"Mirthful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... right, when you said women are not idealized in primitive conditions of society," I said, after the first mirthful impulse created by so comical a recital had passed. "But how was it, that with so much to disgust you with the very name of marriage, you finally did consent to take a husband? He, certainly, was not one of the kind that came riding up to ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... time in weeks Perkins was faintly mirthful. The narrowness of his escape had made him hysterical, and he actually indulged in the luxury of a ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... abruptly by way of diversion, a comic dance. By this contrast both entertainments are hurt; the abruptness of the transition is intolerable to the audience; and the thread, especially of the tragic fable, is unpleasingly broken. The spectators cannot bear to be so suddenly tossed from the serious to the mirthful, and from the mirthful to the serious. In short, such an heterogeneous adulteration has all the absurdity reproached to the motley mixture in tragi-comedy, without any thing of that connection which ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... simplicity and mirthful dignity seemed to be the heirlooms which they shared as common heritors; and, chiefest of credentials, when they stood in the library amid the shades of ancestors preserved in oils, I felt no sense of humour ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... here to Paris on my stocking-feet?" said Israel, whose late easy good living at White Waltham had not failed to bring out the good-natured and mirthful part of him, even as his prior experiences had produced, for the most part, something like a ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... of taste. Some people like character; I prefer money. If I am hated and despised, I chuckle over the "per contra." I find it pleasant for members of a proud aristocracy to condescend from their high estate to fawn, feign, flatter; to affect even mirthful familiarity in order to gain my good-will. I am no Shylock. No client can accuse me of desiring either his flesh or his blood. Sentimental vengeance is no item in my stock in trade. Gold and bank-notes satisfy my "rage;" or, if need be, a good mortgage. Far ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... the Duke of Wellington and Louis XVIII. le Desire—are among the taille-douces specified in the imprints. Madame did me the honour of shewing me some of her choicest treasures, as her husband was from home. Up stairs was a parcel of mirthful boys and girls, with painting brushes in their hands, and saucers of various colours before them. Upon enquiry, I found that they received four sous per dozen, for colouring; but I will not take upon me to say that they were over or under paid—of so equivocal a character were their performances. ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... as yourself, granny! Ha, ha, ha! ho, ho, ho! haw, haw, haw!" shouted a mirthful voice, while an indescribably comic face, half cat and half baby, appeared for a single glimpse above the burdock leaf behind which the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... went on with his mirthful fantasia. This mood had been frequent with him in earlier years, and his sister was delighted to see that he preserved so much of youth. After all, it might be that he had found his vocation ere it was too late. Certainly he had the gift of speech, and his personality was not a common one. He might ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... on his return heard the roars of derision, gathered the story from a score of mirthful tongues, seized and sold the matches, and appropriated the funds for a barrel of Bordeaux. And for many weeks the unhappy O Lalala sat mournfully on the beach, gazing at the empty sea and longing for a schooner to ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... in order that their interest in the great work each had in hand for the same Master might be increased and kept up; how, in a spirit of recklessness (afterwards deeply repented of), a bashful young man was induced to sing a song which in the present mirthful state of the company ought to have been a humorous song, or a patriotic song, or a good, loud, inspiriting song, or anything, in short, but what it was—a slow, dull, sentimental song, about wasting ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... joyous laugh with which this ludicrous conceit was greeted by the Humorist, still rings freshly and musically in our remembrance. And the recollection of it is doubtless all the more vivid because of the mirthful retrospect having relation to one of the most recent of Dickens's blithe home dinners in his last town residence immediately before his hurried return to Gad's Hill in the summer of 1870. Although we were happily with him afterwards, immediately before the time came when ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... indissoluble as those which bound me to my father and mother. To what I deemed my broader view of life, their ways of living and their ways of thinking were certainly exceedingly narrow, but none the less I thought of them only with reverence and affection. So it was with Gladys Todd. That mirthful outburst over her effusion about the crusader was followed by many of its kind as her daily letters came to me, but this meant simply that I was growing older than she, and she to my mind became a child, but was none the less lovely for ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... it down hastily as she entered, and remembering his former indifference, she enquired laughingly if he was trying to discover the writer's character from her caligraphy. He laughed too, but it was not a mirthful laugh, and soon after, went out; Minnie observed, however, that the envelope no longer lay where he had laid it, and turned back to look for it, thinking it must have fallen, but it ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden
... Mrs. Richling's mirthful mood prompted her by and by to begin letting into her inquiries and comments covert double meanings, intended for her husband's private understanding. Thus ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... it grew to be a very fearful and tyrannical monster before he was quite done with it. No doubt the first black face that grinned on the Virginian shore, a couple of centuries ago, seemed more an object of mirth than of terror—and it certainly gave promise of profit. But he is a man of mirthful disposition who sees anything to laugh at in the same black face, grown older and broader and much less comical, on the shore of the same Virginia to-day. The white race and the black—the sharp profile and the broad lip—the ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... Captain in high favor was seated in a great cushioned arm-chair with little Sam Peabody on his knee, and the women of the house gathered about him, looking on as he narrated the courses and adventures of his last voyage. The widow listened with a sad interest. Mopsey rolled her eyes and was mirthful in the most serious and stormiest passages; while little Sam and the Captain's wife rivalled each other in regarding the Captain with innocent wonder and astonishment, as though he were the most extraordinary man that ever sailed the ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... already there were more than enough of such obstacles to intercourse. But at tea-time he saw the woman, and she was large and fair and laughing, and called him, in her rich, amused voice "little brother dear," and he did not mind at all, but liked her and her laugh and her mirthful, lazy eyes. ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... lengthened very perceptibly as he heard the small amount of his legacy, and he glared savagely at Mrs. Pinkerton, who showed a mirthful face at his discomfiture. ...
— Herbert Carter's Legacy • Horatio Alger
... and threes and dozens. And from this direction floated the strange, low roar. Suddenly she realized. It was the life of the camp. Hundreds and thousands of men were there together, and as the night advanced the low roar rose and fell, and lulled away to come again—strange, sad, hideous, mirthful. For a long time Allie ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... staircase, prone on his stomach, apparently extending from top to bottom down the swirl of it, and with his chin poised on the topmost step. But as we came down the stair the head seemed to be wholly detached from any body. The red ears actually flapped with mirthful pleasure and anticipation at the sight of the Lady Ysolinde, and no man could see both the beginning and end ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... a Tuesday, what time Amy should have been deep in study, that Clint Thayer, across the table, had his attention wrested from his book by the sound of deep, mirthful chuckles. He glanced over questioningly. Amy continued to chuckle until, being bidden to share the joke or shut up, he took Clint into his confidence. Clint was forced to chuckle some himself when he had heard Amy through, but the chuckles were followed ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... it?" he was saying. "Kin I do it?" Then he would stop his walk and his cogitations would bloom into a mirthful chuckle. Something very pleasant was passing ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... wandering of the eye even while the gracious King was speaking. Then the Admiral said something that brought the girlish rosy flush up to the very roots of the short curls of flaxen hair, and made the young King's white teeth flash out in a mirthful, good-natured laugh, and thereupon the way opened, and Berenger was beside the two ladies, kissing Eustacie's hand, but merely bowing ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... be something of the kind he wanted, although he could have wished it to have been on a fully smaller and humbler scale. This was a large hotel, in which every window was blazing with light, and the rooms were filled with mirthful music. Donald's first impression was that it was a penny wedding upon a great scale. It was, in truth, a masquerade; and as the brandy which he had drunk in the earlier part of the evening was still in his ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... fine weather, and the date to be finally chosen. The baronet had proposed this rustic fete when his own heart had been light and happy; now he looked forward to the day with a sickening dread of its weariness. Others would be happy; but the sound of mirthful voices and light laughter would fall with a terrible discordance on the ear of the man whose mind was tortured by hidden doubts. Sir Oswald was too courteous a host to disappoint his visitors. All the preparations for the rustic festival were duly made: ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... thee; 'tis that I might have a bolder steed, the one thou gavest me is not near spiritful enough for one who wishes to ride well and gayly. I would have one that shakes his head and rattles his bit and stamps about uneasily." This was more than his Lordship could stand, and he broke forth in a mirthful laugh,— ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... heartily joined. She had to change everything. Theresa provided her with what was necessary, and I prevailed upon her to forget her dignity and partake of a rustic collation, with which she seemed highly satisfied. It was late, and her stay was short; but the interview was so mirthful that it pleased her, and she seemed disposed to return. She did not however put this project into execution until the next year: but, alas! the delay was not ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... decline, The fadeless blooms of youth are thine. Melodious insect, child of earth, In wisdom mirthful, wise in mirth; Exempt from every weak decay, That withers vulgar frames away; With not a drop of blood to stain, The current of thy purer vein; So blest an age is past by thee, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... with eyes and face mirthful of appreciation, and Prince Akuli, with another apprehensive glance at the old wahine and her half-made hala lei, returned to his tale of ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... come not as a stranger, but as a former—may I say friend?" he added quickly, as if emboldened by the mirthful eyes that ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... With me haste to the tranquil haunts of Baiae, Haunts that pleasure hath made her home, and she who Sways all hearts, the voluptuous Aphrodite. Here wine rules, and the dance, and games and laughter; Graces reign in a round of mirthful madness; Love hath built, and desire, a palace here too, Where glad youths and enamoured girls on all sides Play and bathe in the waves in sunny weather, Dine and sup, and the merry mirth of banquets ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... her hand in the water and smoothed her stray locks; they curled up again. She was distressed, and Notely's mirthful eyes gave her ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... diventato distemperatissimo bevitore," &c.—Ibid.) he now fled from his goading thoughts to the beguiling excitement of wine. He drank deep, though its effects were never visible upon him except in a freer and wilder mood, and the indulgence of that racy humour, half-mirthful, half-bitter, for which his younger day had been distinguished. Now the mirth had more loudness, ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... healed their sick at even, and He cured the leper's sore, And sinful men and women sinned no more, And the world grew mirthful hearted, and forgot its misery When the glory of the Lord was ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson
... expectant child was kept in suspense by mirthful Dr. Gray, who pretended that he should bring the baby to her some time when she did not expect it. She often rushed into the parlor, saying, "O, I thought I heard somethin' cryin';" and almost cried herself because ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May
... which would have to be fought. Young staff-officers were there, explaining carefully how hard worked they were and how often they went under shell-fire. The fighting officers, English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, jeered at them, laughed hugely at the latest story of mirthful horror, arranged rendezvous at the Godebert restaurant, where they would see the beautiful Marguerite (until she transferred to la cathedrale in the same street) and our checks which Charlie cashed at ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... horn, and the deep-mouthed pack of fox hounds opened loud and wild, far in the ringing woods, and it was like the music of a hundred chiming bells. There was a tremor of the bow, and I heard a flute play, and a harp, and a golden-mouthed cornet; I heard the mirthful babble of happy voices, and peals of laughter ringing in the swelling tide of pleasure. Then I saw a vision of snowy arms, voluptuous forms, and light fantastic slippered feet, all whirling and floating in the mazes of the misty dance. The flying fingers ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... was granted them. 70 From the high-minded hero, then, helmet and burnie Were speedily loosened: the ocean was putrid, The water 'neath welkin weltered with gore. Forth did they fare, then, their footsteps retracing, Merry and mirthful, measured the earth-way, 75 The highway familiar: men very daring[3] Bare then the head from the sea-cliff, burdening Each ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... day by day Faces defeat full patiently, And lifts a mirthful roundelay, However poor his fortunes be,— He will not fail in any qualm Of poverty—the paltry clime It will grow golden in his ...
— Riley Songs of Home • James Whitcomb Riley
... so long—Miss Wickham, you know—has made me a present of it. Five hundred pounds. That's twenty-five hundred dollars, isn't it? You can take the quarter-section you've wanted so long, next to this one. You can get all the machinery you need. And"—she gave a little, happy, mirthful laugh—"you can get some cows! I've learned to do so many things, I guess I can learn to milk, if you'll teach me and be very, very patient about it. Anyway, it's yours to do what you like with. Now, ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... had been for months deepening in my forehead, the plaintive droop of the mouth that had given me such an air of ill-health and anxiety—all were gone as if by magic. I saw a rose-tinted complexion, a pair of laughing, lustrous eyes, and, altogether, such a happy, mirthful young face smiled back at me, that I half doubted whether it was ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... and jollity—but no one seemed to overstep the bounds. Children ran around, grotesque copies of their elders. Rows of cottages and gardens, great corn and hayfields, stubble where cattle were browsing, enclosures of fattening pigs whose squealing had a mirthful sound. ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... Beth's disposition softened. Some of her school-friends had seen her smile—a wonderful and charming phenomenon, during which her expression grew sweet and bewitchingly animated and her brown eyes radiant with mirthful light. It was not the same ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... them to leave the coach," said Miss Cantire faintly, as she took her handkerchief from her wet and mirthful eyes. "But ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the hardest are touched, they are seen weeping for pity; for people wept and laughed at the representations, openly and noisily, "wepynge bitere teris." Besides, there are men of different sorts, and some are so made that they cannot be converted but by mirthful means, "by gamen and pley"; and such performances do them much good. Must not, on the other hand, all men have "summe recreatioun"? Better it is, "or lesse yvele, that thei han thyre recreacoun by pleyinge of myraclis than bi pleyinge of other japis." And one more very sensible ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... confess defeat, is, I suppose, the explanation of their miserable system. But they might see in the girls' school at Tai-o-hae, under the brisk, housewifely sisters, a different picture of efficiency, and a scene of neatness, airiness, and spirited and mirthful occupation that should shame them into cheerier methods. The sisters themselves lament their failure. They complain the annual holiday undoes the whole year's work; they complain particularly of the heartless indifference of the girls. Out of so many pretty and apparently affectionate pupils whom ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dreamt of such an exhibition, scarcely knew whether he was asleep or awake, and sometimes asked himself whether it was not some terrible phantasm by which he was startled and oppressed. The horrible impress of naked and hardened villany—the light and mirthful delirium of crime—the wanton manifestations of vice, in all its shapes, and the unblushing front of debauchery and profligacy—constituted, when brought together in one hideous group, a sight which made his heart groan for human ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... a compassion none the less real because it was mirthful: the girl's tone was so expressive of ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... saw her lashes sweep up to unveil eyes at once mirthful and admonitory; her hungry mouth murmured incongruously an edged warning. "Play up, Paul—play up to me! We dance too well together not to be watched; and if I'm not mistaken, someone you're interested in has just come in. No: don't look yet, just remember we're madly enamoured, you and I—and ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... forth those exquisite studies of Provencal life, the "Lettres de mon Moulin." After the war, Daudet reappeared in Paris, greatly strengthened and ripened by his hermit-existence in the heart of Provence. He produced one masterpiece after another. He had studied with laughter and joy the mirthful side of southern exaggeration, and he created a figure in which its peculiar qualities should be displayed, as it were, in excelsis. This study resulted, in 1872, in "The Prodigious Feats of Tartarin of Tarascon," one of the most purely delightful works of humour in the French language. Alphonse ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... 15: Sarranian flutes)—The "Sarranian" or "Tyrian" pipes, or flutes, are supposed to have been of a quick and mirthful tone; Madame Dacier has consequently with much justice suggested that the representation being on the occasion of a funeral, the title has not come down to us in a complete form, and that it was ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... he laughed heartily; and after some mirthful chat, we resolved upon leaving the valley as soon as we could do so with a proper regard ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... His mirthful humor abruptly vanished. He leaned towards me, and the lids of his little round eyes slowly lifted. It was like the lifting of curtains. For an instant I looked into the unplumbed abyss of the man's soul, and I felt the full impact of his ruthless, powerful mind. It was ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... told the story of his death. Opposite him was a terrible spectacle,—the bruised, mangled, and distorted shape of a bright-eyed lad belonging to the Kentucky company. I had often remarked his arch, mirthful, Irish-like face; and the evening the Guard left camp he brought me a letter to send to his mother, and talked of the fun he was going to have at Springfield. His body was found seven miles from the battle-field, stripped naked. There was neither bullet—nor sabre-wound upon him, but his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... inside his clothes and swashing juicily in his shoes. He liked Scarborough for the way he had acted, but he felt less kindly towards Westby. He was by no means sure that Westby had not deliberately soused him and then pretended it was an accident. He remembered Westby's mirthful laugh just when the thing was happening; and certainly if it had really been an accident Westby had shown very little concern. He had been indecently amused; he was so still; his clear joyous laugh was ringing after Irving even now, ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... there is a touching charm, blending the graceful and the pensive, which reminds us of a very general but peculiar style of Irish beauty, where the lineaments of the face combine at once both the melancholy and the mirthful in such a manner, that their harmony constitutes the unchangeable but ever-varying tenderness of ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... sunburnt children were putting one of the partially overturned megaliths to a happy use by clambering to the top of it and sliding on their little behinds down its smooth and sloping side amidst much mirthful squealing. ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... of biographical literature, the unique and veracious "Memoir of Liston," over which the lovers of wit and the lovers of Charles Lamb have had many a good laugh, was so great that Lamb was encouraged to try his hand at another theatrical memoir, and produced a mock and mirthful autobiography of his old friend and favorite comedian, Munden, whom he had previously immortalized in one of the best and most admired of the "Essays ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... evening when Hope stood again on the veranda of the Magician's, bungalow, and listened to the water running through the reeds. She thought it sounded louder than in the morning—- more insistent, less mirthful. She shivered a little as she stood there. She felt lonely; her uncle was away for a couple of days, and Ronnie was in his room. She was bracing herself to go and rouse him to dress for mess. Slowly, at last, she turned ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... hours of tedious travelling—in the flaming glow of day, or in the still, cool watches of the night, he had with him a recollection—Lilith Ormskirk's face haunted him. Those eyes seemed to follow him—sweet, serious; or again mirthful, flashing from out their dark fringe of lashes, but ever entrancing, ever inviting. Her whole personality, in fact, seemed to pervade his mind, warring for sole possession, to the exclusion of all other thought, all other consideration. Into the conflict his own mind entered with a zest. ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... cheering power of spring, It made him whistle, it made him sing; His heart was mirthful to excess, But the ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... and it has an arcade all round it. The Spaniards, by whom it was built, forgot, probably, that this kind of shelter would not be so desirable here as in their own climate. The manufacture of tapestry, which a single line of Shakespeare has immortalized, and associated with the mirthful image of his fat Knight, has fallen into decay. The manufacturers of linen and woollen are but inconsiderable; and one, which existed till lately, of a very durable porcelain, is totally neglected. The principal article of commerce is lace, which is made here in great quantities. The people of all ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... stories is the inculcation, in a quiet, simple way, of the principles of good nature, kindness, and integrity among children. They consist of the usual pathetic and mirthful incidents that constitute boy ...
