"Mirth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in glory 75 A great king's noble, who gives him rewards, Grants him broad lands, which he gladly receives. One shall give pleasure to people assembled On the benches at beer, shall bring to them mirth, Where drinkers are draining their draughts of joy. 80 One holding his harp in his hands, at the feet Of his lord shall sit and receive a reward; Fast shall his fingers fly o'er the strings; Daringly dancing and darting across, With his nails he shall pluck them. His need is great. 85 ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various
... of the heart In which the answering heart would speak— Thought, word, that bids the warm tear start, Or the smile light up the cheek; And his that music to whose tone The common pulse of man keeps time, In cot or castle's mirth or moan, In cold or ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... Ginevra would draw herself up—bridle her grandmother would have called it—with involuntary recoil from doubtful approach; the next, Ginny would burst out in a merry laugh at something in which only a child could have perceived the mirth-causing element; then again the woman would seem suddenly to re-enter and rebuke the child, for the sparkle would fade from her eyes, and she would look solemn, and even a little sad. The people about the place loved her, but from the stillness on the general surface ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... straight to Mr. Vereker's door. He occupied in those years one of the honest old houses in Kensington-square. He received me immediately, and as soon as I came in I saw I had not lost my power to minister to his mirth. He laughed out at the sight of my face, which doubtless expressed my perturbation. I had been indiscreet—my compunction was great. "I have told somebody," I panted, "and I'm sure that, ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... change to the cottage hearth! The song of the wheel's no more— The song that gladdened with guileless mirth The hearths and homes of ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... no time for mirth or laughter," she said briskly, to hide how close she was to hysteria, "since it looks very much like 'the morning after.' First, we've got to tackle that fever of yours." She picked up a water-pail and started for the door. As she passed the foot of the bunk, she confiscated the ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... the wards, as I walked, with a Sister as frank and unfeigned As sweet Charity's servant should be. There was nothing o'er piously strained In this unrigid Refuge for helplessness. Cheeriness, confidence, mirth Seemed to reign in these child-crowded rooms—in these wards where the aged, whose birth Dated well-nigh a century back, whether sewing, or smoking, or prone On the pallet of sickness, all smiled, and no soul seemed forlorn or alone. How they sang, those close ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 5, 1892 • Various
... clear transition, now of foolish persons and now of real lunatics. They are happiest of all, he makes Stultitia say: they are not frightened by spectres and apparitions; they are not tortured by the fear of impending calamities; everywhere they bring mirth, jests, frolic and laughter. Evidently he here means harmless imbeciles, who, indeed, were often used as jesters. This identification of denseness and insanity is kept up, however, like the confusion of the comic and the simply ridiculous, and all ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... Being, who created us solely for happiness, James remarked, that the rustic severity of these clergymen, and of their whole sect, had given them, in the eyes of the multitude, the appearance of sanctity and virtue. Strongly inclined himself to mirth, and wine, and sports of all kinds, he apprehended their censure for his manner of life, free and disengaged. And being thus averse, from temper as well as policy, to the sect of Puritans, he was resolved, if possible, to prevent its further growth ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... birds, or the eyes of antelopes. Whatever is truly great in either Greek or Christian art, is also restrictedly human; and even the raptures of the redeemed souls who enter "celestemente ballando,"[188] the gate of Angelico's Paradise, were seen first in the terrestrial, yet most pure, mirth of Florentine maidens. ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... my head,—"Now let all hell make mirth, Where Love went, I go, too!" His eyes met mine. The sword sank to the earth, And let her ...
— The Lord of Misrule - And Other Poems • Alfred Noyes
... her face, for her heart was full of trouble, and she was just ready for what she called "a good cry;" but the moment she saw his face, which was covered all over with a comical smile, she caught the infection, and burst into a laugh,—a kind of hysterical laugh that had more sorrow than mirth in it. She laughed and he laughed, one at the other, till tears came from the eyes of both, and their poor sorrow-sick hearts seemed as if they would rise into their throats and ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... would be a punishment too severe," said the mischievous little pale sister, in tones of pity, and her face brimming with mirth. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... of his laughing spells again; and Toby sat there, stiff and straight, hardly knowing whether to join in the mirth or to get angry at the sport which had been ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis
... wife, and these two carried on the most remarkable antics I ever saw. I laughed heartily, and soon discovered, from the tones of their voices, which of my shipmates Neptune and his wife were. But my mirth was quickly stopped when I was suddenly seized by several men, and my face was covered over with a horrible mixture ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... does not appeal to the more amiable side of our sense of mirth, for it excites in us a conceited feeling of superiority over those who are making us laugh,—but its unexpectedness and infinite variety render it irresistible to a certain class of minds. The duly labeled "joke" follows a certain ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... summer waters on the pebbly beach. Then the theme was changed, and on the air was borne the measured sweep of countless oars and the swish of waters around the prows of contending galleys, and the breezy voices of the sailors and the sea-bird's cry. Then his theme was changed to the mirth and laughter of the banquet-hall, the clang of meeting drinking-horns, and songs of battle. When the last strain ended, from the mighty host a great shout went up, loud as the roar of winter billows breaking in the hollows of the shore; and men knew not whom to declare the victor, the chief bard ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... You have prevail'd. I will depart in quiet, And, in despite of mirth, mean to be merry. I know a wench of excellent discourse,— Pretty and witty; wild, and yet, too, gentle;— There will we dine: this woman that I mean, My wife,—but, I protest, without desert,— Hath oftentimes upbraided me withal; To her will we to dinner.—Get you ...
