United States or India ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The whole purpose of the deed was to demonstrate this one truth, that it is quite unnecessary to take a pessimist seriously; the most vapid sophisms become justified, provided they show that, in regard to a philosophy as "unhealthy and unprofitable" as Schopenhauer's, not proofs but quips and sallies alone are suitable.
It had the exactness of one who was set upon a far course and would carry it out on scientific calculation. He had been full of mocking quips and sallies at himself, but from first to last he never talked. The things he said were nothing more than surface sounds, as it were the ejaculations of a mind, not its language or its meanings.
This exchange of repartee took place in the large school auditorium, to which all repaired as soon as the outdoor exercises had been finished. The program of the evening was punctuated by interruptions of this kind every now and then. Of course, the fun-makers waited for suitable opportunities to spring their "quips and cranks," so that no merited interest in the doing could be lost.
As we came aboard one of them remarked that it was a fine day. A fine day for what? She did not finish the sentence. Everybody wore a serious look. Inside of myself I felt pretty serious too serious enough for ten or twelve. I had meant to fling off several very bright, spontaneous quips on the way to the table. I thought them out in advance, but now, somehow, none of them seemed appropriate.
No; there were no smiles on his lips, no quips and cranks on his tongue. His thinness had become emaciation. Irène went forward. "You come from him?" she said, hastily. "From Fanfar? Oh! no not directly, at least. They won't let me see him, you know." "Who sends you here, then?" "Gudel Iron Jaws, you know." "Why did he not come himself?" "Ah! that I can't say. Gudel bade me give this note to you."
She began to learn little quips of the feminine mind: that a woman who can pay seventy-five will pay double that sum; that it is not considered good form to show surprise at a dressmaker's prices, no matter how high they may be; that long mirrors and artificial light help sales no woman over thirty but was grateful for her pink-and-gray room with its soft lights.
She sang a very lively song, the words of which her husband had found time to write for her during the afternoon. It began, "C'est a Paris, qu' ca s'est passe." She cracked her whip and stamped her feet, and must have been very droll, to judge from the screams of delight in the audience. The song was full of quips and puns, and pleased so much that she had to repeat it.
A severe thought, starting oddly from a clash of words, suddenly traversed the conflict of quips in which Grantaire, Bahorel, Prouvaire, Bossuet, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac were confusedly fencing. How does a phrase crop up in a dialogue? Whence comes it that it suddenly impresses itself on the attention of those who hear it? We have just said, that no one knows anything about it.
Is it over-fanciful to think that in the master Prospero we have the type of Imagination? in Ariel, of the wonder-working and winged Fantasy? in Caliban, of the half-animal but serviceable Understanding, tormented by Fancy and the unwilling slave of Imagination? and that there is something of self-consciousness in the breaking of Prospero's wand and burying his book, a sort of sad prophecy, based on self-knowledge of the nature of that man who, after such thaumaturgy, could go down to Stratford and live there for years, only collecting his dividends from the Globe Theatre, lending money on mortgage, and leaning over his gate to chat and bandy quips with neighbors?
It was Cornish who opened the champagne and poured it into their glasses. It was Cornish who made the best jokes, and laughed the loudest at the journalistic quips fired off by his companions. Cornish seemed to understand the guests better than did Roden, who was inclined to be stiff towards them. Those who are assured of their position are not always thinking about it.
Word Of The Day