— Rollo in Scotland • Jacob Abbott
... press, and whom he had neither seen nor thought of since the publication of his pamphlet in which be had portrayed the sufferings of Bet Bennam and Mary Bacon. Who shall say what other scenes, sad or mirthful, presented themselves among his "thick-coming fancies"? Possibly he recalled the high hopes of his boyhood, when he thirsted to better the condition of the poor, and was almost persuaded that he had been sent into the world expressly to guard their interests against the exactions of ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... I can draw it: a round table with a low centerpiece of orchids in lavenders and pink, old silver candlesticks with filigree shades against the somber wainscoting; nine people, two of them unhappy—Jim and I; one of them complacent—Aunt Selina; one puzzled—Mr. Harbison; and the rest hysterically mirthful. Add one sick Japanese butler and grind in the mills ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... savage rage, they march'd Onward to CONCORD, in a firm array, Mock music playing, and the ample flag Of tyranny display'd; but with dire loss And infamy drove back, they gain'd the town, And under cover of their ships of war, Retir'd, confounded and dismay'd. No more In mirthful mood to combat us, or mix Their jocund music with the sounds of war. To tempt no more unequal fight with men, Who to oppose dire arbitrary sway, Have grasp'd the sword: and resolute to brave Death in a thousand dreary ...
— The Battle of Bunkers-Hill • Hugh Henry Brackenridge
... 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 parties and meetings for hilarity; for such they often had. The young delighted themselves in each other's company, the same as to-day. The young gent and ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... revelry in Arthur's court; and no man may enter but a craftsman bearing his craft, or the son of the king of a privileged country. But there will be refreshment for thy dogs and for thy horse, and for thee there will be collops cooked and peppered, and luscious wine and mirthful song,—and food for fifty men shall be set before thee in the guest chamber, where the stranger and the sons of other countries eat, who come not into the precincts of the palace of Arthur. Said the youth, 'That will I not do. If thou openest the portal, ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... to turn to actual flame. Under the baleful light vacant faces of dully honest English rustics became malignant, while the negro, dancing with long, outstretched arms and uncouth swayings to and fro, appeared a mirthful fiend. ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... progress; and when, at sunrise on the last morning, she was awakened by stealthy footsteps and smothered laughter on the landing outside her room, and, opening her door an inch and peering out as in duty bound in case the sounds should be emanating from some unaccountably mirthful maid-servant, she saw Anna and Letty creeping downstairs with their hats on and baskets in their hands, she guessed what they were going to do, and got back into bed with lips more pursed than ever. Did she not know ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... statement. The two faculties are distinct, Wit being intellectual and occupying a small space adjacent to Causality or Reason, while Mirthfulness, or the sentiment of the ludicrous, is just above it, and should properly be called Humor. The mirthful or playful faculty is in the posterior region adjacent to Approbativeness, and may be quite conspicuous when there is neither wit nor humor in the mirth. Imitation, Mirth or Humor, and Wit follow each other in a line. The so-called organ of Wit (Gall) or Mirthfulness (Spurzheim) ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various
... caressing a woman in fashionable dress. At ——— a nice, comfortable boarding-house tavern, without a bar or any sort of wines or spirits. An old lady from Boston, with her three daughters, one of whom was teaching music, and the other two schoolmistresses. A frank, free, mirthful daughter of the landlady, about twenty-four years old, between whom and myself there immediately sprang up a flirtation, which made us both feel rather melancholy when we parted on Tuesday morning. Music in the evening, with a song by a rather pretty, fantastic little mischief of a ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... when it no longer communicates itself it ceases to exist. One might say that outbursts of merriment need to be encouraged, that they are not self-sufficient. Not to share them is to blow upon them and extinguish them. When, in an animated and mirthful group, some one remains cold or gloomy, the laughter immediately stops or is checked. Yet those whom the common people call, in their picturesque language, wet blankets, spoil-sports, or kill-joys, are not necessarily hostile to the gaiety of the rest. They ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... a time its character changed; it was no longer gay, triumphant and mirthful. The very spirit of love and pathos seemed to breathe through it. My heart beat; every nerve thrilled; every sense answered to ...
— Coralie • Charlotte M. Braeme
... chattering, and devouring, which make it most like a cage of strange birds, or the monkey department in the Jardin des Plantes.—Mem. I always observed that the monkeys just mentioned seemed far more mirthful than their brethren in the London Zooelogical Gardens. They form themselves, so to speak, on a livelier model, and feel themselves more ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... answering she laughed again. It was the happiest joy-song in the world. A mirthful goddess might have trilled it—a laugh like sunshine and flowers and chasing cloud shadows ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... Journey and a Life's Romance," if he cannot let himself go and enjoy himself over Gilbert Gurney's river adventure. If the revival of the Whartons' book were to serve no other purpose than to send some laughter loving souls to the heady well-spring of Theodore Hook's merriment, it would have done the mirthful a good turn and ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... meadow, wood, and stream; Of bird and bee, Of flower and tree, All under the noonday gleam; Of the song and play Of mirthful day— ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... once seen, could never be forgotten. It was grave and sweet, yet having a certain resolute expression about the mouth which might have marred its expression somewhat had it not been for the mirthful gleam which now and then leaped into his clear, dark-brown eyes, and which betrayed that, beneath the gravity and dignity which a life of care and the burden of poverty had chiseled upon his features and imparted to his bearing, ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... painter of pictures, what feeling for color he had! And Fanning, the maker of music, such melodies mirthful and mad! And Harley, the writer of stories, so whimsical, tender ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... country-round, Youthful Mirtillo, here he comes, grief-drown'd. AMBO. Let's cheer him up. SIL. Behold him weeping-ripe. MIRT. Ah, Amarillis! farewell mirth and pipe; Since thou art gone, no more I mean to play To these smooth lawns, my mirthful roundelay. Dear Amarillis! MON. Hark! SIL. Mark! MIRT. This earth grew sweet Where, Amarillis, thou didst set thy feet. AMBO Poor pitied youth! MIRT. And here the breath of kine And sheep grew more sweet by that breath of thine. This ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... of spring, It made him whistle, it made him sing; His heart was mirthful to excess; But the Rover's ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... they hear so well. And they never forget. These four"—with a sweep of my cigarette—"have long memories of things, some sweet, some stern, some full of tears, and some again so mirthful that they split their panelled sides with merriment whenever ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... King of Terrors, but yet possessing that within them which enables every man of them to await without unworthy fear the Messenger who comes but once. On the whole, not so sad as many things that are called mirthful. ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... in a mirthful strain—"before he ventured upon 'The Jurisdiction of the Courts of the Forest,' wished to 'recreate himself' with Virgil's description of 'Dido's Doe of the Forest;'[163] in order that he might 'proceed the more cheerfully' with the task he had undertaken; and thus ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... all goes well, we'll be safe in Piziquid, cherie!" he cried joyously to the child, who responded with a mirthful stream of babble. Pierre's conversation she regarded as a ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Rose. She well knew her aunt's general weakness of intellect, and especially its weakness on this particular subject, but she would suffer no one to manifest contempt for either, if in her power to prevent it. It is seldom one so young, so mirthful, so ingenuous and innocent in the expression of her countenance, assumed so significant and rebuking a frown as did pretty Rose Budd when she heard the mate's involuntary exclamation about the "twelve masts." Harry, who was not easily checked by his equals, or any of his own sex, submitted ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... his chair and laughed softly. His lips, when they parted from his white teeth, resolved themselves into lines which at that moment seemed to Peter Ruff more menacing than mirthful. Sogrange was, in many ways, ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... will, Which have assailed thee, now, or heretofore, Find, soon or late, their proper meed of shame; The more thy triumph, and our pride the more, When witling critics to the world proclaim, In lead, their own dolt incapacity. Matter it is of mirthful memory To think, when thou wert early in the field, How doughtily small Jeffrey ran at thee A-tilt, and broke a bulrush on thy shield. And now, a veteran in the lists of fame, I ween, old Friend! thou art not worse bested When with a maudlin ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... thousand pounds! When he was gone, instead of covering her face as she had done when John left her, Mrs. Dennistoun stared into the vacant air for a minute and then she burst into a laugh. It was not a mirthful laugh, it may be supposed, or harmonious, and it startled her as she heard it pealing into the silence. Whether it was loud enough to wake Elinor up-stairs, or whether she was already close by and heard it, I cannot tell, but she came in with a little tap at the door and a smile, a somewhat ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... of Peter Isnet, 30 years clerk of this parish. He lived respected as a Pious and a Mirthful Man, and died on his way to church to assist at a wedding on the 31st day of March 1811, aged 70 years. The inhabitants of Crayford have raised this stone to his cheerful memory and as a Tribute to his Long ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... dangers and temptations to bid her waver now. Even Mrs. Hamilton's anxious bosom trembled not as she parted from the son of her affections, the preserver of her husband; and though Oakwood felt dull and gloomy on the first departure of the mischief-loving, mirthful sailor, it was not the gloom of sorrow. February passed, and Mrs. Hamilton's solicitude with regard to Emmeline still continued. There were times when, deceived by her daughter's manner, lively and ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... house of Eumaeus the seeming beggar took his way, leaning on his staff, till he reached the palace, entering in at the hall where the suitors sat at meat. They in the pride of their feasting began to break their jests in mirthful manner, when they saw one looking so poor and so aged approach. He who expected no better entertainment was nothing moved at their behaviour, but, as became the character which he had assumed, in a suppliant ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... as it happened. So she wrote out from memory the sentence about Urquhart: the polligamous pirate, with wives &c. "Aren't you flattered?" she asked him, radiant with mirthful malice. He frowned approval. He was pleased, but, like all those who make laughter, he had none of his own. "That shot told. I got him with the first barrel. Trust a boy to love a law-breaker. He'll never forget me that. He's my friend ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... Before this execution, in the reign of Louis XVIII., she attended a performance of "Le Comedien d'Etampes," one evening at the Gymnase, when she laughed immoderately at the comical part played by Perlet. At the same time, Castanier, also present at this mirthful scene, but harassed by Melmoth, was experiencing the insufferable doom of a cruel hidden drama. [Melmoth Reconciled.] Her next appearance is at a famous orgy at the home of Frederic Taillefer, rue Joubert, in company with ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... ancient arches and substructures rising high above the natural soil below. But before Aurelian erected the splendid building to record his conquest of Palmyra, the same spot was the site of the 'Little Senate,' instituted by Elagabalus in mirthful humour, between an attack of sacrilegious folly and a ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... a king of a privileged country, or a craftsman bringing his craft. But there will be refreshment for thy dogs, and for thy horses; and for thee there will be collops cooked and peppered, and luscious wine and mirthful songs, and food for fifty men shall be brought unto thee in the guest chamber, where the stranger and the sons of other countries eat, who come not unto the precincts of the Palace of Arthur. Thou wilt fare no worse there than thou wouldest with Arthur in the Court. A lady shall smooth thy couch, ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... hair untwined, Dost sing light strains of melody and mirth,— I hear thee, hymning on thy holy birth, How thou wert moulded of thy mother Love, That came, like seraph, from the stars above, And was so sadly wedded unto Sin, That thou wert born, and Sorrow was thy twin. Sorrow and mirthful Lunacy! that be Together link'd for time, I deem of ye That ye are worshipp'd as none others are,— One as a lonely shadow, one ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart
... the headlines, "Last-Trick's Strayed Revellers: Mirthful Incident near Pilgrim's Pond." The paragraph went on: "A laughable occurrence took place outside Wilkinson's Motor Garage last night. A policeman on duty had his attention drawn by larrikins to a man in prison dress who was stepping with considerable coolness into the steering-seat ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... application!" they shouted in hoarse and mirthful chorus, for they were certainly near that state favourable to destruction by the gods. One black fellow with a sliding gait ran into the closet and brought a sheet of thin iron, and a strange torch-like tube, which he lighted at the fire and ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... still youthful enough to enjoy life to the full, happy at heart, and proud of their eldest boy; his two young brothers looking up to him with such eager hope and love; the little sisters with their arms twined round his neck, and their fair hair falling over his shoulders; the noble, mirthful, fearless, thrice happy boy himself—a family circle unseparated by distance, unshadowed by sorrow, unbroken by death, seated in this exquisite scene on the lawn of their own happy ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... wild that nobody could go, so they gave up the attempt in despair. Anne, despite her love of and loyalty to Green Gables, could not help thinking longingly of Patty's Place, its cosy open fire, Aunt Jamesina's mirthful eyes, the three cats, the merry chatter of the girls, the pleasantness of Friday evenings when college friends dropped in to ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... snatches, torn from the brazen measure of the municipal band as it marched with the funeral procession. He cursed the sounds from the bottom of his heart. They reminded him of that infamous apparition, of all he most ardently desired to forget. His laughter died down. Wanly he looked at his mirthful pagans, the embodiment of joys. Yes; these were his distractions, his playmates, his elixir of life, his antidote against the only disease, the only sin, crime, vice which he recognized on earth—a vice none the less, because it happened to be the inevitable—the ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... had written an article elaborately constructed to parody derisively the editor's point of view, had meekly submitted it as one of the series, and then, when the harried wretch again objected, had confronted him with illustrative extracts from his own letters. It was a mirthful if not a wholly good-natured performance. Herries had listened with ill-concealed disgust, and excused himself at the end of the recital on ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... had always waited on the mirthful Orion, under the palms by her father's inn, more gladly than on most other guests; and her husband who, after the manner of the Egyptians, was docile to his better half though till now he had not been ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... remarks upon nature. This is not the praise of a poet; whose office rather is to represent known phenomena in a new connexion or medium. In L'Allegro and Il Penseroso the poetical magician invests the commonest scenes of a country life with the hues, first of a mirthful, then of a pensive mind.[21] Pastoral poetry is a description of rustics, agriculture, and cattle, softened off and corrected from the rude health of nature. Virgil, and much more Pope and others, have run into the fault of colouring too highly;—instead of drawing generalized ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... honours of Cambridge to preach and die in the fever-stricken solitude of Tokat; and "steel" in an earlier and even more memorable decision when Francis Xavier consecrated rank, learning, eloquence, wit, fascinating manners, and a mirthful heart, to the task of ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... though my harsh touch, faltering still, But mocked all tune, and marred the dancer's skill, Yet would the village praise my wonderous power, And dance, forgetful of the noontide hour. 250 Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days Have led their children through the mirthful maze, And the gay grandsire, skilled in gestic lore,[30] Has frisked beneath the ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... dark suspicion nor of guile Was limned on Begum; his the mirthful glance, The genial port, the comprehensive smile:— The very sunbeams shimmering loved to dance Within that honest, open countenance;— And far as eye could pierce, his roomy grin Was pink, as 'twere Aurora ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... greener heights. Groups of mariners, Arnaouts in their quaint costume, and girls as graceful of shape as those who of old joined in the choric dances of Cytherea, wound their way up the steep path to the fortress, or tripped in mirthful measures to the shrill ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... zenith city of the unsalted seas," it has been known and read of all men. As such, it will probably continue to be known for ages to come. The speech hopelessly defeated a bill making a land grant to a proposed railroad, of which Duluth was to be the terminus. His mirthful prediction, however, as to its marvellous future has been fulfilled. How true it is that "jesters do oft prove prophets!" Bearing in mind that the great city of to-day then had no place even upon the map, the words quoted from the speech ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... of the escort that the carriage had the greatest success. They chuckled over it as if it had some hidden, mirthful significance. They addressed strange allusions to the lounging driver, and when they had ridden by they turned in their saddles and watched it out of sight at the risk of breaking their necks. They rode the sprucer for it; they were in better spirits ...