— The Comedy of Errors • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... children, will not you Cease for a little from your kissing mirth, Thinking of other lovers that must go Kissed back with fire into the bosom of earth,— Ah! in the old woods leave the mistletoe, Be happy, softly, lovers, for you too Shall be as sad as they another year, And then for you the holly ...
— The Silk-Hat Soldier - And Other Poems in War Time • Richard le Gallienne
... brow, he is evidently a profound critic, and much too wise to laugh. He must indisputably be a very great critic; for, like Voltaire's Poccocurante, nothing can please him; and, while those around open every avenue of their minds to mirth, and are willing to be delighted, though they do not well know why, he analyses the drama by the laws of Aristotle, and finding those laws are violated, determines that the author ought to be hissed, instead of being applauded. ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... the room. Robin Pierce glanced round too over the chattering guests sitting or standing in easy or lazy postures, smiling vaguely, or looking grave and indifferent. Mrs. Wolfstein was laughing, and yawned suddenly in the midst of her mirth. Lady Cardington said something apparently tragic, to Mr. Bry, who was polishing his eyeglass and pouting out his dewy lips. Sir Donald Ulford, wandering round the walls, was examining the pictures upon them. ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... in their apartment, Gudrun said: "Be cheerful, Brynhild! What is it that prevents thy mirth?" Brynhild answered: "Malice drives thee to this; for thou hast a cruel heart." "Judge not so," said Gudrun. Brynhild continued: "Ask about that only which is better for thee to know; that is more befitting ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... high point before, and tied in several folds behind. By their parents they were early bred up to much useful knowledge, and were generally mistresses of the polite accomplishments of music, singing, and dancing. Their conversation appeared to be lively, at times breaking out in sallies of mirth and wit, and at others displaying judgment and good sense. In their dress for making or receiving visits, they chiefly affected silks and gay colours; but in the mornings, when employed in the necessary duties of the house, a thin but ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... queer, but they seemed to be easy people to get on with anyhow. They were still picking little ripples and giggles of mirth from the idea of Mr. Polly dandling Aunt Larkins when Mr. Johnson, who had answered the door, ushered in a stooping figure, who was at once hailed by Mrs. Johnson as "Why! Uncle Pentstemon!" Uncle Pentstemon was rather a shock. His was an aged rather than venerable figure; ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... whilst I was resting, To hear the rain-drops in their mirth, You said you saw the rainbow cresting The heavens with colour, based ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 77, April 19, 1851 • Various
... system must be encouraged in earliest years; but the hours girls spend in the house doing things neatly and in order, as their grandmothers did before them, ought to be balanced by hearty exercise in the fresh air, by seasons of mirth, and by freedom from restraint. The out-of-door exercise, the gayety, the deliverance from tasks, are quite as necessary for older girls ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... highly amused at this unexpected announcement. She fell back in her chair and indulged in a long and hearty laugh. I am certain that most of my readers would have joined in her laugh had they known the object which provoked her mirth. "Poor Tom is such a dreamer," said my sister, "it would be an act of charity in Moodie to persuade him from undertaking such a wild-goose chase; only that I fancy my good brother is possessed with the ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... he took a serious view of the performance it must have put him to exquisite torture, for he was conscious that he was not a perfect type of manly beauty. If, however, it struck him as at all funny, it must have filled him with unspeakable mirth to be thus gravely led about, angular and gawky, under the eyes of the precise Crawford, to be introduced to the boys and girls ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... Poet raised his hand, With such entreaty and command, It stopped discussion at its birth, And said: "The story I shall tell Has meaning in it, if not mirth; Listen, and hear what once befell The merry birds ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... made perfect! Already in triumphant faith they were walking the golden streets, with palms in their hands crowns on their heads, and songs in their hearts. Kid was a witty man, usually overflowing with innocent mirth; even in sight of the gallows his humor was insuppressible. Looking into King's face he made a pun on their own names, saying, "I have often heard and read of a kid sacrificed, but I seldom or never heard of a king ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... been that in the appearance and action of Bippo and Pedros which excited the latent mirth of the Murhapas, for say what we may, the trait exists in a greater or less degree in all human beings. One of them reached forward with his javelin and gave Bippo a sharp prick. With a howl, he leaped several feet in air and yelled that he ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... that the Governor could laugh merrily, and that any other men who might happen to be standing by were more than likely to join with him in his mirth, but the color came at once to his cheeks when the Governor ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... large tail made of the caudal extremities of a number of gnus. This has charms attached to it, and he continued waving it in front of himself all the time we were there. He seemed in good spirits, laughing heartily several times. This is a good sign, for a man who shakes his sides with mirth is seldom difficult to deal with. When we rose to take leave, all rose with ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... the bravest, a horror of death by the Plague, with all its ghastly accompaniments. Sailing out to sea to the Downs, then, they felt that the past year's events lay behind them as an evil dream, and laughed and jested and sang with light-hearted mirth. ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... There were exactly fifty chances out of a hundred that he was doomed. He reversed the card; it was the ace of spades. A loud roaring filled his brain, and the table swam before his eyes. He heard the player on his right break into a fit of laughter that sounded between mirth and disappointment; he saw the company rapidly dispersing, but his mind was full of other thoughts. He recognised how foolish, how criminal, had been his conduct. In perfect health, in the prime of his years, the heir to a throne, he had gambled away his future and that of a brave and loyal country. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... from the magic lantern, hunt the slipper, blind man's buff, kissing under the mistletoe, and many other Christmas gambols were the order of the evening,—and, if one might judge from the bursts of mirth and laughter that prevailed, this was very much to ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... booty of L10 looks as great in the eye of a bridle-cull, and gives as much real happiness to his fancy, as that of as many thousands to the statesman; and doth not the former lay out his acquisitions in whores and fiddles with much greater joy and mirth than the latter in palaces and pictures? What are the flattery, the false compliments of his gang to the statesman, when he himself must condemn his own blunders, and is obliged against his will to give ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... old man, beginning to tremble, though he but half understood the meaning of the scornful mirth, "I have had charge of you since you were a ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... something more than these predominant partial tones of Hawthorne—"the grand old countenance of Homer; the decrepit form, but vivid face of Aesop; the dark presence of Dante; the wild Ariosto; Rabelais' smile of deep-wrought mirth; the profound, pathetic humor of Cervantes; the all-glorious Shakespeare; Spenser, meet guest for allegoric structure; the severe divinity of Milton; and Bunyan, molded of humblest clay, ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... the feast day of Blessed Luke the Evangelist,[852] when he had celebrated Mass in the convent[853] with that holy devotion of his, he was taken with a fever and lay down in his bed: and all of us were [sick] with him. The end of our mirth is sorrow,[854] but moderate sorrow, because for a time the fever seemed to be slight. You should see the brothers running about, eager to give, or to receive. To whom was it not sweet to see him? To whom was ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... surely enough to shatter any dream, to turn to pathos any situation. In Jones' case they had acted as a most potent spell. He could still hear the voice, wrathful, but with a tinge of mirth in it, ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... the kind of Attic salt which, was characteristic of Boston in the middle century; the product of an almost excessive culture erected on sound, native brains. He had abounding wit; not only wit of the sort that begets mirth, but that larger and graver wit which Macaulay notices in Bacon's writings—a pure, irradiating, intellectual light. It had often the effect of an actual physical illumination cast upon the topic. He was magnificent as a dinner-table companion. He was rather a short, ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... most blessed birth The stars all lead, rejoicing, which souls thee With God's compassion for humanity,— That I invoke; and, now, when all the earth Bears palms and chants hosannas—what! shall she, The most devout, be shut from Freedom's mirth? ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... or so Billy Brackett would continue his remarks as though nothing unusual were happening. At length, when he had allowed sufficient time to elapse for an audience to fully appreciate the situation, he would turn as though to learn the cause of their uproarious mirth, discover the monkey, and chase him from the stage with every ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... climax. Paganel could not stand any more. He was obliged to go away and take his laugh out, for he was actually exploding with mirth, and he went fully a quarter of a mile from the encampment before his ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... return there will be mirth And music in the air, And fairy rings upon the earth, And mischief everywhere. The maids, to keep the elves aloof, Will bar the doors in vain; No key-hole will be fairy-proof, ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... cramped and frozen with the chill cares of office; his mother is deadened by the gloomy routine of economy and fashion; custom lies upon her with a weight heavy as frost and deep almost as life; the fountains of natural fancy and mirth are frozen over; so Baby lisps his dawn paeans in soft Oriental accents, wakening harmonious echoes amongst those impulsive and impressionable children of Nature that masque themselves in the black slough of Bearers and Ayahs; and ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... and her party, all day, through that scene of unsophisticated mirth, and felt no want of interest. Her presence immediately produced an impression; even the native Africans moderating their manner, and lowering their yells, as it might be, the better to suit her more refined tastes. No one, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... belong One to the fields, the other to the hearth, Both have your sunshine: both, though small, are strong At your clear hearts; and both seem given to earth To ring in thoughtful ears this natural song— Indoors and out, summer and winter, Mirth. ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... windowpane. A hansom flashed along in the street below with just a glimpse of a pretty laughing girl in it with a man by her side. From another part of the Royal Palace Hotel came sounds of mirth and gaiety. All the world seemed to be happy, to-night, perhaps to mock the misery of the girl with her head ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... abashed by the roar of laughter that followed the proposal. Papa Benson flung himself on the floor and rolled over and over. Long Joe uttered whoops of delight. Even Mr. Bob shook with speechless mirth, till the veins on his forehead stood out like strings. Never in all its history was there such a hullabaloo in the Land We Live In. As the rumpus died down something very like remorse overwhelmed the ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... General in paroxysms of mirth. "Oh, that blessed uncle! WHAT a fool he'll look! Ha, ha, ha! Dead souls offered him instead of ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... a sound of mirth and scampering feet in the hall above and then down the steps, between the lines of guests arrested in their descent, came a dark laughing girl in the garb of Little Red Riding Hood, amid general ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... all. Congress includes among its members many curious individuals and, as a unit, it does queer things at times. State legislatures are sometimes strange looking bodies of men and on occasions they achieve legislation which moves the country to mirth. The representatives of the nation abroad make blunders which contribute not a little to the gaiety of the world. But the thing to admire is that they do these things at all—that the legislators, whether ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... our "Penny Reading" Society gave a decided tone to our subsequent proceedings, but we had made but slow progress, and there was still some difficulty in inducing many of the readers to meet the audible remarks, the half-concealed mirth, and even the exaggerated applause of their audiences, when the vicar one evening announced his intention of leaving Chewton for a fortnight on a visit to London, and coming back in time to prepare a grand ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... of the island, when suddenly, without a word of warning, we stumbled into the Hativa-faui, or ladies' dressing-room. Instantly we were surrounded by a bevy of captivating beauties. Our guides had evidently counted on our surprise for they laughed uproariously, their mirth being joyously echoed by the graceful women who crowded about us, patting, petting and bidding us unmistakable welcome to their compound. I have never seen a more ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... Spring in Killingworth, In fabulous days, some hundred years ago; And thrifty farmers, as they tilled the earth, Heard with alarm the cawing of the crow, That mingled with the universal mirth, Cassandra-like, prognosticating woe; They shook their heads, and doomed with dreadful words To swift destruction the whole race ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... have my full glass, and let me have my hearty laugh at these wretched times! He who can sing and laugh with his wine, you need not put under the ban, my lords: mirth is ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... in words the young speaker's tones, mingled, as they were, of sadness, ridicule and mirth, while Cracis drew a deep, ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... the winter hearth, When twilight called unto household mirth; By the fairy tale, or the legend old, In that ring of happy faces told; By the quiet hours when hearts unite In the parting prayer and the kind "good night", By the smiling eye and the loving tone, Over thy life has the spell ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... room for mirth or trifling here, For worldly hope, or worldly fear, If life so soon is gone; If now the Judge is at the door, And all mankind must ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... writhed silently from mirth to astonishment, and then sinister rage. And though he was in the shadow against the door, Terry saw the slow gleam in the face of the tall man—then his hand whipped for the gun. It came cleanly out. There ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... reached this place," retorted the Admiral. "And even then I was fit for any drawing-room. I should like you to tell me how many fathers, lay and clerical, go upstairs every day with a face like a lobster and cod's eyes—and are dull, upon the back of it—not even mirth for the money! No, if that's what she runs for, all I say ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... yet that mirth in little feasts enjoy'd, I think should ready absolution find; Slight peccadillo of an erring mind, Artless and rude, of all disguises void, Their simple hearts too easy to believe (Conscious of nothing ill) that saints in tombs Enshrin'd should any happiness ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... impeached?" she faltered, not knowing what Bartley would be at, but smiling faintly in sympathy with his mirth. ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... draughts of liquor were repeated with much frequency; the tongue unloosed itself; oaths mingled themselves with jests, while loud laughter made the edifice to tremble. The vow of poverty did not escape from the sacrilegious mirth. One of the San Franciscans, who had often touched money with his fingers and placed it on the table, when he gained any considerable sum, in order to divert the company, opened his broad sleeve, ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... without mirth and nodded to Joe and to Haney, and went striding away down the concrete walk ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... his men, sternly bidding them restrain their mirth, for they were treating the affair as a huge joke, and both tried to assume an expression of ferocity as ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... carries off the palm; "Jim along Josey," "Lucy Long," "Old Dan Tucker," and a hundred others of the same character, are listened to delightedly by the crowd of men and boys collected round the fore-hatch, and always ready to join in the choruses. Thus a sound of mirth floats far and wide over the twilight sea, and would seem to indicate that all goes well ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... cap'n," replied Sam sullenly, as he turned away from under the break of the poop, and made his way forward again to where I stood watching his now changed face, all the mirth and merriment having gone out of it, making him look quite savage—an ugly customer, I thought, for any one to tackle with whom he might have enmity. "I'se he-ah fo' suah, an' ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... laugh. Any mention of Tanaka's name acted as a talisman of mirth. Tanaka was the Japanese guide who had fixed himself on to their company remora-like, with a fine flair for docile and ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... dining room door with a cheery smile, beguiling as the flower in her hair was fragrant, and with a "welcome, gentlemen, to the Boone home," in her comely face, bade them all go in to dinner. At the dinner table wit and mirth flowed as freely as did the water down the throats of those hungry ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... in strength that of the Spice Islands. We stood it, however—for what will not man endure for the sake of riches? Marble foresaw the difficulties, and had once announced to the mates that they then would "open on shares." This had a solacing influence, and amid much mirth and sundry grimaces, the work went on with tolerable rapidity. I observed, however, that Talcott threw one or two subjects, that doubtless were tougher than common, ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... the ring the whole truth flashes upon her. She is in love with Orsino—this she knows. Olivia, she believes, is in love with her. The edge of the situation, the dawn of this entanglement, excites her mirth. In this scene she becomes charming—an impersonation of Spring. Her laughter is as natural and musical as the song of a brook. So, in the scene with Olivia in which she cries, "Make me a willow cabin at your gate!" she is the ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... "custom" or family convenience. When we come to choose between following fashions and disobeying them, we generally decide that it is better to do a foolish or slightly harmful thing than to occasion criticism, mirth, or even special notice by ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... little time for mirth; business was at hand. New problems confronted him. Were other Bolsheviki near the shed? If so, then all ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... attachment of our two lovers, when an anniversary of religious mirth summoned them, together with their neighbour shepherds of the adjacent hamlet, to the spot which had long been consecrated to rural sports and guiltless festivity, near the village of Ruthyn. The sun shone ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... let us drink their memory, Those glorious Greeks of old— On shore and sea the Famed, the Free, The Beautiful—the Bold! The mind or mirth that lights each page, Or bowl by which we sit, Is sunfire pilfer'd from their age— Gems splinter'd from their wit. Then drink we to their memory, Those glorious Greeks of yore; Of great or true, we can but do ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... whimsical mirth, Lined by the wind, burned by the sun; Bodies enraptured by the abounding earth, As whose children ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... provincials. Vergor sanctioned the enterprise, and the boaster marched proudly forth with his company. Arriving in front of the New Englanders he astounded the latter, and supplied his comrades in the fort with food for endless mirth, by facing the right about and leading his shame-faced files quietly back to Beausejour. Pierre was profoundly thankful to the old sergeant for having dissuaded him from joining in the sally. Covering ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... dearest ever known. The men were all gone to Inverness, to act under the orders of President Forbes in defending the king's cause; and the women they left behind pined for news which seldom or never came. As the days grew short and dark, there was none of the activity and mirth within doors which in northern climates usually meet the advances of winter. In the cluster of houses about Macdonald's farm, there was dulness and silence in the evenings, and anxious thoughts about fathers, husbands, and brothers, with ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... had never dreamed even of questioning any of her mother's arrangements, and consequently she had no temptation to consider whether she liked or disliked the plan. She had been trained to the most unhesitating submission to maternal authority. The childish heart of the mirth-loving princess was doubtless dazzled with the anticipations of the splendors which awaited her at Versailles and St. Cloud. But when she bade adieu to the gardens of Schoenbrun, and left the scenes of her childhood, she entered upon one of the wildest careers of terror and of ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... adjusting his single eyeglass in his eye and serenely surveying the men in the room. He could see that, although they had been talking loudly, the matter in hand was serious enough, for there was no trace of mirth on any of the faces before him. He at once assumed an air of gravity, and going up to Valdarno, who seemed to have occupied the most prominent place in the recent discussion, he put ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... undreamed-of to Nora, who was no scientist. Her laughter was irrepressible. In a trice the precedents of years were gone. Nora felt the empire of her dignity slipping away, but none the less could not repress her mirth. And more than this; as she gazed into the honest, blue-eyed face before her she felt a lessening of her desire to retain her icy pedestal, and she struggled the less against her laughter. Indeed, with a sudden fright, she ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... more of a painter than a sculptor. His pictures are full of rollicking mirth, and the smile on the faces of his women is handed down by imitation even to this day. The joyous freedom of animal life beckons from every Leonardo canvas; and the backgrounds fade off into fleecy clouds and shadowy, dreamy, opiate ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... could have beaten myself for my want of gratitude. The sighings of the patient little milliner, who sat near the door with her precious bandboxes around her, and the occasional moans and groans of the fretful widow in her dark corner, only ministered to my mirth, which was probably the more irresistible because I was obliged to smother it with the greatest care lest my companions should become aware of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... made his more noble companions seem light, frivolous persons. But ever and anon, when respect and awe neared the oppressive, he rolled off his horse so ignobly and funnily, that even the ambassador was fain' to burst out laughing. He also climbed up again by the tail in a way provocative of mirth, and so he played his part. Towards the rear of the pageant rode one that excited more attention still—the Duke's leopard. A huntsman, mounted on a Flemish horse of giant prodigious size and power, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... wit and humor. Often misunderstood, misrepresented, and misinterpreted, they are nevertheless universally admitted to be racial traits, and for an excellent reason. Other nations exhibit these qualities in their literature, and Ireland herself is rich in writers who have furnished food for mirth. But her special pre-eminence resides in the possession of what, to adapt a famous phrase, may be called an anima naturaliter jocosa. Irish wit and Irish humor are a national inheritance. They are inherent in ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... earth, And crave with tears from God the dower They have, and have despised as dearth, And scorn as low their human lot, With frantic pride, too blind to see That standing on the head makes not Either for ease or dignity! But fools shall feel like fools to find (Too late inform'd) that angels' mirth Is one in cause, and mode, and kind With that ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... Jack grumbled, at which they all laughed with such infectious mirth that more than one passer-by turned to smile ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... that by pantomime was easy,—and said good-bye to my hostess and her maids, who bowed their heads to the ground and smiled as though I had been the most honoured of guests instead of a clumsy foreigner, fit food for mirth. A walk in a twilight pine wood, and then back to the station, where I boarded the night train, and slept fitfully until five, when we reached Kyoto, and my wanderings were over. How I enjoyed the comfort of the best hotel in the East! But also how I regretted that I had not long ago ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... find infinite resources of mirth in the affair. Other people drifted by them. Several of the younger women stopped and exchanged amused glances with ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... replied, repressing my mirth; "true as the tale of Timothy. I knew him when he was a mere boy. But I don't give you that as a proof, for he might have become all things to all men since. Ask Miss Trevor; or Miss Thorn; she knows the other man, the bicycle man, and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... though sometimes with talk impertinent And idle fances he would fame a mirth, Yet is it easie seene somewhat is heere The which he dares not let his face ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... a creature of light and laughter, but there were in her odd little streaks of unconsidered impulse that testified to a passionate soul. She would flash into a temper over a mere trifle, and then in a moment flash back into mirth and amiability. ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... exercise of mercy and virtue opens the heart to the enjoyment of social happiness. The Indians, no longer worked up by excitement to deeds of violence, seemed disposed to bury the hatchet of hatred, and the lodge was now filled with mirth, and the voice of gladness, feasting, and dancing. A covenant of peace and good-will was entered upon by old Jacob and the chief, who bade Catharine tell her brothers that from henceforth they should be free to hunt the deer, fish, or shoot the wild fowl of the lake, whenever they desired ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... crazed and little worth Excepting as to burn, That we may warm and make our mirth Until the Spring return— Until the Spring return, good sirs. When people walk abroad; Which well must be as ye can see— And ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... down before the mirrors after a while, still watching her reflection, but listening to the song, too. Her head gradually sank lower and lower, first resting chin in hand and at last right down on her arm stretched along the floor. Her face lay turned towards the children, and they saw the mirth slowly fade in her great black eyes, the lids drop lower and lower,—and then she was asleep suddenly. Now she looked almost as young as themselves, and like a pale child who has fallen to sleep at ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot
... of Parliament.—This is not a very promising subject, but mild mirth may be produced in outlying districts (say Southend or Honiton, Devon) by observing, that the rock upon which the Irish Party went to pieces was a happy one—in fact, a GLAD-STONE. This, strictly speaking, is not a new jest, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... over-run) Returning home, by raging tempests tost, (And near his life (so fortunes) to have lost) Arrived safe on shore the self-same date. (This day to them afforded so fair fate.) Great Duke, rejoice in this your day of birth; And may such omens still encrease your mirth. ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... now. He was hideously calm—the frightful calm of great-hearted men, who use mirth, levity, and indolency to ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... gentleman, or burdened with a "wife and family." These and similar discussions were increasing in vivacity, and kindling more and more gayety of repartee, when suddenly, with the effect of a funeral knell upon their mirth, a whisper began to circulate that there was one Masque too many in company. Persons had been stationed by Adorni in different galleries, with instructions to note accurately the dress of every person in the company; to ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... arrack, menschino, strong green tea, lemon juice, and sugar; in other less expensive bowls was found a cheaper concoction. But punch abounded everywhere, and the bibulous found Washington a rosy place, where jocund mirth and joyful recklessness went arm in arm to flout vile melancholy, and kick, with ardent fervor, dull care out of the window. Christmas carols were sung in the streets by the young colored people, and yule logs were burned in the old houses ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... Shadow smiled. "There's food for mirth In every nook of the sun-circling earth That human foot hath trodden. Man, the great mime, must move the Momus vein, Whether he follow fashion or the wain, In ermine ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various
... all good: they are much more than parodies; they are real criticism, sound, wise, genial, and instructive. Nor are they in the least unfair. If the balderdash and cheap erudition of Bulwer and Disraeli are covered with inextinguishable mirth, no one is offended by the pleasant imitations of Lever, ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... old spirit was no longer the same. The light-hearted mirth had gone. Indeed, Rosebud was a child no longer. She was a woman, and it would have surprised these folk to know how serious-minded the last two days ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... a smile of subdued mirth upon her lips. "Leander," she said, "did it surprise you just ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... said, 'Yes, I am very fond of music!' No, my dear,' resumed the good and tender-hearted Duc de Penthievre, 'I mean, would you have any objection to become his wife?'—'No, nor any other person's!' was the innocent reply, which increased the mirth of all ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 4 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... Naylor, "the carpet!" Fresh moans of mirth shook the table; for having tasted the wine of laughter, all wanted as much more as they could get. When Scruff and his traces were effaced, Herr Paul took ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... representative in Ned Huddlestone, porter at the abbey, who, as the largest and stoutest man in the village, was chosen on that account to the part. Next to him came a character of no little importance, and upon whom much of the mirth of the pageant depended, and this devolved upon the village cobbler, Jack Roby, a dapper little fellow, who fitted the part of the Fool to a nicety. With bauble in hand, and blue coxcomb hood adorned with long white asses' ears on head, with jerkin of green, striped with yellow; ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... raised his hands, and a smile dawned upon the impassive features—a smile that had no mirth in it, only menace, revealing as it did his even, discolored teeth, but leaving the filmed eyes inanimate, ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... forth into a peal of rather mundane laughter. After indulging in this unseemly mirth for about a minute and ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... meditatively at the ground. The action tickled me so much that I gave a short laugh. Jack looked up and laughed too, whereupon we both burst incontinently into an uproarious fit of laughter, which might have continued ever so long had not Jack, in the fulness of his mirth, given his fixed leg a twist that caused it ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... and were it not for the presence of M'Carthy, the meal in question would have been a very gloomy one indeed. Even M'Carthy himself felt the influence of the spirit that prevailed, and found that all his attempts to produce cheerfulness or mirth among them were by no means successful. The two sons, as if acting under the influence of some unaccountable presentiment, engaged themselves in casting bullets for the fire-arms with which the house was furnished, whilst M'Carthy spent his time with the ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... to father in his raciest brogue, and with that suspicion of mirth which seemed always to hover about his left eye, "it wor quite a plisure, sure, to sarve him; for he's the foorst lad I iver came across as took so koindly to the thrade. 'Dade an' sure, sorr, I belaive he don't think ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... who was enjoying her fellow-servant's mirth, and who began thumping again at poor Bella's back, "do you want me to ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... this obscure person for his charitable purpose to a most flattering extent. Not only did he—on the pretext that his memory was rebellious—invariably greet me as "Mr. Hong Kong," but on more than one occasion he insisted, with mirth-provoking reference to certain details of my unbecoming garments, that I must surely have become confused and sent a Mrs. Hong Kong instead of myself, and frequently he undermined the gravity of all most successfully by pulling me backwards suddenly by the pigtail, with the plea ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... her hand and gripped his in warm, strong, muscular fingers. "Thank God, yes God, if you like, you are still—still in this outer circle,"—she broke into a laugh, but there was little mirth in her laughter—"this good old ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... laugh of my dear old grandmother brought me up, and I said no more; colouring, I believe, a little, at my own folly. Even uncle Ro joined in the mirth, though I could see he wished Mary Warren even safely translated along with her father, and that the latter was Archbishop of Canterbury. I must acknowledge that I felt a good deal ashamed of the weakness I ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... consecration, and the light-hearted fellows kept step to c' etait un p'tit bonhomme and a la claire fontaine. Along with the singing there was much good-natured conversation. War has its grim humors. One party standing in the Cul de Sac on the site of the chapel built by Camplain, made mirth at the expense of Jerry Duggan, late hair-dresser, in the town, who had gone over to the enemy and was "stiled" Major amongst them. Jerry was said to be in command of five hundred Canadians, and had disarmed the inhabitants ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... how bright the hue! But, though the bloom is fair The sense with sweets to woo, Love, Music, Mirth, Oh give! On these ...
— The Verner Raven; The Count of Vendel's Daughter - and other Ballads • Anonymous
... wild," laughed Mr. Sneed, it being one of the few occasions when he did indulge in mirth. "In fact, the earlier forms of manatee were called Sirenia, and were considered to be the origin of the belief in mermaids. For they carried their little ones in their fore-flippers, almost as a human mother might do in her arms, and when swimming along would raise their heads ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... in the autumn of 1807, when Scott was out practising with the Light Horse Volunteers, which had been formed in prospect of an invasion from France, and of which Scott was quartermaster and secretary. Scott at those gatherings was full of companionable mirth, and in intervals between drill he would sometimes ride his charger at full speed up and down on the sands of Portobello within spray of the wave, while his mind was at work on such lines ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... my cannon," remarked Tom, with a laugh that had no mirth in it. "My cannon that isn't cast yet. He probably misunderstood Koku's story of the test, and had no idea it was ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... shriek of laughter from Toby, and she doubled up in her corner with hysterical mirth, gasping and gasping for breath, till he sat squarely down beside her and pulled her into ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... transparent shadow. The deepest pathos of Phoebe's voice and song, moreover, came sifted through the golden texture of a cheery spirit, and was somehow so interfused with the quality thence acquired, that one's heart felt all the lighter for having wept at it. Broad mirth, in the sacred presence of dark misfortune, would have jarred harshly and irreverently with the solemn symphony that rolled its undertone through Hepzibah's and her brother's life. Therefore, it was well that Phoebe so often chose sad themes, and not amiss that they ceased to be ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... legitimate occasion for mirth, so the men laughed, and Mr Wilkins looked pleased and ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... were almost all of them elderly men, and seemed very unhappy. Mr Schlientz, who is both an Arabic and a Hebrew scholar, spoke to several of them on the subject of religion, pointing out to them, in their affliction, the consolations of Scriptures, which appeared greatly to excite the mirth of ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... were paid to play and again they took their instruments and again tunes full of studied mirth and studied sorrow began to flow and to rise. They unfolded the customary melody but the guests hearkened in dull amazement. Already they knew not wherefore is it necessary, and why is it well, that people should pluck strings, inflate their cheeks, blow in thin ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... the outside of this two noses were flattened, and two pairs of eyes were plainly visible gazing into the room with deep interest, while a peculiar noise, something between giggling and snorting, seemed to indicate that the owners of the eyes and noses were making an effort to subdue their mirth. ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... they entered Tiverton Street, the vestry was full of chattering groups. Heman was the last to arrive. He made a long job of covering the horse, inside the shed, resolved that nothing should tempt him to face the general mirth at the Widder's entrance. For he could not deceive himself as to the world's amused estimate of her guardianship and his submission. He had even withdrawn from the School Board, where he had once been proud to figure, because, entering the schoolroom one day at recess, ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... Mr. Stimcoe in deshabille, on the first-floor landing, under the derisive surveillance of Masters Doggy Bates, Bob Pilkington, and Scotty Maclean, whose graceless mirth echoed down to me from the stair-rail immediately overhead. Ignoring my preceptor's invitation to bide a wee and take a cup of kindness yet for auld lang syne, I ran up and knocked their heads together, kicked them into the dormitory, turned the key on their reproaches, ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... the ancient and once imperial, but now provincial and remote, city of Ravenna. It was Carnival time, and the very acme and high-tide of that season of mirth and revel. For the theory of Carnival observance is, that the life of it, unlike that of most other things and beings, is intensified with a constantly crescendo movement up to the last minutes of its existence. And there now remained ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... GREECE, HIS PILGRIMAGE!— There fitly ending,—in that land renown'd, Whose mighty genius lives in Glory's page,— He, on the Muses' consecrated ground, Sinking to rest, while his young brows are bound With their unfading wreath!—To bands of mirth, No more in TEMPE let the pipe resound! HAROLD, I follow to thy place of birth The slow hearse—and thy ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... we made a very hasty breakfast of these stolen dainties, and since we had not the heart to restore them to our innkeeper, so we had not the face to chide Moll for her larceny, but made light of the business and ate with great content and some mirth. ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... and my hasty impressions of shooting and a corpse gave way to mirth over the child and his innocent grievance that he had blurted out before I could get off ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... the mob, who bestirred themselves for the relief of the supposed lady, no sooner perceived their mistake in the appearance of the beau, who stared around him with horror and affright, than their compassion was changed into mirth, and they began to pass a great many unsavoury jokes upon his misfortune, which they now discovered no inclination to alleviate; and he found himself very uncomfortably beset, when Pickle, pitying his situation, interposed in his behalf, and prevailed upon the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... and tuneful Utah, Reply brown jade; There are no other joys secure to either Man or maid. Soon you are old and heavy hearted, Lost to mirth; While on you lies the white man's ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... adorns The sunny morns With opening flowers; Upon the cross; And thought the loss Of all that earth Contained—of mirth, Of loves, and fame, And pleasures' name— No sacrifice To win the prize, Which Christ secured, When He endured For us the load— The wrath of God! With many a tear, And many a fear, With many a sigh And