"Mirth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... very cleverly acts a little love-scene for our benefit. Fraeulein Anna takes this as a delicate compliment, and the thing is so prettily done in truth, that not the sternest taste could be offended. Meanwhile another party of night-wanderers, attracted by our mirth, break in. More Prosits and clinked glasses follow; and with a fair good-morning to our ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... own philosophy," he once told Ansell, "and I don't care a straw about yours." Ansell's mirth had annoyed him not a little. And it was strange that one so settled should feel his heart leap up at the sight of an old spire. "I regard it as a public building," he told Rickie, who agreed. "It's useful, ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... certain treaty, the Indians one evening after the fatigues of the day, were unusually mirthful. Red Jacket conceiving the idea that Mr. Hosmer, who was unacquainted with their language might suppose he was the subject of their mirth, caused them to be silent, and through his interpreter, Captain ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... going on, the rest of the party was too full of noisy mirth to notice what was passing. Mark's voice was getting very wild and conspicuous; and now he made his way with flushed face and sparkling eyes to Mary, who was sitting quietly between her mother and ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... soul, will bear a noble significance. In point of fact, some of the merriest books in the world are among the most richly freighted. And as airy and mirthful books may be substantial and serious, so it is an effect very similar to that of noble and significant mirth that is produced upon us by the grandest pieces of serious writing. Thus, he who rightly reads the "Phaedon" or "Phaedrus" of Plato smiles through all the depths of his brain, though no pronounced smile show on his face; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... daybreak. alcalde justice of the peace, mayor. alcaldia office of an alcalde. alcanzar to reach, overtake, obtain. alcazar m. castle, fortress. alcoba alcove, bedroom. alcornoque m. cork-tree. alegar to allege. alegrar to rejoice. alegre merry, joyful, gay. alegria gayety, mirth. Alejandra Alexandra. alejar to remove; vr. to go off. aletargar vr. to fall into a lethargy. alfombra carpet. alga seaweed. algazara confused noise. algo something, somewhat. alguacil constable, policeman. ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... paused and laughed with genuine mirth. "It's my firm conviction that Griffiths is a rogue, and that he treated me quite scurvily yesterday. 'Sign,' he says, 'sign in full, at the bottom, and date it,' And Jacobsen, the little rat, stood in with him. It was rank piracy, the days of Bully ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... Then we coursed along the valley, the habitant's eyes still on the trees, and once he stopped to emit a gurgling laugh at a badly hacked trunk, beneath which was a snowed-up sap trough; but I could not divine whether Paul's mirth were over a prospect of sugaring-off in the maple-woods, or at some foolish habitant who had tapped the maple too early. How often had I known my guide to exhaust city athletes in these swift marches of his! But I ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... half conscious of his presence. He went for nobody with her. How little we know the people we eat and go to church and flirt with! Triplet had imagined this creature an incarnation of gayety, a sportive being, the daughter of smiles, the bride of mirth; needed but a look at her now to see that her heart was a volcano, her bosom a boiling gulf of fiery lava. She walked like some wild creature; she flung her hands up to heaven with a passionate despair, before which the feeble spirit of her companion shrank and cowered; and, ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... than before. She had the most beautiful laugh that one who loved music could imagine,—silvery, low, and yet so full of joy! All her movements, as the old parson said, seemed to keep time to that laugh, for mirth made a great part of her innocent and childish temper; and yet the mirth was feminine, never loud, nor like that of young ladies who had received the last finish at Highgate seminaries. Everything joyous affected her, and at ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... is referred to the body, consists in all parts of the body being affected equally: that is (III:xi.), the body's power of activity is increased or aided in such a manner, that the several parts maintain their former proportion of motion and rest; therefore Mirth is always good (IV. xxxix.), and cannot be excessive. But Melancholy (see its Def. in the same note to III:xi.Note) is pain, which, in so far as it is referred to the body, consists in the absolute decrease or hindrance of the body's ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... with the multitude, And gladness on the earth, The tongue of every living thing Rang with a sound of mirth. All that stern Wisdom could desire, Or Fancy fair engage— Danger-defying youth was there, And calm experienced age. It seemed as though earth's very best To that brave barque were given— Science for nature's mysteries, And ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... and conservatism, because they will not turn aside from their holy purpose to promote a measure that basely, grossly insults one-half, and that the best half of the human race. Were the subject not too serious for mirth, such accusations, coming from such a source, would be simply ludicrous. As it is, many will laugh at such absurdity. The Fifteenth Amendment, at best, is but a trick, a device (as was the Fourteenth with its ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... dallying with her, and she not unfree Ill all this day by reason of the last night's debauch King do tire all his people that are about him with early rising Kissed them myself very often with a great deal of mirth My luck to meet with a sort of drolling workmen on all occasions Show many the strangest emotions to shift off his drink Upon ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Diary of Samuel Pepys • David Widger
... when sitting 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 women of high degree. It is good, too, for thee to be content, as all goes according to ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... means And necessaries of life? Alas, he knows The Laws of Spain appoint me for his Heir, That all must come to me, if I out-live him, Which sure I must do, by the course of Nature, And the assistance of good Mirth, and Sack, How ever you ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... Miss 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
... closely nestled by thy side, Thy arm around me thrown, I ask no more. In mirth and pride I've stood—oh so alone! Now, what is all this world to me, Since I have found my ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... House, "is derived from a picture in Punch, in which ZO is showing her back to the Members of the County Council." Lords don't often indulge in hearty laughter; this too much for them, and STANLEY OF ALDERLEY temporarily extinguished, amid almost uproarious mirth. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 25, 1891 • Various
... gallants so free, All you that love mirth for to hear; And I will tell, of what befell, To a bold outlaw, ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... what this girl did was to fall back against her pillow, shouting with laughter, waving both arms, even kicking out her feet in the craziest manner. And "One-Eye!" she repeated; "One-Eye!" Then was swept into another paroxysm of mirth. ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... is the Welsh and the Scotch music. The Welsh has a more hopeless sob, the Scotch a wilder mirth. We feel in the old Welsh tunes that terrible struggle they had, first with the Romans, and then with the Anglo-Normans; and whoever has heard the "March of the Men of Haerlech" will understand why King Edward slew the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... they formed a hasty group in the open space by the door, and, with Griffin beating time, stretched their mouths to the utmost and gave the Academy Howl with a vim that was deafening, drawing out the final deep growling notes to a weirdly wailing finish that sent Patricia and Elinor into gales of mirth. ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... in his den—(Ah, my bachelor chum!) I have sat with him there in the gloom, When the laugh of his lips died away to become But a phantom of mirth in the room! And to look on him there you would love him, for all His ridiculous ways, and be dumb As the little girl-face that smiles down from the wall On the tears of ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... slowly upon him with the blackness of his look lightening into a smile as different from mirth as the brassy gleam behind a thundercloud is from sunshine. "What concerns your lordship?" he asked contemptuously. "Do you imagine that I shall forget ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... agreeable, and Washington Irving always makes one there in the evening. This is altogether delightful, for he is one of those men who put you at ease with them in a moment. He makes no ceremony whatever with one, and of course is a very fine man in society, all mirth and good humor. He has a most beautiful countenance, and a very intellectual one, but he has some halting and hesitating in his conversation, and says very pleasant, agreeable things in a husky, weak, peculiar voice. He has a dark complexion, ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... with his subject, now whimsical, now in grave, now in melancholy mood. He lies upon the idle grassy bank, like Jacques, letting the world flow past him, and from this thing and the other he extracts his mirth and his moralities. His main gift is an eye to discover the suggestiveness of common things; to find a sermon in the most unpromising texts. Beyond the vital hint, the first step, his discourses are not beholden to their titles. Let him take up the most trivial subject, and it ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... are just the rude stories one hears In sadness and mirth, The records of wandering years, And scant is their worth Though their merits indeed are but slight, I shall not repine, If they give you one moment's delight, Old comrades ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... rattled on to him volubly, laughed, pretty hoyden, at her own sallies, and seemed at last so to fascinate him by her gay spirits that he sat down by her side; and the playful smile on his lips—lips that had learned to be so gravely firm—showed that he could enter still into the mirth of childhood; for surely to the time-worn man the fast young lady must have seemed but a giddy child. Lionel was amused. Could this be the austere recluse whom he had left in the shades of Fawley? Guy Darrell, at his years, with his dignified repute, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... while the Duque d'Usseda[209] performed the same ceremony for Louis XIII, with the Infanta Anna Maria of Austria. The exchange of the two Princesses took place on the 9th of November, in the middle of the Bidassoa, with a host of petty and futile observances which excite mirth rather than admiration; but at the same time with a magnificence surpassing all that had ever previously been exhibited on such an occasion; the two Courts of France and Spain vying with each other in splendour and profusion. De Luynes, to whom such a ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... rather its relaxation from unceasing toil and care, from which no to-morrow held promise of relief. There was a deal of good humor in it at most times. "Scrapping" came naturally to the alley. When, as was sometimes the case, it was the complement of a wake, it was as the mirth of children who laugh in the dark because they are afraid. But once an occurrence of that sort scandalized the tenants. It was because of the violation of the Monroe Doctrine, to which, as I have said, the alley held most firmly, with ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... appeal to passive emotions, to play upon the melting mood of a diffuse sensibility, or to encourage the narrow mind to dispense a patron's laughter from the vantage-ground of its own small preconceptions. Our annual crop of sentimentalists and mirth-makers supplies the reading public with food. Tragedy, which brings the naked soul face to face with the austere terrors of Fate, Comedy, which turns the light inward and dissipates the mists of self-affection and ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... compatriots. His father is 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; ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... it appeared to me then and afterwards when I had learnt to watch and decipher every versatile look and expression it wore. Sometimes, when in repose, it reminded me of one of Raphael's angels. At other times, when moved by mirth and with arch glances dancing in the deep, grey eyes,—and they could make merry when they willed,—it was a witching, teasing, provoking little face. Or, again, if changed by grief,—under which aspect, thank God! I seldom saw it,— a noble, resolute face, bearing ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... oft inspired must he have trod These pathways, yon far-stretching road! There lurks his home; in that Abode, With mirth elate, Or in his nobly-pensive mood, The ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... so miserable as to be insensible to mirth. I am sure it was a source of high entertainment to you, to feel that you were taking us all in.—Perhaps I am the readier to suspect, because, to tell you the truth, I think it might have been some amusement to myself ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... to wait long to divine the source of mirth, for Shenton soon essayed to walk the length of the table. Lifting his arm, he pointed along a crack, and swung one leg around to take a first step. But he seemed unable to place his foot as he wished. He reeled and fell in a giggling ball, which Manoel ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... exquisite comicality of the jest occasioned bubbling comments of mirth during the rest of the meal, and her original indiscreet ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... brought several young people, and there was, as usual, plenty of mirth and chatter. Jenny felt utterly out of tune for it, and slipped out of the back door into the lane. She went slowly up, feeling very low-spirited, and wondering what God was going to do with her. When she came to the gate of the bean-field—the place where Tom had overtaken ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt
... But a thought struck him; he tied the monkey with a cord to Turk's back, leading the dog by another cord, as he was very rebellious at first; but our threats and caresses at last induced him to submit to his burden. We proceeded slowly, and I could not help anticipating the mirth of my little ones, when they saw us approach ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... armed only with his sun umbrella, attempted to interfere, when the amoker turned furiously on him and the Irish official, who was of spare build, took to his heels and made good his escape, the chase, though a serious matter to him, causing irrepressible mirth to onlookers. The man was never captured, and his victims, though disfigured, recovered. I remember being struck by the contemptuous reply of Sir HUGH LOW'S Chinese servant when he warned him to be on his guard, as there was an amoker ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... was innocent of any mistake and was blankly searching for an explanation of their mirth leaned forward ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... see that Irishman—the fellow who had charge of the box. He looks poorly enough, as far as this world's goods are concerned, but happy and full of mirth, ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... calmly sat astride him while they went through his pockets. August Naab roared his merriment and Hare laughed till he cried. The incident was as surprising to him as it was amusing. These serious Mormons and silent Navajos were capable of mirth. ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... Butterfly's Ball and the Grasshopper's Feasts Excited the spleen of the Birds and the Beasts: For their mirth and good cheer—of the Bee was the theme, And the Gnat blew his horn, as he danced in the beam; 'Twas humm'd by the Beetle, 'twas buzz'd by the Fly, And sung by the myriads that sport through the sky. The Quadrupeds listen'd with sullen displeasure, But the ...
— The Peacock 'At Home' AND The Butterfly's Ball AND The Fancy Fair • Catherine Ann Dorset
... with strife, A numberless, starving army, At all the gates of life. The poverty-stricken millions Who challenge our wine and bread And impeach us all for traitors, Both the living and the dead. And whenever I sit at the banquet, Where the feast and song are high, Amid the mirth and the music I can hear ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... nor the girls vouchsafed him another look. After a glance round, Addison drew back, shutting the kitchen door, and resumed his pencil. He shook his head sapiently to me, but seemed to be rocked by internal mirth. "Now, wasn't that just like Halse?" he ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... perturbations, their meaning is, not that merely the perturbations consist in them, but that the effects likewise of these perturbations do so; as grief occasions a kind of painful pricking, and fear engenders a recoil or sudden abandonment of the mind, joy gives rise to a profuse mirth, while lust is the parent of an unbridled habit of coveting. But that imagination, which I have included in all the above definitions, they would have to consist in assenting without warrantable grounds. Now, every perturbation has ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... spared; So wise that none of the debating throng Had ever lived to prove him in the wrong; So good that Crime his anger never feared, And Beauty boldly plucked him by the beard; So brave that if his army got a beating None dared to face him when he was retreating. This monarch kept a Fool to make his mirth, And loved him tenderly despite his worth. Prompted by what caprice I cannot say, He called the Fool before the throne one day And to that jester seriously said: "I'll abdicate, and you shall reign instead, While I, attired in motley, will make sport To entertain ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... of the king's birth-day with the usual marks of joy and festivity, were insulted by the populace; but next day, which was the anniversary of the restoration, the whole city was lighted up with bonfires and illuminations, and echoed with the sound of mirth and tumultuous rejoicing. The people even obliged the life-guards, who patroled through the streets, to join in the cry of "High-church and Ormond!" and in Smithfield they burned the picture of king William. Thirty persons were imprisoned for being concerned in these riots. One ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... around him in their long flashing sabre-curves of flight. A yellow-throat, destined to become the breakfast of a lazy hawk still swinging above the river, was especially moved to such a causeless and idiotic roulade of mirth that the master listening to the foolish bird was fain to whistle too. He presently stopped, however, with a slight embarrassment. For a few paces before ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... where the lord and his companions were accustomed to sit at the great feasts after their return from a successful expedition. This is the "beer hall" that we read so much about in song, epic, and legend. Here the beer and the mead were passed; here arose the songs and the mirth of the warriors. On the walls of the hall might be seen the rude arms of the warrior, the shield and the spear, or decorations composed of the heads and the skins of wild beasts—all of which bring us to the early type of the hall of the great ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... commanded to Versailles, there to perform the Ballet of Orpheus before Mesdames the King's Daughters. I had by this time received slight Promotion, and played the Dog Cerberus,—at which my dear little Angel of a Lilias made much mirth. His Majesty was to have waited at Versailles for the playing of the Piece; but after Dinner he changes his mind, and determines on returning to ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... actually, for an instant, asking himself if he should come. She laughed ever so slightly; the experience was novel; who before had ever weighed the pros and cons when extended this privilege? Then, the next moment, the blue eyes lost some of their mirth; perhaps his manner made her feel the frank informality she had unconsciously been guilty of; ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... a man who always amuses me. Ordinarily he is a somewhat grim-looking individual; but when there is any fighting going on his whole manner changes, and he beams and mantles with a sort of suppressed mirth. He comes swaggering up now as the guns are opening, looking like a man who has just been told the best story he ever heard in his life, and is still chuckling over it. "They're on to us again," he bubbles out, knocking his boot with his whip in irrepressible ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... at the corner, all at the highest pitch of mirth, for they saw that their idol, Eddie, was in one of his happiest moods, which would mean a morning of unbounded fun to them. And the ride with old Uncle Billy who, with black and shiny face, beaming upon them ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... the question and questioned him concerning the date of Paul Kruger's coronation as King of South Africa. The long-distance conversation continued in the same vein, each operator trying to have amusement at the expense of the other. What probably was the most mirth-provoking communication between the two combatants in the early part of the campaign was the letter which Colonel Baden-Powell sent to General Snyman, late in December, and the reply to it. Colonel Baden-Powell, in his letter, which was several thousand words in length, ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... built beneath, For there he deemed was the gate and the door of the Glittering Heath, But not a whit moved Greyfell for aught that the King might do; Then Sigurd pondered a while, till the heart of the beast he knew, And clad in all his war-gear he leaped to the saddle-stead, And with pride and mirth neighed Greyfell and tossed aloft his head, And sprang unspurred o'er the waste, and light and swift he went, And breasted the broken rampart, the stony tumbled bent; And over the brow he clomb, and there beyond ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... his cigar toward the First National, and then pointed it at his own door, but this bit of pantomime only renewed the mirth of the assemblage. It seemed to be the impression that he was trying to advertise his bank, in the fashion of a "demonstrator" in a shop-window. The ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... on our lips It throbs in every breast; In tear-dimmed eyes, in mirth's eclipse, The ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... glances roll, Swift messengers, and eloquent of soul; If Smiles more winning, and a gentler Mien Than the love-wilder'd Maniac's brain hath seen Shaping celestial forms in vacant air, 35 If these demand the empassion'd Poet's care— If Mirth and soften'd Sense and Wit refined, The blameless features of a lovely mind; Then haply shall my trembling hand assign No fading wreath to Beauty's saintly shrine. 40 Nor, Sara! thou these early flowers refuse— Ne'er lurk'd the snake beneath their simple hues; ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... 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 stand before ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... sister's chamber, because it was the fairest in the tower. Moreover he commanded that she should be meetly served, and held in all reverence. But though the dame was so richly clothed and cherished, ever was she sad and deep in thought. Meriadus came often to cheer her with mirth and speech, by reason that he wished to gain her love as a free gift, and not by force. It was in vain that he prayed her for grace, since she had no balm for his wound. For answer she showed him the girdle about her body, saying ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... imagined. Yet it has more the appearance of a chapel than of a place of diversion; and, though I was quite charmed with the magnificence of the room, I felt that I could not be as gay and thoughtless there as at Ranelagh; for there is something in it which rather inspires awe and solemnity than mirth and pleasure.' Ranelagh was at Chelsea, the Pantheon was in Oxford-street. See ante, ii. 119, and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... investigations of the actions of Monsieur Jaune were bearing excellent fruit. Already, as he believed, the way toward his own happiness was smooth and clear. As the Count retired from this successful conference, he laughed softly to himself: nor did he pause in his unobtrusive mirth to reflect that those laugh best who ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... most sterile, and the difficulty of earning a living greatest. There was an outward starch and acerbity produced by toil and danger. But when people felt they could unbend, they were not icebergs but volcanoes, because the fires which burned unseen were those of the soul. The mirth of wine is maudlin and short-lived. It prompts to no labor, and kindles no sacrifices. It is satanic; it blazes and dies, a horrid mockery, exultant and evanescent. But the joy of homes, the beaming face of forgiveness, the charity which covers a multitude ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... letter for more reasons than one—there are you blushing again for your country! We have often behaved extravagantly, and often shamefully-this time we have united both. I think I will not read a newspaper this month, till the French have vented all their mirth. If I had told You two months ago that this magnificent expedition was designed against Rochfort, would you have believed me? Yet we are strangely angry that we have not taken it! The clamour against Sir John Mordaunt is at high-water-mark, but as I was the dupe ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... February, 1797: "He was then a youth, but even then an artist. Of a small and light figure, well formed, with a singular physiognomy, a nose perfectly Grecian, and blue eyes full of laughter, he had the faculty of exciting mirth to as great a degree by power of feature, although handsome, as any ugly-featured low comedian ever seen." F.C. Wemyss has said of him at a later day: "Mr. Joseph Jefferson was an actor formed in Nature's merriest mood—a genuine ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... tumblers of patterns which were on our tables thirty years ago. The assembly begins solemnly, discussing social problems and bartering village gossip, for the Hindu is by nature staid. After a while, at the second bottle perhaps, cheerfulness will supervene, then mirth and garrulity, ending, as the night closes round, with wordy contention and a general brawl. But nothing serious will happen, for toddy, though decidedly heady, is at the worst a thin potation. A strong and very pure spirit is distilled from it, which has its devotees, ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... Then he smiled without mirth and nodded to Joe and to Haney, and went striding away down the concrete walk to where ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... has in its customs a greater similarity to the ancient sun feast. On the eve of St. John's day, people went to the woods and brought home branches of trees, which they fixed over their doorways. Towards night of St. John's Day, bonfires were kindled, and round them the people danced with frantic mirth, and men and boys leaped through the flames. Leaping through the flames is a common practice at these survivals of sun festivals, and although done now, partly for luck and partly for sport, there can be little doubt but that originally ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... they deserve to feel, Thrice with parch'd lips her guiltless babes she press'd, And thrice she clasp'd them to her tortur'd breast; Awhile with white uplifted eyes she stood, 170 Then plung'd her trembling poniards in their blood. "Go, kiss your sire! go, share the bridal mirth!" She cry'd, and hurl'd their quivering limbs on earth. Rebellowing thunders rock the marble towers, And red-tongued lightnings shoot their arrowy showers; 175 Earth yawns!—the crashing ruin sinks!—o'er ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... was in all her movements at once awkwardness and grace. She was natural and simple, and had a fairly good judgment of a modest kind, in spite of the wild sallies in which her spirits sometimes found vent. Capable of chagrin, she was never prevented by it from yielding to any impulse of mirth. "She weeps with the best faith in the world, and breaks out laughing at the same moment; never was anybody so happily born," says her much less amiable sister-in-law.[270] Her husband was indifferent to her. He preserved an attachment to a lady whom he knew before his marriage, ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... man, you couldn't kill me like that—in cold blood!" Beyond the fire the half-breed laughed, a dry evil laugh that held nothing of mirth. With a scream of terror Wentworth leaped to his feet ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... from afar, sitting on His lofty throne, while all the heavenly hosts, divided in ten classes, having approached, stood on the ten steps according to their rank, and made obeisance to the Lord. And so they proceeded to their places in joy and mirth and boundless light, singing songs with low and gentle voices, and gloriously serving Him. They leave not nor depart day or night, standing before the face of the Lord, working His will, cherubim and seraphim, ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... the success of the dinner was assured. All talked, and talked with freedom. The brothers threw off their restraint, and were their natural and well-mannered selves. It is true that Peter would pause now and again to slap his thigh and renew his mirth; it is true also that he continued to wear his white gloves throughout the meal. But he pocketed them when Caleb removed the cloth, and the company fell into ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... there is polite remorse and solicitude; in his face only a friendly mirth. He is old, that is clear. Had he been young, he would have said, with that variety and suitability of epithets ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... that we found it no interruption whatever. Indeed, strange to say, we came to feel that it was a necessary part of our enjoyment (such is the force of habit), and found the sudden outbursts of mirth, resulting from his humorous disposition, quite natural and refreshing to us in the midst of our more serious conversations. But I must not misrepresent Peterkin. We often found, to our surprise, that he ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... deference at the four English strangers, the elect. Gudrun and Ursula were forced to laugh. The room rang with shouts of laughter. The blue eyes of the Professor's daughters were swimming over with laughter-tears, their clear cheeks were flushed crimson with mirth, their father broke out in the most astonishing peals of hilarity, the students bowed their heads on their knees in excess of joy. Ursula looked round amazed, the laughter was bubbling out of her involuntarily. She looked at Gudrun. Gudrun looked at her, and ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... felt inclined to laugh now. There was a subtle something in the tone—a something underlying the whimsicality of the words, that seemed to quell her rising mirth. Again she glanced at his face, and felt her interest ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... soon becomes the human cry that is better known than loved, but tears belong to later infancy. And if the infant of days neither wails nor weeps, the infant of months is still too young to be gay. A child's mirth, when at last it begins, is his first secret; you understand little of it. The first smile (for the convulsive movement in sleep that is popularly adorned by that name is not a smile) is an uncertain sketch of a smile, unpractised but unmistakable. ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... class day programme was carried out with tremendous enthusiasm. The girl chums were applauded to the echo for their capable handling of the honors assigned them. Nora in particular rose to heights of fame, her clever grinds provoking wholesale mirth. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... was informed that I was guest and not master, on which account I was obliged to employ the rest of the afternoon in excusing my former violent behaviour, in which, with the help of friendly words, beer, and red wine, I succeeded pretty well, to judge by the mirth which soon began to prevail among my now very ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... inquiries with a ceremonious bow, and took his seat by the side of the now delighted Miss Dundas. The vivid spirits of Diana, which she now strove to render peculiarly sparkling, entertained him. When compared with the insipid sameness of her ladyship, or the coarse ribaldry of her son, the mirth of Miss Dundas was wit ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... genuine mirth. "How surprised he'd be," she exclaimed, "if he could know what's going ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... He is also made to die during the heats of the early Summer, when, from March to July, the earth was parched with intolerable heat, vegetation was scorched, and the languid Nile exhausted. From that death he rises when the Solstitial Sun brings the inundation, and Egypt is filled with mirth and acclamation anticipatory of the second harvest. From his Wintry death he rises with the early flowers of Spring, and then the joyful festival of Osiris ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... 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
... was in his diversions we know not; here was no room for such things. It was no time for mirth. Neither can I say I ever saw him smile. Those who speak so positively of his being like King James the Seventh, must excuse me for saying that it seems to say they either never saw this person or never saw King James the Seventh; and yet I must not conceal ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... necessary to state that there was no instance of a dance or drunken riot, nor wild shouts of mirth during the day. The Christmas, instead of breaking in upon the repose of the Sabbath, seemed only to enhance the usual solemnity ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... on the highway! Oh the stenches in the byway! Oh the clammy fog that hovers o'er the earth; And at Home they're making merry 'neath the white and scarlet berry— What part have India's exiles in their mirth? ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... a little into a still neutrality that might soon have made an old woman of her. The sisters were dark, wholesome wenches, known as trainers at the gatherings they were always summoned to enliven; but Lydia seldom found their mirth exhilarating. Only when Eben Jakes appeared at the door, that spring twilight, a droll look peering from his blue eyes, and a long forefinger smoothing out the smile from the two lines in his lean cheeks, and asked, as if there were some richness ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... not explosive in his manifestations of mirth, but his laughter, in reply to this statement, was almost uproarious. And the State Department was as good as its word. It immediately forgot all the elaborate "notes" and "protests" which it had been addressing to Great Britain. It became more inexorable than Great Britain had ever ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... drawing room and saw the company seated as she had described to her Nurse, she felt very much disposed to laugh again, but made an effort and composed herself. Still her face was beaming with mirth and fun, and when some ladies said "What a happy looking little girl," they were quite sincere. That sort of face too worked wonders, and her Mamma's friends liked her much and talked pleasantly to her, and she ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty
... whose grandsire on the royal bench Of British Themis, with no mean applause, Pronounced, and in his volumes taught, our laws, Which others at their bar so often wrench, To-day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench In mirth that after no repenting draws; Let Euclid rest, and Archimedes pause, And what the Swede intend, and what the French. To measure life learn thou betimes, and know Toward solid good what leads the nearest way; For other things mild Heaven a time ordains, And disapproves ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... softly fluttering leaves of the willows along the edge of the brook. The hot flush died out of her cheeks; the lips whose expression a few minutes since had indicated self-control under a combination of trying circumstances, relaxed into their natural sweetness with a tendency toward mirth; and her whole aspect became that merely of the young athlete resting from one encounter and preparing ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... "There is no mirth left in me, Kate. I am convinced that I ought to say with Jacques, ''Tis good to be sad, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... the other," she answered, checking her mirth. "I think you would have been absolutely justified in using even stronger language under the circumstances. You wouldn't have saved me if ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... muscles had been so long strangers to anything approaching tokens of mirth or pleasure that they ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... sunshine flooded the room with its pitiless mirth; it was wilting the dish of violets, and he moved it to the shaded end of ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... rose an answering chorus of growls and clashing steel. Down some of the battered old faces tears of excitement began to flow, like the water out of the riven rock; while the delirium of others took the form of mirth, so that they sent forth wild terrible laughter to ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... usual. No presentiment of the coming awfulness clouded our young mirth. I remember Dicky and Oswald had a wrestling ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... to all humor. He who lacks a fine perception of 'the difference between what things are and what they ought to be,' as the always-to-be-quoted Hazlitt expressed it, can never write humor. All the way through we shall find that mirth is a matter of relationships, of shift, of rigidity trying to be flexible, of ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... strange medley of luxury and vice, of refinement and cruelty, recalled the days of Imperial Rome. But the balmy breath of these Southern climes, the soft luxuriant spell of blue seas and groves of palm and cassia, sank deep into the child's being, and something of the fire and passion, the mirth and gaiety, of the dwellers in this delicious land passed into her soul, and helped to mould her nature during these years that she spent far from mother and sister ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... the better in memory to fix The place of the children's last retreat, They called it the Pied Piper's Street— Where any one playing on pipe or tabor Was sure for the future to lose his labour. 280 Nor suffered they hostelry or tavern To shock with mirth a street so solemn; But opposite the place of the cavern They wrote the story on a column, And on the great church window painted The same, to make the world acquainted How their children were stolen away. And there ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... deep bowls and well-filled cups and pitchers borne to the sitters along the floor—just the description of the old Saxon banquet which the poet knew of. We have the drunken glee of Holofernes, his right noisy laughter and the stormy mirth that could be heard from afar; and his call to the henchmen to quit them as warriors ought, till at last they lie in their drunken sleep, powerless, and ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... and sports of all kinds for their recreation. Often the King would ride into the hall, in the midst of the gay crowd seated on the floor, throw himself off his horse, leap over the table, and join in the mirth. ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... not to lose the present favorable moment, and to keep the Indians as cheerful as possible, the violins were brought out and our men danced, to the great diversion of the Indians. This mirth was the more welcome because our situation was not precisely that which would most dispose us to gayety; for we have only a little parched corn to eat, and our means of subsistence or of success depend on the wavering ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... piece of fun, no doubt—quite an Oriental Joe Miller; but the Turks are fondly attached, not only to the institutions, but also to the jokes of their ancestors; so the lady’s silvery laugh rings joyously in your ears, and the mirth of her women is boisterous and fresh, as though the bright idea of giving the plague to a Christian had newly ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... to me, you gallants so free, All you that love mirth for to hear, And I will tell you of a bold outlaw, That lived ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the hot, strong sun I saw how in those ten years my mother had grown old—old, bent, broken, white-haired, in those ten years that had been all glow and glitter, and pleasure and pastime, and movement and mirth to me—then I knew that I had sinned against her with a mighty sin—a sin of cruelty, of neglect, of selfish wickedness. She had been young still when I had left her—young and fair to look at, and without a silver line in her ebon hair, and with suitors about her for her beauty like bees about ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... long face, and each, seating himself on the only two deal chairs, laughed immoderately at my doleful complaints. The gaunt Norwegian, the owner of this humble dwelling, made such comical grimaces, and winked his little eyes so frequently and eruditely, in endeavouring to fathom their mirth, that I could not restrain myself, and took a conspicuous part in the joke. After arranging, through King, who had come with us, as forming one of the boat's crew, where and how we should sleep, we went into the open air, and R—— and P——, lighting their cigars, again entered ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... Her mirth was infectious; every one joined in; only Henri slunk away, crimson with rage and mortification. He hated Beatrice now as much as he had loved her before; and ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... beneath the mirth and apparent gayety of the men, there seemed to be an under-current of deep feeling, probably born of sorrow, and she determined, if possible, to find her way to the hearts of the fine manly fellows, in whom she began to ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... lovely, her nose straight and fine. The colour of her clear and sweet, but not blent with much red: rather it was as if the gold of her hair had passed over her face and left some little deal behind there. In all her face was a look half piteous, as though she craved the love of folk; but yet both mirth and swift thought brake through it at whiles, and sober wisdom shaded it into something like sternness. Low-bosomed she was yet, and thin-flanked, and had learned no tricks and graces of movement such ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... Merrie Christmas to you! For we serve the Lord with mirth. And we carol forth glad tidings Of our ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... home—some joyous with the mirth of children, the hopefulness of youth, the serene happiness of useful and contented men and women;—some shadowed by recent sorrow, where perhaps patriots, as in the olden time, learn to endure for ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... five of 'em!" affirmed Harry, but be neglected to state that his five chums were lying on the ground, rolling over in their mirth. ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... words of ancient origin, and that when we understand them aright we cannot possibly see in them any motive for low jesting. They are simple, serious and solemn words, connoting the most central facts of life, and only to ignorant and plebeian vulgarity can they cause obscene mirth. An American man of science, who has privately and anonymously printed some pamphlets on sex questions, also takes this view, and consistently and methodically uses the ancient and simple words. I am of opinion that this is the ideal ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... listen, gentle men, All that now be here, Of Little John, that was the knight's man, Good mirth ye ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... a corner; and then, to leave them a free field, we went off to Haggard and Leigh's quarters, whereafter all to dinner, where our two parties, a brother of Colonel Kitchener's, a passing globe-trotter, and Clarke the missionary. A very gay evening, with all sorts of chaff and mirth, and a moonlit ride home, and to bed before 12.30. And now to-day, we have the Jersey-Haggard troupe to lunch, and I must pass the morning ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and his burning eyes bored into them with sarcasm unutterable. He laughed, hoarsely, with a grim mirth that startled them. ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... The Hall was crowded with young folks, who were to remain until after the marriage. Dinner parties were followed by May-pole dances out on the green lawns, and by charades and balls in the evening. The old Hall had never echoed with such frolicsome mirth before. Rex plunged into the excitement with strange zest. No one guessed that beneath his winning, careless smile his heart was ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... grey curl from my father's head I find unburned on the hearth, And give it a place in my diary here, With a feeling half sadness, half mirth. For the long white locks are our special pride, Though he smiles at his daughter's praise; But, oh, they have grown each year more thin, Till they are now but a ...
— Three Unpublished Poems • Louisa M. Alcott
... but the merchant had spoken with such seriousness that he was not disposed to turn it off with a show of mirth. His face remained thoughtful, and he said: "We had several newspaper men about here, and not one of them amounted to anything. Brooks, your services will not be needed. In fact, two of them were dishonest," he added, when Brooks had quitted the room. "They were said to be good newspaper ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read |
