the circus; but the whole character of the place was the same, the pieces were the same, the clown's jokes were the same, the riding-masters were equally grand, the comic performers equally witty, the tragedians equally hoarse, and the 'highly-trained chargers' equally spirited. Astley's has altered for the better—we have changed for the worse. Our histrionic taste is gone, and with shame we confess, that we are far more delighted ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... was trained to be a soldier; and until he was sixty years old the man belonged to the State absolutely. And all those years he ate his black broth at a public mess, seasoned only with fatigue and hunger. A witty Athenian said he did not wonder the Spartans were brave in battle, for death was preferable to ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 25, April 29, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... in literature as Mr. Cumberland. I admire his abilities and attainments. I have read his Observer, particularly the papers relating to Greek comedy, with the highest pleasure; but I think it a disgrace to him to have carried his admiration and fondness for that witty profligate Aristophanes to such a length as to attempt to raise his character on the ruins of the brightest ornament of the Heathen world, the wise and virtuous Socrates. As to his account in his "Memoirs" of ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... help you, pity you, mock or amuse you, and back of it all was the honesty and truth of a womanhood capable of courageous conduct, and despising all forms of meanness. That she was variously regarded was natural. Margaret Shippen said she cared only for dress and the men; and the witty Miss Franks, seeing further, but not all, said that Darthea Peniston was an actress of the minute, who believed her every role to be real. My wise aunt declared that she was several women, and that she did not always keep some of them in order. It was ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... people at Windyhill, had offered his bride anything to compare with the diamonds which her father had given to her mother before she was born. And Elinor was quite aware of the truth of what her mother said. But she would have liked to make a retort—to say something smart and piquant and witty in return. ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant |
