"Wit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my good "voice," they were driven in my way. I had happened to make a statement, than which, so far as I have ever been able to see, nothing can be more modest or inoffensive; to wit, that I am convinced of my own utter ignorance about a great number of things, respecting which the great majority of my neighbours (not only those of adult years, but children repeating their catechisms) affirm themselves to possess full information. I ask any candid and impartial ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... others know is hearsay, but Phil can swear to it. I cannot believe he will rest while Phil lives. He can bring sixty or eighty ruffians down on us, and I doubt if we can put thirty against them. What does your wit suggest?" ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... paternal estate, and a living to boot, once dined in Warwickshire, in company with several squires and parsons of that enlightened county. Asterisk, as usual, made himself extraordinarily agreeable at dinner, and delighted all present with his learning and wit. "Who is that monstrous pleasant fellow?" said one of the squires. "Don't you know?" replied another. "It's Asterisk, the author of so-and-so, and a famous contributor to such and such a magazine." "Good heavens!" said the squire, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... appointed ambassador to France, he first invested all his ready money, $15,000, in the continental loan, a practical proof of his patriotism, since its repayment was extremely improbable. His influence at the French court was unbounded. He was revered for his wit, his genius, his dignity, and his charming conversation. He became to the American cause in the old world what Washington was in the new. On his return he was elected president of Pennsylvania for three successive years. He gave the whole of his ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... felt, was the way to London, through the grim, alluring seethe of the town. On the other hand was the evening, mellow over the green water-meadows and the winding alder trees beside the river, and the pale stretches of stubble beyond. There the evening glowed softly, and even a pee-wit was flapping in ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... difficult to say whether the wit or the mystery disgusted Trevelyan the most. He had felt that he was defiling himself with dirt when he first went to Mr. Bozzle. He knew that he was having recourse to means that were base and low,—which could ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... said the other; 'the theme or the example?' And they both laughed, though I did not seize the point of the wit. ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... appearance of knowingness is on their side, of naivete and gullibility on his. Yet, in the inarticulate heart of him, he clings to it that he is not a dupe, and that there is a realm in which (as Emerson says) all their wit and intellectual superiority is no better than the cunning of a fox. Moral scepticism can no more be refuted or proved by logic than intellectual scepticism can. When we stick to it that there is truth (be it of either kind), we do so with ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... it?" said Whistling Dick, with tentative familiarity; "you wit yer little Gherman-band nixcumrous chunes. Watcher know about music? Pick yer ears, and listen agin. Here's de way I ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... book the reader may get that ability in judgement, which above all should be cultivated, the editor thought it worth while to prefix to the anthology an exposition of the norms of judgement used in selecting the epigrams. He drew these norms not merely from his own wit or from the authorities of Antiquity, but from the conversation of learned men experienced in civilized life. Hence the reader will find here their judgements, not the editor's, and will, if he is unbiased, perceive how ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... what they desired. They stopped work and rolled on the ground in their laughter. They were stimulated to the highest flights of wit. ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... the dry season of 1903 — the dryest for years in Bontoc — there was water in at least a fourth of this little garden. There is evidently a very small. but perpetual spring within the plat. Taro now occupies the garden and is weeded and gathered by Na-wit', an old man chosen by the old men of the pueblo for this office. Na-wit' maintains and the Igorot believe that the vegetable springs up without planting. As the watering of fil-lang' is through the special dispensation of Lu-ma'-wig, so the taro left by ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... at the speaker in horror. He had reason to know that Dick was reckless, but this dare-devil despair apalled him. Yet he had wit enough to attempt no remonstrance, so he gulped ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... back in prehistoric days, was the first dog with the wit to know his master's sheep apart from all other sheep. Perhaps that is the best, if least scientific, ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune
... afraid to open her soft little heart to him, and show him innocently all its goodness, and ignorance of worldliness. She warmed and brightened under his kindly influence, and was often surprised in secret at her own simple readiness of wit and speech. ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... a turnip on my shoulders, let me stick to th' fallow," he said to his exasperated mother. He had too low an opinion of himself. But he went about at his work on the farm gladly enough, glad of the active labour and the smell of the land again, having youth and vigour and humour, and a comic wit, having the will and the power to forget his own shortcomings, finding himself violent with occasional rages, but usually on good terms with ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... them. That had only been his suspicion—groundless after his swift glance at her. Perhaps unconsciousness of his meaning, a simulated innocence, and ignorance might serve her with this strange man. She resolved to try it, to use all her woman's intuition and wit and cunning. Here was an educated man who was a criminal—an outcast. Deep within him might be memories of a different life. They might be stirred. Joan decided in that swift instant that, if she ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... was considered to be the most brilliant of my pupils, taking a Double First under my auspices and leaving Oxford with flying colors when I retired myself a year or two ago. He has been very lucky since, he is full of ambitions in the political line, and he has a fearless and rather caustic wit." ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... from by-gone ages. In my mouth the words are melting, From my lips the tones are gliding, From my tongue they wish to hasten; When my willing teeth are parted, When my ready mouth is opened, Songs of ancient wit and wisdom Hasten from me not unwilling. Golden friend, and dearest brother, Brother dear of mine in childhood, Come and sing with me the stories, Come and chant with me the legends, Legends of the times forgotten, Since we now are here together, Come together from our roamings. ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... the reality of it all. It seemed like some fairy tale or book story come true. Again, it seemed more like a stage, and these the actors, she and Billy having blundered into the scene in some incomprehensible way. Much of wit she sensed which she did not understand. Much she did understand. And she was aware that brains were playing as she had never seen brains play before. The puritan streak in her training was astonished and shocked by some of the broadness; but she refused ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... as every body says, corrected by Dryden. It is the most entire piece of mirth, a complete farce from one end to the other, that certainly was ever writ. I never laughed so in all my life. I laughed till my head [ached] all the evening and night with the laughing; and at very good wit therein, not fooling. The house full, and in all things of mighty content to me. Thence to the New Exchange with my wife, where, at my bookseller's, I saw "The History of the Royall Society," which, I believe, is a fine ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... know thy secret—thou lovest above thy station: if thou hast wit, courage, and discretion, I can secure to thee the realization of thy most sanguine hopes; and the sole condition I ask in return is, that thou shalt be steadfast to thine own ends. I shall demand from thee a solemn oath to marry her whom thou lovest; to bear her to thine home on ...
— The Lady of Lyons - or Love and Pride • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... for but few years,—adding that it was far different for Gilbert, who, he supposed, would very soon be a Dean with a Cathedral of his own, and would forget his humble friend the old Vicar. But Gilbert put the wit aside, and talked earnestly with the Vicar about the end of life and what might be hereafter. But the old Vicar said solemnly that he knew not, and indeed cared little. But that he would go into the dark like a child holding a loving hand, and would ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... toward caricature. Such productions may please some distinguished and intelligent natures which cannot have been highly favored in the distribution of the delicacies of sentiment and the exquisite graces of wit. In a word, the art indulging in this class of manifestations acts according to the mode simpliste. I borrow this term from Charles Fourier, and I say once for all, that by it I mean not the entire, but the almost exclusive predominance of one or the other of the modalities ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... of the woods! thou motley fool! Who shall thy gay buffoonery describe? Thine ever-ready notes of ridicule Pursue thy fellows still with jest and gibe. Wit—sophist—songster—Yorick of thy tribe, Thou sportive satirist of Nature's school, To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe, Arch scoffer, and mad Abbot of Misrule! For such thou art by day—but all night long ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... customs and peculiarities and ethics were also touched upon in a manner suited to the requirements and capacity of the reader; medical and hygienic advice were given for man and beast, ending with the quaint warning to use before and after taking that unfashionable medicine, prayer. Wit, history, romance, poetry, all contributed to the almanac. The printer turned an extra penny by advertising various articles that he had for sale, from negro slaves to garden seeds. So, in addition to what the original readers ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... of fashionable life and surrounded by the amusements and bustle of the metropolis of New England, for you to exclaim, "How lonely I am!" is unpardonable, or at most admits of but one excuse, to wit, that you can plead the feelings of the youth who exclaimed, "Gods annihilate both time and space and make ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... that faith is dead withouten workis, So for to worken give me wit and grace! That I be quit from thence that most dark is; O thou that art so fair and full of grace, Be thou mine advocate in that high place, There, as withouten end is sung Hozanne, Thou Christes mother, daughter dear ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... questions of the day, and planned literary sketches, afterwards published in the Nova Scotian. Among those who thus gathered round him, such men as S. G. W. Archibald, Beamish Murdoch, and Jotham Blanchard are now only remembered by students of Nova Scotian history. Even the Irish wit and humour of Laurence O'Connor Doyle gives him but a local immortality. But the names of Thomas C. Haliburton (Sam Slick) and Captain John Kincaid of the Rifle Brigade are known even to superficial students of English literature, ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... to sit to any one, could not withstand this dynamic little stranger. He did not sue: he invited; he did not invite: he commanded. He was twenty-one years old. He wore spectacles that flashed more than any other pair ever seen. He was a wit. He was brimful of ideas. He knew Whistler. He knew Edmond de Goncourt. He knew every one in Paris. He knew them all by heart. He was Paris in Oxford. It was whispered that, so soon as he had polished off his ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... settled down. She is very busy with the lawyer, and makes him explain each and every angle he draws in his plans. Quite right of her, too, for undeniably the lawyer is the right man for her, a wit and a sportsman, well-to-do, rather simple-minded, strong-necked. At first Mrs. Molie seemed unable to reconcile herself to the constant companionship of these two in the living room, and she frequently had some errand that took her ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... exhibited with more force than eloquence his loyalty to the crown, and a conservatism which was branded by the liberals as mediaeval. But his originality, his boldness, his fearlessness, his rugged earnestness, his wit and humor, his biting sarcasm, his fertility of resources, his knowledge of men and affairs, and his devoted patriotism, marked him ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... said Rupert. "There's a way out of every difficulty if one has the wit to find it. Keep cool, my dear girl! If you let yourself go, you will ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... tranquillity." A good definition so far as it goes. But Wordsworth could see only one side of the shield. He was notoriously so deficient in the faculty of humor, that even Sydney Smith was unintelligible to him. Few specimens of what can be called wit can be found in his writings. He could not see that there is a poetry of wit as well as of sentiment,—of the intellect as well as of the emotions. No wonder he could not enjoy Pope, and had little relish for Horace. And yet how ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... shall be managed in groups and series as far as is practicable, and shall consist of three primary series, to wit: Agricultural, Mechanical and Domestic Industry. The chief of each group to be elected weekly, and the chief of each series once in two months by the members thereof, subject to the approval of the ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... in a state of greater purity than a subsequent recension, which subsequent recension was anterior to our present Gospels, and being older was purer, because nearer to the fountain-head of knowledge: but this older and purer form is characterized by a more pronounced supernatural element—to wit, the 'fire' in Jordan and the 'light'—so that, the older and purer the tradition, the more supernatural is ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... I am testing an idea, that is all. You must be guided by your own wit and judgment, in which I have the utmost confidence. Don't waste your time or fascinations on the wrong people. Find out if among the French or Belgian flying officers, who from time to time visit London, there are any whose connections and movements ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... again refer the Government of Her Majesty, the Queen of Great Britain, to the London Convention of 1884, concluded between this Republic and the United Kingdom, which in Article XIV. guarantees certain specified rights to the white inhabitants of this Republic, to wit:— ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... opinion I then formed of D'Arcy as a talker was not of much account. But since then I have seen very much of men, and I find that I was right in the view I then took of his conversational powers. When his spirits were at their highest he was without an equal as a wit, without an equal as a humourist. He had more than even Cyril Aylwin's quickness of repartee, and it was of an incomparably rarer quality. To define it would be, of course, impossible, but I might perhaps call it poetic ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... that battle of tongues La Boulaye was covering himself with glory and doing credit to his patron, the Incorruptible. He was of a rhetoric not inferior to Vergniaud's—that most eloquent Girondon—and of a quickness of wit and honesty of aim unrivalled in the whole body of the Convention, and with these gifts he harassed to no little purpose those smooth-tongued legislators of the Gironde, whom Dumouriez called the Jesuits of the Revolution. His popularity with the men ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... monk lay on his back in the bed, wit his head propped rather highly on a hard straw bolster; and the extreme attenuation of his body was indicated by the very slight degree in which the clothes that covered him were raised above the love of the bedstead. On the coverlet upon ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... they have spoken wisely. He knows the sparkle of the true stone, and puts it in high place, wherever he finds it. Such is the happy position of Homer,[550] perhaps; of Chaucer,[551] of Saadi.[552] They felt that all wit was their wit. And they are librarians and historiographers, as well as poets. Each romancer was heir and dispenser of all the hundred tales of ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the churches merely as works of art. He understood the mechanism of human society, and never offended too much against the current prejudices, for the executioners had more power than he; but he bent the social laws to his will with the grace and wit that are so well displayed in his scene with M. Dimanche. He was, in short, the embodiment of Moliere's Don Juan, Goethe's Faust, Byron's Manfred, and Maturin's Melmoth—grand pictures drawn by the greatest geniuses of Europe, and to which neither the harmonies ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... company, to no less a person than the famous Englishman Walter Mapes, or Map, the author of De Nugis Curialium, the reputed author (v. chap. i.) of divers ingenious Latin poems, friend of Becket, Archdeacon of Oxford, churchman, statesman, and wit. No valid reason whatever has yet been shown for questioning this attribution, especially considering the number, antiquity, and strength of the documents by which it is attested. Map's date (1137-96) is the right one; his abilities were equal to any literary ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... out—up to a certain point—as smoothly as ever it had done in his dreams. The only hitch which he had feared—to wit, the non-appearance of Sidney Mercer, did not occur. It would spoil the scene a little, he had felt, if Sidney Mercer did not present himself to play the role of foil; but he need have had no fears on this point. Sidney had the gift, not uncommon ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... "You nit-wit!" she snapped. "You can't bury me out here. I want to go back to New York, where there's a little life. I'm bored with you and ...
— The Worlds of If • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... as joy, dross pass for gold, Vulgarity can masquerade as wit, Or spite wear friendship's garments; but I hold That passionate feeling has no counterfeit. Chief jewel from Jove's crown 'twas sent men, lent For inspiration ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... installation was directed by the 1st of January. This has entailed upon the Post Office Department a great deal of very heavy labor, but the Postmaster General informs me that on the date selected, to wit, the 1st of January, near at hand, the department will be in readiness to meet successfully the requirements ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... cry of grief was raised at the evil omen. But the ready wit of William failed him not. "By the splendour of God," he cried, "I have taken seizin of my kingdom; the earth of England is in my hands." The whole army landed in order, but only one day was spent at Pevensey. On the next day the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... passages, the teaching seem. to be, that the body of the full-grown spiritual man is radiant or luminous,-for those at least, who have anointed their eyes wit! eye-salve, so ...
— The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston
... Muller's house and asked him to let me have a room, at the same time giving him what remained of my capital, namely twenty francs. I quickly discovered that my old friend was embarrassed by my perfectly open confidence in him, and that he was at his wit's end to know what to do with me. I soon gave up the large room containing a grand piano, which he had allotted to me on the impulse of the moment, and retired to a modest little bedroom. The meals were my great trial, not because I was fastidious, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... dozen verses from them. Marillac boldly defended the cause of contemporary literature, which he considered as a personal matter, and poured out a profusion of sarcastic remarks in which there was more wit than good taste. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... character, that I hope no one will attempt to claim any merit from this negative sort of goodness, or value herself merely for not being the very worst thing she possibly can be. Let no mistaken girl fancy she gives a proof of her wit by her want of piety, or that a contempt of things serious and sacred will exalt her understanding, or raise her character even in the opinion of the most avowed male infidels. For one may venture ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... deckhand jobs were ever open to Neils, yet, for some reason best known to himself, he preferred to stick by the Maggie. In his dull way it is probable that he was fascinated by the agile intelligence of Mr. Gibney, the vitriolic tongue of Captain Scraggs, and the elephantine wit and grizzly bear courage of Mr. McGuffey. At any rate, he delighted in hearing them snarl ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... it would not have been very easy to find anything more perfect than these extemporised representations of Nicolo Musso; they overflowed with wit, humour, and genius, and lashed the follies of the day with an unsparing scourge. The audience were quite carried away by the incomparable characterisation which distinguished all the actors, but particularly by the inimitable mimicry ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... I went and dined at Lady Lucy's, where you know I have not been this long time. They are plaguy Whigs, especially the sister Armstrong, the most insupportable of all women, pretending to wit, without any taste. She was running down the last Examiner,(6) the prettiest I had read, with a character of the present Ministry.—I left them at five, and came home. But I forgot to tell you, that this morning my cousin Dryden Leach, ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... and simpered, like a man pleased equally with his own wit and with that he had excited in others, and the discourse changed; though, throughout the night, as indeed was the fact on all other occasions during his visit, the Signor Grimaldi received from him so marked and particular attentions, as to create a strong sentiment in favor ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... declared me a heathen, fit only for the stake. Their blind zeal did not let them see that my comparison between the old and the new was merely to prove that a goodly number of our grandmothers had more blood in their veins, far more humor and wit, and certainly a greater amount of naturalness, kind-heartedness, and simplicity, than the majority of our emancipated professional women who fill the colleges, halls of learning, and various offices. This does not mean a wish to return to the past, nor does it condemn woman ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... had learnt to rue, Noting how to occasion's height he rose, How his quaint wit made home-truth seem more true, How, iron-like, his temper ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... must not be at all a cynical thing—as soon as it becomes cynical, it loses all its natural grace; it is an essentially tender-hearted quality, apt to find excuse, ready to condone, eager to forgive. The possessor of it can never be ridiculous, or heavy, or superior. Wit, of course, is a very small province of humour: wit is to humour what lightning is to the electric fluid—a vivid, bright, crackling symptom of it in certain conditions; but a man may be deeply and essentially humorous, and never ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... toward reducing them to a condition of servility." The right of a man of color that, in the selection of jurors to pass upon his life, liberty, and property, there shall be no exclusion of his race and no discrimination against them because of color, was asserted in a number of cases, to wit: Virginia v. Rives,[48] Neal v. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... evening passed, I shall not stop to relate: suffice it to say, that a more brilliant feast of wit and jollification, not even the North Cork ever enjoyed. Father Luke's drollest stories, his very quaintest humour shone forth, and the Abbe sang a new "Chanson a Boire," ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... 'Democracy' and never has the old woman been at a heavier discount since 1793. I see no discredit to the founders of the American constitution in the main fact of the rupture. On the contrary it was a great achievement to strike off by the will and wit of man a constitution for two millions of men scattered along a seaboard, which has lasted until they have become more than thirty millions and have covered a whole continent. But the freaks, pranks, and follies, not ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... enthusiasts in the provincial literary chambers, compounded of the effusions of your Voltaires and Jean-Jacques and such dirty-fingered scribblers. You have not among all your philosophers one with the wit to understand that we are an order consecrated by antiquity, that for our rights and privileges we have behind us the ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... seen him or heard him spoken of, or I should not have encouraged myself with this hope. At my first glimpse of his tall, gaunt figure, hard features, and brisk impatient movements, I knew that my wit and equanimity would be put to their full test ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... year Lady Fanny's diaries begin), the Duke of Wellington resigned, having emphatically declared that the system of representation ought to possess, and did possess, the entire confidence of the country. He had gone so far as to say that the wit of man could not have devised a better representative system than that which Lord John Russell, in the previous session, had attempted to alter by proposing to enfranchise Manchester, Leeds, and Birmingham. But the election which ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... fold; His ancestry of kin was to Lier,* *Liar For first he maketh promise for to hold His lady's counsel, and it not unfold; — Wherefore, the secret when he doth unshit,* *disclose Then lieth he, that all the world may wit.* *know ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... that intelligence devoted to Brahman, is the lower Arani; the preceptor is the upper Arani; penances and conversance wit tithe scriptures are to cause the attrition. From this is ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... looked, a many King Davids had found excuse for loving one Bathsheba. Then the inner light which had so informed every feature sought again its shrine, and Mistress Damaris Sedley, who was of a nature admirably poised and a wit most ready, lifted with the latest French shrug the jest from her own shoulders to those of another: "Oh, madam! was it you who spoke? Surely I thought it was your dead starling that you taught to call you by that name—but ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... vornehmlichkeit. Their imagination lacks style, training, education, and knowledge of the world; it has an ill-bred air even in its Sunday dress. The race is poetical and intelligent, but common and ill-mannered. Pliancy and gentleness, manners, wit, vivacity, taste, dignity, and charm, are ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... intensely alive. She, of course, was a native not of Park Lane but of Chelsea; and the people who had frequented her home there were of a different sort. They had had, mostly, a different kind of brain, a kind more restless and troublesome and untidy, and a different type of wit, more pungent and ironic, less well-fed and hilarious, and they were less well-dressed and agreeable to look at, and had (perhaps) higher thoughts (though how shall one measure height?) and ate (certainly) plainer food, ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... of mornings, Jimmy maintaining that everybody had a cold bath every morning, whereas John insisted with equal heat that nobody ever bathed ("washed," I think he called it), oftener than once a week, to wit, on Saturdays only. They engaged in a pillow fight to settle it, and as Jimmy had John fairly well smothered by his rapid fire, I voted that the ayes appeared to have it when they ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... spite of his phiz, and that shows her tact in getting on well with the dignitaries, Jeanie Mac Dougal, and you're a woman and must praise the wit of the sex. She has seen much. She has been obliged to do as the others do. But good wool is ne'er the waur for the finish of it! My faith is in her from what I know of the worth o' her in the old days. And now that she has seen, she can understand better. ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... the fox or by the dog, quickly takes to hole. Hence, perhaps, the wit of the fox that a hunter told me about. The story was all written upon the snow. A mink was hunting a rabbit, and the fox, happening along, evidently took in the situation at a glance. He secreted himself behind a tree or a rock, and, as the rabbit came along, ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... its effect. He acquired a vocabulary. That is to say, instead of the few hundred words which were all the other boys knew by which to express their thoughts, he soon had twice as many; besides that, he soon got a reputation as a wit and story-teller, and his command of words made him fond of speechmaking. He resembled most boys in liking to "show off." He had learned, too, that there were comforts in the world which he need never look for in his father's house, ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... ingenious had she been, so subtle was her woman's wit, that she had never admitted to me any knowledge of him further than a formal introduction I had once made ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... Justice. Is not your voice broken, your wind short, your chin double, your wit single, and every part about you blasted with antiquity, and will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... Lowe writes to Bathurst:—"The enclosed extract of a letter from Count Montholon may merit, as usual, your lordship's perusal." (This, of course, is intended as wit.) "It may be regarded as a bulletin of General Bonaparte's health, meant ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... staple of Roman diet. She never lost her childish relish for boiled pork and cabbage, for bacon, for ham, hot or cold. She was by no means a glutton, ate deliberately and daintily, and while she ate, joined in the general conversation or even led it. She had a quick wit and a sharp tongue and her sallies were acclaimed. She was sought after as a guest not merely because she was a Vestal, but for herself, for her gaiety ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... followed, bashful and out of countenance, not knowing what to say, happiness had so dulled his wit. To see Adelaide, to hear the rustle of her skirt, after longing for a whole morning to be near her, after starting up a hundred time—"I will go down now"—and not to have gone; this was to him life so rich that such sensations, too greatly ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... a curious microcosm and full of contrasts. A mixture of unabashed blackguardism and cloistered prudery; of double-beds and primness; of humbug and frankness; of liberty and restraint; of lust and license; of brutal horse-play passing for "wit," and of candour marching with cant. The working classes scarcely called their souls their own; women and children mercilessly exploited by smug profiteers; the "Song of the Shirt"; Gradgrind and Boanerges ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... would darken his eyes to the very pictures of his own hearth? Were such a thing possible, were it even real, it would still be liable to the just objection of the critics—that, being marvelous in appearance, even as a fact it ought not to be brought forward for any purpose of wit, but only as a truth of physiology, or as a fact in the records of a surgeon. The 'incredulus odi' is too strong in such cases, and it adheres to three out of every four French anecdotes. The French taste ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... courage to wade through its muddy paragraphs he doubtless emerged vowing never to read Saltus. Besides only the novels are touched on. In 1903 G. F. Monkshood and George Gamble arranged a compilation from Saltus's work which they entitled "Wit and Wisdom from Edgar Saltus" (Greening and Co., London). The work is done without sense or sensitiveness and the prefatory essay is without salt or flavour of any sort. An anonymous writer in "Current ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... read in MS. by Elizabeth Barrett, and pronounced upon with the frank yet critical delight of her nature. In the abstruse symbolic title, too,—implying, as Browning expected his readers to discover, "sound and sense" or "music and discoursing,"—her wit had divined a more felicitous application to ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... with a soft voice and a slight Scotch accent, and wit; and a knowledge of things which were little known in the wilderness. Buddy never dreamed then how strangely culture was mixed with pure savagery in his life. To him the secret regret that he had not dared ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... both by the magic of retrospect and her own genius for admiration. London, Freshwater, Paris, Rome—these are the settings of her memories; and we see them all by a light that (perhaps) never was on land or sea, in whose radiance beauty and wit and genius move wonderfully to a perpetual music. In truth, however, these eminent Victorians of Lady RITCHIE'S circle must have been a rare company; I have no space for even a catalogue of them—Mrs. CAMERON, with her vague magnificence, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... buffoonery, his coarseness of speech, his pedantry, his contemptible cowardice. Under this ridiculous exterior, however, lay a man of much natural ability, a ripe scholar with a considerable fund of shrewdness, of mother wit and ready repartee."[2] ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... wit and eloquence, he could not contrive to make of the grand-daughter of Henry the Seventh, a Pericles, or an Alexander, or a Ptolemy, or an Augustus, or an encourager of anything that did not appear to be directly connected ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... "you make too much of it; but still, I say, I am capped. Firstly, that she did not love you; and secondly, that you did not love her. You are both young; you are both handsome; you are both well enough for wit and even for temper—take you on the right side. What ailed you ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... the Lady Hesther Stanhope [2] at Athens, and do not admire "that dangerous thing a female wit." She told me (take her own words) that she had given you a good set-down at Malta, in some disputation about the Navy; from this, of course, I readily inferred the contrary, or in the words of an acquaintance of ours, that "you had ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... to manage tings," grinned blackie. "Come, I take fifteen dollars, and you see I true man. Honour bright among teves, you know; you trust me and I trust you—he! he! he!" and blackie grinned at his own wit. ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... lower class of inhabitants, towards their own families, and towards themselves, if they should delay any longer to lay open their interests to your noble and grand Lordships, in a manner the most respectful, but the most energetic; to wit, that the United States of America have very rigorously forbidden, by a resolution of Congress, agreed to in all the Thirteen States, the importation of all English manufactures, and in general, all the merchandizes fabricated in the dominions which yet remain to ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... the Jews. Afterwards another man appeared, remarkable both for his age and majesty, and of great beauty about him, concerning whom Onias replied: "This is a love of the brethren and of the people Israel, who prayeth much for the people and for the Holy city—to wit, Jeremiah the prophet." 2 Macc. 15:12-14. Besides, we know from the Holy Scriptures that the angels pray for us. Why, then, would we deny this of the saints? "O Lord of hosts," said the angels, "how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the ...
— The Confutatio Pontificia • Anonymous
... what we are going to, the comfort and safety of the Princess Irene may require you to communicate with me. You have ready wit for such emergencies. Leave me ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... pseudonym of "Uncle Scribble," contributed to the pages of the Sporting Magazine an admirable series of photographs—to adopt a modern word—of hunting and hunting men, as remarkable for dry wit and common sense, as a thorough knowledge of sport. But "Uncle Scribble," as the head of a most successful Boarding School, ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... write a sonnet and sing it, he did not esteem his castle to be at the mercy of the "editor" of a manuscript. He might indeed owe his life to the fidelity of a minstrel, or be guided in his policy by the wit of a clown; but he was not the slave of sensual music, or vulgar literature, and never allowed his Saturday reviewer to appear at table without ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... once of novelty and recollection. From my nursery days, the names of Peter, Catharine, and their marvellous city, rang in the ears of all Paris. Romance had taken refuge at the pole; Voltaire, Buffon, D'Alembert—all the wit, and all the philosophy of France—satirized the French court under the disguise of Russian panegyric; and St Petersburg was to us the modern Babylon—a something compounded of the wildness of a Scythian desert, and the lustre ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... sure tidings of the war, and then ride to join me with the conqueror. Cry not on cowardice; it is but wisdom, Dick; for this poor realm so tosseth with rebellion, and the king's name and custody so changeth hands, that no man may be certain of the morrow. Toss-pot and Shuttle-wit run in, but my Lord Good-Counsel ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is a small book in which to treat of so large a subject, and to avoid prolixity I have had to generalise. This is a dangerous practice, for what is gained in brevity is too often lost in accuracy: brevity may be always the soul of wit, it is rarely the body of truth. The expert will find that I have considered him in that I have given attention to recent developments, and if I have talked of the methods peculiar to one place as though they applied to the whole world, ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp
... just that word which, by another intuition, he perceives belongs to it, when you will see for yourself. Thus, the Kadosch term Nekam, which signifies vengeance, having been duly anatomised, will come out as follows:—N (ex) E (xterminatio) K (risti) A (dversarii) M (agni), to wit: "Death, Extermination of Christ, the Great Enemy." Wicked and wily Jean Kostka to outrage the decencies of orthography and against all reason write the name of the Liberator with a K, thereby concealing the true meaning, which revealed for the first time is as follows:—N ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... Howard was to be treated to just that human quality which he put into even his hastily penned notes—and, as in conversation with him, so in his letters there are repeated flashes of sage comment and of good native wit. Not too often can we make the plea for the gathering and preserving of such material. Autobiography, after all, is what biography ought to be—it is the live portrait by the side of which a mere appreciative sketch fades. I have looked through the "Memorial" volume to Bronson Howard, issued by ...
— Shenandoah - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Bronson Howard
... all. Kenneth's friends sent John Mackenzie of Tollie to inform him of these wrongs, whereupon he made a speedy return to an affair so urgent, and so suitable to his genius, for as he never offered wrong so he never suffered any. His heat did not overwhelm his wit, for he took a legal procedure, obtained a commission of fire and sword against Glengarry and his complices, which he prosecuted so bravely as in a short time by himself and his brother he soon forced them ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... reason for this extraordinary distinction? or must we resolve it solely into the irregular caprices of the human mind? The greatest genius which has enlightened this age seems in this affair to have been carried by the sharpness of his wit into a subtilty hardly to be justified by the way of thinking of that unpolished period. Speaking of the reasons for introducing this method of trial, "Qui ne voit," says he, "que, chez un peuple exerce a manier des ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... housemaids were all right, and the under-butlers, being properly subject to my control, I could wither when they grew too familiar, but the footmen were intolerable guyers. On more than one occasion their quick Irish wit had put me to my trumps to maintain my dignity, and I had noticed of late that their alleged fun at my expense had made even the parlormaid giggle in a most irritating fashion. Henriette's suggestion promised at least a week's immunity from this sort of thing, ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... am sorry your last letters give us no greater hopes of that which we so much long for, to wit, your Excellence's speedy return home; it seeming by them that the treaty was not much advanced since your last before, notwithstanding the great care and diligence used by your Excellency for the promoting thereof, as also the great acceptance you have with the Queen and Court, ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... great brilliancy and wit, who was subject to these periods, once said to me, "My dear Sir, there are times when I know I am possessed of the Devil, and then I never let myself speak." And so this wise woman carried her burden about with her in a determined, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... her friends, but still more celebrated for her enemies—known for her love, but famous for her hate—a girl without feeling, a woman without tenderness—a banished wife, a careless mother—on whom extraordinary wit, masculine sense, a clear judgment, and an ardent love of letters seem to have been lavished for no other purpose than to show that, without a good heart, they serve only to make their possessor the most contemptible of mankind. Lady Mary Wortley's heart was the receptacle ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... the special correspondent from Washington of the New York Tribune, and later of the Times. Her letters were racy, full of wit, sentiment, and discriminating criticism, plenty of fun and a little sarcasm, but not so audaciously personal and aggressive as some letter-writers from the capital. They attracted attention and were widely copied, large extracts being made ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... her two daughters was blind of one eye, and her only son was so simple that the loungers in the antechamber of the Pope were accustomed to amuse themselves with his want of wit. She is said to have died of a broken heart after the death of this son, and her portrait of him is ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... me be it male or female?" for he was minded on this wise to cut short his words. The young Sayyid replied, "O Hajjaj, draw me aside its tail so I may inform thee thereanent."