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More "Repartee" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lawyer and as judge of the Supreme Court of Vermont, he broke through the traditional manner of conducting trials, as is evidenced by many human, amusing anecdotes, illustrative of his wit and quick repartee. He was married to Mary Palmer, in 1794, and brought up a family of eleven children, a number of whom won distinction in the ministry, but none of whom followed their father's taste for playwriting. He mingled with the most intellectual society ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... a friendship with him; and Solon replying, "It is better to make friends at home," Anacharsis replied, "Then you that are at home make friendship with me." Solon, somewhat surprised at the readiness of the repartee, received him kindly, and kept him some time with him, being already engaged in public business and the compilation of his laws; which when Anacharsis understood, he laughed at him for imagining the dishonesty and covetousness of his countrymen could be restrained by written laws, which were ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... often avenge himself on her—or rather on the more obnoxious members of her following—by dint of a faculty for light and stinging repartee which would send her, flushed and biting her lip, to have her laugh out in private. But Langham for a long time was defenceless. Many of her friends in his opinion were simply pathological curiosities—their vanity was so frenzied, their sensibilities so morbidly developed. He ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... have cooled down. Then the Pharisees appear cautiously endeavouring to entrap him into admissions which might render him obnoxious to the Roman governor. He saw through their design, however, and foiled them by the magnificent repartee, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." Nothing could more forcibly illustrate the completely non-political character of his Messianic doctrines. Nevertheless, we are told that, failing in this attempt, the chief ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... the object is only to prevent my saying a bon mot, for there is not the least wit in my nature. I am a very matter-of-fact, plain-spoken being, and may blunder on the borders of a repartee for half an hour together without ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... and agile hand, and ready repartee—long may you flourish, mitigating the fierce summer thirst of many a parched palate; stimulating withered appetites till they hunger anew for the flesh-pots; warming the heart-cockles of departing voyagers till they laugh the keen breezes of ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... say, "Oh, that's very old." This has the same effect on a conundrum-maker as the most brilliant repartee. ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... conversation when Leslie was present which they missed when she was absent. Even when she did not talk she seemed to inspire others to brilliancy. Captain Jim told his stories better, Gilbert was quicker in argument and repartee, Anne felt little gushes and trickles of fancy and imagination bubbling to her lips under the ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to stay to dinner. The other members of the mess were trooping in, all his juniors, all obviously fond of him and boisterously irreverent of his rank. Dinner under his chairmanship was a sort of school for repartee. It was utterly unlike the usual British mess dinner. If you shut your eyes for a minute you couldn't believe that any one present had ever worn a uniform. I learned afterward that there was quite a little competition to ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... there was an attempt on all sides to be gay. Count Mirabel talked a great deal, and Lady Bellair laughed at what he said, and maintained her reputation for repartee. Her ladyship had been for a long time anxious to seize hold of her gay neighbour, and it was evident that he was quite 'a favourite.' Even Ferdinand grew a little more at his ease. He ventured to relieve the duke from some of his labours, and carve ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... large and lovely—and so cheap! They lay in one delicious heap, And added to the sumptuous feast For each and all in taste expert The acme of all fine dessert; So, singling out the very least As in itself an ample treat, While sparkling repartee and jest Exhilarated host and guest, Of rarity so delicate In dreamy reverie I ate, By magic pinions as it were Transported from this realm of snows To be a happy sojourner Away down where the orange grows; Amid the bloom, ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... caught up by the chorus in lilting strains that partook of the bounding, exhilarating motion of the little steamer. Why, here is material, thought King, for a troupe of bacchantes, lighthearted leaders of a summer festival. What charming girls, quick of wit, dashing in repartee, who can pick the strings, troll a ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... there were rosettes of the true-blue mingled with yellow at buttonholes; and there was fun on the line of march. Jokes plumped deep into the ribs, and were answered with intelligent vivacity in the shape of hearty thwacks, delivered wherever a surface was favourable: a mode of repartee worthy of general adoption, inasmuch as it can be passed on, and so with certainty made to strike your neighbour as forcibly as yourself: of which felicity of propagation verbal wit cannot always boast. In the line of procession, the hat of a member of the corps ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was something more than a man of virile temperament; he was gifted with other qualities than energy, determination, and common sense. He was not witty. He had no talent for repartee, and the most industrious collector of anecdotes will find few good things attributed to him. But he possessed a kindly humour which found vent in playful expressions of endearment, or in practical jokes of the most innocent description; and if these outbursts of high ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... angels, which, as it is not of a glaring kind, more commonly escapes observation; so little indeed is it remarked, that I want a word to express it. I must use negatives on this occasion. I never heard anything of pertness, or what is called repartee, out of her mouth; no pretence to wit, much less to that kind of wisdom which is the result only of great learning and experience, the affectation of which, in a young woman, is as absurd as any of the affectations of an ape. ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... Le Borgne mightily by sitting bolt upright and bidding him bring me a meal of buffalo-tongue or teal. With the stolid repartee of the Indian he grunted back that I had tongue enough; but he brought the stuff with no ill grace. After that he had much ado to keep me off my feet. Finally, I promised by the soul of his grandfather neither to spy nor listen about the doors of the inner cave, and he let me ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... "Of 1840 repartee?" He spoke with increasing pauses. "Yes. We do at least possess that. And some wine of about the ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... full of color and motion—laughter and repartee mingling with the adieux of the knights and seigneurs to their ladies, the notes of the hunting-horns, the snorts of impatient steeds, the short expectant bark of the dogs, as the Master of the hounds, the young Count of Jaffa, with his great army of hunters and attendants, moved before ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... wicked nobleman" N. B., O. W.) But this is no fault, and, indeed, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find fault with Mr. TREE'S Lord Illingworth. Mrs. TREE as Mrs. Allonby, is a very charming battledore in the game of repartee-shuttlecock, who with eight other principal characters in the piece, has nothing whatever to do with the plot. To the character of Lady Hunstanton, as written in the Mrs. Nickleby vein, and as played by Miss ROSE LECLERCQ, the success is mainly due; and "for this relief much thanks." It is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, May 6, 1893 • Various
... king Robert. The king, ever partial to men of mind and genius, took especial delight in Giotto's society, and used frequently to visit him while working in the Castello dell'Uovo, taking pleasure in watching his pencil and listening to his discourse; 'and Giotto,' says Vasari, 'who had ever his repartee and bon-mot ready, held him there, fascinated at once with the magic of his pencil and pleasantry of his tongue.' We are not told the length of his sojourn at Naples, but it must have been for a considerable period, judging ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... and that to get a free passage as idlers was our last wish and intention. To this, amid appreciating chuckles from the crew, the captain replied, that, so sneaks and stowaways always said; a taunt which was too vulgar as repartee to annoy me, though I saw Alister's thin hands clenching at his sides. I don't know if the captain did, but he called out—"Here! you lanky ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... here indeed was the very sister of his spirit. His words sprang into his mind as one thinks of a repartee. "But why shouldn't you come too?" ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... There was no awkwardness, no constraint. The assembly disengaged an impression of refined pleasure. On every hand, innumerable dialogues seemed to go forward easily and naturally, without break or interruption, witty, engaging, the couple never at a loss for repartee. A third party was gracefully included, then a fourth. Little groups were formed,—groups that divided themselves, or melted into other groups, or disintegrated again into isolated pairs, or lost ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... performer before a popular audience. His speech abounded with argumentative appeal and bristled with illustrative anecdote, and, when occasion required, with apt repartee. ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... religious differences, I have often heard her speak of the faiths and rituals of others, but never without the deepest interest and sympathy. She was young to the end; young in her enthusiasm, her sympathy, her boundless energy, her never-failing sense of humour, her gift of repartee, her ability always to strike the apt—even the corrosive—epithet. A visit to her was, to use one of her own phrases, "like a breath o' caller air to a weary body"—and in West Africa that means incomparably more ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... ridden away and forgotten his purse and that upon discovering this he had come back for the supplies of war. They joked him unmercifully, even Daisy,—who was manifestly incredulous about his explanation,—and he accepted their hilarious repartee with the ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... They achieve repartee the brilliance of which dazzles him to contemptible silence. If statistics were at hand we should doubtless learn that no man has ever talked to himself save by way of demonstrating his own godlike superiority, ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... dressed perfectly, but she was a vulgar little soul; drank everything, from Bass' ale to rum-punch, and from cherry-brandy to absinthe; thought it the height of wit to stifle you with cayenne slid into your vanilla ice, and the climax of repartee to cram your hat full of peach stones and lobster shells; was thoroughly avaricious, thoroughly insatiate, thoroughly heartless, pillaged with both hands, and then never had enough; had a coarse good nature when it cost her nothing, and was "as jolly as a grig," according to her ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... name! what a rustling of silks and waving of plumes! what a sparkling of diamond ear-rings and shoe-buckles! What bright eyes, (Ah, those were Waller's Sacharissa's as she passed!) what killing looks and graceful motions! How the faces of the whole ring are dressed in smiles! how the repartee goes round! how wit and folly, elegance and awkward imitation of it, set one another off! Happy, thoughtless age, when kings and nobles led purely ornamental lives; when the utmost stretch of a morning's study went no farther than the choice of a sword-knot, or the adjustment of a side-curl; ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... it's a repartee. If ye think so much of these Jackmans, build them a cottage yourselves; ye've ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... life of the party. Helen and Ruth had too recently bidden Tom Cameron good-bye to feel like joining with Jennie in repartee. Though it might have been that even the fat girl's repartee was more a matter of repertoire. She was expected to be funny, and so forced herself ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... offence, wrote his English friend Lord Something-or-other, who owned the yacht, and who was at Carlsbad, begging him to run up and see the "best ever" and "one of us"—and Malone never lost an opportunity to say how quick he was in repartee, or how he missed him. Stebbins kept his ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... could discover a repartee the door opened and a young man with a weak chin and bright yellow boots came out laughing, followed by a good-looking girl, who turned on the step to close the door behind her. Although in black, she ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... were added to Mary Lee's letter that night. She described everybody whom they had met at dinner, from her Queen Rose, as she called Molly Glendenning, to the courtly old Confederate general at the end of the table. She had been so absorbed in the repartee and bright speeches round her that she had not noticed that she and Travis were not included in the conversation. But Travis had noticed. There were many callers that night after dinner; men who took the girls away singly, in groups, and in pairs, ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... exactly, since it gave him a chance for observation; and certainly the little drawing-room, with its refined freedom, was a revelation to him. Conversation, repartee, and jest were unrestrained. While Lane was as gay as any present, Merwyn was made to feel that he was no ordinary man, and it soon came out in the natural flow of talk that he, too, was in the service. ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... favourite on the farm, where he played the part of the old jester, and made up for his practical deficiencies by his success in repartee. His hits, I imagine, were those of the flail, which falls quite at random, but nevertheless smashes an insect now and then. They were much quoted at sheep-shearing and haymaking times, but I refrain from recording them here, lest Tom's wit should ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... as does the satin of her gown. Ah! Lionel, much as we love you, we are happy in the thought that Vaura is your rest. Colonel Haughton notices that his niece often glances at him, and that beneath her gay repartee or brilliant converse, there underlies some powerful excitement which he attributes wholly to the expose ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... from a tracker's point of view, the local wit set the entire company in shrieks of laughter at his quick repartee. ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... and club companions, yet he himself was scarcely of their disposition. His attitude towards life was still serious, he carried always with him some suggestions of a past which must ever remain an ugly and fearsome thing. His sense of humour was unlimited—in repartee he easily held his own. He was agreeable to everybody, but he never sought acquaintances, and avoided intimacies. More especially was he averse to any ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... every night. W. liked the general very much and found him quite talkative when he was alone with him. At the big dinners he was of course at a disadvantage, neither speaking nor understanding a word of French. W. acted as interpreter and found that very fatiguing. There is so much repartee and sous-entendu in all French conversation that even foreigners who know the language well find it sometimes difficult to follow everything, and to translate quickly enough to keep one au courant is almost impossible. When they could they drifted into English, ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... and robbery. He arrived at Tyburn insolently drunk. He blustered and ranted, until the spectators hissed their disapproval, and he died vehemently shouting that he would act the same murder again in the same case. Unworthy, also, was the last dying repartee of Samuel Shotland, a notorious bully of the Eighteenth Century. Taking off his shoes, he hurled them into the crowd, with a smirk of delight. 'My father and mother often told me,' he cried, 'that I should die with my shoes on; but you may all see that I have made them both liars.' A great ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... reserved natures, she often failed to attract strangers at a first meeting. In general conversation she disappointed people, by not shining. Men and women, immeasurably her inferiors, surpassed her in ready wit and brilliant repartee. Her taciturnity in society has been somewhat ungenerously laid to a parti pris. She was one, it is said, who took all and gave nothing. That she was intentionally chary of her passing thoughts and impressions to those around her, is, however, ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... that is parochial. It is your profoundly interesting son I alluded to. Did you notice his supercilious departure? And his morbid celerity of repartee?" ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... he gives of these rejoinders and replies consist chiefly of obscene jokes, cheap puns on names or pointless witticisms. Here are two specimens of the better kind, relating to Gnathaena, who was famed for her repartee: ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... gleaming as though polished. If only they were all like this! Then perhaps five minutes later a smaller group came in, strongly enough. The first squad shouted ridiculing little jokes at them; and they shrieked back spirited repartee, whacking their loads vigorously with their safari sticks. These, too, would cause no anxiety. But then Kingozi sat up and began to take notice. The men drifted in by twos and threes. Kingozi scrutinized them closely, trying to determine the state of their ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... even seen, the penniless orphan of a penniless brother of his father, and who had been sent to sea; so that, after all, his mother was the only natural friend he had. This poor little boy would fly from that mother with a sullen brow, or, perhaps, even with a harsh and cutting repartee; and then he would lock himself up in his room, and weep. But he allowed no witnesses of this weakness. The lad was very proud. If any of the household passed by as he quitted the saloon, and stared for a moment at his pale and agitated ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... conversation, in ingenuity and ability of argument, this company would compare with any company of white gentlemen that we met in the island. In that circle of colored gentlemen, were the keen sallies of wit, the admirable repartee, the satire now severe, now playful, upon the measures of the colonial government, the able exposure of aristocratic intolerance, of plantership chicanery, of plottings and counterplottings in high places—the strictures on the intrigues of the special ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... difficulty in keeping it well in hand. There was a novelty, a difference, in the situation this time, a new and unexpected element in the event. She hesitated. Why was it no merry quip came to the lips usually so ready with repartee? ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... enough she had lost the touch for the kind of part. She, who had made one of her early successes as the spirit of Astarte in "Manfred," was known to a later generation of playgoers as the aristocratic dowager of stately presence and incisive repartee. Her son, Fuller Mellish, was also in the cast as Curio, and when we played "Twelfth Night" in America was promoted to the part of Sebastian, my double. In London my brother Fred played it. Directly he walked on to the stage, looking as like me as possible, yet a man all over, he was a ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... courage to confront mobs, or dictators, as he did also to meet an armed host in his country's service, he was not characterised by that presence of mind in public discussion, so necessary for effective repartee and popular power. He was in religion a Protestant, and a member of the Established Church; but it is obvious, from his various papers in connection with Irish affairs, that he was not a very earnest Protestant, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... picture. There was practically no restraint placed upon the girls. Most of the campers were well-bred young women who instinctively distinguished between brightness and boisterousness. There was plenty of gay laughter and bright repartee, in which the keen-witted college-girl guardians occasionally took part. These college girls were both an example and an inspiration to the younger girls of the camp. It was from one of these young women sitting near her that Harriet learned what "honors" meant in the camp. Every time a girl ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... church on one side—he lived jovially, giving chase to soiled doves as often as to hares, and other royal game. Therefore, the sorry scribblers who have made him out a hypocrite, showed plainly that they knew him not, since he was a good friend, good at repartee, and a jollier fellow ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... For he proved a very rational, honorable and eligible young Prince: modest, honest, with abundance of sense and spirit; kind too and good, hot temper well kept, temper hot not harsh; quietly holds his own in all circles; good discourse in him, too, and sharp repartee if requisite,—though he stammered somewhat in speaking. Submissive Wilhelmina feels that one might easily have had a worse husband. What glories for you in England! the Queen used to say to her in old times: "He is a Prince, that Frederick, who has a good heart, and whose genius is very small. ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... smile annoyed his companion, but the day was hot and she had no repartee ready. She only murmured as she threw away ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... curled up his lip, and showed his teeth, and began to bray, so tickled me, and was so much in keeping with what I had imagined to myself about his character, that I could not find it in my heart to be angry, and burst into a peal of hearty laughter. This seemed to strike the ass as a repartee, so he brayed at me again by way of rejoinder; and we went on for a while, braying and laughing, until I began to grow a-weary of it, and, shouting a derisive farewell, turned to pursue my way. In so doing—it was like going suddenly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said Fascination Fledgeby. Mrs Lammle thought it scarcely as warm as it had been yesterday. 'Perhaps not,' said Fascination Fledgeby, with great quickness of repartee; 'but I expect it ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... delight in a species of drawling, melancholy, church music. Their most favourite dramatic pieces are almost without incident, and the dialogue of their comedies consists of moral insipid apophthegms, entirely destitute of wit or repartee." While amusing himself with the sights of Paris, Smollett drew up that caustic delineation of the French character which as a study in calculated depreciation has rarely been surpassed. He conceives the Frenchman entirely as a petit-maitre, ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... afterwards became the law-partner of Gen. Felix Huston, and almost at a bound stood in the front rank of his profession in the State. "Boundless good-nature," to use the language of Dr. Lossing; "keen logic; quickness and aptness at repartee; overflowing but kindly wit; an absolute earnestness and sincerity in all he undertook to do, made him a universal favorite in every circle." In 1832 Mr. Prentiss removed to Vicksburg. John M. Chilton, a leading member of the bar ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... maiden's manner was lively, and we may add that her smile and repartee were ready. But her gaiety was assumed, as a quality essentially necessary to her trade, of which it was one of the miseries, that the professors were obliged frequently to cover an aching heart with a compelled ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... out the dramatis personae, taking care that you have plenty of supernaturals, genii, elves, gnomes, ghouls, or vampires, to make up a competent corps de ballet; work out your dialogue in slipshod verse, with as much slang repartee as you possibly can cram in, and let every couplet contain either a pun or some innuendo upon the passing events of the day. This in London is considered as the highest species of wit, and seldom fails to bring down three distinct rounds of applause from the galleries. I fear you may be trammelled ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... savages, they shew the greatest feats of agility. Their love of society is as remarkable as their curiosity is insatiable; and their hospitality to all comers, be their own poverty ever so pinching, has too much merit to be forgotten. Pleased to enjoyment with a joke, or witty repartee, they will repeat it with such expression, that the laugh will be universal. Warm friends and revengeful enemies; they are inviolable in their secrecy, and inevitable in their resentment; with such a notion of honour, that neither threat nor reward would induce them ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... notice, for example, even if he had had no personal interest in the chief actor. He was with some New York friends, in a gondola three or four boat-lengths away, and so absorbed was he in the little drama, that, when a remark was addressed to him that called for a retort, his gift of repartee quite failed him. ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... more than assurance. A French general having inconsiderately asked this stranger what we should find between Wiazma and Moscow, the Russian proudly replied, "Pultowa." This answer bespoke a battle; it pleased the French, who are fond of a smart repartee, and delight to meet with enemies worthy ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... long before he came in sight of them, the shrill yells with which sled load interchanged repartee with sled load; everlastingly there was the monotone of the singers. It was plain that the same spirit of gay adventure was inspiring ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... from every gesture of every person seated over the fire! One is plunged indeed into the dim, sweet, brutal heart of reality here, and the imagination finds starting places for its wanderings from the mere gammons of dried bacon hanging from the smoky rafters and the least gross repartee and lewd satyrish jest of the rustic Grangousier and Gargamelle who quaff their amber-coloured cider ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... so entirely en rapport with everybody. A casual occurrence, a little discussion involving, perhaps, a cunning attempt to enlist him on one side or the other, would prove the key to unlock a fund of anecdotes, repartee, bon-mots, and, best of all, word-pictures, for here Dr. Bemiss excelled every one I ever knew. My own relations with him were very pleasant, for he was my adviser and helper in using properly the Louisiana ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... well for her schemes, for the young people appeared to be getting on wonderfully together. There was a constant succession of jest and repartee. Grace was cordiality itself; and in Graham's eyes that morning there was coming an expression of which he may not have been fully aware, or which at last he would permit to be seen. Indeed, he was yielding rapidly ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... younger of the two—two sisters named Mary and Julia Bertram; Margaret Grant, who was tall, dark, and stately, and Olive Repton, everybody's favorite, a bright-eyed, bewitching little creature, with the merriest laugh, a gay manner, and with brilliant powers of repartee and a good-natured word for every one—she was, in short, the life of ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... guests. As for prepared or premeditated art, Mr. Mahaffy has a great contempt for it and tells us of a certain college don (let us hope not at Oxford or Cambridge) who always carried a jest-book in his pocket and had to refer to it when he wished to make a repartee. Great wits, too, are often very cruel, and great humourists often very vulgar, so it will be better to try and 'make good conversation without any large help from these brilliant but ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... didn't cheat themselves there wouldn't be no marriages," Mehitabel retorted, grinning, and retired in evident delight over her success in repartee. ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... might have stood for a sign. But the genius of the place, its omnipresent and all-pervading goddess, was Jovita! Smiling, joyous, indefatigable in suavity and attention; all-embracing in her courtesies; frank of speech and eye; quick at repartee and deftly handling the slang of the day and the locality with a childlike appreciation and an infantine accent that seemed to redeem it from vulgarity or unfeminine boldness! Few could resist ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... and dazzling, and full of startling paradoxes; he had considerable power of sarcastic repartee, and once or twice is reported to have encountered the imperious queen of Austrian society, Madame de Metternich, with her own weapons, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... the most epigrammatic. She had the happy gift of improvising in a lightning-flash epigrams and jeux de mots which would not have discredited the best wits even of France. I think her repartee, or rather jeu de mot, at the dentist's, which went the round of London, the best example I can take by way of illustration. Most people are dreary and depressed in a dentist's chair. Not so Mlle. de Peyronnet. ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... sided or jostled. Their air and dress asserted the parade. You left wide spaces betwixt you, when you passed them. We walk on even terms with their successors. The roguish eye of J——ll, ever ready to be delivered of a jest, almost invites a stranger to vie a repartee with it. But what insolent familiar durst have mated Thomas Coventry?—whose person was a quadrate, his step massy and elephantine, his face square as the lion's, his gait peremptory and path-keeping, indivertible from his way as a moving column, the scarecrow of his inferiors, the brow-beater ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... the football goes, do you mean that it stays?" queried Mrs. Jarley, who was a little tired herself, and could not, therefore, resist the temptation to indulge in a bit of innocent repartee. ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... of great power,—fluent and elegant in diction, bright and sparkling in thought, keen and quick in repartee. ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... rant by note, and through the gamut rage; In songs and airs express their martial fire, Combat in trills, and in a fugue expire: While, lull'd by sound, and undisturb'd by wit, Calm and serene you indolently sit, And, from the dull fatigue of thinking free, Hear the facetious fiddle's repartee: Our home-spun authors must forsake the field, And Shakspeare to the soft Scarletti yield. 10 To your new taste the poet of this day Was by a friend advised to form his play. Had Valentini, musically coy, Shunn'd ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... said to myself, In the self-same repartee, Look to thyself, Or not look to thyself, ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... better days he chose out and brought around him. We are told that he had marvellous powers of conversation, that he had a ready wit, and a keen insight into the humors and the weaknesses of those with whom he was compelled to associate. We are told that he could compete in repartee with the recognized wits of his time, and that he could shine as a talker even among men whose names still live in history because of their reputations as talkers. Of course it will naturally occur to the mind that the guests of the Prince Regent ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... almost say two personalities, in the kaiser. When he is himself he is the most charming companion that it is possible to conceive. His manners are as genial and as winning as those of his father and grandfather, both of whom he surpasses in brilliancy of intellect, and in quickness of repartee, as well as in a keen sense of humor. He gives one the impression of possessing a heart full of the most generous impulses,—aye, of a generosity carried even to excess, and this, together with a species of indescribable magnetism which appears to radiate ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... Tuscany, on the Irish benches, could not forbear to cheer their old opponent. Besides securing American gold for his country, he has transferred some American bronze to his complexion. If anything, he appears to have sharpened his natural faculty for skilful evasion and polite repartee by his encounter with Transatlantic journalists. In fact everybody is pleased to see him back except perhaps certain curious members, who find him even more chary of information than his deputy, ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... (Mil. 637 ff.) is marked by homely satirical wisdom. In the Ps. the badinage of the name-character is appreciably superior to most of the incidental quips. Pseudolus generously compliments Charinus on beating him at his own game of repartee (743). When Weise (Die Komodien des Plautus, p. 181) describes Ps. IV. 7 as "eine der ausgezeichnetsten Scenen, die es irgend giebt," his superlative finds a better justification ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... of a rooster-fight," retorted Reeves. In his triumph he was not unwilling to banter repartee with the hateful Hiram. "You fellers with what you call sportin' blood"—he sneered the words—"come along and think nobody else can't do anything right but you. You fetch along cat-meat with feathers on it"—he pointed at the vanquished ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... tug, and on this occasion the Duke was alone. He could not stand the atmosphere of tobacco and whisky in the cabin, and made his way along the side to the engine-room, leaving the Custom-House men to their smoke and their repartee. ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... Repartee is never Frank's forte. This is all that he now finds with which to wither me. However, even if he had any thing more or more pungent to say, I should not hear him, for I am beginning ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... wine or blood-red anemones: her lips are like coral and cornelian and the water of her mouth is sweeter than old wine, its taste would allay the torments of Hell. Her tongue is moved by abounding wit and ready repartee: her breast is a temptation to all that see it, glory be to Him who created it and finished it: and joined thereto are two smooth round arms. As says of her ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... wit had something of a professional tang. There are many like him in club-land and hanging about the stage; they catch up and remember all the satirical sayings, the comicalities, and quips that they hear, and they maintain a sort of factory for the production of puns. Their repartee explodes like an American boy's string of toy crackers, and involves, to set it going, no greater intellectual effort. They are not, in their first state, less intelligent than the common run of men—rather the contrary; but as soon as they have gone so far as to acquire a reputation ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... generously as to show every one of her fine white teeth, promptly told him that he had better be off and buy it, because perhaps he could buy at the same place some hugs and kisses too: at which sally and quick repartee they all laughed. Herr Sohnstein long had been the declared lover of Aunt Hedwig's, and long had been held at arm's-length (quite literally occasionally) by that vigorous person; who believed, because of her good heart, that her ...
— A Romance Of Tompkins Square - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... with her on the platform in bygone days, well remember her matchless powers as a speaker; and how safe we all felt while she had the floor, that neither in manner, sentiment, argument, nor repartee, would she in any way compromise the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... first speech in Parliament. Declines the Vice-Treasurership of Ireland. Courts the ultra-Whig party. His advocacy of reform. Becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer at twenty-three years of age. Pitt's speech and Sheridan's repartee. His visit to the Continent with William Wilberforce. Appointed First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. His difficulties and dangers. His power. Review of his merits and defects. His reported speeches. Character of ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... long distances, and who prided themselves upon being above every form of fishing lower than spinning, the truly knock-down nature of this blow can only be imagined by those who understand the subject. The captain, who is reckoned one of the worst men in the regiment to venture with in the way of repartee, was so amazed at the damsel's ignorance that he answered never a word, leaving some of her friends in muslin on the garden chairs around to explain the difference between fishing with and without a float—a ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... Then I started off again, and had just reached Walham Green (one does not speak of these places, but I may tell you that it is a station on the way to Putney, where I have a friend), when she responded with lightning-like swiftness that it couldn't be healthy to live in Glasgow. This bordered on repartee, so I countered rapidly with the brilliant suggestion that a good many people managed to live there, hoping she would not score by the obvious rejoinder that a good many people died there. If she had, I can't imagine how I should have extricated myself. Luckily she merely murmured, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914 • Various
... genial companions,—"for 'tis meet that noble minds keep ever with their likes"—his star was at its zenith. Then indeed, all rules were suspended; no point of order suggested—"The man and the hour had met." His marvellous narratives of quaint incidents and startling experiences, his brilliant repartee, sallies of wit, banter, and badinage have rarely been heard since the days of the Round Table or the passing of "the Star ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... much disappointed that, just as I got to the caustic part, the exigencies of his profession demanded that he should punch six tickets in rapid succession. My repartee was consequently drowned amid a perfect carillon of bells. But meanwhile ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 23, 1914 • Various
... people about it and learned that he was already known as a public character to everyone but his own dear mother. It was these here curls that got him attacked on every hand by young and old, and his natural vigour of mind had built him up a line of repartee that was downright blistering when he had time to stop and recite it all. Even mule skinners would drive blocks out of their way just to hear little Shelley's words when someone called him ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... into his ear Your own confiding grief; In vain you claim his sympathy, In vain you ask relief; In vain you try to rouse him by Joke, repartee, or quiz; His sole reply's a burning sigh, And "What a mind it is!" O Lord! it is the greatest bore, Of all the bores I know, To have a friend who's lost his heart A short ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... allowed to approach him. The defection of the brilliant scholar having been brought to the vicar's notice, he ventured to call one Saturday afternoon on the Buttons, but such was the contumely with which he was received that the good man hastily retreated. In lung power he was outmatched. In repartee he was singularly outclassed. He then sent the superintendent of the school, a man of brawn and zeal, to see what muscular Christianity could accomplish. But muscular Christianity, losing its head, ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... evening afterwards is the only true test of a dinner's success. Many a good dinner, enlivened with wine and made brilliant with repartee, has died out in gloom. The guests have all said their best things during the meal, and nothing is left but to smoke moodily and look at the clock. Our heroes were not of that mettle. They meant to have some sort of fun, and the various amusements ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... taken to calling her as a sort of play upon caravan,—for was she not a whole team in herself? he would say,—he and Clara had many a lively contest of words, and were well matched in their powers of wit and repartee. ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... tear. Sensitive natures shrink from letting the world see their exquisite sensibility. Besides, Murger's gayety was intellectual rather than physical. It consisted almost entirely in bright gleams of repartee. It was quickness, 'twas not mirth. No wonder, then, that the world was deceived; the mind retained its old activity amid all its fatigue; and besides, the world sees men only in their hours of full-dress, when the will lights up the leaden ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... plan outlined," he answered; "just generalities, with the salt of repartee to season." He pondered over this sudden transition from wrath to mildness. An Englishman? Very well; it might ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... all the printed information on the subject the London coster wears clothes covered up with pearl buttons and spends his time swapping ready repartee with his Donah or his Dinah. The costers I saw were barren of pearl buttons and silent of speech; and almost invariably they had left their Donahs at home. Similarly these gentlemen habitues of the Cave of the Innocents wore few or no velvet pants, and guzzled little or none of the absinthe. ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... languishing affair. Archer noticed that his wife's way of showing herself at her ease with foreigners was to become more uncompromisingly local in her references, so that, though her loveliness was an encouragement to admiration, her conversation was a chill to repartee. The Vicar soon abandoned the struggle; but the tutor, who spoke the most fluent and accomplished English, gallantly continued to pour it out to her until the ladies, to the manifest relief of all concerned, went ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... religion—hastily tried to pour tea on the troubled waters. But they had been troubled too deeply. For full eight minutes the top of the drag became a political platform for Marquis-Ministerial denunciations of Mr. Gladstone, to a hail of repartee from the ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... and lie there. It does, and the north side has recently met the trouble by putting down raw flints, and so converting what would be a lake into a sort of flint pudding. Consequently one drives one's car as much as possible on the south side of this road. There is a suggestion of hostility and repartee between north and south side in this arrangement, which the explorer's inquiries will confirm. It may be only an accidental parallelism with profounder fact; I do not know. But the middle of this high road is a frontier. The south side belongs to the urban district ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... her. It was in allusion to this rumour that he said, 'Whenever my name is coupled with that of a young lady in this manner, I make it a point of honour to say I have been refused.' To the last, we are told, Lady Morgan preserved the natural vivacity and aptness of repartee that had made her the delight of Dublin society half a century before. 'I know I am vain,' she said once to Mrs. Hall, 'but I have a right to be. It is not put on and off like my rouge; it is always with me.... I wrote ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... Willis was usually the life of the company he happened to be in. His repartee at Mrs. Gales's dinner in Washington is famous. Mrs. Gales wrote on a card to her niece, at the other end of the table: "Don't flirt so with Nat Willis." She was herself talking vivaciously to a Mr. Campbell. Willis wrote ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... celebrated round the country for the petulence of my remarks, and the quickness of my replies; and many a scholar five years older than myself, have I dashed into confusion by the steadiness of my countenance, silenced by my readiness of repartee, and tortured with envy by the address with which I picked up a fan, presented a snuff-box, or received an ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... little smell that is always astray in Mabel Place, she heard outside in the damp afternoon two rival barrow-men howling a cry that sounded like "One pound hoo-ray!" A neighbour in the garden was exchanging repartee with a gentleman caller. "Biby, siy Naughty Man, Biby, tell 'im what a caution 'e is." But there seemed little hope that the baby would. These sounds were provided with the constant Brown Borough background of shouts and quarrels ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... shows Lincoln's versatility at repartee. George Forquer, who had been a Whig, changed over to be a Democrat and was appointed Register of the Land Office. His house, the finest in Springfield, had a lightning rod, the only one that Springfield ...
— Life of Abraham Lincoln - Little Blue Book Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 324 • John Hugh Bowers
... professionally propelled the keels and flats of the Ohio, they were a class unto themselves—"half horse, half alligator," a contemporary styled them. Rough fellows, much given to fighting, and drunkenness, and ribaldry, with a genius for coarse drollery and stinging repartee. The river towns suffered sadly at the hands of this lawless, dissolute element. Each boat carried from thirty to forty boatmen, and a number of such boats frequently traveled in company. After ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... at the old homestead was a merry one. Mrs. James spread a feast that was fit for the halls of Lucullus. Laughter, jest, and repartee flew from lip to lip. Nobody appeared to notice that Robert ate little, said nothing, and sat with his form shrinking in his shabby "best" suit, his gray head bent even lower than usual, as if desirous of avoiding all observation. When the others spoke to him he answered ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... as a smart repartee instead of a rebuke. She sent up a strange little scream, which exploded in ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... the Patriarch Zosimus, with the slight sneer which was the nearest advance to a sarcasm that the etiquette of the Greek court permitted; for on all ordinary occasions, it would not have offended the Presence more surely, literally, to have drawn a poniard, than to exchange a repartee in the imperial circle. Even the sarcasm, such as it was, would have been thought censurable by that ceremonious court in any but the Patriarch, to whose high rank some license ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... elected by the Legislature for a full term. Appearing in the Senate at the important juncture when the annexation of Texas and the Mexican war were agitating the country, he soon took an active part in the discussions. He was particularly distinguished for his aptness in repartee, and for his keen and incisive humor. Politically he belonged to the conservative or Hunker wing of the Democracy. Entering the Senate just as Silas Wright was leaving it to assume the Governor's chair, he joined Secretary Marcy and the influences that moulded Polk's Administration, ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... observations. So she firmly resolved not to be so readily entrapped again, and was so bright and cheery during the next hour that Aunt Jane smiled more than once, and at one time actually laughed at her niece's witty repartee. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... this inquiring age, few have any chance of passing through life without being excited to examine the motives and principles from which they act: is it not therefore prudent to cultivate the reasoning faculty, by which alone this examination can be made with safety? A false argument, a repartee, the charms of wit or eloquence, the voice of fashion, of folly, of numbers, might, if she had no substantial reasons to support her cause, put virtue not only out of countenance, but out ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... the host coruscates. The young lady on your right suddenly develops into a charming girl, with becoming appreciation of your pet topics and an astounding aptness for repartee. The Gorgon thaws, and implores Mr. Snapshot, whose jests are popping as briskly as the corks, not to be so dreadfully funny, or he will positively kill her. Belle Breloques can always talk, and now her tongue rattles faster than ever, till the languid one arouses himself like a giant refreshed, ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... months after her marriage, and died two days after giving birth to a son, afterwards Edward VI. She was one of those passive women who make neither friends nor enemies. She indulged in no wit or repartee, like her brilliant but less beautiful predecessor, and she passed her regal life without uttering a sentence or a sentiment which has been ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... The quick repartee, which was another of the Queen's characteristics, was less likely to promote her popularity. "M. Brunier," says Madame Campan, "was physician to the royal children. During his visits to the palace, if the death of ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... therefore, was required, than by the addition of some circumstances, and the exaggeration of others, to make merriment supply the place of demonstration; nor was I so senseless as to offer arguments to such as could not attend to them, and with whom a repartee or catch would more effectually answer the same purpose. This being effected, there remained only "the dread of the world:" but Roxana soared too high, to think the opinion of others worthy her notice; Laetitia seemed ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... (entranced with the airy persiflage, but knowing her own to be no light hand at repartee). "Ask the others, ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... manners, indiscreet, and lacking flexibility in the management of men. The messages which he wrote as President were dignified and judicious, and his addresses were not lacking in power, but he was prone to indulge in unseemly repartee with his hearers when speaking on the stump. He exchanged epithets with bystanders who were all too ready to spur him on with their "Give it to 'em, Andy!" and "Bully for you, Andy!" giving the ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... the programme of mortification, and Endymion, hot and then cold, and then both at the same time, bereft of repartee, and wishing the earth would open and Montfort Castle disappear in its convulsed bosom, stole silently away as soon as practicable, and wandered as far as possible from the music and the bursts ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... stood the clerk's and solicitors' table, fenced by a rail from the vulgar crowd who pressed in, hot and excited, to see the criminals and hear justice done. There was a case arising from an ancient family feud, exploded at last into crime; one lady had thrown a clog at another as the last repartee in a little dialogue held at street doors; the clog had been well aimed, and the victim appeared now with a very large white bandage under her bonnet, to give her testimony. This swelled the crowd beyond its ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... change in Emma Lindsay!" was an exclamation frequent among her mother's friends. "Her pertness, repartee, and saucy witticisms are all gone. What have they been doing for her? This winning softness and grace of manner seems ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... that he seemed the only member of that little circus who was not of an amiable temper? But I do not blame him, and I think it much to have seen a clown once more who jested audibly with the ringmaster and always got the better of him in repartee. It was long since ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Fountain pass her; then come dashing up to him, and either pull up short with a piece of solemn information like an aid-de-camp from headquarters, or pass him shooting a shaft of raillery back into his chariot, whereat he would rise with mock fury and yell a repartee after her. Fountain found himself good company—Talboys himself. It was not the lady; oh ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... said I liked you," retorted the youth, with a touch of the broad repartee with which he was accustomed to hold his own among the girls ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... a crowd in the road waiting to see the result of Tony's manoeuvres. And then, as is usual on such occasions, a little mild repartee went about,—what the sportsmen themselves would have called "chaff." Ned Botsey came up, not having broken his horse's back as had been rumoured, but having had to drag the brute out of the brook with the help of two countrymen, and the Major was asked about his fall till he was forced ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... sister, Mrs. Middleton; he was exceedingly attractive; there was no denying the charm that existed in the rapid intelligence, the quick conception, and the ready humour that lit up his eyes and countenance, and sparkled in his repartee. His powers of captivation were as great as hers, but he knew that power, and even used it for an end; while in her it was spontaneous as the bubbling of a stream, as the song of the birds, or as the joy of ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... had the effrontery to tell me—I mean, to tell James—that what I—that is, he—knew about billiards wouldn't cover the pyramid-spot. James, who some hours later thought of a perfectly priceless repartee, which he has since forgotten, replied with dignity by challenging the other to an immediate game. Herbert accepted and, hastily finishing their lunch, the two repaired to the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... disputations. He came in a flutter to me, and desired I might come back again, for he could not bear these men. 'O ho! sir,' said I, 'you are flying to me for refuge!' He never, in any situation, was at a loss for a ready repartee. He answered, with quick vivacity, 'It is of two evils chooseing the least.' I was delighted with this flash bursting from the cloud which hung upon his mind, closed my letter directly, and ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... of public speakers by his long experience. So it was matter for surprise that he, famed for rapid repartee, should have refrained from taking any notice of an interrupter whose shout could have been turned on him; so thought a friend ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... in this plunge into the coarse homely atmosphere of the old popular theatre. Extemporaneous comedies were no longer played in the great cities, and Odo listened with surprise to the swift thrust and parry, the inexhaustible flow of jest and repartee, the readiness with which the comedians caught up each other's leads, like dancers whirling without a false step through the mazes of some ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... a clatter of dishes and a buzz of conversation, abounding in rough jests and repartee. The boys took their part in frank, good fellowship and were hearty in their praises of the hard riding they had seen that morning. The ranchmen deprecated this as only "part of the day's work," but were pleased none the ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... we swapped quite a little repartee, me and the Cap'n, or whatever he was. But, instead of his bein' soothed by it he gets more strenuous every minute. He had that shack rockin' ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... himself, so to speak, up a tree, And unable to think of a neat repartee, He wisely concluded (as Brian Boru did, On seeing his 'illigant counthry' denuded Of cattle and grain that were swept from the plain By the barbarous hand of the pillaging Dane) To bandy no words with a dominant foe, But to wait for a chance of returning the blow, And then let ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... to tell me what is the matter with you; so, I'm sorry to say, I am cut off from all the customary consolations. I can't say, "Think how much worse it would be if you had a broken leg!" when you may have the crushing repartee up your sleeve, "But it is my leg that is broken." This is a pity. But there are consolations. You are an Englishman (I believe); you are a man of letters; you have never been made C.B.; you hair was not red; you have played cribbage and whist; you did not play either the fiddle ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cheerfully to breakfast, to find that Phoebe, who was a delicate eater, had pushed her plate away scarcely touched, while Lady Ella sat at the end of the table in a state of dangerous calm, framing comments for delivering downstairs that would be sure to sting and yet leave no opening for repartee, and trying at the same time to believe that a third cook, if the chances were risked again, would certainly be ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... later was published in a slender volume entitled Do We Agree? On both occasions the crowd was enormous and many had to be turned away. All three men were immensely popular figures and all three were at their best debating in a hall of moderate size where swift repartee could be ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his knife at the stall in the market, I loiter enjoying his repartee and ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... appropriately to a solicitous warning from Cora to keep away from the cat. Indeed, it was half an hour later, and he was sitting—to his own consciousness too heavily—upon the back fence, when belated inspiration arrived. But there is no sound where there is no ear to hear, and no repartee, alas! when the wretch who said the first part has gone, so that Cora remained unscathed as from his alley solitude Hedrick hurled in the teeth of the rising ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... various stories of the pair having met at dinner almost on the eve of Danton's arrest, and parting with sombre disquietude on both sides. The interview, with its champagne, its interlocutors, its play of sinister repartee, may possibly have taken place, but the alleged details are plainly apocryphal. After all, 'Religion ist in der Thiere Trieb,' says Wallenstein; 'the very savage drinks not with the victim, into whose breast he means to plunge a sword.' Danton was warned that ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... probably, Washington never heard praise more genuine or more deserved. He had just passed his twenty-seventh year. In the House of Burgesses he had the reputation of being the silent member. He never acquired the art of a debater. He was neither quick at rebuttal nor at repartee, but so surely did his character impress itself on every one that when he spoke the Assembly almost took it for granted that he had said the final word on the subject under discussion. How careful he was to observe the scope and effects of parliamentary ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... a rare performer before a popular audience. His speech abounded with argumentative appeal and bristled with illustrative anecdote, and, when occasion required, with apt repartee. ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... few romances of the length of 'Antar.' Though the Arab delights to hear and to recount tales, his tales are generally short and pithy. It is in this shorter form that he delights to inculcate principles of morality and norms of character. He is most adroit at repartee and at pungent replies. He has a way of stating principles which delights while it instructs. The anecdote is at home in the East: many a favor is gained, many a punishment averted, by a quick answer and a felicitously turned expression. Such ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... At it! At it!" chuckled the hot-tempered gentleman in undertones. And when he said this, it seemed as if the voices of Mr. and Mrs. Skratdj rose higher in matrimonial repartee, and the children's squabbles became louder, and the dog yelped as if he were mad, and the maids' contest was sharper; whilst the snap-dragon flames leaped up and up, and blue fire flew about ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... in vain for some airy nothing with which to answer his nonsense. I never have had the gift of repartee. I can talk well enough about subjects that interest me when I am conversing with some one whom I know well, but the frothy persiflage, the light banter that forms the conversation's stock in trade of so many women, is ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... Alameda, which he entered shortly after dark, and where an insult, simmering in its uncalled-for venom, met him as he limped across the floor of the local dispensary on his way to the bar. There was no time for verbal argument and precedent had established the manner of his reply, and his repartee was as quick as light and most effective. Having resented the epithets he gave his attention to the ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... humorous explosion. The sarcastic humor in its highest form reaches satire, where under a disguise powerful institutions or the habit and ways of life of a group are criticized. In polite society people are continually attacking each other in a kind of warfare called repartee, in which the tension is kept just without the bounds of real hostility, while the audience sides with the one whose shaft is the most telling. In the lower ranks this interchange, which is surprisingly frequent, is coarse and insulting. It is supposed to ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... laced ruffles, though the first was sorely creased, and the other sullied; not to forget the length of his silver-hilted rapier. His wit, or rather humour, bordered on the sarcastic, and intimated a discontented man; and although he showed no displeasure when the provost attempted a repartee, yet it seemed that he permitted it upon mere sufferance, as a fencing-master, engaged with a pupil, will sometimes permit the tyro to hit him, solely by way of encouragement. The laird's own jests, in the meanwhile, were eminently successful, not only with the provost and ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... after the event. It was just the same that time when the old gentleman in the theatre asked Hella if she was alone there, and she snapped at him. He said: Impudent as a Jewess, or an impudent Jewess! It was too absurd, for first of all it's not impudent to make a clever repartee, and secondly it does not follow because one can do it that one is a Jewess. So Hella finished up by saying to him: "No, you've made a mistake, you are not speaking to one of your ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... might have replied with ingenuousness, 'My life, I have nothing to say.' But, as the repartee did not occur to him, he contented himself with coming in from the balcony and standing at the side of his ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... This ready repartee must have shown Mistress Marguerite that Jeanne, ignorant as she may have been, was none the less capable of displaying a good grace and common ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... digging down deep in the soil, and carefully separating the iron ore, so Laconian oratory has no rind,[592] but by the removal of all superfluous matter goes home straight to the point like steel. For its sententiousness,[593] and pointed suppleness in repartee, comes from the habit of silence. And we ought to quote such pointed sayings especially to talkative people, such neatness and vigour have they, as, for example, what the Lacedaemonians said to Philip, "[Remember] Dionysius at Corinth."[594] And again, when Philip wrote to them, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... teazed him with questions and doubtful disputations. He came in a flutter to me, and desired I might come back again, for he could not bear these men. 'O ho! Sir, (said I,) you are flying to me for refuge!' He never, in any situation, was at a loss for a ready repartee. He answered, with a quick vivacity, 'It is of two evils choosing the least.' I was delighted with this flash bursting from the cloud which hung upon his mind, closed my letter directly, and joined ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... broadest spirit. The discourse of Periplecomenus (Mil. 637 ff.) is marked by homely satirical wisdom. In the Ps. the badinage of the name-character is appreciably superior to most of the incidental quips. Pseudolus generously compliments Charinus on beating him at his own game of repartee (743). When Weise (Die Komodien des Plautus, p. 181) describes Ps. IV. 7 as "eine der ausgezeichnetsten Scenen, die es irgend giebt," his superlative finds ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... eighteen months after her marriage, and died two days after giving birth to a son, afterwards Edward VI. She was one of those passive women who make neither friends nor enemies. She indulged in no wit or repartee, like her brilliant but less beautiful predecessor, and she passed her regal life without uttering a sentence or a sentiment which has been deemed worthy ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... This repartee, which made Montalais and De Guiche smile, rekindled the prince's anger, no inconsiderable portion of which had already evaporated ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... shortly after it left my hand. I recall now that the lady sitting between me and Clifford gave it a twirl which sent it spinning over the bare table-top. I don't think she realised the action. She was listening—we all were—to a flow of bright repartee going on below us, and failed to follow the movements of the coin. Otherwise, she would have spoken. But what a marvel that it should have reached that crack in just the ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... genuine or more deserved. He had just passed his twenty-seventh year. In the House of Burgesses he had the reputation of being the silent member. He never acquired the art of a debater. He was neither quick at rebuttal nor at repartee, but so surely did his character impress itself on every one that when he spoke the Assembly almost took it for granted that he had said the final word on the subject under discussion. How careful he was to observe the scope and effects of parliamentary ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... that the ungenerous words or acts which seem to us the most utterly incompatible with good dispositions in the offender, are those which offend ourselves. All other persons are able to draw a milder conclusion. Laniger, who has a temper but no talent for repartee, having been run down in a fierce way by Mordax, is inwardly persuaded that the highly-lauded man is a wolf at heart: he is much tried by perceiving that his own friends seem to think no worse of the reckless assailant than they did before; ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... with an amused smile in his eyes, watches him, as he "sighs like furnace," while Neaera, to the accompaniment of her lyre, sings one of Sappho's most passionate odes—whispers something in the ear of the brilliant vocalist, which visibly provokes a witty repartee, with a special sting in it for Horace himself, at which the little man winces—for have there not been certain love-passages of old between Neaera and himself? The wine circulates freely. Maecenas warms, and drops, with the ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... fattened the bank account of Sally Fortune, but loaded unnumbered burdens onto her strong shoulders. For she could not hire a waiter to take her place; every man who came into the eating-room expected to be served by the slim hands of Sally herself, and he expected also some trifling repartee which would make him pay his bill with ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... have been friends, the guardian and the ward, were always on a hostile footing, which only the most delicate handling could have healed. ACIS was not happy. When his glass told him he was old, he had no repartee ready, and could only speculate gloomily on the disagreeable fate which had compelled him to take part in a modern novel, and had evidently told him off to pass away into the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 7, 1891. • Various
... his china-white cheeks; his lids no longer drooped, his limbs seemed to regain their joints, his hands ceased to swell, he complained less and less of the pains about his heart. When, of a morning, he was finished with, and "le grand-pere" was having his hands done, they would engage in lively repartee—oblivious of one's presence. We began to feel that this grey ghost of a youth had been well named, after all, when they called him Prosper, so lyrical would he wax over the constitution and cooking of "bouillabaisse," ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... talking in groups around the statues and in front of the buffet, upholding or attacking the same ideas that were discussed every year, using the same arguments over works almost exactly similar. Olivier, who usually took a lively share in these disputes, being quick in repartee and clever in disconcerting attacks, besides having a reputation as an ingenious theorist of which he was proud, tried to urge himself to take an active part in the debates, but the things he said interested him ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... pathos or humour whenever he essayed to speak, and that promise was rarely broken. There was a gentle play about his mouth which declared that his wit never descended to sarcasm, and that there was no ill-nature in his repartee. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... first turned my mind towards the university town of Oxbridge. I had no difficulty in finding employment as a waitress there in a restaurant where knowledge of the business was considered less essential than a turn for repartee and some gift for keeping the young of our great nobility in their proper place. It was not long before I had made the acquaintance of quite a number of undergraduates. Some of them had a marked tendency towards rapidity, but soon learned that the regulation ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... could be successfully made. Indeed, as Gibbon owned, it was one of the causes to which the gradual triumph of Christianity was due. But for Europe at the present moment to address that appeal to Africa or India or China would be to invite a deadly repartee. In the long ages, Heathendom might reply, which have elapsed since the world "rose out of chaos," you have improved very little on the manners of those primeval monsters which "tare each other in the slime." ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... rule paid little regard to it. He was willing enough to be flayed, in moderation, by her keen tongue; in fact, he look a secret delight in her unrestrained sallies, but that was different from defiance. He could, and did, submit to any amount of cutting repartee, and felt a sort of pride in her vigour and recklessness, but he had no notion of countenancing open ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... nettled at this invidious and unnecessary comparison, and cast about in his mind how he might retort upon Spencer. I do not know that my conjecture is right; but it has always seemed to me that his reason for introducing his repartee to Spencer in the odd place where he did, just after a most eloquent and pathetic peroration, was something as follows—'I have now constructed and arranged my argument, and the thread of it must not be broken by the intervention of any such extraneous ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... importunate wits, that distinguish themselves by the flourishes of imagination, sharpness of repartee, glances of satire, and bear away the upper part in every consort. I cannot but observe, that when a man is not disposed to hear music, there is not a more disagreeable sound in harmony than that of ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... mild repartee continued, to be interrupted presently by a whoop from out of the fog. It was Mr. Gibney. He did not possess a megaphone so he had gone below and appropriated a section of stove-pipe from the galley range, formed ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... the ride, and idly commiserating the three fowls and a wet pig which appear below. We are absorbed too in a wooden-saboted farmhand of gigantic proportions who clicks across the cobbles at irregular intervals and exchanges repartee with a milk-maid in the doorway. He has a huge, knobby frame, bulging calves, a colored kerchief turbaning his head, a rough costume throughout, and a fascinating though belying air of desperate ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... irascibility. Shall I say that he seemed the only member of that little circus who was not of an amiable temper? But I do not blame him, and I think it much to have seen a clown once more who jested audibly with the ringmaster and always got the better of him in repartee. It was long since I had ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... ethics of publishing my memoirs now, I pass over the obvious repartee that to hear a German speak of ethics borders on the ludicrous and especially the man who openly in the Reichstag announced that necessity knows no law and that the German troops were at that moment deliberately violating the neutrality ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... the pair having met at dinner almost on the eve of Danton's arrest, and parting with sombre disquietude on both sides. The interview, with its champagne, its interlocutors, its play of sinister repartee, may possibly have taken place, but the alleged details are plainly apocryphal. After all, 'Religion ist in der Thiere Trieb,' says Wallenstein; 'the very savage drinks not with the victim, into whose breast he means to plunge a sword.' Danton was ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... entering the school-room, he had a cheerful word for every one. He was probably the most popular person in the institution. He was always good-natured, fond of conversation, and very entertaining. He was witty and quick at repartee, but his jokes, though brilliant and sparkling, were always harmless, and he never would willingly hurt ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... accounts were kept with an accuracy which struck us, who dealt at the store, as ignobly practical, and even malignant. Possibly we might have expressed this opinion more strongly but for a certain rude vigor of repartee which he possessed, and a suggestion that he might have a temper on occasion. "Them red-haired chaps is like to be tetchy and to kinder see blood through their eyelashes," had been suggested ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... subject was uppermost at the moment, whether it was literature, philosophy, art, politics, music, the last play, or the latest word of their friends. The talk was simple, natural, without heat, without aggressive egotism, animated with wit and repartee, glancing upon the surface of many things, and treating all topics, grave or gay, with the lightness of touch, the quick responsiveness that make the charm of ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... Lindsay!" was an exclamation frequent among her mother's friends. "Her pertness, repartee, and saucy witticisms are all gone. What have they been doing for her? This winning softness and grace of manner seems foreign to ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... you two," said Bess. "We have too many things to talk about to listen to repartee, even ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... really masterly representation of ancient villainy. Evans was admirably suited with the role of a dashing young man-about-town. The way he took his gloves off was worth a fortune in itself. We felt that there must be many degrees of blue blood in his veins. His back-chat repartee was far better than that of Mr. F. E. Smith, K.C. If Gill and Waite are in the future ever in need of a berth they should, judging by their performances in this play, apply to Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree for parts as a dilapidated charwoman and unwashed ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... unsatisfactorily upon Marcia, he plied almost exclusively for Olive. He made puns; he asked conundrums; he had all the accomplishments which keep people going in a lively, mirthful, colonial society; and he had the idea that he must pay attentions and promote repartee. His wife and he played into each other's hands in their jeux d'esprit; and kept Olive's inquiring Boston mind at work in the vain endeavor to account for and to place them socially. Bartley hung about Mrs. Macallister, and was nearly as obedient as her husband. He felt that the Hallecks ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... When I saw you start off yesterday I was just a little uneasy; for you looked so blamed important and chesty that I am inclined to think you will tell the first customer who says he doesn't like our sausage that he knows what he can do about it. Repartee makes reading lively, but business dull. And what the house needs is ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... a sportive element in a courageous nature. Things which are serious to ordinary people, may be but play to the valiant. Hence in old warfare it was not at all rare for the parties to a conflict to exchange repartee or to begin a rhetorical contest. Combat was not solely a matter of brute force; it was, as, well, ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... evening was really quite outrageous—the repartee of a conscienceless Parisian designer who took her hint that she wished something that would be entirely novel in the States. Today, after we have all of us, even in the uttermost provinces, been educated by Baskt and the various Ballets Russes, we would accept such a gown without distrust; ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... in this way was something like trying to talk without singing in her own ears. The thought that is bound up with our passion is as penetrative as air—everything is porous to it; bows, smiles, conversation, repartee, are mere honeycombs where such thoughts rushes freely, not always with a taste of honey. And without shutting herself up in any solitude, Gwendolen seemed at the end of nine or ten hours to have gone through a labyrinth of reflection, in which already the same succession ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... more of palaces than the likes of me. Thee manners be so fine," said Jan; and the repartee drew a roar of laughter, in which the bandy-legged boy joined. "But I've lived in a windmill," Jan added, "and that be more than ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... [U.S.], harlequinade &c. 599[obs3]; broad farce, broad humor; fun, espieglerie[Fr]; vis comica[Lat]. jocularity; jocosity, jocoseness[obs3]; facetiousness; waggery, waggishness; whimsicality; comicality &c. 853. banter, badinage, retort, repartee, smartness, ready wit, quid-pro- quo; ridicule &c. 856. jest, joke, jape, jibe; facetiae[Lat], levity, quips and cranks; capital joke; canorae nugae[Lat]; standing jest, standing joke, private joke, conceit, quip, quirk, crank, quiddity, concetto[obs3], plaisanterie[Fr], brilliant idea; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... were just yarning for the fun there is in it, I should say that I was back in King's Highway, helping Beryl King gather posies and brush up her repartee, the very next morning—or the second, at the very latest. As a matter of fact, though, I steered clear of that pass, and behaved myself and stuck to work for six long weeks; that isn't saying I never ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... of friends she did not notice the strangers; time was too short and they were too many. A lord of her acquaintance, who still hoped to make her his lady, took her into dinner, and called upon all her powers of wit and repartee to meet his conversational tactics during the meal. It was an exhilarating encounter, and of sufficient interest to keep her "eyes in the boat". Moreover, the table was immense, and the chief of the strangers sitting on her side of ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... grotesque confusion of identity, was that of the man who complained of having been "changed at nurse;" and perhaps he is right. An Irishman, and he only, can handle this confusion of ideas so as to make it a more powerful instrument of repartee than the logic of another man: take, for instance, the beggar who, when imploring a dignified clergyman for charity, was charged not to take the sacred name in vain, and answered, "Is it in vain, then? and ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... of some communist association in America. They act like the barrister who does not see in the counsel for the opposite side a representative of a cause, or an opinion contrary to his own, but a simple nuisance,—an adversary in an oratorical debate; and if he be lucky enough to find a repartee, does not otherwise care to justify his cause. Therefore the study of this essential basis of all Political Economy, the study of the most favourable conditions for giving society the greatest amount of useful products with the ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... us, that Tom Davies repeated, in a very bald manner, the story of Dr. Johnson's first repartee to me, which I have related exactly[1044]. He made me say, 'I was born in Scotland,' instead of 'I come from Scotland;' so that Johnson saying, 'That, Sir, is what a great many of your countrymen cannot help,' had no point, or even meaning: and that upon this being mentioned to ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... perfumer in greater despair than ever. He had made his little present of eau-de-Cologne. "Oh fie!" says the Captain, with a horse-laugh, "it SMELLS OF THE SHOP!" He taunted the tailor about his wig, and the honest fellow had only an oath to give by way of repartee. He told his stories about his club and his lordly friends. What chance had either against ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Hank grumbled, in the futile repartee of the stupid. "You think you're smart, but I don't. You wait!" Then he rode away down the trail, glowering at the world through puffy lids and repeating to himself many crushing things he wished he had ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... had been! To take her for Mrs. Palmer's niece—that peerless creature with the calm acceptance of any situation, which marked the woman of the world, with the fine appreciation and quickness of repartee that spoke of generations of culture—to imagine that she could be Mollie Booth! He had been blind, besottedly blind. And now he had lost her! She would never forgive him; she had gone without ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Peyronnet was the most epigrammatic. She had the happy gift of improvising in a lightning-flash epigrams and jeux de mots which would not have discredited the best wits even of France. I think her repartee, or rather jeu de mot, at the dentist's, which went the round of London, the best example I can take by way of illustration. Most people are dreary and depressed in a dentist's chair. Not so Mlle. de Peyronnet. Even here she kept not only her good-temper, but also her brilliant imagination ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... momentarily silent. On his native asphalt, there are few situations capable of throwing the New York policeman off his balance. In that favored clime, savoir faire is represented by a shrewd blow of the fist, and a masterful stroke with the truncheon amounts to a satisfactory repartee. Thus shall you never take the policeman of Manhattan without his answer. In other surroundings, Mr. McEachern would have known how to deal with the young man whom with such good reason he believed to be an expert criminal. But another plan of action was needed ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... Hope, a shoeshine, some kind of a skin food, and a series of comparisons of the weather we are having this time this month with the weather we were having this time last month. Not all of us are gifted with the power of repartee by which my friend Frisbee turned the edge of ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... day was none of the finest having elicited a repartee of "quite the contrary," the various knotty points of meteorology were successively discussed and exhausted; and, the ice being thus broken, in the course of conversation it appeared that all four, though perfect strangers to each other, were actually bound to the same ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... that could be got together. Blair makes it plain that he has mighty little use for me, and still less for Hamilton. But Nutt seems to get a lot of satisfaction in keepin' him stirred up, winkin' now and then at me when he gets a rise out of Blair; though I must say, so far as repartee went, the little chap had all the ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... intreaties of the marquis of Pescara, I have entered repeatedly into the scene of her entertainments. But I was distracted and absent. A variety of topics were started of literature, philosophy, news, and fashion. The man of humour told his pleasant tale, and the wit flashed with his lively repartee. But I heard them not. Their subjects were in my eye tedious and uninteresting. They talked not of the natural progress of the passions. They did not dissect the characters of the friend and the lover. My heart ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... Hudson, Windermere, and Leman,—in many a monastic nook whence had issued a chronicle or history, in many a wild birthplace of a poem or romance, around many an old castle and stately ruin, in many a decayed seat of revelry and joyous repartee,—through the long list of the nurseries of genius and the laboratories of art, they wandered pensive and strangely affected. At length they rested from their journey to hold a council on modern literature. The long results ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... sound the charge." The quartermaster turned and recognized the Emperor, and, without being at all disconcerted, put his hand to his shako, and said, "That is useless trouble. Your Majesty does not need to beat a drum to make us move." This repartee made the Emperor smile, and soon after gained epaulets for the sub-officer, who perhaps might have waited a long while except for this fancy of his Majesty. But, at all events, if chance sometimes contributed thus to the giving of rewards, they were never given until after he had ascertained ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... amid a clatter of dishes and a buzz of conversation, abounding in rough jests and repartee. The boys took their part in frank, good fellowship and were hearty in their praises of the hard riding they had seen that morning. The ranchmen deprecated this as only "part of the day's work," but were pleased none the less at ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... din from the rear of the building, where lads and men stood chock-a-block, the former, and the latter too, making right royal use of their licence to be rowdy; but such a good-natured crowd could not often be seen. There were no altercations, only laughter and the crude repartee ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... essays, in an old edition which I had from the Mechanics' Institute, of which my father was a committeeman, delighted me beyond words. I liked Emerson's essay on "Friendship" better than his, but for wit, quick repartee, general cheerfulness, he reminded me of my favourite heroine in literature, Sir Walter Scott's Catherine Seton! Later, I read with astonishment that Montaigne was an unbeliever, a skeptic, almost a cynic. I was extremely indignant; he seemed to me to be a very pious gentleman, with that ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... unexpected repartee, and was going out amid a chorus of glee at Amidon's discomfiture when another man darkened the doorway, and the storekeeper fell back as Captain Carroll entered amid a ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... to show every one of her fine white teeth, promptly told him that he had better be off and buy it, because perhaps he could buy at the same place some hugs and kisses too: at which sally and quick repartee they all laughed. Herr Sohnstein long had been the declared lover of Aunt Hedwig's, and long had been held at arm's-length (quite literally occasionally) by that vigorous person; who believed, because of her good heart, that her present duty was not to consult her own happiness by becoming Frau ...
— A Romance Of Tompkins Square - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... have been studying repartee," he said. "But speech is very easy, and sometimes very deceptive. I warn you fairly: you will find me vitriol in the house. You would do wiser to pay money down and see my back." And with that he waved his hand to me and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... from the playfulness; giving free rein to his luxuriant imagination, he scatters the choicest flowers of fancy to create a vivid and animated picture. The lovers meet and part with pretty rhymes and repartee; the hard-handed men—the tradesmen and tinkers—bring their clumsy efforts to serve the wedding-feast; the fairies, graceful, lovely, enchanting, dance amidst the ...
— Shakespeare's Christmas Gift to Queen Bess • Anna Benneson McMahan
... the substitute for the reading that maketh a full man. Repartee of this sort is disarming, and the quickness of wit that prompts it is not one of the least useful attributes of salesmanship. To carry the moral a step farther, it is only fair to say that the nimble salesman has had the wit to get out of the publishing business into another line of industry that, ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... and walked away, followed by the laughter of his companions. Emma had scored again, as she frequently did, and Hippy, instead of being ruffled, took keen delight, as usual, in her repartee. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... recover so far as to be capable of repartee until Joe had entered his own stairway. Then, with a bitter sneer, he seized a bad potato from an open barrel and threw it at the mongrel, who had paused to examine the landscape. The missile failed, and Respectability, after ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... leave or commandment." "O Saad," asked the king, "whence cometh this man?" And the Amir answered, "O my lord, I know not; but he is a youth fair of favour, lovesome of aspect, accomplished in discourse, goodly of repartee, and valour ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... dashing up to him, and either pull up short with a piece of solemn information like an aid-de-camp from headquarters, or pass him shooting a shaft of raillery back into his chariot, whereat he would rise with mock fury and yell a repartee after her. Fountain found himself good company—Talboys himself. It was not the lady; oh dear no! it ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... only thinking that, if I were a man," she said, turning toward him playfully, "I would love your Duchess to devotion. Her wit is so original, her repartee so sturdy. Your Majesty's taste in horses—and some ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... with her sittin' right there in the room, there's a lot doin' that she ain't in on. Trust Vee. Say, she can drum out classical stuff on the piano and fire a snappy line of repartee at me all the while, just loud enough for me to catch and no more, without battin' an eye. Say, I'm gettin' quite a musical education, just helpin' to stall off Auntie that way. And you should see the cute schemes Vee puts over—settin' a ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... practice with Lady Everingham, flattered himself that he had advanced in small talk, and was not sorry that he had now an opportunity of proving his prowess, made some lively observations about pets and the breeds of lapdogs, but he was not fortunate in extracting a response or exciting a repartee. He began then on the beauty of Millbank, which he would on no account have avoided seeing, and inquired when she had last heard of her brother. The young lady, apparently much distressed, was murmuring something about Antwerp, ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... he said, 'the impregnability of the case made out by Mr. Taylor. But the misfortune is, that I have seen so many previous impregnable cases made out for other claimants.' Ay, that would be unfortunate. But the misfortune for this repartee was, that I, for whose use it was intended, not being in the predicament of a stranger to the dispute, having seen every page of the pleadings, knew all (except Mr. Taylor's) to be false in their statements; after which ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... answer, response, reply, replication, riposte, rejoinder, surrejoinder[obs3], rebutter, surrebutter[obs3], retort, repartee; rescript, rescription[obs3]; antiphon[obs3], antiphony; acknowledgment; password; echo; counter statement. discovery &c. 480a; solution &c. (explanation) 522; rationale &c. (cause) 153; clue &c. (indication) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... him I thought it might still be difficult, having heard me near at hand, to imagine what it could be—and thus, tossing the ball of good-humoured repartee back and forth, we walked down to the road together. He had a quiet old horse and a curious top buggy with the unmistakable box of an agent or peddler ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... And said to myself, In the self-same repartee, Look to thyself, Or not look to thyself, The ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown
... the truth, but the abrupt manner of bringing it home to him momentarily took away Mr. Carr's power of repartee, although he was apt enough in general, ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... sometimes excel those of Shakspeare." Again: "The comedies of Congreve contain probably more wit than was ever before embodied upon the stage; each word was a jest, and yet so characteristic that the repartee of the servant is distinguished from that of the master; the jest of the cox-comb from that of the humorist or fine gentleman of the piece." Lesser writers of the time are also sympathetically characterized,—Shadwell, for instance, whom he thought to be commonly underestimated.[152] The heroic play ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... wondered what thoughts were running through his companion's simple, artless mind. So he talked to her of her daily life, her work, her pleasures, her friends. As he talked he grew more and more charmed; she had no great amount of intellect, no wit or keen powers of repartee, but the girl's love of nature made her a poetess. She seemed to know all the secrets of the trees and the flowers; no beauty escaped her; the rustle of green leaves, the sighs of the western wind, the ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... great favourite on the farm, where he played the part of the old jester, and made up for his practical deficiencies by his success in repartee. His hits, I imagine, were those of the flail, which falls quite at random, but nevertheless smashes an insect now and then. They were much quoted at sheep-shearing and haymaking times, but I refrain from recording them here, lest Tom's ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... with resources barely sufficient to enable him to return to Canada. Settling in Montreal, his extraordinary acquaintance with both schools of law, his impassioned and versatile eloquence, his ready repartee, his habitual, grim and grotesque humour, his outrageous sallies of wit, his unmerciful logic, his fierce invective, his irony, his sarcasm, and his deep, irresistible scorn, all heightened by his singularly expressive personal presence, ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... which these things were mixed is congenial to the British mind. The Englishman likes a man who is deeply serious without being in the least a prig; a man who is tender-hearted without being sentimental; he likes a rather combative nature, and enjoys repartee more than he enjoys humour. The Englishman values good sense above almost all qualities; by a sensible man he means a man with a clear judgment of right and wrong, a man who is not taken in by pretences nor gulled by rhetoric; ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... powerful man, partly concealed with white plaster, arose in the middle of the hall, and offered (in a loud, roaring voice, like a bull's) some observations which seemed to be in a foreign language. Mr. Raymond Percy, my colleague, descended to his level by entering into a duel of repartee, in which he appeared to be the victor. The meeting began to behave more respectfully for a little; yet before I had said twelve sentences more the rush was made for the platform. The enormous plasterer, in particular, ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... added to Mary Lee's letter that night. She described everybody whom they had met at dinner, from her Queen Rose, as she called Molly Glendenning, to the courtly old Confederate general at the end of the table. She had been so absorbed in the repartee and bright speeches round her that she had not noticed that she and Travis were not included in the conversation. But Travis had noticed. There were many callers that night after dinner; men who took the girls away singly, in groups, and in pairs, to some sort of an entertainment at the ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... tape a second time, snorting louder and in shorter gasps than before, and with the biting repartee still assailing their ears, when the man who had disappeared into the hold of the ship came into sight ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... Catullus, [18] and some poems by Claudian, highly-refined specimens of this class of composition. The Fescennines owed their popularity to the light-hearted temper of the old Italians, and to a readiness at repartee which is still conspicuous at the present day ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... voice was soft, there was a certain quickness and decision in her manner and language which were very remarkable. The other passengers now addressed her, and the conversation became general. The veiled lady took her share in it, and showed a great deal of smartness and repartee. In an hour more we were all very intimate. As we changed horses, I took down my hat to put into it my cigar-case, which I had left in my pocket, upon which the lady observed, 'You smoke, I perceive; and so, I dare say, ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... ladies were very elegant and very graceful, and wonderfully quick at repartee. But what I have chiefly thought has been that they only helped me to admire you." This was not gallantry on Newman's part—an art in which he was quite unversed. It was simply the instinct of the practical man, who had made up his mind what he wanted, and was now beginning to take ...
— The American • Henry James
... of Captain Dickert's book is that it presents the gay and bright, as well as the grave side of the Confederate soldier's experience. It is full of anecdote and incident and repartee. Such quips and jests kept the heart light and the blood warm beneath many a ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... thought that she was hiding her secret so successfully that no one imagined she had one. She talked more than usual at the table, she laughed at the slightest excuse, she joined spiritedly in the repartee at dinner, a time when they nearly always had guests. But keen-eyed Mrs. Blythe saw several things in the course of the week. She noticed her lack of appetite, the long spells of abstraction that came sometimes after her merriest outbursts; the deep shadows under her eyes ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... intoxicate his senses as she might, there was a possibility that Jill Mariner was not the ideal wife for him. The idea came and went more quickly than breath upon a mirror. It passed, but it had been. There are men who fear repartee in a wife more keenly than a sword. Derek was one of these. Like most men of single outlook, whose dignity is their most precious possession, he winced from an ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... of girls to laugh at her. There is nothing so cruel as a schoolgirl's tongue when it is unbridled. And unless the victim is blessed with either a large sense of humor, or an apt brain for repartee, it goes ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... Besides, I remember now what I did say. I said that much as I enjoyed the pleasant give and take of friendly conversation, dearly as I loved even the irresponsible monologue or the biting repartee, yet still more was I attached to the silent worship of the valse's mazy rhythm. 'BUT,' I went on to say, 'but,' I added, with surprising originality, 'every rule has an exception. YOU are the exception. May I have two dances, and then we'll ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... there was fun on the line of march. Jokes plumped deep into the ribs, and were answered with intelligent vivacity in the shape of hearty thwacks, delivered wherever a surface was favourable: a mode of repartee worthy of general adoption, inasmuch as it can be passed on, and so with certainty made to strike your neighbour as forcibly as yourself: of which felicity of propagation verbal wit cannot always ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... confidence; and he that can but stand fair and give aim to those that are gamesters does not always lose his labour, but many times becomes well esteemed for his generous and bold demeanour, and a lucky repartee hit upon by chance may be the making of a man. This is the only modern way of running at tilt, with which great persons are so delighted to see men encounter one another and break jests, as they did lances heretofore; and he that has the best beaver to his helmet has the greatest advantage; ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... alert, as vigorous and as young of heart as Cousin Betty and himself; and they two had, as a younger guest remarked: "Been having the time of their lives. Why, that black-eyed old lady has more attention this day than any of us girls; and as for wit and repartee, there isn't her equal this ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... element in the flow of fourteen college generations. One of the most accomplished scholars of his day, his influence on the young men with whom he came in contact was stimulating to a degree, and they loved to repeat bits of his famous repartee. A favorite which has come down to us was on an occasion when Whitefield the revivalist declared in a theological discussion: "It is my opinion that Dr. Tillotson is now in hell for his heresy." To which Tutor Flynt retorted ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... I walk'd by myself, I said to myself. And myself said again to me: Look to thyself, Take Care of thyself, For no Body cares for thee. Then I myself Thus answer'd myself, With the self-same Repartee: Look to thyself, Or look not to thyself, 'Tis the ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 1 • Samuel Johnson [AKA Hurlo Thrumbo]
... the pet of the house. "Give me the girl who can don a white apron, roll up her sleeves, and plunge her pretty arms into the flour barrel! That's what I'm looking for!" and he cleverly balanced a chair on his chin, amid a clamor of repartee and good-natured defiance. ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... from my mother's lips, the author of which was Louisa Fairlie, a daughter of Major James Fairlie, who, during the War of the Revolution, served upon General Steuben's staff. She was, I have understood, a great belle with a power of repartee which bordered upon genius. During the youth of John Slidell he attended a dinner at a prominent New York residence and sat at the table next to Miss Fairlie. In a tactless manner he made a pointedly unpleasant remark bearing upon the marriage of her sister Mary to the distinguished actor, ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... a certain day, the lady quarrelling with one of her step-daughters, told her she hated to see her face, and that she always considered the day an unlucky one on which she had the misfortune to meet her first in the morning. The girl, inheriting no doubt a share of her father's power of repartee, quickly answered her stepmother, and said, "You have every cause to believe that it is unlucky to meet me, for I was first-foot to my dear father the unfortunate morning on which he left home ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... You're blossoming out. That's repartee, that is. With the accent on the rap, too. Never you mind; I think old 1812 and I will get on all right after this. It doesn't seem to bother him any, so I don't see why it should worry me. Nice motherly old lady, ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... could touch him and not appreciate that the nerves of sensation vibrated and quivered. Droll and jocose in manner, he was constantly quoting from Shakespeare or the poets, of whom he had been a constant reader. He was witty, too, and did not disdain a pun, or repartee. ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... unsuspected talent. Florence was herself anxious for the newspaper's debut, and she made her anxiety so clear to Atwater & Rooter, Owners & Propreitors, every afternoon after school, during the following week, that by Thursday further argument and repartee on their part were felt to be indeed futile; and in order to have a little peace around there, they carried her downstairs. At least, they defined their action as "carrying," and, having deposited her in the yard, they were obliged to stand guard at the doors, which they closed and contrived ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... and airs express their martial fire, Combat in trills, and in a fugue expire: While, lull'd by sound, and undisturb'd by wit, Calm and serene you indolently sit, And, from the dull fatigue of thinking free, Hear the facetious fiddle's repartee: Our home-spun authors must forsake the field, And Shakspeare to the soft Scarletti yield. 10 To your new taste the poet of this day Was by a friend advised to form his play. Had Valentini, musically coy, Shunn'd ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... warmth expressed itself in his appreciation of other men's opinions, and because he was decisive in outlook and views, he found pleasure and stimulus in the spirited exchange of ideas and in sprightly repartee. In the Episcopal Church there is an amazing diversity of thought on ecclesiastical matters. Frank Nelson, for instance, represented one conviction, and the Right Reverend Spence Burton, now Lord Bishop of Nassau, quite another. "We were the best of friends," writes ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... Philip is not like other men,' said Charlotte, who, at fourteen, had caught much of her brother's power of repartee, and could be quite as provoking, when unrestrained by any one whom she cared ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Catholicism. Parsees and Christianity. Their works of charity. Persian visitors. Religious controversy. Mr Hole's pictures. Hindu family quarrels. Indian repartee. Appreciation of the ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... Shakespeare's day playwrights were producing various types of drama: the chronicle play, representing the glories of English history; the domestic drama, portraying homely scenes and common people; the court comedy (called also Lylian comedy, after the dramatist who developed it), abounding in wit and repartee for the delight of the upper classes; the melodrama, made up of sensational elements thrown together without much plot; the tragedy of blood, centering in one character who struggles amidst woes and horrors; romantic comedy and romantic tragedy, in which men and women ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... little imperfections which after each attack filled her with remorse. She would humble herself, think herself damned, and beg pardon of everyone. But, more frequently, what a good little daughter of Providence she was! She became lively, alert, quick at repartee, full of mirth-provoking remarks, with a grace quite her own, which made her beloved. In spite of her great devotion, although she spent days in prayer, she was not at all bigoted or over-exacting ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... she would like to say it was exactly what she had done; but even in that moment she perceived that such a statement would have been very far from the truth. And her nature was large enough to refrain from the momentary gratification of a bitter repartee. But he was too clever for her; that she did feel, whatever else he might be; and her only chance was to return to the plain questions with which she had started, demanding answers as plain. Rachel led up to them, however, with ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... amuse him. Wherever he may go, he settles at once and easily into the outward life of the people among whom he is,—while he always reserves within himself a cold, stern individuality; he often is angered when he should be amused, and retorts with resentment when he should reply in repartee. Still, the American is not sombre to the core. He has a kind of grim merriment bestowed somewhere in the recesses of his being. It is quaint and severe, however, and abounding in dry conceits. It inclines more to the nature of sarcasm ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... away, happily unrecognized and uninjur'd by the coteries, the art-writers, the talkers and critics of the saloons, or the lecturers in the colleges—lies sleeping, aside, unrecking itself, in some western idiom, or native Michigan or Tennessee repartee, or stumpspeech—or in Kentucky or Georgia, or the Carolinas—or in some slang or local song or allusion of the Manhattan, Boston, Philadelphia or Baltimore mechanic—or up in the Maine woods—or off in the hut of the California miner, or crossing the Rocky mountains, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... real character and composition of the Nationalist Party. It had always a dozen or more capable men who could dress the ranks and hold their own "on the floor of the House" as against the best intellects and debating power of either British party. Irish readiness and repartee made question time an overwhelmingly Irish divertissement. Our members had a unique faculty for bringing about spectacular scenes that read very well in the newspapers and made the people at home think what fine fellows they had representing them! All this might be very good business ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... without exception—the bull-fighters, whose graceful carriage, full of power, and whose picturesque costume, make them remarkable wherever seen. Lively audacity is their special characteristic. Sal (salt) is their ideal; we have no word which carries the same meaning. Smart repartee, grace, charm, all are expressed in the word Salada; and Salero (literally, salt-cellar) is an expression met with in every second song ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... was with no base reservation that he kept up a desultory conversation, in the course of which Signor Giardini's nose not infrequently interposed between two remarks. Whenever Gambara uttered some elegant repartee or some paradoxical aphorism, the cook put his head forward, to glance with pity at the musician and with meaning at the Count, muttering in his ear, ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... not often good at repartee. "I'm going to stick by you till it's over, Tom," she said, hopping up behind him ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... almost any other here—she had pursued her labors in this hospital, and with her ready sympathy with the suffering or wronged, had ministered to many needy ones the balm of comfort and healing. Her quick wit and keen repartee has served to brighten up many an hour otherwise dull and unhomelike in our little circle of workers, gathered in our quarters ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... N. B., O. W.) But this is no fault, and, indeed, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find fault with Mr. TREE'S Lord Illingworth. Mrs. TREE as Mrs. Allonby, is a very charming battledore in the game of repartee-shuttlecock, who with eight other principal characters in the piece, has nothing whatever to do with the plot. To the character of Lady Hunstanton, as written in the Mrs. Nickleby vein, and as played by Miss ROSE LECLERCQ, the success is mainly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, May 6, 1893 • Various
... chance of passing through life without being excited to examine the motives and principles from which they act: is it not therefore prudent to cultivate the reasoning faculty, by which alone this examination can be made with safety? A false argument, a repartee, the charms of wit or eloquence, the voice of fashion, of folly, of numbers, might, if she had no substantial reasons to support her cause, put virtue not only out of countenance, but ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... the result of a heated discussion during lunch the same day, in the course of which Herbert had the effrontery to tell me—I mean, to tell James—that what I—that is, he—knew about billiards wouldn't cover the pyramid-spot. James, who some hours later thought of a perfectly priceless repartee, which he has since forgotten, replied with dignity by challenging the other to an immediate game. Herbert accepted and, hastily finishing their lunch, the two ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... advantage, and though father would sometimes look grave, Gibbes, and all at my end of the table, would scream with laughter. At last Mr. Bradford commenced to retaliate, and my dislike changed into respect for a man who could make an excellent repartee with perfect good-breeding; and after dinner, when the others took their leave, and he asked permission to remain,—during his visit, which lasted until ten o'clock, he had gone over such a variety of subjects, conversing so well upon all, that Miriam and I were so interested ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... betwixt gentlemen, if they did but keep it up long enough. And these kept it up long enough you may be sure. A man of fashion of that time often passed a quarter of his day at cards, and another quarter at drink: I have known many a pretty fellow, who was a wit too, ready of repartee, and possessed of a thousand graces, who would be puzzled if he had to write more than ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... long journey—feels bound in with him at last—actually bound in with him (it is like a promise) for ever. The more one knows about people's lives in this world, the more indefinitely, the more irrelevantly,—sometimes almost comically, or as a kind of an aside, or a bit of repartee,—they end them. Suddenly, sometimes while we laugh or look, they turn upon us, fling their souls upon the invisible, and are gone. It is like a last wistful haunting pleasantry—death is—from some ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... gather themselves to her." The strangest people, on the strangest errands, run over each other in that cosy little nest of hers. Fine ladies with over-full hearts, and seedy gentlemen with over-empty pockets, jostle each other at her door; and she has a smile, and a repartee, and good, cunning, practical wisdom for each and every one of them, and then dismisses them to bill and coo with Claude, and laugh over everybody and everything. The only price which she demands for her services is, to be allowed to laugh; and if that be permitted, she will be as ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... affect distrust of his own opinion. Though there was not one of these which were not more or less restrictions on him, he could be brilliant and witty when occasion served, and there was an incisive neatness in his repartee in which he had no equal. Some of those he was to meet were well known amongst the most agreeable people of society, and he rejoiced that at least, if he were to be put upon his trial, he should be judged by ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... you'd better warn Lady Tallant that the Leichardt'stonian ladies are a bit Puritanical in their ideas of repartee.' ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... the style is never so simple. The celebrated Letter to Chesterfield, and the letter in which he tells MacPherson that he will not be 'deterred from detecting what he thinks a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian,' are as good specimens of the smashing repartee as anything in Boswell's reports. Nor, indeed, does his pomposity sink to mere verbiage so often as might be supposed. It is by no means easy to translate his ponderous phrases into simple words without losing some of their meaning. ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... but the only repartee that she could conjure at the moment was something about ancient lights which did not seem appropriate. Therefore, as she thought that she had done enough for honour, and to remind her awe-inspiring relative that he could not suppress ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... nobility of manners, there came to the Court of France in 1429, from a small pig-breeding village on the marches of Lorraine, one whose manners were deemed of exquisite grace, propriety, and charm, by all who saw and heard her: of her manners and swift wit and repartee, the official record of her trial bears concordant evidence. Other untaught gifts she possessed, and the historic record is unimpeached as regards that child of ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... more than on Mr Marshall, and Agnes had received a share of his contempt, partly because of her father's calling and comparative poverty, partly because she was not pretty, and partly because she showed no power of repartee or spirit in conversation. In Aubrey's eyes she had been "a dull, humdrum thing," only fit to cook and sew, and utterly beneath the notice of any one so elevated ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... period. Pitt's first speech in Parliament. Declines the Vice-Treasurership of Ireland. Courts the ultra-Whig party. His advocacy of reform. Becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer at twenty-three years of age. Pitt's speech and Sheridan's repartee. His visit to the Continent with William Wilberforce. Appointed First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. His difficulties and dangers. His power. Review of his merits and defects. His reported speeches. Character of his oratory. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... campaign shows Lincoln's versatility at repartee. George Forquer, who had been a Whig, changed over to be a Democrat and was appointed Register of the Land Office. His house, the finest in Springfield, had a lightning rod, the only one that Springfield had ever seen. At a meeting near Springfield, Lincoln spoke, and when he had finished, ...
— Life of Abraham Lincoln - Little Blue Book Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 324 • John Hugh Bowers
... became Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge and chaplain to Charles II., who called him the best scholar in England. Celebrated for the length of his sermons, Barrow had nevertheless a readiness at sharp repartee which made him formidable on occasion. "I am yours, Doctor, to the knee-strings," said the Earl of Rochester, meeting him at court and seeking amusement at his expense. "I am yours, my lord, to the shoe-tie," answered ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... just named him." Egon gave a laugh at his own repartee, but the Chancellor heard neither. His hard face brightened. "That's well," said he grimly. "Here we have just the young man to see us through this bad pass, if he's as good looking as ever, and in his usual mood for mischief. If we can interest him in this affair, he may save me a great deal ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... the excellence of conversation is of little use in addressing large assemblies of people; while other qualities are required that are hardly to be looked for in one and the same capacity. The way to move great masses of men is to shew that you yourself are moved. In a private circle, a ready repartee, a shrewd cross-question, ridicule and banter, a caustic remark or an amusing anecdote, whatever sets off the individual to advantage, or gratifies the curiosity or piques the self-love of the hearers, keeps attention alive, and secures the ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... his opponent to pay his flippant gibe the honor of repartee, he was disappointed. To be sure, Hobart, admirably erect in his slender grace, was moved to a slight, disdainful smile, but it evidenced scarcely the appreciation that anybody less impervious to criticism than Ridgway would ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... that sort. She was full of life and fun, and breezy; she passed the repartee with the boarders quick as a wink; you'd have smothered laughing. I am disinclined to make excavations into the insides of a personal affection. I am glued to the theory that the diversions and discrepancies of the indisposition known as love should be as private a sentiment as a toothbrush. ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... even with the wrist, but with the whole arm. The two-handed sword, the old claymore, are his weapons, not the rapier. This was plain enough in the word-combats of Queen Mary and her lady gaoler in Loch Leven. Much more conspicuous is the "swashing blow" in the repartee of "St. Ronan's." The insults lavished on Lady Binks are violent and cruel; even Clara Mowbray taunts her. Now Lady Binks is in the same parlous case as the postmistress who dreed penance "for ante-nup," as Meg Dods says in an interrupted harangue, and we know that, to the author's ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... round and a good old English practical repartee, worthy a place in England's book of her historical popular jests; conceived ingeniously, no bit murderously, even humanely, if Englishmen are to be allowed indulgence of a jolly hit back for an injury—more a feint than a real stroke—gave the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... rational, honorable and eligible young Prince: modest, honest, with abundance of sense and spirit; kind too and good, hot temper well kept, temper hot not harsh; quietly holds his own in all circles; good discourse in him, too, and sharp repartee if requisite,—though he stammered somewhat in speaking. Submissive Wilhelmina feels that one might easily have had a worse husband. What glories for you in England! the Queen used to say to her in old times: "He is a Prince, that Frederick, who has a good heart, and whose genius ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... patriotism, Lord John Russell, the leader of the Liberal party in the House of Commons, sagely retorted: "The honourable member talks of the cant of patriotism; but there is something worse than the cant of patriotism, and that is the recant of patriotism."[33] Mr Gladstone declared Lord John's repartee to be the best that ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... to talk about you!" said Carter Hazzard. Julia found his audacity delightful; she began to feel that she could not keep up with the dazzling rush of his repartee. "You know, the minute ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... Christmas festivities at the Court of Henry the Eighth, and many quaint stories are told of his drolleries and witticisms. Though a reputed fool, his sarcastic wit and sparkling talents at repartee won him great celebrity. Very little is known of his actual biography, but some interesting things are told about him in a scarce tract, entitled "A pleasant History of the Life and Death of Will Somers," &c. (which was first published in 1676, and ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... wasn't any show to duck; for Felix was chasin' over some more chairs, and Pinckney was doin' the honors all round, and the first thing I knew we was a nice little fam'ly party, chuckin' repartee across the pink candle shades, and behavin' like star boarders that ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... own great renown whilst laying the foundation for that of the abbey of Bee, which was destined to be carried still higher by one of his disciples, St. Anselm. Lanfranc was eloquent, great in dialectics, of a sprightly wit, and lively in repartee. Relying upon the pope's decision, he spoke ill of William's marriage with Matilda. William was informed of this, and in a fit of despotic anger, ordered Lanfranc to be driven from the monastery and banished from Normandy, and even, it is said, the dependency which ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... gloomy hours. Comprising Manifestations of Fun, Mirth, Humour, Drollery, Repartee, Wit, with Laughable Anecdotes, Incidents and Poetry. By John Brighte Esq. Price 1s. ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... "You have been studying repartee," he said. "But speech is very easy, and sometimes very deceptive. I warn you fairly: you will find me vitriol in the house. You would do wiser to pay money down and see my back." And with that he waved his hand to me and left ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of those brave old commanders, Who served through all our glorious wars in Flanders. Frank and good-natur'd, of an honest heart, Loving to act the steady friendly part; None led through youth a gayer life than he, Cheerful in converse, smart in repartee; But with old age, its Vices Come along, And in narration he's extremely long; Exact in circumstance, and nice in dates, He each minute particular relates. If you name one of marlbro's ten campaigns, He gives you its whole history ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... as she was aware of her passion for Mr. Rochester she thrust it down into the pocket of her voluminous mid-Victorian skirt and sat on it. Instead of languishing and fainting where Rochester could see her, she held her head rather higher than usual, and practised the spirited arts of retort and repartee. And nobody gave her any credit for it. Then Rochester puts the little thing (poor Jane was only eighteen when it happened) to the torture, and, with the last excruciating turn of the thumbscrew, she confesses. That was the enormity that was never ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... serious man the rest of the day. He did not even bandy a repartee with Joe Scott, who, for his part, said to his master only just what was absolutely necessary to the progress of business, but looked at him a good deal out of the corners of his eyes, frequently came to poke the counting-house fire for him, and once, ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... royalists, as well as for the French wits, till his means are impaired by his liberality. A middling poet, a pitiful politician, a fickle dangler in affairs of love, Waller was an admirable host, and not only gave good dinners and suppers, but flavoured them delicately with compliment and repartee. In Paris he recovered his tone of spirits, and, had his money lasted, might have remained there till his dying day. But fines and bribes had exhausted his patrimony, and he was compelled first to sell a property in Bedfordshire, ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... this dialogue is evidently experimental, and the play of repartee protracted with no other view, than to take the chance of a trump of wit or humor ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... to prophesy good of children, and are always sorry when a stream of nonsense comes to disappoint hopes aroused by some chance repartee. My pupil seldom awakens such hopes, and will never cause such regrets: for he never utters an unnecessary word, or wastes breath in babble to which he knows nobody will listen. If his ideas have a limited range, they ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... as was Lincoln, and if Lincoln was assassinated by a man, Bolvar escaped the weapon of the assassin only to sink under poisonous treachery and ingratitude. It is true that Bolvar was quick-tempered, at times sharp in his repartee; his intellectual aptness had no patience with stupidity, and occasionally his remarks hurt. But when the storm had passed, he was all benevolence, enduring ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... thought? Ye are not paid to think. Go, sweat that off again! Tck! Tck! It's deeficult to sweer nor tak' The Name in vain! Men, ay an' women, call me stern. Wi' these to oversee Ye'll note I've little time to burn on social repartee. The bairns see what their elders miss; they'll hunt me to an' fro, Till for the sake of — well, a kiss — I tak' 'em down below. That minds me of our Viscount loon — Sir Kenneth's kin — the chap Wi' Russia leather tennis-shoon an' spar-decked yachtin'-cap. I ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... glance fell on her father's face, the gladness in her own was somewhat dimmed. What was making that loved face so care- worn, the mind so listless, the attitude so weary? But she was young; the spirits of youth never flow long in one direction. The repartee, brilliant and at the same time with every sting withdrawn, flashed up and down the table like so many fireflies on a wet lawn in ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... his purse and that upon discovering this he had come back for the supplies of war. They joked him unmercifully, even Daisy,—who was manifestly incredulous about his explanation,—and he accepted their hilarious repartee with the ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... seen eminent persons, "I have never met with anybody to whom it was so interesting to listen, and so hard to talk when my turn came." There was, indeed, a grand and surprising superiority in Channing's talk, both in the topics and the treatment of them. There was no repartee in it, and not much of give and take, in any way. People used to come to him, his clerical brethren, I remember Henry Ware and others speaking of it, they came, listened to him, said nothing themselves, and went away. In fact, Channing ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... literally on thorns. He had no repartee ready. She was secretly exasperating him as usual, making his youth a reproach, and rendering it impossible for him to be his natural frank self with her. In her presence he was always at a disadvantage. She seemed to take stock of his learning and to ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... met them nearly every night. W. liked the general very much and found him quite talkative when he was alone with him. At the big dinners he was of course at a disadvantage, neither speaking nor understanding a word of French. W. acted as interpreter and found that very fatiguing. There is so much repartee and sous-entendu in all French conversation that even foreigners who know the language well find it sometimes difficult to follow everything, and to translate quickly enough to keep one au courant is almost impossible. When they could they drifted into English, and ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... writing letters back to the land you have willfully deserted. As well have stayed among us and talked—and you talk so much better than you write. "Tut! tut! That is nasty." Of course I do not deny that I shall miss the inspiration of your contradictions—or do you call it repartee? I scorn your arguments, and I hereby swear that you shall not worry ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... own interests. He was what we call in America an available candidate. Madame Roland, on the contrary, was animated and brilliant. Her genius was universally admired. Her bold suggestions, her shrewd counsel, her lively repartee, her capability of cutting sarcasm, rarely exercised, her deep and impassioned benevolence, her unvarying cheerfulness, the sincerity and enthusiasm of her philanthropy, and the unrivaled brilliance of her conversational powers, made her the center of a system ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... During his score of years in this capacity the young Palmerston gave evidence of superior abilities as a bureau chief, while on the floor of the House his speeches marked him as a stanch asserter of the power of England, and a dangerous man to trifle with—so quick and powerful was his gift of repartee. During the brief ministries of Canning and Goderich he received flattering offers of advancement, leaving the cabinet in May, 1828, with Canning's followers, who opposed the government ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... public festivals and private entertainments. In the Homeric hymn to Mercury, we read that the god extemporized a song, "just as when young men at banquets slily twit each other." When the cups flowed, and the conversation sparkled, men indulged in repartee, or capped each other in verses. One man, for instance, would quote or compose a line beginning and ending with a certain letter, and another person was called upon for a similar one to complete ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... sullenly over the gibe that Walker had uttered carelessly days before. It rankled. His heart swelled with rage, and he pictured to himself ways in which he might get even with the bully. He had tried answering him, but Walker had a gift of repartee, coarse and obvious, which gave him an advantage. The dullness of his intellect made him impervious to a delicate shaft. His self-satisfaction made it impossible to wound him. His loud voice, his bellow of laughter, were weapons against which Mackintosh had nothing to counter, and he learned ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... stiffness and pride incident to his high rank. They abound in expressions of kindness and even affection, whether sincere or not. They are all well written, and would do credit, from a literary point of view, to any private person. His talents and conversation, his wit and repartee, and his felicitous description of character are undeniable. He is said to have had the talent of telling stories to perfection. His powers of mimicry were remarkable, and he was fond of singing songs at his banquets. Had ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... formed a coterie of our own. Davies has always beaten us all in the war of words, and by colloquial powers at once delighted and kept us in order; even M. yielded to the dashing vivacity of S.D." The last is everywhere commended for the brilliancy of his wit and repartee: he was never afraid to speak the truth. Once when the poet in one of his fits of petulance exclaimed, intending to produce a terrible impression, "I shall go mad!" Davies calmly and cuttingly observed, "It is much more like silliness than madness!" He was the only man who ever ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... concentrated in the string of whalers being towed down to the distant starting-point by a picket boat. Before they could rally their forces a cross-fire of rude chaff, winged by uproarious laughter, had opened on either side. Catch-word and jest, counter and repartee utterly unintelligible to anyone outside Lower-deck circles were hurled to and fro like snowballs. Every discreditable incident of their joint careers as units of that vast fighting force, personalities ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... themselves.'—'Whatever my own conduct may have been, madam,' replied he, 'is not the present question; tho' as I have made no use of advice myself, I should in conscience give it to those that will.'—As I was apprehensive this answer might draw on a repartee, making up by abuse what it wanted in wit, I changed the subject, by seeming to wonder what could keep our son so long at the fair, as it was now almost nightfall.—'Never mind our son,' cried my wife, 'depend upon it he knows what he is ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... culinary end that worries me," smiled Magee. "It's the repartee and wit. I want the mayor to feel at home. Do you know any good stories ascribed to Congressman ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... to speak, up a tree, And unable to think of a neat repartee, He wisely concluded (as Brian Boru did, On seeing his 'illigant counthry' denuded Of cattle and grain that were swept from the plain By the barbarous hand of the pillaging Dane) To bandy no words with a dominant foe, But ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... and bananas, cups and calabashes, calumets and tobacco, were passed round; and we were all very merry and mellow indeed. Smacking our lips, chatting, smoking, and sipping. Now a mouthful of citron to season a repartee; now a swallow of wine to wash down a precept; now a fragrant whiff to puff away care. Many things did beguile. From side to side, we turned and grazed, like Juno's white oxen in ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... this way was something like trying to talk without singing in her own ears. The thought that is bound up with our passion is as penetrative as air—everything is porous to it; bows, smiles, conversation, repartee, are mere honeycombs where such thoughts rushes freely, not always with a taste of honey. And without shutting herself up in any solitude, Gwendolen seemed at the end of nine or ten hours to have gone through a labyrinth of ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... the life of the party. Helen and Ruth had too recently bidden Tom Cameron good-bye to feel like joining with Jennie in repartee. Though it might have been that even the fat girl's repartee was more a matter of repertoire. She was expected to be funny, and so forced herself to make ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... from this new exercise. He became more witty, more masterful, while the repartee of his adversaries sank to wretched piffle. He met disaster only once. That was when his conscience began to hurt him after a particularly bitter assault on Bulger in which the latter had been more than usually contemptible in the ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... style, he is most like Defoe, who was the first great English journalist and master of the newspaper narrative. The style of both writers is marked by homely, vigorous expression, satire, burlesque, repartee. Here the comparison must end. Defoe and his contemporaries were authors. Their vocation was writing and their success rests on the imaginative or creative power they displayed. To authorship Franklin laid no claim. He wrote no work of the imagination. He developed only ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... known in Town. No diamonds glittered round her slender throat, and her hands, though small and well-shaped, were tanned by the summer sun. But for the jaded-man-of-the-world, weary of sparkling epigram or caustic repartee, her simple chatter held a fascination of its own.' I don't believe," reflected Isabel, coming down mentally to plain prose, "he'd mind if I talked to him about the dinner or last ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... Because I have a considerable gift for repartee. I discovered in my early youth that men propose not because they want to marry, but because on certain occasions they are entirely at a loss for ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... mediocrity, is very rarely met in those streets where the greater portion of the Romans seem to work and live. The women are brown, plain, bare-headed, and rather careless of personal appearance, but ready at repartee, self-possessed, energetic, with flashing eyes and countenances often indicating a depth of emotion and character. I do not think such pictures as abound in Rome could have been painted where the women were common-place ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... Mrs. Hughes; bishops in our church don't marry.'' "Good gracious,'' answered the governor, "you don't say so; how long has that been?'' The bishop must have thoroughly enjoyed this. His Irish wit made him quick both at comprehension and repartee. During a debate on the school question a leading Presbyterian merchant of New York, Mr. Hiram Ketchum, made a very earnest speech against separate schools for Roman Catholics, and presently, turning ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... atmosphere of the old popular theatre. Extemporaneous comedies were no longer played in the great cities, and Odo listened with surprise to the swift thrust and parry, the inexhaustible flow of jest and repartee, the readiness with which the comedians caught up each other's leads, like dancers whirling without a false step through the ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... unnecessary comment. He never misses the point of a story, though he does not ostentatiously call our attention to it. He gives just what is wanted to indicate character, or to explain the full meaning of a repartee. It is not till we compare his reports with those of less skilful hearers, that we can appreciate the skill with which the essence of a conversation is extracted, and the whole scene indicated by a few telling ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... an ineffable charm in his conversation. He was a delightful companion, ever ready in wit and repartee, versatile and resourceful in debate, with the wide knowledge that is gained by travel and garnered from many fields of study. He reminded me of Wendell Phillips as an orator, with the impression of having an immense reserve power behind him; he could fill a large hall by speaking in his natural ...
— Alexander Crummell: An Apostle of Negro Culture - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 20 • William H. Ferris
... there are yet remaining some of his lordship's poetry in a little book of poems writt by his Lordship and Sir Benjamin Ruddyer in 12o. ["Poems, written by William Earl of Pembroke, &c. many of which are answered by way of repartee, by Sir Benjamin Rudyard. With other poems by them occasionally and apart." Lond. 1660, 8vo.-J. B.] He had his nativity calculated by a learned astrologer, and died exactly according to the time predicted therein, at his house at Baynard's Castle in London. He was very well in health, but because ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... private life that belongs to them as a matter of outward ceremony. This pretension they cannot keep up by fair means; for in wit or argument they are not superior to the common run of men. They therefore answer a repartee by a practical joke, which turns the laugh against others, and cannot be retaliated with safety. That is, they avail themselves of the privilege of their situation to take liberties, and degrade those about them, as ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... personalities, in the kaiser. When he is himself he is the most charming companion that it is possible to conceive. His manners are as genial and as winning as those of his father and grandfather, both of whom he surpasses in brilliancy of intellect, and in quickness of repartee, as well as in a keen sense of humor. He gives one the impression of possessing a heart full of the most generous impulses,—aye, of a generosity carried even to excess, and this, together with a species of indescribable magnetism which appears to radiate ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... dust, and smelt powerfully of sheep, and had worked hard all day in the blazing sun, but they were never too tired for fun, or at night to dance, after they had bathed and dressed. We all had splendid horses. They reared and pranced; we galloped and jumped every log which came in our path. Jokes, repartee, and nonsense rattled off our tongues. We did not worry about thousands of our fellows—starving and reeking with disease in city slums. We were selfish. We were heedless. We were happy. ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... had teazed him with questions and doubtful disputations. He came in a flutter to me, and desired I might come back again, for he could not bear these men. 'O ho! sir,' said I, 'you are flying to me for refuge!' He never, in any situation, was at a loss for a ready repartee. He answered, with quick vivacity, 'It is of two evils chooseing the least.' I was delighted with this flash bursting from the cloud which hung upon his mind, closed my letter directly, and ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... of Heng Wu dispels, with sweet words, some insane suspicions. The inmate of Hsiao Hsiang puts, with excellent repartee, the final touch to the jokes made ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... in her grip and sweep you along with her. Your mad career generally ended in a crowd and a free fight of confetti. There was one fair masquer, however, to whom Aristide became peculiarly attracted. Her movements were free, her figure dainty and her repartee, below her mask, more ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... tenderness? He tried to excuse himself to his conscience by the plea, that the deception once begun must be kept up until it could be ended with safety. For he saw that her heart was really bound up in him. She no longer kept up the brilliant fence of repartee; she had abandoned all coquettish arts, and, for once at least, was sincerely, fondly, even foolishly, in love. Home he went, sadder than before, his conscience yet more aroused, and his resolutions ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... not far to seek. The critic is not only more cultured than the average playgoer, he is more blase. He knows the stock situations, the stage tricks, the farcical misunderstandings, the machine-made pathos, the dull mechanic round of repartee, the innocent infant who intervenes in a divorce suit (like the Queen's Proctor), the misprised mother-in-law, the bearded spinster sighing like a furnace, the ingenuous and slangy young person of fifteen with the well-known cheek, and the ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... talents for attaining such knowledge as was possible, knowledge of all woodcraft and of nature, knowledge of musical instruments, and acquaintance with arms. Clean of limb and sure of foot, ready of repartee, fearless and alert, he was, even as a boy, something of what he was to become in maturity, one of the greatest men of his own or any age. Unique in some capacities, versatile and varied in arts and accomplishments, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... tramping about the streets the rest of the time, until nightfall. She thought that she was hiding her secret so successfully that no one imagined she had one. She talked more than usual at the table, she laughed at the slightest excuse, she joined spiritedly in the repartee at dinner, a time when they nearly always had guests. But keen-eyed Mrs. Blythe saw several things in the course of the week. She noticed her lack of appetite, the long spells of abstraction that came sometimes after her merriest outbursts; the deep shadows ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... that we draw any invidious distinctions, that in style of conversation, in ingenuity and ability of argument, this company would compare with any company of white gentlemen that we met in the island. In that circle of colored gentlemen, were the keen sallies of wit, the admirable repartee, the satire now severe, now playful, upon the measures of the colonial government, the able exposure of aristocratic intolerance, of plantership chicanery, of plottings and counterplottings in high ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... and there was fun on the line of march. Jokes plumped deep into the ribs, and were answered with intelligent vivacity in the shape of hearty thwacks, delivered wherever a surface was favourable: a mode of repartee worthy of general adoption, inasmuch as it can be passed on, and so with certainty made to strike your neighbour as forcibly as yourself: of which felicity of propagation verbal wit cannot always boast. In the line of procession, the hat of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... associated with gamesters and courtezans, and was at length left with resources barely sufficient to enable him to return to Canada. Settling in Montreal, his extraordinary acquaintance with both schools of law, his impassioned and versatile eloquence, his ready repartee, his habitual, grim and grotesque humour, his outrageous sallies of wit, his unmerciful logic, his fierce invective, his irony, his sarcasm, and his deep, irresistible scorn, all heightened by his singularly ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... and his representations have been permitted, until of late years, to pass unchallenged. He has described them as at once passionate and placable, easily moved to anger, and as easily appeased; fond of pleasantry and repartee, and heartily enjoying a laugh; pleased to hear themselves praised, and yet not annoyed by criticism and censure; naturally generous towards those who were poor and in humble circumstances, and humane even towards their enemies; jealous of their liberties, and keeping even their ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... unexpected were the solemn Puritans in repartee. A party of gay young sparks, meeting austere old John Cotton, determined to guy him. One of the young reprobates sent up to him and whispered in his ear, "Cotton, thou art an old fool." "I am, I am," was the unexpected answer; "the Lord make both thee and me wiser ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... his better days he chose out and brought around him. We are told that he had marvellous powers of conversation, that he had a ready wit, and a keen insight into the humors and the weaknesses of those with whom he was compelled to associate. We are told that he could compete in repartee with the recognized wits of his time, and that he could shine as a talker even among men whose names still live in history because of their reputations as talkers. Of course it will naturally occur to the mind that the guests of the Prince Regent might be ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... "she is a firefly," are phrases often used to describe that vivacious individual whose adeptness at repartee puts the rest of the crowd in the background. These people are always largely or purely Thoracic. They never belong ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... allowing himself to use an offensive word, never making people feel their inferiority and dependence, but, on the contrary, encouraging them to express opinions, and even to converse, tolerating in conversation a semblance of equality, smiling at a repartee, playfully telling a story—such was his drawing-room constitution. The drawing-room as well as every human society needs one, and a liberal one; otherwise life dies out. Accordingly, the observance of this constitution ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... potations of potheen and the usual blarney about himself for as to who he in reality was let x equal my right name and address, as Mr Algebra remarks passim. At the same time he inwardly chuckled over his gentle repartee to the blood and ouns champion about his god being a jew. People could put up with being bitten by a wolf but what properly riled them was a bite from a sheep. The most vulnerable point too of tender Achilles. Your god was a jew. Because ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... proves that what is laughed at in the beginning, is by all admitted and allowed at the last. For example, to speak of a person being in the 'good graces' of another has nothing in it ridiculous now; the words 'repartee', 'embarrass', 'chagrin', 'grimace', do not sound novel and affected now as they all must plainly have done at the time when Dryden wrote. 'Fougue' and 'fraischeur', which he himself employed—being, it is true, no frequent offender in this way—have ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... a peculiar expression of intelligence at this repartee, which was followed by a dialogue of little consequence betwixt his wife and him, in which the stranger took no share. At length he suddenly interrupted them by the question: "Can you tell me when Lord ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... had been exhilarating, full of color and motion—laughter and repartee mingling with the adieux of the knights and seigneurs to their ladies, the notes of the hunting-horns, the snorts of impatient steeds, the short expectant bark of the dogs, as the Master of the hounds, the young Count of Jaffa, with his great army of hunters and attendants, moved before the ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... acuteness of reasoning, his intuitive knowledge of men and the world, was altogether beyond their comprehension. All they had got by years of laborious study this man appeared to have as a natural gift. In repartee, even, he could more than hold his own with them, and in the presence of ladies could turn a compliment with the best. 'It needs no effort of imagination,' says Lockhart, 'to conceive what the sensations of an isolated set of scholars (almost all ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... Fascination Fledgeby. Mrs Lammle thought it scarcely as warm as it had been yesterday. 'Perhaps not,' said Fascination Fledgeby, with great quickness of repartee; 'but I expect it will be devilish ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... kept it up long enough you may be sure. A man of fashion of that time often passed a quarter of his day at cards, and another quarter at drink: I have known many a pretty fellow, who was a wit too, ready of repartee, and possessed of a thousand graces, who would be puzzled if he had to write more ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... wary, a safe counsellor, and accustomed to an argumentative and deliberate method of address that befitted the bar and the Senate. Few knew how able a lawyer the elder Van Buren was. The son was enthusiastic, frank, bold, and given to wit, repartee, and a style of oratory admirably adapted to swaying popular assemblies. The younger Van Buren, too, was a sound lawyer."—H.B. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... the least understanding of the real character and composition of the Nationalist Party. It had always a dozen or more capable men who could dress the ranks and hold their own "on the floor of the House" as against the best intellects and debating power of either British party. Irish readiness and repartee made question time an overwhelmingly Irish divertissement. Our members had a unique faculty for bringing about spectacular scenes that read very well in the newspapers and made the people at home think what fine fellows they had representing them! All this might be very ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... T.C. always has at command smiles for satire, simpers for repartee, sniggers for conundrums, titters for puns, and guffaws for jocular anecdotes. By Mr. T.C.'s system, cues for laughter are rendered unnecessary, as, from a long course of practical experience, the moment of cachinnation ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... a day, I presume,' observed the stranger, with a wink; 'no offence meant, sir,' as Villiers showed a disposition to resent this, 'merely a repartee. Good for a comedy, I ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... affectionate creature under the sun. Her devotion to her mother and father was beyond words. Her love for her—daughter she's hers, not mine—is perfect. She hasn't any of the graces of the smart society woman. She isn't quick at repartee. She can't join in any rapid-fire conversation. She thinks rather slowly, I imagine. Some of her big thoughts never come to the surface at all, but you can feel that she is thinking and that she ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... said the glee maiden's manner was lively, and we may add that her smile and repartee were ready. But her gaiety was assumed, as a quality essentially necessary to her trade, of which it was one of the miseries, that the professors were obliged frequently to cover an aching heart with a compelled smile. This seemed to be the case with Louise, who, whether she was actually ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... as he made it, that it was not a very able retort, but he was feeling too limp for satisfactory repartee. Criticisms in the Bureau, dealing with his alleged solidity of skull, he did not resent. He attributed them to man's natural desire to chaff his fellow-man. But to be unmasked by the general public in this way was another matter. It struck at the ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... personage of high order, but as I quickly reflected that the same argument might apply to the rank of the contemned Pere Paragot, I refrained. A silence ensuing, I uncomfortably resolved to study my master with a view to acquiring his skill in repartee. ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... the tribunals in England; they are not so soon embarrassed by the brow-beating and examination of the counsel, and sometimes give such replies as turn the sting upon their examiners; having like the Irish a sort of tact for repartee, they are not often to be taken aback; the lower classes in Paris are naturally extremely shrewd and penetrating, they recognise a foreigner instantly, before he speaks, as a friend of mine found to his cost, who although an Englishman would anywhere in his ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... least, my lord," returned Vermont, who never stayed his tongue in the matter of a repartee for lord or commoner. ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... much to form the hitherto loose structure of English prose, by lending it point and polish. His carefully balanced periods were valuable lessons in rhetoric, and his book became a manual of polite conversation and introduced that fashion of witty repartee, which is evident enough in Shakspere's comic dialogue. In 1580 appeared the second part, Euphues and his England, and six editions of the whole work were printed before 1598. Lyly had many imitators. In Stephen Gosson's School {82} of Abuse, a ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... various pungent witticisms. Some of the men took part and an old squaw concluded by bestowing on him a ludicrous nick name, at which a general laugh followed at his expense. Raymond grinned and giggled, and made several futile attempts at repartee. Knowing the impolicy and even danger of suffering myself to be placed in a ludicrous light among the Indians, I maintained a rigid inflexible countenance, and wholly escaped ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... of rough give and take he was an adept. After breakfast he stayed and helped her wash the dishes, romping with her the whole time in the midst of gay bursts of laughter and such repartee ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... ascetic; I'm as pleasant as can be; You'll always find me ready with a crushing repartee; I've an irritating chuckle, I've a celebrated sneer, I've an entertaining snigger, I've a fascinating leer; To everybody's prejudice I know a thing or two; I can tell a woman's age in half a minute - and I do - But ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... brain in vain for some airy nothing with which to answer his nonsense. I never have had the gift of repartee. I can talk well enough about subjects that interest me when I am conversing with some one whom I know well, but the frothy persiflage, the light banter that forms the conversation's stock in trade of so many women, is an ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... had paid the Attorney, the same Afternoon, a Demand of Three Pounds Six Shillings and Eight-Pence, for much such another Jobb,—was so highly tickled with the Parson's Repartee in that particular Point,—that he rubb'd his Hands together most fervently,— and laugh'd ...
— A Political Romance • Laurence Sterne
... to have such a husband, and so all the world thought. A graceful, brilliant woman, like Bertha, who smiled on morning callers, made a figure in ball-rooms, and was capable of that light repartee which, from such a woman, is accepted as wit, was secure of carrying off all sympathy from a husband who was sickly, abstracted, and, as some suspected, crack-brained. Even the servants in our house gave her the balance of their regard and pity. For there were ...
— The Lifted Veil • George Eliot
... the love part yet, Freda. He was a very quiet and unobtrusive person, but, my friends said, very amiable and sufficiently clever. I know that I used to take an unkind delight in teasing him, and that he was rather clever in repartee, and never spared me in return. I liked him as an amusing companion, and had no objection to his getting me books or flowers, or whatever lay within his reach that might be agreeable to me. Moreover, I pitied him, because I was told that both his parents were dead, and that he was working ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... his sister, Mrs. Middleton; he was exceedingly attractive; there was no denying the charm that existed in the rapid intelligence, the quick conception, and the ready humour that lit up his eyes and countenance, and sparkled in his repartee. His powers of captivation were as great as hers, but he knew that power, and even used it for an end; while in her it was spontaneous as the bubbling of a stream, as the song of the birds, or as the joy of childhood. Both had a keen perception ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... himself, will satisfy them most completely. Anacreon has left behind some little deposit of good humour and urbanity, which has continued to nourish the heart of his Translator; for M. Gail is yet jocose, and mirth-loving; fond of a lively repartee, whether in conversation or in writing. He may count ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... she deemed it as yet a thing that could not be; and she, too, smiled at the playful mischief with which Emmeline would sometimes claim the attention of young Myrvin, engage him in conversation, and then, with good-humoured wit and repartee, disagree in all he said, and compel him to defend his opinions with all the ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... pass. She was presently exchanging tart repartee with the New York villains who had perched in a row on the fence to be funny about that long—continued holding of hands in the motor car. She was quite unembarrassed, however, as she dropped the hand with a final pat and vaulted to the ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... clatter of dishes and a buzz of conversation, abounding in rough jests and repartee. The boys took their part in frank, good fellowship and were hearty in their praises of the hard riding they had seen that morning. The ranchmen deprecated this as only "part of the day's work," but were pleased none the less at the ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... A bright repartee tells us what the second favorite thought. "Ah! Shaftesbury," said the King to him one day, "I verily believe you are the wickedest dog in my dominions." "Yes, your Majesty," replied Shaftesbury, "for a SUBJECT I think ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
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