"Gist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... find him, in his 'Bartholomew Fair,' catering to the low tastes of James the First in ribaldry at which, if one must needs laugh—as who that was not more than man could help doing over that scene between Rabbi Busy and the puppets?- -shallow and untrue as the gist of the humour is, one feels the next moment as if one had been indulging in unholy mirth at the expense of some grand old Noah who has come to ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... season I'd get that hankerin' back, and when I come in I'd have a little frosted-cake orgy now and then. But I kep' myself purty well in hand. I never overdone it like that again, fur you see I'd learned something. First off, there was the appetite. I soon see the gist of my fun had been the wantin' the stuff, the appetite fur it, and if you nursed an appetite along and deluded it with promises it would stay by you like one of them meachin' yellow dogs. But as soon as you tried to do the good-fairy act by it, and give it all it hankered ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... meaning, and a sayee who can himself utter the same words, but who is only in imperfect agreement with the sayer as to the ideas which the words or symbols that he utters are intended to convey. The nature of the symbols counts for nothing; the gist of the matter is in the perfect harmony between sayer and sayee as to the significance that is to be associated ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... In October the governor and congressmen of South Carolina, with other prominent politicians, met and unanimously resolved that if Lincoln should win, the Palmetto State ought to renounce the Union. Similar meetings were held in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. Governor Gist sent a confidential circular to the governors of all the cotton States declaring that South Carolina would secede with any other State, or would make the plunge alone if others would promise to follow. The governors of ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... The gist of the information I have from Colonel Warburton may be summed up in a few words. From the MacDermot Ranges in South Australia to the head of the Oakoon River (about 150 miles from the coast), keeping between ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... Rey Hernando, lib. 1, cap. 20.—Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 123.—Comines, Memoires, liv. 7, chap. 3.—Mariana, Hist. de Espana, tom. ii. lib. 26, cap. 6.—Zurita concludes the arguments which decided Ferdinand against assuming the enterprise, with one which may be considered the gist of the whole matter. "El Rey entendia bien que no era tan facil la causa que se proponia." Lib. 1, ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... of the Bears from the west. The story of the Bears from the east tells of encountering the Fire people, then living about 25 miles east from Walpi; but these are now extinct, and nearly all that is known of them is told in the Bear legend, the gist ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... The gist of all these reforms, actual and projected, was that the Bishops were enormously increasing their own power and patronage at the expense of the Deans and Chapters. Sydney Smith, as a member of a Chapter, protested, and then the friends ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... on the pier the French officers were gesticulating and talking loudly; the gist of their debate being, should they try to take the battery or put off, and the majority seemed to be in favour of the latter proceeding. For as they eagerly scanned the little battery they could see now the frowning muzzle of the gun, and the heads of a number of English sailors apparently ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... horrors of "alcoolismo." Even the teachers rattled off their questions with an atrocious, half-enunciated pronunciation, and he must have been a Spanish scholar indeed who could have caught more than the gist of the recited answers. This indistinctness of enunciation and the Catholic system of learning by rote instead of permitting the development of individual power to think were as marked even in the colegio, corresponding roughly to our high schools. Even there the professor never commanded, ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... the gist of this remark, and began to unhook the collar of her jacket. Then she decided to ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... The detachment is, I hope, free from danger, and my caution on this point has been so far as to be called timidity by every seaman I have consulted. Captain Martin, of the Nesbitt, who has been recommended by General Gist, makes himself answerable for the safe arrival of the fleet ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... creation. His apprehension plays with words and their meanings as nature, in any spontaneous variation, plays with her own structure. A mechanical force shifts the kaleidoscope; a new direction is given to growth or a new gist to signification. This inspiration, moreover, is mad, being wholly ignorant of its own issue; and though it has a confused fund of experience and verbal habit on which to draw, it draws on this fund blindly and quite at random, consciously possessed by nothing but ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... actually say all that," said Meldon. "He hadn't a sufficiently logical mind to work out his philosophy to its ultimate practical conclusions, but you may take my word for it that I've given you the gist of his system." ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... Ilettes, who lives near the Pont-Neuf in a garret where you must be either a cat or an imp to get at him; he is reduced to earning a living by making punch-and-judies. He is a man of judgment, for which reason I report to you, sir, the main gist of his conversation. He does not believe that the existing state of things will last long. Nor does he foresee its being ended by the victory of the coalition, and events appear to justify his opinion; for, as you are aware, sir, for some time past tidings from the front have been ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... request they bore was signed with the royal seal, and was politeness itself. It overflowed with semi-Oriental compliment and laudation; but the purport was clear. On account of the great danger in the city to foreigners from riots—ran the gist of the letter—and the extremely disturbed condition of the times, the king was constrained to request Cornelia and Fabia to take up their residence in the palace, where they could receive proper protection and be provided for in a princely manner, ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... this false and destructive principle which rules the present age? If we consider the gist of the entire discourse of which these are the concluding words, we shall find that the central idea which Jesus has been most strenuously endeavouring to impress upon his disciples at their last meeting before the crucifixion, is that of the absolute identity ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... Thus the gist of the document which shattered Wilhelmine's hopes and interrupted her triumph at Urach. But to relinquish her ambition thus easily, instantly to render obedience to Father Vienna, this was not to be expected from so potent a lady, nor indeed ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... probably I should have thrown propriety to the winds and had the gist of the story out of him at once, but in a country church there are always such listening spaces,—the very pew-backs and cushions seem attentive, the hymnals creak in their racks, and the little stools cry out nervously when one barely touches them. It was too much for me. I was coerced into ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... matter you have to note that the gist of it lies, not in the translation of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures into an easier and a common language, but in their presentation to the Church as of common authority. The earlier Gentile Christians had naturally a tendency to carry out in ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... under the name of "exclusive dealing," was perfectly justifiable; that the refusal to pay rent was just the same as a strike of workmen (ignoring the obvious facts that when workmen strike they cease both to give their labour and to receive pay, whereas the gist of the "No Rent" movement was that tenants, whilst ceasing to pay, should retain possession of the farms they have hired; and that a strike arises from a dispute between employers and employed—usually about rates of pay or length ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... to the gist of my letter. I know Thursday is a half- holiday in the Rue Fossette: be ready, then, by five in the afternoon, at which hour I will send the carriage to take you out to La Terrasse. Be sure to come: ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... the gist of Mrs. Reynolds's discourse. I have not the courage to attempt to transcribe her rich brogue and picturesque phraseology; and even were I able to do so, it could give the reader no adequate idea of the wealth ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... ask you a foolish question, perhaps, Professor," continued Bart, "for an accurate person like you of course took down only correct names, and not nicknames. Here is the gist of it, then. I am looking for two men, and I know only that they live outside of Pleasantville, and ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... a certain relation. He takes life on a certain principle. He has a compass in his spirit which points in a certain direction. It is the attitude, the relation, the point of the compass, that is the whole body and gist of what he has to teach us; in this, the details are comprehended; out of this the specific precepts issue, and by this, and this only, can they be explained and applied. And thus, to learn aright from any teacher, we must first of all, like a historical artist, think ourselves into sympathy ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... occasional tyranny in all the forms which attend industrial authority—all these evils became attached to the notion of sweating. The word has thus grown into a generic term to express this disease of City poverty from its purely industrial side. Though "long hours" was the gist of the original complaint, low wages have come to be recognized as equally belonging to the essence of "sweating." In some cases, indeed, low wages have become the leading idea, so that employers are classed as sweaters who pay low wages, without consideration of hours ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... "C'y gist un povre menestrel, Occis par maint ennuict cruel— Ne plains pas trop sa destinee— N'est icy que son corps mortel: Son ame est toujours a Gillwell, Et n'est ce pas ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... the 'gist' of the whole business," said Parkinson; he added: "You say he can give me some 'tips' on ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... to her feelings in a series of convulsive sobs, Whackinta addressed a lengthened harangue, in a melancholy tone of voice, to the audience, the gist of which was that she was an unfortunate widow; that two bears had fallen in love with her, and stolen her away from her happy home in Nova Zembla; and, although they allowed her to walk about as much as she chose, they watched ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... Clarendon treaty" of 1856 would settle all disputes, but this hope was unsustained by events. The President of the United States recommended the abrogation of these treaties altogether, and the commencement de novo by the diplomatists of the two nations of negotiations for a new settlement. The gist of the dispute lay within a small compass. Both governments had agreed to acquire no territory in Central America. England affirmed that such a stipulation fairly assumed that she was to retain possession of the territory and protectorate she already held ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... The gist of this doctrine of Individuality, as it is now largely prevalent in respect to the institutions of the Church and the State, and which is squarely affirmed in the proposition above mentioned, is this: Men and Women do not wish nor do they need a Spiritual Society to teach them what to believe, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... show any great haste to open the letter, being aware that the true gist of it could only be discovered in private, and her father was studying his own likewise in silence. It was from Sir Ralf Sadler to request that Mistress Cicely might be permitted to become a regular member of the household. There was now a vacancy since, though Mrs. Curll ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... It was indeed a very long telegram, one of such as are commonly sent at the expense of the country, and it came from the War Office. The gist of it was that attempts had been made to communicate with him at an address he had given in Cornwall, but the messages had been returned, and finally inquiry at Hawk's Hall had given a clue. He was directed to report himself "early to-morrow" (the telegram had been sent off on ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... prompted by curiosity at first a very different emotion laid hold of him as he caught the gist of Gardiner's remarks. He had no delusions about the principles of either Gardiner or Riles. His relations with his present employer had been pleasant but by no means confidential, as he had never sought nor valued Gardiner's friendship. He was convinced that Gardiner was kind in a general way ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... This was the gist of the story in all the papers. There were various suggested explanations. One paper hinted that men had been known to sign papers when they had dined ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... he had a text; but the gist of his sermon was that there was a God—there was a heaven! And there were men there listening who needed to believe these things. There was old Ross from across the creek, old, but not sixty, a hard man. Only last week he had broken down and fallen on his knees on the baked sods in ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... This was the gist of Mr. Sheldon's meditations; but they lasted for some time. The question which he had to settle was an important one, and he was too wise a man not to contemplate a subject from every possible point of sight before arriving at his decision. He took a letter-clip from one ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... said Jane, catching her eye. "No, Michael, you needn't fuss up your orderly mind with anything so frivolous and distracting. I can tell you the gist of them both in a few well-chosen phrases! The theme of both is that when lovely—and lonely—woman stoops to earning her own living she finds—not too late, but alas, immediately—that men betray! That every prospect pleases and only man is vile! These two heroines ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... a distance of more than four hundred miles, through forests and over mountains, with rivers to cross and hostile Indians to beware of; and it was the middle of November when he set out, with the most inclement season of the year before him. Kit Gist, a hunter and trapper of the Natty Bumppo order, was his guide; they laid their course through the dense but naked forests as a mariner over a sullen sea. Four or five attendants, including an interpreter, made up the party. Day after day ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... anyone, but it is a positive damage to habits of mental application to read it. It is a waste of time even to undertake to sift the important from the unimportant. The most that any earnest person should attempt to do with a daily paper is to glance over the headlines which give the gist of the news, and then to read such editorial comments as enable the reader to understand the more important events and affairs that are transpiring in the world so that reference to them in conversation would be intelligent and intelligible. But if ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... that, on a near examination, they look wondrous cloudy. The chief and far the most lamentable change is the absence of a certain lean, ugly, idle, unpopular student, whose presence was for me the gist and heart of the whole matter; whose changing humours, fine occasional purposes of good, flinching acceptance of evil, shiverings on wet, east- windy, morning journeys up to class, infinite yawnings during lecture and unquenchable gusto in the delights ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... caught sight of her in the dancing light. I heard him shout something in United States English about women and hell-fire and burned fingers, but beyond that it was not polite, and was intended for me as much as for Gloria, I did not get the gist of it. Then the battle closed up around us, and we all fought hand to hand—women harder than the men—to close in on Mahmoud and drag ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... want the gist of the matter go to Sappho, Catullus, Villon when he is in the vein, Gautier when he is not too frigid, or if yon have not the tongues seek out ...
— Ezra Pound: His Metric and Poetry • T.S. Eliot
... this of my creed is the soul and the gist, And the truth of it I aver: Who differs from me in his faith is an 'ist, And 'ite, an 'ie, or an 'er— And I'm down upon ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... lectures are fragmentary and ill-arranged, but not, I think, diffuse or much compressible. The entire gist and conclusion of them, however, is in the last six paragraphs of the third lecture, which I would beg the reader to look over not once nor twice, (rather than any other part of the book,) for they contain the best expression I have yet been able to put in words of what, ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... falling out of the universe; there are other things in the world of more importance, the deuce take it. Norway must be splendid just now. Come back soon and set to work. Good-by," and so forth. I do not repeat it word for word, but such was the gist of the letter. It impressed me unpleasantly, first because I had not asked Sniatynski to lend me his yard-measure to measure my sorrow with; secondly, I had thought him a sensible man, and supposed he understood that his "more important things" are merely empty words unless they imply feelings and ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... most hackneyed trick of ballad-makers; and still naively pretends to enrich her productions by the stale device of introducing a refrain—so that the idlest remarks of as much as three years ago keep cropping up as the actual gist of the present!... However, were it within my power, I would evoke Amaimon straightway now to come up yonder, through your hearthrug, and to answer me quite honestly if I did not tell him on the beach at Matocton that this, precisely ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... the present book deserve credit for presenting to the reading public the gist of Freud's psychology in the master's own words, and in a form which shall neither discourage beginners, nor appear too elementary to those who are more advanced ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... gist of the newspaper accounts of the puzzling affair. And now to see how they affected certain individuals who are not strangers ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... we were all included in a party of eighty. We were addressed in English by a German officer. The gist of his remarks was that we were to be marched to our destination, and that any man who tried to escape would be incontinently shot, also that any man who did not behave ...
— The 23rd (Service) Battalion Royal Fusiliers (First Sportsman's) - A Record of its Services in the Great War, 1914-1919 • Fred W. Ward
... the first place that this man was mortal, and then that there were a hundred ways in which he might be put on one side." All the latter authorities have, I believe, supposed the "hunc" or "this man" to be Pompey. I should say that this was proved by the gist of the whole letter—one of the most interesting that was ever written, as telling the workings of a great man's mind at a peculiar crisis of his life—did I not know that former learned editors have supposed Caesar to have been meant. ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... he is really leaving us absolutely in the dark as to the cause of all modification—giving us an 'Origin of Species' with "the origin" cut out; but I do not think that any reader who has not been compelled to go somewhat deeply into the question would find out that this is the real gist of the objection which Mr. Darwin is appearing to combat. A general impression is left upon the reader that some very foolish objectors are being put to silence, that Mr. Darwin is the most candid literary opponent in the world, and as just as Aristides ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... write; not only every feeling I have, but, of late, even every word I use, being alike inconceivable to the insolence, and unintelligible amidst the slang, of the modern London writers. Only in the last magazine I took up, I found an article by Mr. Goldwin Smith on the Jews (of which the gist—as far as it had any—was that we had better give up reading the Bible), and in the text of which I found the word 'tribal' repeated about ten times in every page. Now, if 'tribe' makes 'tribal,' tube must make tubal, cube, cubal, ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... criticism of Bacon Hardy, Thomas Hastings, battle of Hathaway, Anne Hazlitt, William Hengist (h[)e]ng'gist) Henry Esmond Herbert, George; life; poetry of Hero and Leander Heroes and Hero Worship Heroic couplet Heroic Stanzas Herrick, Robert Hesperides and Noble Numbers (h[)e]s-p[)e]r'[)i]-d[e]z) Heywood, John Heywood, Thomas Hilda, abbess Hildgund (hild'gund) ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... in every way—your end of it, and the circus end is all right. But there's another end. That is it. I reckon you'd better get the gist of the trouble ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... gather," said he, "much about the gist of this inspired piece of literature. It sounds more like a dark horse than Pegasus ...
— Options • O. Henry
... God a voluntary poverty, and distributing her goods to the poor, she took upon her the rule of obedience in this celebrated convent of Santa Croce, the work of her own hands, in the year 1344, on the gist of January of the twelfth indiction, where, living a life of holiness under the rule of the blessed Francis, father of the poor, she ended her days religiously in the year of our Lord 1345, on the 28th of July of the thirteenth indiction. On the day following she was ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... stairs and out into the street. The clock struck half-past nine as he disappeared, and a quarter of an hour later Stafford King received by special messenger a communication which gave him something to think about. He read it through twice, then called up the First Commissioner and gave him the gist ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... of the night of the gist, Crook was brought across Cedar Creek and hidden in a clump of timber behind Hupp's Hill till daylight of the 22d, when, under cover of the intervening woods and ravines, he was marched beyond the right of the Sixth Corps and again concealed not far ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... a basis, the Chinese monk Chi-sha first mastered, and then digested the whole canon. Then selecting certain doctrines for emphasis he supported them by a wide range of quotation, professing to give the gist of the pure teachings of Gautama rather than those of his disciples. In practice, however, the Saddharma Pundarika is the book most honored by this sect; the other sutras being employed mainly as commentary. Furthermore, this sect makes as ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... up a book which lay on the counter. As he had learned to use his eyes, he saw at a glance that it opened at page 240 and that chapter 51 began at the top of the left-hand side, and had for a motto a verse written by Coleridge, the gist of which struck him like a flash of lightning. With burning cheeks and bated breath he read ... I'll tell you what he read later on, but I may admit at once that it had nothing ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... indisputably a great poet. For in technique he was akin to Tennyson;* in the love of beauty and in lyric sweetness, to Keats and Shelley; in the love of nature, to Wordsworth; and in spirituality, to Ruskin, the gist of whose teaching is that we are souls temporarily having bodies; to Milton, "God-gifted organ-voice of England"; and to Browning, "subtlest assertor of the soul in song". To be sure, Lanier's genius is not equal to that of any one of the poets mentioned, but I venture to believe that it is ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... page of printed matter. The gist of the communication is in effect that the author has heard it said that the Indians of certain pueblos speak three different languages, which he has heard called, respectively, (1) Chu-cha-cas and Kes-whaw-hay; (2) E-nagh-magh; (3) Tay-waugh. This can hardly be called a classification, ...
— Indian Linguistic Families Of America, North Of Mexico • John Wesley Powell
... retained in notes, to show the nature of the development of the author's opinions. A fragment or two of controversy has been deleted, and chapters xi. and xii., on the religion of the lowest races, have been entirely rewritten, on the strength of more recent or earlier information lately acquired. The gist of the book as it stands now and as it originally stood is contained in the following lines from the preface of 1887: "While the attempt is made to show that the wilder features of myth survive from, or were borrowed from, or were imitated from the ideas of people in the savage condition ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... and I am merely amusing to my friends. Is that the gist of your fine words, after all?" and her face flushed as she ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... the spring, there came a time when Aggie couldn't go to lectures any more. Arthur went, and brought her back the gist of them, lest she should feel herself utterly cut off. The intellectual life had, even for him, become something of a struggle. But, tired as he sometimes was, she made him go, sending, as it were, her ...
— The Judgment of Eve • May Sinclair
... not entirely satisfied with what he had been told, but he knew that Foster had said all he meant to say. One thing stuck in his mind as the gist of the hint. The attorney was advising him to go to the court-house and check up the ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... college life. The task of taking notes from a rapid-fire lecturer was plainly one to which he was not accustomed, and as he wrestled with his notebook we could see that he had not learned the art of considering the lecturer's remarks and putting down only the gist of them, in some abbreviated system of his own, as every experienced student learns. Grant Robertson, the well-known historian, was lecturing on English constitutional documents, and his swift and informal utterance was perfectly easy to summarize if one knew how to get ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... story, clearly told," observed the coroner, and then he called upon Louis, the valet. This witness, a young Frenchman, was far more nervous and excited than the calm-mannered butler, but the gist of ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... me in private with great politeness, and after giving me a chair he began a long and pathetic discourse, the gist of which was that it was my duty to forgive this little ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... The gist of the oration was apparently that the Eckleton cadets were to consider themselves not only as soldiers—and as such subject to military discipline, and the rules for the conduct of troops quartered in the Aldershot district—but also as members of a public school. In short, that if ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... Reverend Thomas Prince's litany, rhymed by a later bard, summed up the gist of all the supplications ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... well as I do," I said; "but if you will have it, it was that you are not as other human women are, and that he who would treat you as such, must suffer; that was the gist ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... Governor Wm. H. Gist, of South Carolina, October 5, 1860, by confidential letters to the governors of the cotton States, fairly inaugurated disunion, based on the anticipated election of Abraham Lincoln a ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... on the plantation of Bill Keenan in Union County. The place was situated between Pacolet River and Fairforest Creek and near where Governor Gist had a plantation. Her mother and father were both owned by Bill Keenan and he was a good master. She never saw any of the slaves get a whipping and never saw any slave in chains. When she, her father, and mother were ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... legal were supposed to have been tampered with by Strafford, and Mr Hyde (afterwards Lord Clarendon) suggested that they should be interviewed as to what had passed. The following is a bit of the debate as it was taken down; as Sir John did not write shorthand, he was naturally able to give only the gist of ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... bald statements in the same few terms. She was well, she had been "round" with Bertha Shallum, she had dined with the Jim Driscolls or May Beringer or Dicky Bowles, the weather was too lovely or too awful; such was the gist of her news. On the last page she hoped Paul was well and sent him a kiss; but she never made a suggestion concerning his care or asked a question about his pursuits. One could only infer that, knowing in what good hands he was, she judged such solicitude superfluous; ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... heard little of the controversy, yet 'tis like I know the gist of it, as I have just conversed with a wounded soldier of mine, Barbeau, who repeated the story as he understood it. My hand to you, Sieur de Artigny, and it seems to me, Messieurs, that De Tonty hath ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... place. Flash after flash she sent that way, until the sun went altogether behind the clouds and she could signal no more. Not a glimmer of an answering twinkle could she win from the peak. The most she did was to stimulate old Mike to the point of mumbling wild harangues to the uneasy pines, the gist of which was that folks better look out how they went spyin' around after him, an' makin' signs back and forth with glasses. They better look out, because he had good eyes, if Murphy didn't have, and they couldn't run over ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... knowledge of heart and lungs and circulation, but a book on mental hygiene must begin at the beginning, and even before the beginning must clear away misconceptions and make clear certain fundamental principles. But the gist of the whole matter is this: in a neurosis, certain forces of the personality—instincts and their accompanying emotions—which ought to work harmoniously, having become tangled up with some erroneous ideas, have lost their ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... natural conditions forming at once the foundation and environment of his activities. On the contrary, he multiplies his dependencies upon nature;[124] but while increasing their sum total, he diminishes the force of each. There lies the gist of the matter. As his bonds become more numerous, they become also more elastic. Civilization has lengthened his leash and padded his collar, so that it does not gall; but the leash is never slipped. The Delaware Indians ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... The gist of magic comes out most clearly in magical dances. We think of dancing as a light form of recreation, practised by the young from sheer joie de vivre and unsuitable for the mature. But among the Tarahumares (Carl Lumholtz, "Unknown Mexico", page 330, ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... all from a book that contains but little, a good share of a book that contains much, but very little of a book that is far beyond the range of his experience. Granted the same book, one reader will barely skim its surface, another will gain a fair idea of the gist of it, a third will almost relive ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... not care to "research" for the original. Thackeray also gave a good deal of Les Ailes d'Icare in abstract and translation, and he borrowed something more from it in A Shabby Genteel Story. La Peau du Lion and La Chasse aux Amants have some slight resemblance to Le Gendre, in that the gist of all three is concerned with the defeat of unscrupulous lovers, and neither is much inferior to it. I never knew anybody who had read La Femme de Quarante Ans and its history of sentimental star-gazing a deux without huge enjoyment; and L'Arbre ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... alone has much chance to get into the living heart and memory of other men. And here indeed, I believe, is the essence of all the rules I have ever been able to devise for myself. I have tried various schemes of arrangement and artificial helps to remembrance," but the gist of the matter is, "to keep the thing you are elaborating as much as possible actually in your own living mind; in order that this same mind, as much awake as possible, may have a chance to ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... so much at seeing that her friend had divined the gist of the arrangement that had been effected downstairs. It was that Vida should be at no pains to throw a decent veil over the fact of her realization that Lady John had come there in the character of scout. With an openness ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... to spare. He never sees me at Court but he has some gracious speech about his father's regard for me. It grows irksome at last, by sheer repetition. The turn of the sentence varies, for his Majesty has a fine standing army of words, but the gist of the phrase is always the same, and it means, 'Here is a tiresome old Put to whom I must say something civil for the sake of his ancient vicissitudes.' And then his phalanx of foppery stares at me ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... When the gist of Pasquale Solara's evidence was whispered around among the audience the Court officers were powerless to suppress the expressions of horror and enthusiasm. Had the shepherd not been closely guarded by the soldiers he certainly would have been torn to pieces and ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... regions of soul and sense, and undergoing, like the face of a great actor, striking changes of expression without material change of feature under the changing incidence of stress and glow. The ultimate gist of his teaching was presented through the medium of conceptions proper to another school of thought, which, like a cryptogram, convey one meaning but express another, He had to work with categories like finite and infinite, which the atomic habits of his mind thrust ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... promising to send the value of the articles they had selected in beef and potatoes on the following morning. Before turning in for the night, however, Captain Brown gave Fritz to read a newspaper extract which he had posted into his logbook. This detailed the early history of the little colony, and the gist of ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... in the purpose? He sifted rapidly for the gist of the conversation; reviewed the manner of it, the words, the sound they had, the feelings they touched; then owned that the question could not be answered. Owning, further, that the recurrence of these idiotic speculations, feelings, questions, wrote him down as both dull ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... it, if I'se you, what he said. He says just what he thinks—right out with it, no matter who's hurt—and he usually gets the gist on't. But I wouldn't mind what he said, the public was purty generally pleased." And the long whip lash cracks and Jim shouts, ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... points in his teaching. Such a summary must be better than any that could now be made. It is incorporated into two divisions of their sacred books, first among the suttas containing the doctrine, and again in the rules of the society or order he founded (Samyutta, v. 421 Vinaya, i. 10). The gist of it, omitting a few ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... a brilliant laugh. "I clean forgot the hull gist of the thing. Well, we're rich folks now—over thar' on Barren Ledge! That onery brother of mine, Richelieu, hez taken some of his specimens over to Jim Bradley to be tested. And Bradley, just to please that child, takes 'em; ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... began, so that Master Middle only came to the gist of it in an hour. He valiantly proclaimed his intention, so soon as he did understand, of taking Robin Hood single-handed. "Why send into Lincoln and the shires when Middle the Tinker will do this business for you, gossips? ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... "The gist of the offence of conspiracy consists in a confederacy to do an unlawful act, and the offence is complete when ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... first book that was burnt for its sentiments on Prerogative was one of which the King was believed personally to approve. This was probably the gist of its offence, for it appeared about the time that the King made his very supercilious speech to the Commons in answer to their complaints about the High ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... gist of the poem it is evident that Alfred, in the course of his wanderings, came near to the White Horse, but as ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... his name for me; you know how lively he is. He has always said to me, then, "My dear little chicken, I am not a man to do violence to your opinions, but in return give way to me as regards some of your pious practices." I only give you the mere gist of it; it was said with a thousand delicacies, which I suppress. And I have agreed by degrees,... so that, while only paying very little attention to the outward observances of religion, I have remained, as I told you, a bar of iron as regards dogmas. Oh! as to that, I would not give way ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... main rebel line, and for over an hour maintained a heavy contest, driving the enemy and at times being driven back, but still holding his crest as first secured. Here Corse, Loomis, and Morgan L. Smith fought the rebels under Hardee with Cleburne's, Gist's, Cheatham's, and Stevenson's divisions in a stubborn struggle all day up to three o'clock, holding their own, but making little headway. About two o'clock John E. Smith's two brigades, while moving to the support of Ewing, were driven in some disorder by a charge of the ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... of yielding to hysteria, and passing from one fainting fit into another, Miss Beale had the rare good sense to go straight to the police station. One of our men has interviewed her this evening, and she is coming here tomorrow, but in the meantime the Oxford police telephoned the gist of the letter, which is headed 'Monday, 11:30 p. m.' The hour is not quite accurate, but near enough, since the context shows that a 'friend' had just called and given certain information which had determined the writer to leave London 'to-morrow'— meaning today— 'or Wednesday at ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... explained what had happened in his blundering way, stopping every minute or so to tell me what a saint I am, and the Lord knows that's a joke, and the gist of it was that he had started for the Ansonia with this woman, but she had changed her mind in the cab and they had gone to the Cafe de Paris instead and spent the evening there. I was pretty sure he was telling the truth, for Addison isn't ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... the part of the English aristocracy present, which, causing a momentary suspension of the speech, produced a very unexpected calm, much to the astonishment of Flum's own dear self. 'Well, I apprehends the gist on't—democracy don't go down, no way, this side the big pond. But, if John is old, and has got his noddle so full of antiquated nonsense that he can't get an idea into his head suited to the exigencies of the times, democracy, with its all-elevating power, ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... in low tones at the entrance to the cave where Frank kept guard, Bob explained the gist of his conversation with his father. Tom Bodine still slumbered heavily. Stone lay napping on his bed. Morales and Von Arnheim sat with drooping heads in the heavy chairs where, while Bob telephoned, Jack had thought it best to ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... not captured at Missionary Ridge, and they were ordered to immediately precede us in bringing up the rear. The whole rear guard was placed under the command of the noble, generous, handsome and brave General Gist, of South Carolina. I loved General Gist, and when I mention his name tears gather in my eyes. I think he was the handsomest ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... symbol for me, and the less none because of his animal humour, his queer indecent side, and because of such lapses into utter meanness as that which made him sound the note of the begging-letter writer even in his "Dedication," reminding His Magnificence very urgently, as if it were the gist of his matter, of the continued malignity of fortune in his affairs. These flaws complete him. They are my reason for preferring him as a symbol to Plato, of whose indelicate side we know nothing, and whose ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... "The gist of the matter," said Dave, "is that Mr. Timmins has missed connections. He should have been here two days ago. Here is a telegram I received ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... these are dull, but that the speakers are. Said Corder to me after one such, "When I was a Sunday School superintendent I let no one speak to the school that hadn't something to say." Yet on the whole I am surprised how well the officers can give us the gist of their subjects. ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... Auguste's request, to the chief of the private police of Paris, and without bringing Madame Jules' name or person into the narrative, although they were really the gist of it, he made the official aware of the fears of the family of Maulincour about this mysterious person who was bold enough to swear the death of an officer of the Guards, in defiance of the law and the police. The chief pushed ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... at the events That have been brought to pass—too well for her, But for this house and hearth most miserably,— As in the tale the strangers clearly told. He, when he hears and learns the story's gist, Will joy, I trow, in heart. Ah, wretched me! How those old troubles, of all sorts made up, Most hard to bear, in Atreus's palace-halls Have made my heart full heavy in my breast! But never have I known a woe like this. For other ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... and bear him company. After some delay, he succeeded in procuring the services of seven men. Four of these were hardy backwoodsmen of experience, whose business it was to take care of the baggage and keep the party supplied with game. Mr. Davidson was to go along as Indian interpreter, and Mr. Gist as guide. A bolder and more enterprising pioneer than this Gist, by the by, was not to be found in all the Western wilds; and he is supposed by some historians to have been the first white man that ever brought down an elk or a buffalo in that paradise of hunters, green ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... to him like a leech. I am pretty good at disguises, and he never knew who was the broken-down old Kaffir who squatted in the dirt at the edge of the crowd when he spoke, or the half-caste who called him "Sir" and drove his Cape-cart. I had some queer adventures, but these can wait. The gist of the thing is, that after six months which turned my hair grey I got a glimmering of what he was after. He talked Christianity to the mobs in the kraals, but to the indunas[3] he told a ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... "There lies the gist of the matter, my dear," I replied. "If there were no 'if,' such as you suggest, in the case, I would not think a great deal about it. But, the fact is, there is no telling the cups of sugar, pans of flour, pounds ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... pretend to quote Sir William Harcourt's words literally. I am repeating entirely from memory, but I give the gist of some of his amusing, characteristic remarks when speaking in the Birmingham Town Hall at the time he was Mr. Chamberlain's friend and guest. Certainly, I have always found Mr. Chamberlain a delightfully pleasant host. He is not given to monopolizing ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... colors, and several pieces of cannon were taken. General Gates, finding himself unable to rally the militia, fled first to Charlotte, 90 miles from the seat of action, and then to Hillsborough, 180 from Camden. General Gist, alone of all the American commanders, was able to keep together about 100 men, who, flying across the swamp on their right, through which they could not be pursued by the cavalry, made their escape in a body. The loss of the British troops amounted to ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... of language, the moral experience of a people becomes crystallized into maxims, proverbs, and injunctions, which the elders pass on to the boys and girls together with their comments and personal instruction. Oral precepts thus condense the gist of recurrent experience for the benefit of each new generation. Such saws as "Honesty is the best policy," "Lies are short lived," "Ill gotten gains do not prosper," date, no doubt, well back toward the origin of articulate language. The gathering antiquity of this inherited counsel adds prestige ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... the least attention to the sermon. As for me, the rhythm of it held me in fascination. Mr. Mason had written it out and that afternoon read over this part of it to Nick. The quotation I recall, having since read it many times, and the gist of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the gist of what I have tried to teach about architecture has been throughout denied by my architect readers, even when they thought what I said suggestive in other particulars. "Anything but that. Study Italian Gothic?—perhaps it would be ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... the gist of it; vague as you see, but significant. Then, two days ago, Hugues spoke a second time, urging Saxe to a decision. If the Dauphin were king, all France would breathe freely, all France would say, Thank God! The generous nature of the boy was well known. There would be rewards. Mademoiselle ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... scholars dear! All doctrines, all politics and civilisation, exsurge from you; All sculpture and monuments, and anything inscribed anywhere, are tallied in you; The gist of histories and statistics, as far back as the records reach, is in you this hour, and myths and tales the same; If you were not breathing and walking here, where would they all be? The most renowned poems would be ashes, orations and ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... said, glancing over the first few pages—his wife following—"she's given up her charming little flat and her quaint little English woman: concludes I was right about the expense, etc., etc. But here comes the gist of the matter," he said, reading from the letter—" 'I know you won't object to the trip, David, I have my heart so set on it. The expense will be trifling, seeing there are four of us to divide carriage hire, restaurant and all ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... if I'm ever to get to the gist of the story; and I've gone slowly, I own, for fear of what's coming. Well, the winter was long and hard. When it fell cold the Duke ceased to come out from Vicenza, and not a soul had the Duchess to speak to but her maid-servants and the gardeners about the place. Yet it was wonderful, ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... said hopelessly. "You have misunderstood the gist of the play, then! 'Walter Severn' in the comedy is a man of singular points. He is a great author. Instead of being that woman's plaything, he is her merciless analyst. The great scene in the play comes when she finds this out. Now, ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... for the high degrees in the universities, they labor on a piece of literary conspiracy called a thesis which no one outside the university hears of again. The gist of this research work that is dead to the democracy, through the university merits of thoroughness, moderation of statement, and final touch of discovery, would have a chance to live and grip the people in a motion picture transcript, if not ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... were finalities on the war, finalities on the social unrest; finalities on art, life, religion, the past, present, and future. A cock-sure magazine, gently, tolerantly elbowing aside the mysteries of existence and holding up between carefully manicured thumb and forefinger the Gist of the Thing. The Irrefutable ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... natural expression of the Earth's vitality lies in a dancing movement of purest joy and happiness—that for me is the gist of what remains. Those near enough to Nature feel it. I myself remembered days in spring ... my thoughts, borne upon ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... account of anything must of necessity be a superficial one; but this is far from the truth. A quarto volume on one theme may be entirely superficial, while a lecture or review-article on the same theme may contain the whole gist of the matter. Prolixity is oftener superficial than brevity. Books are superficial if they relate only to the outside of a subject,—if they describe only its husk; and the reverse, if they give its kernel. Many an able review-article contains the kernel of a whole ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... the gist of it and it took a long time to say; a long time during which Cochise told Jeffords many things and Jeffords spoke with Cochise of many subjects outside the direct line of discussion. For that was the Indian manner; they must feel ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... have been accelerated by the Duchess of Kent's answer to the City of London's address, in which she went into the history of her life, and talked of her 'friendless state' on arriving in this country, the gist of it being that, having been abandoned or neglected by the Royal Family, she had ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... of the Anglican Church, and so forth—are already as questionable as they are confident, he puts them with a certain modesty, a certain [Greek: epieikeia], which was perhaps not always so obvious when he came to preach that quality itself later. About the gist of the book it is not necessary to say very much. He practically admits the obvious and unanswerable objection that his French Eton, whether we look for it at Toulouse or look for it at Soreze, is very French, but not ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... that the gambler is no better than a robber, because he acquires property without an equivalent. The whole gist of the argument lies here. You strip a man of fortune, or tear from his hands the earnings of a long life, and give him in return—nothing! Mr. Freeman says, in answer to this—yes, you give him the chance of robbing you! And he goes so far in his sophistry, ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green |