— The Surrender of Santiago - An Account of the Historic Surrender of Santiago to General - Shafter, July 17, 1898 • Frank Norris
... such as this," she protested, "that I wore my new muslin gown and came all the way from the country. I expected compliments at least. Perhaps I even hoped," she whispered, leaning a little towards him, with a smile upon her lips,—half mirthful, half provocative,—"that I might have turned for a moment that wonderfully hard head ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... closed, that which looked towards Cornwall. "See yonder," said Manawyddan, "is the door that we may not open." And that night they regaled themselves and were joyful. And there they remained fourscore years, nor did they think they had ever spent a time more joyous and mirthful. And they were not more weary than when first they came, neither did they, any of them, know the time they had been there. And it was as pleasant to them having the head with them as if Bran had ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... comes grief-drown'd. Ambo. Let's cheer him up. Sil. Behold him weeping-ripe. Mir. Ah! Amaryllis, farewell mirth and pipe; Since thou art gone, no more I mean to play To these smooth lawns my mirthful roundelay. Dear Amaryllis! Mon. Hark! Sil. Mark! Mir. This earth grew sweet Where, Amaryllis, thou didst set thy feet. Ambo. Poor pitied youth! Mir. And here the breath of kine And sheep ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... must hurl its lances at some wide-spread prejudice, or toy with the tangles of some mighty Naerea's hair. Undines and satyrs, cupids and merry fauns, may spring laughing from under the artist's hand, but it is from the unyielding marble that these slender children of his mirthful hours are carved. It was not in her infancy that Rome produced her Juvenal. Martial and Plautus caricatured the passions of humanity after Carthage had been destroyed and Julius Caesar had made of his tomb a city of palaces. Aristophanes wrote when Greece had her Parthenon and had boasted ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Wiping the mirthful tears from her eyes, she turned to the tiny closet in the corner of the room, dragged forth a suitcase, and began to take down some garments from the ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... an image of Zenobia—at the breakfast-table, full of warm and mirthful life—this surmise of Silas Foster's brought before my mind. The terrible phantasm of her death was thrown by it into the remotest and dimmest background, where it seemed to grow as improbable as ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... doorway and stood with folded arms, in grim silence, coolly watching the mirthful dancers. Lying upon the floor just inside the door was an Indian brave. As he raised his eyes to the face of the strange backwoodsman standing out clearly in the light of the torches, he sprang to his feet with a piercing war-whoop. The music broke off suddenly; a hush fell. Then ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... was a handsome, talented man, whose joyous disposition, and mirthful humour, could scarcely be trammelled down by the severe conventional rules of the Society to which he belonged. Adam's exquisite taste for music, and his great admiration for horses and dogs, savoured rather of ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... understood the nature of the case, they condoled the family on their misfortune, and would have retired, on the supposition that it would defeat the mirthful intent of their meeting; but the jeweller, mustering up his whole temper and hospitality, entreated them to excuse his disorder, and favour him with their company, which, he observed, was now more than ever wanted, to dispel the melancholy ideas inspired by his loss. ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... said as his eyes filled, and he saw before him the great, bearded face with the kindly, mirthful eyes, and heard the deep, gruff voice. "How can I tell Jim—the boy ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... their intellects will weaken, their eyes become as easily accessible to tears as those of children and women; but we will teach them an easy transition from grief and tears to laughter, childish joy and mirthful song. Yes; we will make them work like slaves, but during their recreation hours they shall have an innocent child-like life, full of play and merry laughter. We will even permit them sin, for, weak and helpless, they will feel the more love for us for permitting them to indulge ...
— "The Grand Inquisitor" by Feodor Dostoevsky • Feodor Dostoevsky
... splendid rose-and-white complexion, upon which the steam-laden atmosphere distilled perpetually that soft dewiness characteristic of the perfect complexion of young children or of goddesses. And like a goddess the queen appeared that moment,—an untidy, earth-chained goddess, mirthful, voluptuous. ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... a pleasure to see you, Doctor," and the young man grasped a mittened hand and looked into his companion's face. There was something both kindly and mirthful in his grey eyes. ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... and strife Still yields a pleasure infinite To the great world's triumphant life Nay seeming ugliness and pain Avert returning Chaos' reign— Thus the whole world's a comedy, And they who by philosophy Unite themselves to God, will see In ugliness and evil nought But beauteous masks—oh, mirthful thought! ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... her temples; her lips were pouting and provokingly suggestive of kisses. The whole face was of the type which comes so near to the ideal that the least sentimentality of expression would have spoiled it. Happily the big eyes and the ripe, red mouth were both suggestive of demure humor. There was a mirthful air about the dimple which came and went in the left cheek like Cupid peeping mischievously from the folds of his mother's robe. A boa of long-haired black fur lay carelessly about her neck, pushed back so that a touch of ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... revived by the warmth of the frieze coat, and his spirits, now that the dreadful scene into which he had been so unexpectedly cast had passed away without danger, began to rise so exuberantly that his conversation became quite loquacious and mirthful, if not actually, to a ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... potatoes, salad and peche Melba, which was all very much to his liking, he dropped the card and looked at Isabelle with a broad smile. The world and its affairs still had an irrepressible zest and mirthful aspect to young ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... knowing that too much must not be expected at once, she made no comment. That night, as she sat reading at eleven o'clock, a strange sound arose in the back part of the house; it was a man's voice, hilariously mirthful and breaking into rude song. After listening for a few minutes, Miss Rodney rang her bell, and ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... fellow of like years with herself, and she gripped him to her soul in wild interest and new curiosity. Yet this childish friendship was so new and incomprehensible a thing to her that she did not know how to express it. At first she pounced upon him in mirthful, almost impish glee, teasing and mocking and half scaring him, despite his ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... Ned, and he stopped more than once on his homeward walk to read the letter over by the gray glimmer of twilight. At first he was more than half resolved to return the money, and bid his friend to buy the pony,—it seemed such a great denial for horse-loving, mirthful Ned to make,—but as he read the letter again and again, and pondered over its contents, he began to think that his friend had more earnestness and love for kind-doing than he ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... still hovered upon Denny's lips. Ogden noted, though, that it had changed. And he realized, too, that it had not been a particularly mirthful smile, even in the first place. Again Young Denny's eyes met those of the ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... she's funking it," suddenly called out a dancing little sprite of a newspaper girl. She came up close to Bet as she spoke, and shook a dirty hand in her face, and gazed up at her with two mirthful, teasing, wicked black eyes. "Bet's funking it,—she's a mammy's girl,—she's tied to her mammy's ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... confident statement. In amplitude, vigor, and fertility of thought we must think the author of the "Analogy" holds some slight advantages over the author of "The Eclipse of Faith"; and we seriously doubt if the lovers of Charles Lamb will be likely to rush into mirthful ecstasies over the humor of "The Greyson Letters." But we suppose that Henry Rogers himself would make no pretensions to the rank of a writer, or reasoner, or