heart-wrung cry Of timid faith, Where intervenes ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... gloomy moment the many we have parted with that have been dear and agreeable to us, and to cast a melancholy thought or two after those with whom, perhaps, we have indulged ourselves in whole nights of mirth and jollity. With such inclinations in my heart I went to my closet yesterday in the evening, and resolved to be sorrowful; upon which occasion I could not but look with disdain upon myself, that though all the reasons which I had to lament the loss of many of my friends ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... laughing voices, Fondly loved in other years, Mournfully are whispering to me That their mirth was ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... creature that ever they had seen; and what every one says must be true. She was so; but she was not always lively—she was only so at times: she appeared to be of a serious, reflective turn of mind, and she read a great deal; but at times she was mirth personified. To my mother she was always dutiful and attentive, and ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... of the shock with which he realized that she was, unknown to herself, already in the throes of a romantic attachment for Wilson; and, long, long after, when he had gone down to the depths with her and saved her by his steady hand, with something of mirth for the untoward happening ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... presence of impending tragedy a sudden sense of the ridiculous swept the two girls. Their eyes meeting, they began to laugh. It was the first genuine mirth that had stirred Grace Harlowe since the day on which she had left the Briggs' cottage ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... right, poetry and the higher religion moved from the first on the line of the anthropomorphic Lady of the Harvest and the Corn, Mother Barley: while the popular folk- lore of the Corn Spirit (which found utterance in the mirth of harvesting, and in the magic ritual for ensuring fertility), followed on the line of the pig. At some seasons, and in some ceremonies, the pig represented the genius of the corn: in general, the ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... Join mates in mirth to me, Grant pleasure to our meeting; Let Pan, our good god, see How grateful is our greeting. Join hearts and hands, so let it be, Make but one ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... through his mind, when the Queen, having finished her altercation with the Lady of the castle, again addressed him—"What of the revels at Kinross, Roland Graeme? Methought they were gay, if I may judge from some faint sounds of mirth and distant music, which found their way so far as these grated windows, and died when they entered them, as all that is mirthful must—But thou lookest as sad as if thou hadst come from a conventicle of ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... idlest sayings—when he took the trouble to say anything which he frequently did not!—were teeming with the elements not only of laughter but of thought, and you wondered, long after you had talked with him, why it was that you saw new lights on things, and found food for mirth and matter for reflection where neither ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... found in each great church moreo'er, Whether on island or on shore, Piety, learning, fond affection, Holy welcome and kind protection.... I found in Munster unfettered of any Kings and queens and poets a many, Poets well skilled in music and measure; Prosperous doings, mirth and pleasure. I found in Connacht the just, redundance Of riches, milk in lavish abundance; Hospitality, vigor, fame, In Crimean's land of heroic name.... I found in Ulster, from hill to glen, Hardy warriors, resolute men. Beauty that bloomed when youth was ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... proper places,—and, being a very obliging man, looked at whatever he was directed to, with round, blank eyes; but ended all with a long gaze on the laughing, blushing face, that, half in shame and half in perplexed mirth, appeared and disappeared as Miss Prissy in her warmth turned ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... alone, industrious, and so economical as to excite the mirth or the pity of his rough neighbors. Some who heard that he had loaned $60,000 to a water company at 12 per cent. interest, regarded him contemptuously as a miser. How else explain his shabby clothes, his old rubber ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... the early New Englander were not all dark. There was much of the austere in them, but there was also a grain of mirth and cheerfulness. We must bear in mind that the clergymen were the early historians of the country; and they put much gloom in their writings. The mirthful side of social life was expressed at the ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... There was mirth in King Gunther's dwelling, for the time of the Yule-feast had come. The broad banquet hall was gayly decked with cedar and spruce and sprigs of the mistletoe; and the fires roared in the great chimneys, throwing warmth and a ruddy glow of light into every corner of ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... era of ignorance and superstition. Christendom went insane over an idea. When the year ended, and the world rolled on, none the worse for conflagration or deluge, green with the spring leafage and ripe with the works of man, dismay gave way to hope, mirth took the place of prayer, man regained their flown wits, and those who had so recklessly given away their wealth bethought themselves of taking legal measures for ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... conversation; fast and furious grew the mirth of the parties, and many a song was exchanged betwixt them, when their revels were interrupted by a loud knocking at the ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... his clients absorbed in mirth, murmured something vague about 'business,' and spirited Miss Blossom away to ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... Coyohuacan. There was no drunkenness, or quarrelling, or confusion of any sort. An occasional hymn, rising in the silence of the air, or the distant flashing of a hundred lights, alone gave notice that the funeral procession of the Saviour had not yet halted for the night; but there was no noise, not even mirth. Everything was conducted with a sobriety befitting the event that was celebrated. That some of the curate's horses were stolen that night, is only a proof that bad men were out, and took the opportunity of his absence from home to plunder his stables. We were told an anecdote ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca |
