"Jesting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said the other grimly, 'let me remind you once again, that the habit of light jesting—persiflage—is so essentially Irish, you should keep it for your countrymen; and if you persist in supposing the career of a private secretary suits you, this is an incongruity that will totally unfit you for ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... learnt nothing else; and this practice was the universal dread of all persons in the Court; but not more so than that of the gouvernante of the children (Madame de Maintenon). Her habit was to treat things very seriously, and without the least appearance of jesting. She used to speak ill of persons to the King through charity and piety, for the sole purpose of correcting the faults of her neighbours; and under this pretext she filled the King with a bad opinion of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... her have her way. The only concession he could gain was to make her put on a pair of buckskin gloves that dangled at his belt. They were woefully large for her shapely hands and at any other time would have furnished a subject for jesting. But nothing now was further from their minds than laughter. They were engaged on a grim work of life or death and both ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... of Canterbury, St. Anselm, and everyone else who tried to warn him or withstand his wickedness. One day, in the year 1100, he went out to hunt deer in the New Forest, which his father had wasted, laughing and jesting in his rough way. By and by he was found under an oak tree, with an arrow through his heart; and a wood-cutter took up his body in his cart, and carried it to Winchester Cathedral, where is ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... rather pretty. This led him to think of Cherry again, and to recall the quaint yet melancholy grace of her figure as she sat on the stool opposite. Why had she withdrawn it so abruptly; did she consider his jesting allusion to it indecorous and presuming? Had he really meant it seriously; and was he beginning to think too much about her? Would she ever come again? How nice it would be if she returned from church alone early, and they could have a comfortable chat ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... at the man; he appeared in sober earnest, but I could not believe that he was so; and I shook my head, for I was in no jesting humour. The wearisome fellow again took my arm, and led me towards the huts of my negroes and the cotton-fields. The soil of the latter was of the richest and best description, and in spite of negligent cultivation, its ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... call out aloud several familiar and common names, Caius, Marcus, Lucius, and the like, in representation of the way in which they called to one another when they went out in such haste. In the next place, the maid-servants, gaily dressed, run about, playing and jesting upon all they meet, and amongst themselves, also, use a kind of skirmishing, to show they helped in the conflict against the Latins; and while eating and drinking, they sit shaded over with boughs of wild fig-tree, and the day they call Nonae Caprotinae, as some think from that wild ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the last hour, it is at length blown over, and I have sat down under these pleasing impressions to address you, so that I am afraid my epistle will not be the most entertaining. I assure you upon my honour, jesting apart, I have never been so scurrilously, and violently abused by any person, as by that woman, whom I think I am to call mother, by that being who gave me birth, to whom I ought to look up with veneration and respect, but whom I am ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... Livingstone had been in closer contact with heathenism than ever before, and though, including the chief, everyone had been as attentive as possible, yet the dancing, roaring, singing, jesting, quarrelling, added to the murdering propensities of these children of nature was painful in the extreme. He took a more intense disgust of heathenism than he had ever before felt, and formed a higher opinion of the latent effects of missions in the south among tribes which ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... and where the wind by consequence was thwart the stream, the water went very high, and we took so much into the boat, that I began to feel the straw which lay under me at the bottom was wet, so I call'd to the waterman, and jesting told him, they must go all hands to the pump; he answered, he hoped I should not be wet; 'But it's bad weather, master,' says he, 'we can't help it.' 'No, no,' says I, ''tis pretty ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 44, Saturday, August 31, 1850 • Various
... "Very far from jesting, lass. Stalker is your brother Edwin, whom you haven't seen since you was a small girl, and you thought was dead. But, come, as the cat's out o' the bag at last, I may as well make a clean breast of it. Sit down here on the bank, ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... critical places in life is not what is in them, but what we imagine is in them. Let it be felt that the things you hold to be wrong must expect from you neither compromise nor show of friendship; that you are the open and declared enemy of unclean speech, filthy jesting, secret sins, with their hints and implied fascinations, brainless pursuits, frivolous conversation, and low down levels of existence, and, with the exception of those whose enmity it is a distinction ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... the beginning of the letter, were jesting references to a lawyer's bill, amounting to nearly L50, presented to me by a young legal gentleman with whom we had been upon terms of friendly acquaintance, and whom we had employed, as he was just beginning business, to ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... the husband and father, who left the plough in the furrow, the hammer on the bench, and, kissing his wife and children, marched to die or to be free! He was the old, the middle-aged, the young. He was Captain Miles, of Acton, who reproved his men for jesting on the march! He was Deacon Josiah Haines, of Sudbury, eighty years old, who marched with his company to South Bridge, at Concord, then joined in that hot pursuit to Lexington, and fell as gloriously as Warren at Bunker Hill. He was James Hayward, ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... jesting," said Coquerico. "Do I look like one whose business it is to sweep the brooks? Apply to those of your own sort." And with his sound leg, he leaped ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... representations of Satyrs who carried canisters and cornucopias full of several fruits in their hands, and danced with them at their public feasts, and afterwards reading Horace, who makes mention of his homely Romans jesting at one another in the same kind of solemnities, might suppose those wanton Satyrs did the same; and especially because Horace possibly might seem to him to have shown the original of all poetry in general (including the Grecians ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... ourselves with fundamental seriousness—with that absolute gravity which imperils the publication of a book and entirely prohibits the production of a play on such matters. There is something in human nature beyond my explaining which leads towards jesting in these directions. An instinct, I know, is an instinct; of which a main character is that its exercise shall be independent of any knowledge as to its purpose. We eat because we like eating, rather than because we ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... easel to easel, scolding, flattering, jesting, and making, as usual, his jests more dreaded than his reprimands. Ginevra had not obeyed the professor's order, but remained at her post, firmly resolved not to quit it. She took a sheet of paper and began to sketch in sepia the head of ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac
... men were thus variously engaged in jesting over their discomforts, or holding more serious converse, their sable enemies were preparing for them a warm reception in the neighbouring pass. But both parties were checked and startled by the storm which presently burst over them. ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... about those charming water-color sketches in the small gallery up-stairs?" exclaims Molly, with an airy irrepressible laugh. "There, don't be angry: I was only jesting; no one would for a moment suspect you of ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... not smile at the jesting tone of the Manager. "Lee is certainly doing all he can to make things safe. He is a fiend for thoroughness, and between you and me, Burk, the Company ought to spend more money on that intake at least. A few more thousands would make ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... is the host without curiosity. Some of his servants have instructions to observe you narrowly, lest your glance should fall too often on his wife or children. The other guests' men perceive your amazement at the novel scene, and exchange jesting asides. From the fact that you do not know what to make of your napkin, they conclude that this is your first experience of dining-out. You perspire with embarrassment; not unnaturally. You are thirsty, but you dare not ask for wine, lest you should be thought a tippler. ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... Bethune, saving herself promptly. "To be always with one's brother shows devotion indeed; but you forget your rle, don't you? Where has he been for the past hour? You haven't told us that! Surely you have not forsaken him now, when it may be the hour of his extremity." Her tone is jesting, but all through it Rylton can ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... another, and capture at last the great annual treasure-ship Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion, nicknamed the Spitfire because she was better armed than most of the ships plying on that coast. As they ballasted the Golden Hynde with silver from her huge hulk the jesting seamen dubbed her the Spit-silver. The little flagship was literally brimful of silver bars, ingots of gold, pieces of eight, and jewels whose value has never been accurately known. The Spanish Adelantados, ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... see that Tanno's jesting replies to the Satronians he had met on the road had given them the idea that Xantha was being conveyed, in a shut litter, to Villa Vedia: similarly his quizzical words to the Vedians he had met had given them a ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... de St. Pierre, vouches for this anecdote of himself. He was in a strange city, visiting a friend whom he had not seen for years. The friend's sister was of that age when women are most susceptible. She was tall, a blonde, deliberate in motion, with blue eyes and fair hair. In a jesting way, St. Pierre, who had never seen her before, and knew nothing of her ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... born in a gardener's cottage, and as a child he was the bell-ringer. When still a young man he exchanged his smock-frock for a surplice, but was of a merry and jesting disposition. The Duke of Parma heard him laugh one day so gayly, that the poor duke, who did not laugh every day, asked who it was that was so merry, and had him called. Alberoni related to him some grotesque adventure. His highness laughed heartily; and finding that it was pleasant ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... jesting, major. We may be going to push forward in that direction, and occupy some strong position until the army comes up, but it would be the height of madness to attack an enemy, in a strong position, and just tenfold ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... take up a position so close to the gate as would insure for them a most excellent view of the royal party; whilst the humbler crowd was kept at a more discreet distance by the good-humoured soldiers, who exercised their office amid plenty of jesting and laughing, which showed that an excellent understanding existed between them and their brethren of the soil. The captain, as the hour for the entrance drew near, took up his position beside the lady, and conversed with her in low tones. Paul listened ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... highness, and listen to me! I foresee misfortune for you. Believe my prophecy, and that misfortune may yet be averted. Mark the signs by which fate would warn you! Did you not yesterday see Elizabeth driving through the streets, chatting and jesting with the soldiers, who crowded around her sledge? Have you not heard how the grenadiers of the Preobrajensky regiment shouted after her? Has it not been told you that Lestocq holds secret intercourse with the French ambassador, and know you not ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... the ship.' Lord Byron, as we all did, passed his time chiefly reading. He dined alone on deck; and sometimes in the evening he sat down with us to a glass or two, not more, of light Asti wine. He amused himself in jesting occasionally with the captain, whom he ended, however, by inspiring with a love of reading, such as he thought he ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... answer, and changed the subject. However, sensible as he was, he had many prejudices and crotchets. He despised women, for instance, from the depths of his soul, and in his merry moments he amused himself by jesting at their expense. His wife was a cross old woman who lay all day long on the stove, incessantly grumbling and scolding; her sons paid no attention to her, but she kept her daughters-in-law in the fear of God. Very significantly the mother-in-law sings in the Russian ballad: 'What ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... Manor Cartier. It is not all a bed of roses for our Jean Jacques. But there it is. He is very busy all the time. Something doing always, never still, except when you will find him by the road-side, or in a tavern with all the people round him, talking, jesting, and he himself going into a trance with his book of philosophy. It is very strange that everlasting going, going, going, and yet that love of his book. I sometimes think it is all pretence, and that he is all vanity—or almost ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... more newes, brother; the late jesting Monsieur Makes now your brothers dying prophesie equall At all parts, being ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... hundredfold by the proud feeling of returning to her native country as a sovereign princess, in a state so strictly levelled by royalty, wherein no one would have a condition equal to her own, and in which she would display with jesting haughtiness the pomp inseparable from her title before her abashed enemies. She had so much faith in the hopes with which d'Aubigny inspired her, and by which that cunning favourite thought perhaps already to profit, that she instructed him to ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... head to look him straight in the face, and began jesting without the least constraint. She was really delicious, with her pure lily-white complexion, her small laughing mouth, and adorable blue eyes which ever smiled. And you could realise that she had grown up in all innocence and devotion, slender and supple, with all the appearance ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... nearly choking with rage. He hardly knew why he did not seize the seducer by the throat. But the culprits would have a complete defence ready. Was it not all mere harmless jesting? Whatever anguish of jealousy he might feel, he must ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... peasants, and it was complex with the simple complexity of the simplest and most primal emotions, with love and joy and wonder, the half-fearful triumph of swift inertia, attained at last in the full element of life. The others were different; they were dimpling and laughing and jesting in their unintelligible guttural. Their faces knew nothing of the seriousness of the bride's. One of them was exceedingly pretty, with a beauty unusual in her race. Her high cheek-bones were covered with the softest rosy flesh, her wide mouth was outlined by ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... of jesting now, for she caught at any means of keeping down the sobs which would rise in her throat. He took her ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... in a long crowd to Moorgate—man and maid, noble and 'prentice, alderman and oyster-woman, jesting and scolding as we jostled one another in the narrow way, and rejoicing when at length we broke free into the pleasant meadows and smelt the sweetness of ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... how every day, no matter in what mood of merry jesting or practical modernity we set out, an hour of riding in the open air brings us back to the mystical charm of the Holy Land and beneath the spell of its memories and dreams. The wild hillsides, the flowers of the field, the shimmering olive-groves, the brown villages, the crumbling ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... outlandish speech that no frequenter of that wine-shop understood. The swarthy man answered to the name of Ballantrae; he of the dreamy eyes was sometimes called Balmile, and sometimes my Lord, or my Lord Gladsmuir; but when the title was given him, he seemed to put it by as if in jesting, not without bitterness. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... replied Sir Philip, with a very faint smile, for Sir Philip could not well bear any jesting on the Romans. "I did not only converse with Mr. Marlow on the subject, but I examined carefully the papers he brought down with him, and perceived at once that you have not the shadow of a title to ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... is that yourself? and how pleased we is to see ye, and just tip us yer welwet purse, and we'll give it yer back when we're this way again." And not all the rigor of the attendant warders was enough to suppress such jesting. ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... went, laughing and jesting, finally leaving the city behind and getting out into the country. Up hill and down dale they steadily jogged, covering mile after mile ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... can he bring it to pass that those who have lived have not lived, or that he who has held honourable offices did not hold them); and that he has no other power over the past than that of oblivion; and that (in order that we may also give a jesting proof of our partnership with God) he cannot bring it about that twice ten is not twenty, and more of the same sort—by all which the power of Nature is clearly revealed, and that it ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... that this law doth not only condemn words and actions, as I said before, but it hath authority to condemn the most secret thoughts of the heart, being evil; so that if thou do not speak any word that is evil, as swearing, lying, jesting, dissembling, or any other word that tendeth to, or savoureth of sin, yet if there should chance to pass but one vain thought through thy heart but once in all thy lifetime, the law taketh hold of it, accuseth, and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... for jesting; but I do want to watch the action of that solution on a more highly organized living body; there is that big white rabbit," he said, following me ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... also be mentioned here. Speculating wantonly on sacred subjects, and jesting about them, offend us at first; and we turn away: but if in an evil hour we are seduced by the cleverness or wit of a writer or speaker, to listen to his impieties, who can say where we shall stop? Can we save ourselves ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... than absurd to the guard, who wished him godspeed on his journey, advised him to put the basin straight on his head, and told him not to go looking for trouble. This was too much for our knight. He set upon his jesting adversary with such speed and suddenness that the musket fell out of the guard's hand. And the other guards were so taken aback at what was going on, and there was such confusion, that they did not notice Sancho untying the arch-criminal Gines. They suddenly saw him free, and with ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... "to be forever looking up at the same beams and rafters, and out upon the same cabbage patch. I have a queer humour of my own, too, and I might be jesting and scorning where I should be silent. Sir Arthur and I might not long agree. Besides, what would the country do for its gossip—the blithe clatter at e'en about the fire? Who would bring news from one farm-town to another—gingerbread to the lassies, mend fiddles for ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... 'I'm very far from jesting, Miss Catherine,' I replied. 'You love Mr. Edgar because he is handsome, and young, and cheerful, and rich, and loves you. The last, however, goes for nothing: you would love him without that, probably; and with it you ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... decidedly an ass. His jokes strike you as funny at first; but there's nothing in him, he's a mere hawker of stale puns; there's nothing but selfishness under his jesting exterior. I have no belief in him. Yet he is an old school friend; the only one of my twenty-eight classmates whose acquaintance I have kept up. Four are dead, twenty-three others are scattered about in obscure country places; lost for want of news, as they say at the private ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... judicial, we see him continually trying to show his learning by the way. And one may discover the different temper of each of them in their speeches. For Demosthenes' oratory was without all embellishment and jesting, wholly composed for real effect and seriousness; not smelling of the lamp, as Pytheas scoffingly said, but of the temperance, thoughtfulness, austerity, and grave earnestness of his temper. Whereas Cicero's love for mockery often ran him into ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... Unknowingly she strikes; and kills by chance; Poison is in her eyes, and death in every glance. Oh, I must ask; nor ask alone, but move 280 Her mind to mercy, or must die for love! Thus Arcite: and thus Palamon replies, (Eager his tone and ardent were his eyes): Speak'st thou in earnest, or in jesting vein? Jesting, said Arcite, suits but ill with pain. It suits far worse (said Palamon again, And bent his brows) with men who honour weigh, Their faith to break, their friendship to betray; But worst with thee, of noble lineage born, My kinsman, and in arms my brother sworn. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... was accused saw plainly that these merchants' opinion must convict him, yet he would say something in his own justification. But the child, instead of ordering him to be impaled, looked at the caliph, and said "Commander of the faithful, this is no jesting matter; it is your majesty that must condemn him to death, and not I, though I ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... princesses seized every opportunity to make schemes of pleasure for the joyous anniversary. Isabella viewed these projects with a mournful smile. Her countenance became sadder and more serious, except when in the presence of her husband. There she assumed an appearance of gayety: laughing, jesting, and drawing from her violin its sweetest sounds. But, with her attendants, or in the company of the other members of the imperial family, she was melancholy, and made her preparations for death, which she foretold would ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... the voyage, an intimacy sprang up between them and Sarah which influenced her whole after-life. From one of them she had accepted a copy of Woolman's works,—evidence that there must have been religious discussions between them. And that there was talk— probably some jesting—in the family about Quakers is shown by the little incident Sarah relates of her brother Thomas presenting her, soon after her return from North Carolina, with a volume of Quaker writings he had picked up at some sale. He placed it in her hand, ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... with the fellow for what was practically his first offence; moreover, he had always hitherto behaved so exceedingly well, and had proved himself such a splendid workman, that he had become a great favourite with me. When, therefore, during dinner, Sir Edgar made some half-jesting remark about Joe's misdeeds, I was far more disposed to make excuses for the man than to maintain a semblance of that annoyance I had so conspicuously exhibited during the day: nevertheless, I deemed it politic to do the latter, particularly ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... thought you were jesting. [He gets up and speaks confidentially and half-humorously.] Now, you don't mean to say you're really capable of undermining the ground here where a friend of yours has been fortunate enough ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... Why, this is the most damn'd Italian Trick I ever heard of; why, this outdoes the famous Poisoner Madam Brenvilliers; well, here's no jesting, I ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... pine lumber, with tar-paper weather-proofing and no floor, but he did it entirely with his own hands at a material cost of twelve dollars; and he put his soul into it. There were two stalls, one for Blazing Star and one for supplies. There was much good-humoured jesting at the "Horse Preacher" while the stable was building and the story went the rounds that he often used the empty stall for a study, in preference to the silent little room in the house. In any case, he hand-picked the hay to guard against the poisonous loco-weed, and washed the oats, to ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... and good sense, he agreed to halve the businesse, he continuing the fooling, and Patteson—for that is the simple good fellow's name—receiving the salary. Father delighteth in sparring with Patteson far more than in jesting with the king, whom he alwaies looks on as a lion that may, any minute, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... equalling in intensity, the Sagas and the Nibelungenlied. There is sometimes faintly mingled with this (as in the gabz of the Voyage a Constantinoble, and the exploits of Rainoart with the tinel) the spirit, half rough, half sly, of jesting, which by-and-by takes shape in the fabliaux. There is the immense and restless spirit of curiosity, which explores and refashions, to its own guise and fancy, the relics of the old world, the treasures of the East, the lessons of Scripture itself. Side by side with these there is ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... on Sunday, that their keepers may have rest; at least this was the explanation given us by one of these men of the state of ravenous hunger in which we found them on the Monday. I half hope he was jesting with us. Certain it is that the eagles were wild with famine, and even the grandest of them, who had eyed us at first as if we were not fit to live in the same zone with him, when the meat came round, after a short struggle to maintain ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... right, and was confidential. Little Sir William, with his hair and his beard white like spun glass, his manner very courteous and animated, the purple facings of his velvet jacket very impressive, sat at the far end of the table jesting with the ladies and showing his teeth in an old man's smile, a little bit affected, but pleasant, wishing everybody ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... let us be friends," said Frances, coaxingly. "I am not a duchess. I am only a girl like yourself. My name is Mistress Jennings—Frances. Nelly Gwynn was jesting when she spoke of me as a duchess, and only wanted to tease you when she objected to the table linen. She is good and kind—no one ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... not jesting here. In the very spirit of serious truth, we assure you, that the delusion about "jentaculum" is even exceeded by this other delusion about "prandium." Salmasius himself, for whom a natural prejudice of ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... I made some jesting answer; but it had been given to me to see that transient shadow of pain and despair, and I knew that the discomfort of the garments of civilisation had nothing to do with the swallowing of ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... much astonished if any one should say to him, 'Only fancy, my boy, the governor gives us forty sous for our breakfast;' 'Pshaw! it is impossible,' he would say. 'It is so possible that he has announced it to me, Chalamel, in my own person.' 'You are jesting.' 'I jest! This is the way it occurred: during two or three days which followed the death of Madame Seraphin, we had no breakfast at all. We liked that well enough, for no breakfast at all was better than that she gave us; but, on the other hand, our luncheon ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... name not those savory things, there's no jesting with my Stomach; it sleeps now, but if it wakes, wo be to your Shares ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... him retorting, as he assisted me to doff my doublet. "Do I jest? Diable! you Gascons are a slow-witted folk! I have a taste for allegory, my friend, but that never yet was accounted so low a thing as jesting." ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... a small lean man in a light-gray surcoat. "The king loves not talk about what the king does. 'T is ill jesting with lions. Remember William Walker, hanged for saying his son should ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... stones,' said he, 'I pray that they may be bread; and if they are bread, I pray that they may be stones.' So with that, the woman let them fall; and sure enough, stones they were, and stones they are to this day." Our guide told us this same anecdote, in a queer, half jesting, half believing way, and pointed out the stones to us. I thought to myself that if they had not been stones in the first place, they must have been very heavy bread—too hard fare ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... he said in his most kindly jesting tone as he looked at me with his small bright eyes. "Woloda tells me you have passed the examinations well for a youngster, and that is a splendid thing. Unless you start and play the fool, I shall have another fine little fellow in you. Thanks, my dear boy. Well, we will have a grand ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... was said only in a mood of sardonic jesting. The next moment, no doubt, Balder Helwyse would have retired to his cabin, leaving the voice of darkness forever. But at that moment the hurried flash of a lantern on the captain's bridge fell full on the young man's face and shoulders, gleaming in his eyes, and ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... clumped out again. Young Pete strolled to the door and watched them enter the adobe saloon across the way—Tony's Place—the rendezvous of the riders of the high mesas. Again a group of cowboys arrived, jesting and roughing their mounts. They entered the store, bought ammunition, and drifted to the saloon. It was far from pay-day, as Pete knew. It was also the busy season. There was some ulterior reason for so many riders assembling in town. Pete decided to find out just what ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... recalling all things afterwards, could never understand was why he sat there, listening in patience to the stranger's talk; for, at the time, it seemed to him the jesting of a wandering fool. But something about the ...
— The Soul of Nicholas Snyders - Or, The Miser Of Zandam • Jerome K. Jerome
... for that. But, if you remember, when you had finished telling me about it, you added that I was not to take the story in earnest, for that you were not really in love with a country girl, but were only jesting; and I was dull and thick-headed enough to believe you. But so fate decreed, and there is ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... said to him, 'I was only jesting about your having no grievances in Canada, and I regret having agitated you. I agree with you however that it is of no use to remonstrate with the English public. They won't listen to you. If you want to be heard, attract their attention, in the ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... He had fretted out seven years of captivity. Now he was free; and lest she be harmed or her name be smutched, however faintly, he would go back to his prison, jesting. ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... face—resting upon my shoulder. It was one of those sweet moments with which past and future have nought to do, but during which one lives upon the present. Gradually my lips drew nearer and nearer to her waxen ones, but, half-jesting, she turned her head away. I became more persevering, and without saying any thing to her I raised my arm gently till my hand touched her hair, amongst which the fastenings of the mask were apparently concealed. In another moment the mystery would ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... boy recovered from his swoon, it was late in the afternoon; he was alone; the faint tinkling of the sheep-bell had again replaced the sound of the human chorus of expectation, and dread, and jesting; all was peaceful, he could not understand why he lay there, feeling so weak and sick. He raised himself tremulously and looked around, the turf was cut and spoilt by the trampling of many feet. All his life of the last few months ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... daughter with a stern, slow stare; not so much surprised as annoyed by an untimely jesting. He ate a hot biscuit in two un-Fletcherized mouthfuls, and put more sugar in his large cup of tea. "You've got your Mother all worked up with your nonsense," said he. "What are you talking ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... me so little as to apprehend my jesting in a serious sense? Know that two of those whom you saw on my right hand are spies of the Landgrave. Their visit to me, I question not, was purposely made to catch some such discoveries as you, my friends, would too surely have thrown in their way, but for my determined rattling. ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... this way!" she said in amazement. "Surely you are jesting. Take the effect on the polling places alone. Compare those of New York with those of Denver, and I have seen them in full operation in both places. In the first is the atmosphere of barrooms; in the second the manners and air of drawing-rooms. If I ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... your honour for debt, and in your Castle of Wolf's Crag! Your honour is jesting wi' auld Caleb this morning." However, he whispered in his ear, as he followed him out, "I would be loth to do ony decent man a prejudice in your honour's gude opinion; but I would tak twa looks o' that chield before I let him within ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... ever won by one Greek state over another, the courage of the vanquished is nevertheless as much to be admired as that of the victors. Xenophon remarks that the conversation of good and brave men, even when jesting or sitting at table, is always worth remembering, and it is much more valuable to observe how nobly all really brave and worthy men bear themselves when in sorrow and misfortune. When the news of the defeat at Leuktra arrived at Sparta, the city was celebrating the festival of the Gymnopaedia, ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... was stiff and expressionless. He wanted to drink, to get rid of his forethought and afterthought, to set the moment free. But he could not. The suspense only tightened at his heart. The jesting and joviality and jolly, broad insinuation of the guests only coiled him more. He could not hear. That which was impending obsessed him, ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... stood up. "I want to say," he began, "that if you are jesting, I think this is a mighty poor time to joke. And if you are serious I can only deduce from it that this year of business worry and responsibility has been too much for you. I'm ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... compelled them to stand still. Every face in the vast assemblage was expectant. Certainly some rare exhibition was to be seen in the circle which the crowd had left open in their midst. There were merry laughing and jesting and questioning amongst each other, as to what all this could mean, and what proclamation that could be which the drummer had just read in the ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... and in the conventionality of the response she realized anew that the jesting-time was by between them and she had a man to ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... attend to the course of conversation in mixed companies, consisting not merely of learned persons and subtle reasoners, but also of men of business or of women, we observe that, besides story-telling and jesting, another kind of entertainment finds a place in them, namely, argument; for stories, if they are to have novelty and interest, are soon exhausted, and jesting is likely to become insipid. Now of all argument there is none in which persons are more ready to join who find any other ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... am in no humor for jesting. Damas. I see you understand something of the grammar; you decline the non-substantive "small-swords" with great ease; but that won't do—you must take a ...
— The Lady of Lyons - or Love and Pride • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... furniture? Especially a man who could not afford such extravagance? I knew the size of Vantine's fortune; it was large, but a hundred thousand dollars represented more than a year's income. And then I smiled to myself. Of course Vantine had been merely jesting when he named that limit. The cabinet could be bought for a tenth of it, at the most. And, still smiling, I left the cab, paid the driver, and ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... other side, man on pleasure bent. And, standing on the borderland of those two incongruous pictures, which repeated thousands of times in diverse ways, make Paris the most entertaining and most philosophical city in the world, I played a mental macedoine[*], half jesting, half funereal. With my left foot I kept time to the music, and the other felt as if it were in a tomb. My leg was, in fact, frozen by one of those draughts which congeal one half of the body while the other suffers from the intense heat of the salons—a state of things ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... dinner I slipped away for a stroll. The place was very lovely, and I felt that if I could creep off with Mother Nature, she would smooth some cross-grained, fretful wrinkles that were gathering in my mind, and were saddening my soul. So when the folly and jesting were at their height I dipped into the thicket near at hand, and dodging here and there, jumping fallen logs, and untangling my way among the vines which embraced the stern old woods like seductive sirens, I at last struck a shaded path, which erelong led me down through a ravine to the waters ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... insisted that if the Cartesians had any desire to go to heaven, it was out of curiosity. "Talk to the Cardinal (de Retz) a little of your MACHINES; machines that love, machines that have a choice for some one, machines that are jealous, machines that fear. ALLEZ, ALLEZ, you are jesting! Descartes never intended to make us ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... and Monsieur Profond "poinded" with a yellow-gloved finger; "small car, with a small lunch"; he moved on, groomed, sleepy, and remote, George Forsyte following, neat, huge, and with his jesting air. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... only jesting. It is not in the hearthstone, but in that tall tree that lies the secret of my strength.' Then the old woman jumped up again and put her arms round the tree, and kissed it heartily. Loudly laughed the dragon when he saw what ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... minstrels of Provence and Northern France, who sang and often composed songs and tales, but whose jesting and buffoonery distinguished them from ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... jesting," he said, gravely, "and utter only the truth. Clemence, I had another reason for seeking you. You have learned my secret, and know, now, my deep love for you. Tell me if I ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... occasion, the Varangians so far forgot their duty as to consume a part of the sacred wine reserved for the imperial lips alone. It would be criminal to deny that this was a great and culpable oversight; nevertheless, our imperial hero passed it over as a pardonable offence; remarking, in a jesting manner, that since he had drunk the ail, as they termed it, of his trusty guard, the Varangians had acquired a right to quench the thirst, and to relieve the fatigue, which they had undergone that day in his defence, though ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... the house, not too quietly, and laughing, jesting and romping like school boys, went out to the corrals, with Little Billy tagging eagerly at their heels. The Dean and Phil remained for a few minutes at ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... jesting! Remember our honour and the auxiliaries we still hope for from Ravenna,' said the ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... might," he said, shutting his eyes again; "and we would all settle down into respectable members of society—charming picture. But, jesting aside, how ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... the chair beside my own, meditatively pulling away at a cigar, the glowing spark of which would probably have still further increased Roberts's perturbation, had he seen it. As I seated myself beside him the baronet made a half-jesting inquiry as to whether our preparations had had the effect of reassuring the mate; so, to while away the time, and for want of something more interesting to talk about, I told him Roberts's story, and also described to ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... the holy places to show to the people. The sacred way which led from Athens to Eleusis was rich in such memorials. The nine days of the wanderings of Demeter in the Homeric hymn are the nine days of the duration of the greater or autumnal mysteries; the jesting of the old woman Iambe, who endeavours to make Demeter smile, are the customary mockeries with which the worshippers, as they rested on the bridge, on the seventh day of the feast, assailed those who passed by. The torches in the hands of Demeter are borrowed ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... in no jesting mood. With clasped hands she turned to her cousin. "Oh, Hugh," she cried, "isn't it wonderful? to think of all those beautiful things living here alone,—I don't mean alone, but all by themselves—year after year, with ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... jesting, Posidon; you cannot have forgotten that we have no say in the matter? It is the Fates that spin a man's thread, whether he be destined to the thunderbolt or the sword, to fever or consumption. If it had depended ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... the gravity and decorum with which it is always conducted. It is not to be inferred from hence, that their conversation is dull and gloomy. There is often no want of sprightliness, wit, and humour. But then this sprightliness, never borders upon folly, for all foolish jesting is to be avoided, and it is always decorous. When vivacity makes its appearance among the Quakers; it is sensible, and it is uniformly in an innocent ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... art thou that thou shouldest beat me? 'Tis no fault of mine: didst thou not thyself bid me ask some important thing?" And he added, "Let me go to my own land." With this, the Sultan knew that he was jesting and took patience with him awhile; then turned to him and said, "O my brother, ask of me some important thing, befitting our dignity." So the Stoker said, "O King of the Age, I ask first of Allah and then ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... essence-bottle, or in some quiet way ministering to their egotism, she now stepped freely forth upon the field of action, nodding and smiling at the young men to whom she might have been at some time introduced; whispering and jesting with some marked young lady, while she made an occasion to arrange her berthe or her ringlets, and adding herself, as if by accident, to any trio or quartette of pre-eminent distinction. She had at length the anxiously desired ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... a little way off, her great brown eyes flashing with tears. It was so strange a joy to find herself cared for, when she had believed she was old and hard: the very idle jesting made her youth and happiness real to her. Holmes saw that with his quick tact. He flung playfully a crimson shawl that lay ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... a matter for jesting, after all," said Frank; "but I saw Sir Thomas often, and I cannot believe he was in his senses, so frantic was his vanity and his ambition; and all the while, in private matters as honorable a gentleman as ever. However, he sailed at last for Ireland, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... sorghum fields the current swings. To Christian Jim the Mississippi sings. This prankish wave-swept barque has won its place, A ship of jesting for the human race. But do you laugh when Jim bows down forlorn His babe, his deaf Elizabeth to mourn? And do you laugh, when Jim, from Huck apart Gropes through the rain and night ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay
... coarse wit, suited to the tastes of illiterate audiences and to that class of men who are always delighted when anything is said in disparagement of anybody. I recall two or three examples. He was rather fond of appropriating the bright sayings of others, whether jesting or serious, and claiming credit for them. But he also had a capacity of his own for ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... broke up the whole throng. Within little more than a minute of the most violent uproar of hundreds of human voices, my brother-in-law and I were able to stroll arm-in-arm through the moonlit streets, quietly jesting and laughing, on our way home; and then it was that, to my amazement and relief, he informed me that he was accustomed to this sort ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... that can not be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you" (Titus 2:8). Our speech in the pulpit should be of such a nature that it will appeal to the hearers. Foolishness, lightness, jesting, indulged in by the minister while preaching the everlasting gospel, is entirely out of place. Nor does this admonition apply entirely to the pulpit, but at all times, under all circumstances, a minister should be an example to the flock. Only thus can we ministers expect to obey God and ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole
... to the one side and then to the other; there sat Schwartz Carl and the one-eyed Hans. Two or three other retainers stood by a great window that looked out into the courtyard beneath, jesting and laughing together in low tones, and one lay upon the heavy oaken bench that stood along by the ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... The truth is that people love to lose themselves, and this is a kind of ramble of the mind, which is unwilling to subject itself to attention, to order, to rules. It seems as though we are so accustomed to games and jesting that we play the fool even in the most serious occupations, and when we least think to ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... glee in the slaver's voice was wicked. The cynical jesting tone was gone and in its place was only unholy malice. But Robert was held by the scene upon the ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... hands for the winter, it seemed well to speak to him upon the subject of economy. The next time he called, I had not about me the exact sum for a night's lodging,—fifty cents, namely—and asked him if he thought a dollar would do He smiled sadly, as if he did not like jesting upon such a very serious subject, but said he allowed to work it out, and ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... scenes from the ridiculous comedy of the "Pedant Joue" by Cyrano de Bergerac. "These two scenes are good," he said as he was jesting with his friends. "They belong to me by right: I recover my property." After that anyone who treated the author of "Tartufe" and "Le Misanthrope" as a plagiarist would have been ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... down to the desk and the men who had preceded them gave way to let her pass. She registered her name, meanwhile making some gay answer to a jesting remark from Jepson who laid aside his dignity to laugh. The clerk joined the merriment, whereupon it was instantly assumed that the lady was quite correct. But women, so they say, are preternaturally quick to recognize an enemy of the home. As Mary gazed down she became suddenly ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... party entered and traversed the Pleasance. But they were in joyous groups of four or five persons together, laughing and jesting in their own fullness of mirth and lightness ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... spoke low and in a jesting tone: it relieved the painful tension of the moment—a comrade was marching to meet his death, and theirs the hands to deal that death—but not yet: it was a reaction against their sense of the looming tragedy of ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... heir to any millionaire," Mackenzie reminded him, taking the proposal in the jesting spirit that he supposed ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... flowers round the Koelpin, [Footnote: a small lake near the sea.] and from thence she had gone down to the sea-shore, where she had bathed in the sea, seeing that it was very hot and no one could see her. Thus, said she, jesting, she should appear before his Majesty to-morrow doubly a clean maid. This displeased me at the time, and I looked grave, although I ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... the easy freedom of her mind as well as of her behaviour with me was entirely owing to her innocence and to her purity. Her artlessness, her vivacity, her eager curiosity, and the bashful blushes which spread over her face whenever her innocent or jesting remarks caused me to laugh, everything, in fact, convinced me that she was an angel destined to become the victim of the first libertine who would undertake to seduce her. I felt sufficient control over my own feelings to resist any attempt against her virtue ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... against him, putting of Cases, and debating so as suited their Capacities, and encouraged their Industry. And so in the Temple, he seldom moved without a Parcel of Youths hanging about him, and he merry and jesting with them. ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... two things: that you were jesting, or that you were in need of a gentleman as well as a man of courage. Tell me, what is the danger, and why do you ask me if I am armed?" It occurred to him that her own charm and beauty might be the greatest danger he could possibly face. More and more ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... can hardly write or read. I then asked him why he had not calculated his own nativity, to see whether it agreed with Bickerstaff's prediction? at which he shook his head, and said, Oh! sir, this is no time for jesting, but for repenting those fooleries, as I do now from the very bottom of my heart. By what I can gather from you, said I, the observations and predictions you printed, with your almanacks, were mere impositions on the people. He reply'd, if it were otherwise ...
— The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers • Jonathan Swift
... put the same in other words: That man is noble who doth fear no fate Which may afflict humanity; but, like A gallant soldier, meets the charge half way, And takes his wounds a-jesting. Now ev'ry one of us, whom Nature whips, Must take it meekly; for she means our good; And learn ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... hastened to say; "with my wife so near at hand I could not let a day go by without inflicting my presence upon her for some small part of it," he concluded in a half jesting tone, and with a fond look down into the sweet, troubled face; for he was ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... living water, and a dread Of the light, shallow life she led, fell on her; She went to Torm, and spoke, in broken words, The unformed longing of her dawning soul. He lightly laughed, filliped her ear, called her "My Lady Abbess," "pretty saint," and then Said, later, jesting, before all the court, "Behold a lady too good for her lord!" The blood swept up her cheeks to lose itself In her hair's gold, then ebbed again to leave Her paler than before. She stood in silent, Momentary hate of Torm, all ...
— Under King Constantine • Katrina Trask |