[FN64] "O young man, say me on what pasture best grow the horns of the camel?" "From leaves of stone." "O lack-wit! do stones bear leaves?" "O swollen of lips and little of wits and wisdom, say me do camels have horns?" "Haply thou art a lover fond, O youth?" "Yes! in love drowned." "And whom lovest thou?"—"I ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... their ill-conditioned king all the better for knowing that after him was to come a prince after their own heart, one of English sympathies and English instincts; one who even as a boy had won their hearts by his pluck, his frankness, and his wit, and who, as he grew up, developed into a manhood as vigorous and noble as that of his father was ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... to be in ecstasies over her wit and over the repertory of ready-made phrases she keeps ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... we see that Lincoln ruled his own spirit; and we also behold the fact that he could rule others. The letter shows wise diplomacy, frankness, kindliness, wit, tact and infinite patience. Hooker had harshly and unjustly criticised Lincoln, his commander in chief. But Lincoln waives all this in deference to the virtues he believes Hooker possesses, and promotes him to succeed Burnside. In other words, the man who had been wronged promotes ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... Ab Hawwit, we began at 9:15 a.m. to exchange the broad Wady Surr of the flat seaboard, with its tall banks of stiff drab clay, for a gorge walled with old conglomerates, and threading the ruddy and dark-green foot-hills of ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... inquire . It incites; sometimes it enthralls. It innervates; it exhaults. Under its spell, reason is flung to the winds, and matters of great mundane moment are trivial and of no account: for it bewilders the wit and snatches the judgment of sane and rational men. It is most powerful in youth; it is most powerful upon youth; yet some retain it till far on in years, and no age but feels its sway:—a veiled and mysterious force; sometimes daemonical, often divine: ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... mine host; one that hath taught me more wit than ever I learned before in my 55 life; and I paid nothing for it neither, but was paid ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... of Poems, issued in 1844, in which the permanent lines of his poetic development appear more clearly than in A Year's Life. The tone of the first volume was uniformly serious, but in the second his muse's face begins to brighten with the occasional play of wit and humor. The volume was heartily praised by the critics and his reputation as a new poet of convincing distinction was established. In the following year appeared Conversations on Some of the Old Poets, a volume of literary criticism interesting now mainly as pointing to maturer ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... and ill-digested notions which he has picked up in his recent studies. Be assured that extensive and accurate knowledge is the slow acquisition of a studious lifetime; that a young man, however pregnant his wit, and prompt his talent, can have mastered but the rudiments of learning, and, in a manner, attained the implements of study. Whatever may have been your past assiduity, you must be sensible that as yet you have but reached the threshold of ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... Hillyard had been at a loss to discover in Stella Croyle the woman whom Hardiman had led him to expect. Her spirits were high, but unforced. She chattered away with more gaiety than wit, like the rest of Hardiman's guests, but the gaiety was apt to the occasion. She had the gift of a clear and musical laugh, and her small delicate face would wrinkle and pout into grimaces which gave to her a rather attractive air of gaminerie—Hillyard could find no word but the ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... pleasant to every properly constituted mind to be a centre of amiable interest for one's fellow creatures, and when one is a young man conscious of becoming mourning and a certain wit, and the fellow creatures are three young and ardent and sufficiently expressive young women who dispute for the honour of walking by one's side, one may be excused a secret exaltation. They ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... thought much of a Chinaman's wit," he observed; "but I did not think he was such a goose as to fancy that a breeze would be sent merely because he put some twisted-up bits of ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... is how to keep these two people apart," she struck in. She had recovered. I admired the quickness of women's wit. Mental agility is a rare perfection. And aren't they agile! Aren't they— just! And tenacious! When they once get hold you may uproot the tree but you won't shake them off the branch. In fact the more you shake ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... of this story of the South African diamond mines and adventures in London, on the sea and in America: "As a story teller Mr. Marshall cannot be improved upon, and whether one is looking for humor, philosophy, pathos, wit, excitement, adventure or love, he will find what he seeks, a-plenty, in this capital tale." 12mo, cloth. ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... blood in her veins. All the same I lover her; and I must go on loving her; and if I can humble her inordinate vanity I will. I'll do a Melancolia that shall be something like a Melancolia—"the Melancolia that transcends all wit." I'll do it at ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... myself hungered. I shared the repast, but not the merriment. At that moment, no wit could have won from me a smile; the most luxurious table could not have furnished me ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... Scottish hearers were very particular on the subject of their minister's preaching old sermons; and to repeat a discourse which they could recollect was always made a subject of animadversion by those who heard it. A beadle, who was a good deal of a wit in his way, gave a sly hit in his pretended defence of his minister on the question. As they were proceeding from church, the minister observed the beadle had been laughing as if he had triumphed over some of the parishioners with whom he had ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... other vows I broke one by one. For a faggot must be broken every stick singly. But the strict vow I kept, for I entered Rome on foot that year in time, and I heard high Mass on the Feast of the Apostles, as many can testify—to wit: Monsignor this, and Chamberlain the other, and the Bishop of so-and-so—o—polis in partibus infidelium; for ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... of the funniest possible for a house party. The players sit around the room or in a circle. One player who has ready wit is chosen to be ringmaster, or there may be different showmen or ringmasters for each group of animals. The ringmaster takes his place in the center, and will be more effective if furnished with a whip. He shows off in turn different troops of animals, ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... drawing-room of my lady the Countess of Epsom, the Marquise of Biddeford, and at the tables of my Lady Stamford, and of her grace the Duchess of Alwington. The doors of the London clubs were always wide open to one who could keep the table in a roar by his wit. Lord Upperton had chosen him as his companion during his visit to ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... under which you wish to include all fish of the Salmon kind. Does not this include common Trout? You specially include Char by name. Would it not be better to limit your intentions to all migratory fish of the Salmon kind, to wit, Salmon, Grilse, &c. &c.? I think also the meaning of a fixed net wants defining more rigorously. As it now stands it appears to me that it would include any net which should be fastened on a root or stone whilst it was ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... the quiet, almost listless woman could concoct dainty feasts for these illustrious people out of her poverty; for they were illustrious in their day. Were the wit and poesy and knowledge the successive desserts, and bright gossip the sparkle of the Barmecide wine? She thought of the little cottage, when she read of Madame Scarron ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... not be long in noticing what has happened to this objectionable word. When they do they will, of course, forthwith take up all the others. It will be a little startling perhaps at first, but in the end there will be no swearing left. I have no doubt there will be those who will air their petty wit on the pioneer women, but where a martyr is wanted a woman can always be found to offer herself. She will clothe herself in cursing, like the ungodly, and perish in that Nessus shirt, a martyr to pure language. And then this dull cad swearing—a mere unnecessary affectation ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... earnestness and acuteness, and her great love. It was but evidence that she was to be, what she became in time, his rhinoceros-bird in all things, his right hand, prompter in such relations as a woman's wit and woman's way best serve. She was of him. But with two who blended, so there must be many added intervals of delicious nonsense before the reality ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... a jovial monk, wearing the gray gown and sandals of the Recollets, was renowned throughout New France for his wit more than for his piety. He had once been a soldier, and he wore his gown, as he had worn his uniform, with the gallant bearing of a King's Guardsman. But the people loved him all the more for his jests, which never ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... finding no good come of his interrogatories, hath set me at large; tho' I continue under his eye, to wit, with a dowager of his acquaintance, a Mistress Finch. Wee dwell in a private house midway down St. Thomas his street, in Redcliffe: and she hath put a dismal dress upon me (Jack, 'tis hideous), but otherwise uses me not ill. But take care ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... was pierced from within with five magnificently answerable gates. That is to say, the gates could neither be burst in nor any way forced from without. 'This famous town of Mansoul had five gates, in at which to come, out of which to go; and these were made likewise answerable to the walls; to wit, impregnable, and such as could never be opened or forced but by the will and leave of those within. The names of the gates were these: Ear-gate, Eye-gate, Mouth-gate; in short, 'the five ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... there no heir of direct descent? For a time it seemed there would be or really was. To wit, a son of Le Roi, the officer who had wedded into the ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... captain, appointed to superintend disembarkation of an attacking force, who holds plenary powers, and generally leads the storming party. His acts when in the heat of action, if he summarily shoot a coward, are unquestioned—poor Falconer, to wit! ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... Doctor. 'God forbid! May she live to laugh at it, as long as she CAN laugh, and then say, with the French wit, "The farce is ended; ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... are! I felt that upon that human creature weighed the eternal injustice of implacable nature! Life was over with her, without her ever having experienced, perhaps, that which sustains the most miserable of us all—to wit, the hope of being once loved! Otherwise, why should she thus have concealed herself, have fled from the face of others? Why did she love everything so tenderly and so passionately, everything living that ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... leak in the dike? 9. What would have happened if he had grown afraid, or tired? 10. Peter saw a duty to be performed and was brave enough to do it, though it was not easy, and might have cost him his life. What were the results of his quick wit and courage? 11. How was Peter doing his part as a good citizen? 12. Find in the Glossary the meaning of: prattle; presence; anxious; trickling; stoutest; save; astir; yester; stricken. 13. Pronounce: chafe; ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... perfections of a hero of romance of that time. Add to this a charming head, uniting the most opposite styles of beauty; that is to say, black hair and blue eyes, strongly-marked features, and a complexion like a woman. Unite with all these, wit, loyalty, the greatest courage, and you will have an idea of the high consideration which Le Fargy must have enjoyed from the ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... the Lancashire carpenter, invented his spinning-machine, a village wit called it a "jenny." The machine was fine, delicate, subtle, and as spinning was a woman's business anyway, the new machine was ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... unfortunate marquise. Desgrais had just the manner of the younger son of a great house: he was as flattering as a courtier, as enterprising as a musketeer. In this first visit he made himself attractive by his wit and his audacity, so much so that more easily than he had dared to hope, he got leave to pay a second call. The second visit was not long delayed: Desgrais presented himself the very next day. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... moment and in another mood his heart might have softened at this evident peace-offering; but this afternoon, with the new child of his imagination slain by Snorky Green's brutal wit, the whole proceeding was undeniably crude, a bribe too openly offered. He would have to return them; that was inevitable and that was of course the last thing he wished to do. He sat down at his desk, scowling horribly, ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... the daughters divine of Zeus, the immaculate Nine, Who gaze from your mansions serene on intellects subtle and keen, When down to the tournament lists, in bright-polished wit they descend, With wrestling and turnings and twists in the battle of words to contend, O come and behold what the two antagonist poets can do, Whose mouths are the swiftest to teach grand language and filings of speech: For now of their wits is the ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes
... all the fairies began to give their gifts to the Princess. The youngest gave her for gift that she should be the most beautiful person in the world; the next, that she should have the wit of an angel; the third, that she should have a wonderful grace in everything she did; the fourth, that she should dance perfectly well; the fifth, that she should sing like a nightingale; and the sixth, that she should play all kinds of music to ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various |