humorist of the first class. Far from being a great man, he occasionally slips into the prejudices ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... again," she said, her face suddenly lighting up. "But come; let us join the others, for they seem to have hit upon a very mirthful ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... garden,—some laughing, some whooping, some scolding, some babbling. The wine had brought out, as it were, each man's inmost character. Some were loud and quarrelsome, others sentimental and whining; some, whom we had hitherto thought dull, most mirthful; some, whom we had ever regarded as discreet and taciturn, most garrulous and uproarious. I remember that in the midst of our clamorous gayety, my eye fell upon the cavalier Signor Zanoni, whose conversation had so enchanted us ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... in which the women alone participated—were resumed. The fish dance seemed to be the favorite, and being invited to join in by one of the chiefs, we at once accepted the invitation, and followed in mirthful chase of pleasure with a hundred forest children. Occasionally the dances are characterized with ebulitions of merriment and flashes of real fun, but generally a singular sobriety and decorum are observed. Frequently, when gazing at a throng of sixty or perhaps one hundred dancers, we have been ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... eccentric Milesian settling himself for the night is invariably a mirthful spectacle, and, it may be added, that, no one of us is more volubly humorous and laughter-loving than O'Gaygun himself. Reclining on the sacks which he has spread out upon the table, he proceeds to ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... built wall, over which Lady Brandon, from her eminence on horseback, could see, coming towards her across the pleasure ground, a column of about thirty persons. They marched three abreast in good order and in silence; the expression of all except a few mirthful faces being that of devotees fulfilling a rite. The gravity of the procession was deepened by the appearance of a clergyman in its ranks, which were composed of men of the middle class, and a few workmen carrying a banner inscribed THE SOIL or ENGLAND THE BIRTHRIGHT OF ALL HER PEOPLE. ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... only two courses open, he felt, and one was to end his troubles by going overboard, the other to surrender like a man, obeying the skipper's orders and following him below—anywhere to be out of sight of the jeering crew, whose remarks and mirthful shouts he momentarily expected to hear buzzing about his devoted head. And hence it was that as soon as the companion-hatch was clear he drew himself up to his full height—it did not take much doing, for it is very hard work for a boy to ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... not answer. He was, in fact, looking towards the doorway, and the group on the porch were surprised to see a gleam of mirthful understanding start in his eyes. An answering gleam was in Victoria's, who had at that moment, by a singular coincidence, come out of the house. She came directly down the steps and out on the gravel, and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... high in the heaven and changed, as if into silvery feathers, the mimosa and acacia twigs. In the dense jungles resounded here and there the shrill and, at the same time, mockingly mirthful laugh of the hyenas, which in that gory region found far too many corpses. From time to time the detachment conducting the caravan encountered other patrols and exchanged with them the agreed countersign. They came to the hills ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... subject of these mirthful attacks had listened like one too confident of his established reputation to feel concern; but at the sound of the last speaker's voice, he grasped the bushy covering of one entire cheek in his hand, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... triumphs, and another was Le Caporal et la Payse, Englished as "Seeing Wright." In short, he occupies a high position amongst the half-dozen drolls who, night after night, send home the audience of the Palais Royal brimful of mirthful reminiscences. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... a joy I must eschew And to the tempter's voice "No! No!" say; With taxes laid on all delights Must miss, with other mirthful sights, On Monday next my annual ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CL, April 26, 1916 • Various
... looked at him, saw the dancing light in his eyes and a mirthful quirk of his lips, ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... the waggon. Old Ike fixes a new flint in his rifle, and Redwood, of a more mirthful disposition, is occasionally cracking a joke ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... at the fair hall-board, Carved to his uncle and that lord, And reverently took up the word. "Kind uncle, woe were we each one, If harm should hap to brother John. He is a man of mirthful speech, Can many a game and gambol teach; Full well at tables can he play, And sweep at bowls the stake away. None can a lustier carol bawl; The needfullest among us all, When time hangs heavy in the hall, And snow comes thick at Christmas-tide, And we can neither hunt, nor ride A foray ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... mirthful strain, like mingled bird and brook song, floated out on the still air, along the path where the red and golden maple leaves were falling very softly, one by one. The Reverend Stephen Leonard heard it, as he came along the way, ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... morning driven over from the settlements in the back country, to bring him some comforts of mended woollens and to bid "the drive" God-speed. From McElvey the girl inherited her vivid hair and her superb proportions; and from her mother, who had been one Laurette Beaulieu, of Grande Anse, she got her mirthful black eyes and her smooth, dusky complexion, which formed so striking a contrast to her radiant tresses. A little conscious of all the eyes that centred upon her with varying degrees of admiration, love, desire, or self-abasing devotion, she felt the soft color deepen ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Highness at her side! life in free, joyous happy England—how infinitely remote it now seemed. Her ears were filled with the sound of a voice, drawly and quaint and gentle, a voice and a laugh half shy, wholly mirthful, and oh! ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Chinese village of some pretensions and population, near which are two very large two-storied Malay houses in some disrepair, in which the wife of the banished Mentri of Larut lives, with a number of slaves. A quantity of mirthful-looking slave girls were standing behind the window bars looking at us surreptitiously. We alighted at the house of Mr. Wynne, the Government Agent, who at once said something courteous and hospitable about breakfast, which ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... was chuckling with amusement, and, between his chuckles, addressing himself to the contents of the pewter with every mark of appreciation. Three gleaming golden teeth on the lower row, and one glittering canine, made a dazzling show every time that he smiled; he was a very greasy and a very mirthful Hebrew. ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... which Chatham and Pericles in manhood had not. His unaffected lamentations when he lifts up his voice on high, or, more beautiful, the sobbing child,—the face all liquid grief, as he tries to swallow his vexation,—soften all hearts to pity, and to mirthful and clamorous compassion. The small despot asks so little that all reason and all nature are on his side. His ignorance is more charming than all knowledge, and his little sins more bewitching than any virtue. His flesh is angels' flesh, all alive.—All ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... Grant and of Mrs. Ramirez were heard in the courtyard. Clementina made a warning yet girlishly mirthful gesture, again caught his hand, drew him quickly to the French window, and slipped through it with him into the garden, where they were quickly lost in the shadows ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... movies?" Corinna's voice was mirthful, but there was a deep tenderness in her eyes. Was the girl as shallow as she appeared, or was there, beneath her vivid enamel-like surface, some rich plastic substance of character? Was she worth helping, ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... when I saw those eyes mirthful and bright, And beaming soft with intellectual light, My groundless fears that moment winged their flight, I felt that joy would on their ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
... Camaroncocido lacked his usual hard and indifferent expression, something like mirthful pity being reflected in his looks. A funny ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal |
