"Laughing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... eyes fixed on the blue sea, and I said laughing, that it was not of a marriage or an engagement to be married that I spoke, but of ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... impossible to ask any questions, except at the risk of making mischief in our little household, on the first day of my joining it. I kept my eyes wide open, and waited for events. I also committed a blunder at starting—I offered Lucilla my hand to lead her. She burst out laughing. ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... 'King Lear' at forty-one," he added, more humorously; and then burst out laughing. "I'd like to edit a series of 'Chloroform Classics,' to include only books written after forty. Who was that doctor man who recommended anaesthetics for us at that age? Now isn't that just like a medico? Nurse us through the diseases of childhood, and as soon ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... done to purify and elevate the race. They knew all about the Flood—knew that God, with the exception of eight, drowned all His children—the old and young—the bowed patriarch and the dimpled babe—the young man and the merry maiden—the loving mother and the laughing child—because His mercy endureth forever. They knew, too, that He drowned the beasts and birds—everything that walked or crawled or flew—because His loving-kindness is over all His works. They knew that God, for the purpose of civilizing His children, had devoured some with earthquakes, destroyed ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... looks laughing down Upon the harvest plain, The little gleaners, rosy-brown, The merry reapers' train; The rich sheaves heaped together stand, And resting in their shade, A mother, working close at hand, Her sleeping babe ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... Herbert, laughing, "but I don't pretend to do anything else but warm myself instead of shivering, and soon I shall be as hot as ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... modern France has produced, one of the reputed leaders is M. Michelet. All these writers are of a revolutionary cast; not in a political sense merely, but in all senses; mad, oftentimes, as March hares; crazy with the laughing gas of recovered liberty; drunk with the wine cup of their mighty Revolution, snorting, whinnying, throwing up their heels, like wild horses in the boundless pampas, and running races of defiance with snipes, or with the winds, or with their own shadows, if they can find nothing else to ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... find it in my heart to be angry, and burst into a peal of hearty laughter. This seemed to strike the ass as a repartee, so he brayed at me again by way of rejoinder; and we went on for a while, braying and laughing, until I began to grow aweary of it, and, shouting a derisive farewell, turned to pursue my way. In so doing—it was like going suddenly into cold water—I found myself face to face with a prim little old maid. ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Pra@na, sun and eye; in Chandogya II. the Saman was identified with Om, rain, water, seasons, Pra@na, etc., in Chandogya III. 16-17 man was identified with sacrifice; his hunger, thirst, sorrow, with initiation; laughing, eating, etc., with the utterance of the Mantras; and asceticism, gift, sincerity, restraint from injury, truth, with sacrificial fees (dak@si@na). The gifted mind of these cultured Vedic Indians was anxious to come to ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... and looked as if scornfully laughing at his strange discovery. At length he replied, in the same dialect, "I was also in Barbarossa's fight; and if, Sir Knight, our overthrow bitterly enraged me then, I find no small compensation for it in the fact of seeing one of the conquerors lying so pitifully before me." "Pitifully!" exclaimed ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque
... too much of it! Or I shouldn't wonder if it was something like nitrous-oxide—you know, laughing gas." ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... the most accommodating spirit imaginable; and went on eating and chatting, and laughing and smearing himself, until his whole countenance shone with grease and good-humor. In the course of his repast, his attention was caught by the figure of the gastronome, who, as usual, was gorging ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... perhaps you never speculate upon people, and then it might be reprehensible. Just as I entered the room, there was a merry group talking, and a sort of 'nut brown mayde,' all in brown and yellow with bright hair and laughing eyes said, 'Miss Nan Underhill.' Of course I was too well bred, and in too great a hurry to listen to any more, or I might have found out about her. I had just an instant interior gleam of what she must be like with that English name. And I wonder if the fates have directed ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... go to law with her. Fearing that even no lawyer would come up to the Billingsgate with which she was animated herself, she appeared in the court of justice, and with some wit and infinite abuse, treated the laughing public with the spectacle of a woman who had held the reigns of empire, metamorphosed into the widow Black-acre. Her grandson, in his suit, demanded a sword set with diamonds, given to his grandsire by the Emperor. "I retained it," said the beldam, " lest ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... later jeers of the Roman soldiers make a jest of His kingship. Each set lays hold of what seems to it most ludicrous in His pretensions, and these servants ape their masters on the judgment seat, in laughing to scorn this Galilean peasant who claimed to be the Teacher of them all. Rude natures have to take rude ways of expression, and the vulgar mockery meant precisely the same as more polite and covert scorn means from more ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... her countenance is rather a clearer index than usual to-day," observed the Marquis, laughing. "Well, ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... bearing upon its face the contemptuous accusation of his antagonists, but, by the stolidity of subsequent ages, received as an actual fact instead of a sarcasm. As to his habit of so constantly deriding the knowledge and follies of men that he universally acquired the epithet of the laughing philosopher, we may receive the opinion of the great physician Hippocrates, who being requested by the people of Abdera to cure him of his madness, after long discoursing with him, expressed himself penetrated with admiration, and even ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... came up, she raised the heavy veil she was wearing, and he found himself looking into the laughing ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... a general shuffling of feet and uproar of voices—twelve doors swung open almost simultaneously, and next moment five hundred boys poured out, flooding the staircases and passages, shouting, scuffling, and laughing, and throwing off by one easy effort the restraint and gravity of the last ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... Frau von Erfft. "What you say about his laughing may be true, and a man who cannot laugh is half animal. But do you mean to tell me that an intelligent man must resort to such means to find peace with himself and his God? A man who is under obligations ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... a small table cheap at a sale, and installed it in the clubroom, hoping to profit thereby. Again Caldew was conscious of the same distinct air of constraint immediately he entered. Two or three men who were talking and laughing loudly became as mute as though their vocal organs had been suddenly smitten with paralysis. The village butcher, who was at the billiard table in the act of attempting some complicated stroke, stopped ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... voyageur exhibits his most valuable qualities; carrying heavy burdens, and toiling to and fro, on land and in the water, over rocks and precipices, among brakes and brambles, not only without a murmur, but with the greatest cheerfulness and alacrity, joking and laughing and singing scraps ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... an oracle, my honest fellow!" said Gibbons, laughing; "it is a pity that your zeal and discernment should not be rewarded by some office of ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... did not and could not make any difference what anybody thought, and nobody had the presence of mind at the moment apparently, or the willfulness of love for his kind, or the quickness to do what Lincoln would have done, slip in a warm homely joke that would have got people started laughing at one another until they ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... waved a reassuring hand. "It—it's all right," he gasped. "I was just laughing at . . . Oh," pointing an unsteady finger at the lightkeeper, "ask ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... board above the pulpit, he lay perfectly still till the sermon commenced. He then crept to the edge, and looking at the preacher, imitated all his gestures in so amusing a manner that the congregation could not help laughing. The father, surprised and confused by this ill-timed mirth, severely rebuked his audience for their inattention. The reproof failed in its effect; the congregation still laughed, and the preacher in the ...
— Anecdotes of Animals • Unknown
... little household gods four or five inches high. One of these little divinities is the goddess of the breasts; the other the goddess of the buttocks. There is a household god who is called the god Pet. The emperor Yventi starts laughing: the tribunals of Nankin think first of all with him that the Roman ambassadors are madmen or impostors who have taken the title of envoys of the Roman Republic; but as the emperor is as just as he is polite, he has private talks with ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... responsibility, and to find some one else to pay his debts. He always spoke of himself as a "child," though he was middle-aged. He claimed to have no idea whatever of the value of money. He would take a handful of coins from his pocket and say laughing, "Now, there's some money. I have no idea how much. I don't know how to count it. I dare say I owe more than that. If good-natured people don't stop letting me owe them, why should I? There you have Harold Skimpole." Mr. Jarndyce was far too honest and innocent himself to see ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... laughing, "I don't mind whether he gets angry or not (at what I say); but how old can he be as to reverentially shun all these things? Why my brother was with me here last month; didn't you see him? he's, true enough, of the same age as ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... half-clothed in most cases. There were no parks and playgrounds for them such as you have. Often, too, boys would be seen cantering through the streets, seated sidewise on the bare backs of ponies, caring nothing for passers-by, ponies, or each other—laughing, chatting, eating chestnuts. Other boys would be carrying on their heads small round tables covered with dishes of rice, pork, ...
— Our Little Korean Cousin • H. Lee M. Pike
... that Judd Billings, kid brother of the great, Bob, had at last gotten into athletics. On the heels of this news came the word that he was the laughing stock of the football squad. He was the crudest, awkwardest, greenest candidate that had ever put in appearance on the Trumbull gridiron. No danger of his ever picking up the laurels won for the Billings ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... Countess, extending her hands so suddenly that I have only time to throw myself back to avoid a sharp tap on the head from her fan. "Heavens! not a bit! not the least bit in the world! He made me sad! I saw the people in the stalls laughing, and I said,"—here she appeals with both hands to the majority of sensible people at large—still at large—"'Am I stupid? am I dull? Do I ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... a little walled village, Jee-ka ("Cock's street"), perched picturesquely on the top of the hill. Later we saw a storm advancing across the mountains, and before we could reach cover the clouds broke over our heads, drenching the poor coolies to the skin, but they took it in good part, laughing as they scuttled along the trail. The rain kept on for some hours, and the road was alternately a brook or a sea of slippery red mud; the pony, with the cook on his back, rolled over, but fortunately neither was hurt; coolies slid and floundered, ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... death he was still unaware, had ensured victory by overwhelming the Grenadiers of General Zach. Seeing that the horse which I was riding was slightly wounded on a leg, he took me by the ear, and said, laughing, "I lend you my horses, and look what happens to them!" Major Graziani having died in 1812, I am the only French officer who was present at the siege of Genoa and ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... toboggan-ride at the back of an automobile through a chill January twilight. Swathed in furs she put in a morning tobogganing on the country-club hill; even tried skiing, to sail through the air for a glorious moment and then land in a tangled laughing bundle on a soft snow-drift. She liked all the winter sports, except an afternoon spent snow-shoeing over a glaring plain under pale yellow sunshine, but she soon realized that these things were for children—that she was being ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Madame Grandet had won a loto of sixteen sous,—the largest ever pooled in that house,—and while la Grande Nanon was laughing with delight as she watched madame pocketing her riches, the knocker resounded on the house-door with such a noise that the women all jumped ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... his feet, and ran swiftly along the bole till he reached the mass of the fallen branches. Into these he sprang, swinging himself from bough to bough like an ape until he vanished amongst the dark green foliage. Then, having quite lost sight of him, Noie returned laughing to Rachel, by whom stood the old Mother of the Trees who had slid from her arms, and gave her back the spear, saying in ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... All but this one. Think! Month after month, year after year, letters, letters; about nothing much, it is true, but wishing me good health, happiness, asking me to have care for myself, and saying always that I was loved! Well? Can one go on laughing at things like that? Once I was dangerously hurt, a spearthrust that I got near Biskra, and the letter came to me where I lay in my tent. It was like a soothing voice, comforting one in the dark. Since then I have watched for those letters. When ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... of jubilee, An ancient holiday; When, lo! the rural revels are begun, And gaily echoing to the laughing sky, On the smooth-shaven green, Resounds ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... tired of their lodging, they would otherwise never get said at all. And thus to-day, quite out of order, but in very close connection with another part of our subject, I am going to tell you what I was thinking on Friday evening last, in Covent Garden Theater, as I was looking, and not laughing, at the pantomime of 'Ali Baba and ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... broken, I hope," said Thames, laughing at Jack, who limped towards the bench, rubbing his shins as ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... five years younger than she! And he's got nothing but his curacy! And he's a celibate! I heard the bishop laughing at him because ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... us go to Sunny Italy, which is called Sunny Italy for the same reason that the laughing hyena is called the laughing hyena—not because he laughs so frequently, but because he laughs so seldom. Let us go to Rome, the Eternal City, sitting on her Seven Hills, remembering as we go along that the currency has changed and we no longer compute sums of money in the franc but in the lira. ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... person. Still the provincial, he is simple enough to give his name, surname, and qualifications in full. "Very well," says the other man, "good for you—I am the Comte de Chabannes, and I am in a hurry," saying which, "laughing heartily," he jumps into his vehicle. "Ah, sir, exclaimed Lacroix, still much excited by his misadventure, "pride and prejudice establish an awful gulf between man and man!" We may rest assured that, with Marat, a veterinary surgeon in ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... halting French made the Countess listen very attentively, that she might understand just what he said. She puckered her brow thoughtfully, then suddenly glanced up, laughing with all the witchery at ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... of their places, playing at puss-in-the-corner with other boys; there were laughing boys, singing boys, talking boys, dancing boys, howling boys; boys shuffled with their feet, boys whirled about him, grinning, making faces, mimicking him behind his back and before his eyes: mimicking his poverty, his ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... we can't have. Why, I wouldn't give a cent for a piece of pie myself—that is, not unless it was a piece of real cherry pie, with fresh cherries, the kind we used to get—" All three boys looked at one another and broke out laughing. ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... Frank, laughing in spite of his excitement, as he hurried the weeping old woman to the top of the basement stairs. "I'll come here properly, with my head upon my shoulders. There, there; go down and wait. I don't think anything will happen to-day to frighten you. Never ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... the establishment. But as the Emperor was always attended by an escort, his suite formed in some sort a part of himself, and entered with him. Besides his officers, the pages usually accompanied him. In the evening on his return from Saint-Denis, the Emperor said to me, laughing, as he entered his room, where I was waiting to undress him, "Well, my pages wish to resemble the pages of former times! The little idiots! Do you know what they do? When I go to Saint-Denis, they have a contest among themselves as to who ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... by no means all of reproof nor was her reproof ever harsher than the more or less pointed selections from the moral verses could inflict. Under the watchful care of Martha she flourished and was happy, her mother in little, a laughing whirlwind of tender flesh, tireless feet, dancing eyes, hair of sunlight that was darkening as she grew older, and a mind that seemed to him she called father a miracle of unfoldment. It was a mind not so quickly receptive as he could have wished to the learning he tried patiently ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... river ran. But I stuck my front feet out in front of me, and I sat down on the back part of my hind legs, where my skin is very thick, and then, all of a sudden Keedah came up behind me and gave me a push." "Did you go down?" asked Snarlie, laughing so that his sharp, white teeth showed in ...
— Umboo, the Elephant • Howard R. Garis
... a small bale as come FROM Leaplow, and a pinched little thing it is," said the broker, laughing; "it don't take at all, here, and it might do to go 'ome again—at any rate, you will get the drawback. It is filled with 'Distinctive Opinions of the Republic of Leaplow.'" The cook looked at the brigadier, who appeared ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... no! I won't have that.' Knight endeavoured to give his reply a laughing tone in Elfride's ears, and an earnestness in Stephen's: in both which efforts he signally failed, and produced a forced speech pleasant to neither. 'Well, let us go into the open air again; Miss Swancourt, you are particularly silent. You mustn't mind Smith. I have known ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... usually did not give half time enough to his dinner and was off like an arrow the first possible minute. Before he took his often interrupted afternoon nap, he inquired for the damaged shoulder and requested a detailed account of the accident; and presently they were both laughing heartily at Nan's disaster, for she owned that she had chased and treed a stray young squirrel, and that a mossy branch of one of the old apple-trees in the straggling orchard had failed to bear even so light a weight as hers. Nan had come ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... provided by his money which effected this marvel, although the certainty that Esteban was alive and safe put added force into her determination to live. Rosa found hope springing up in her breast, and one day she caught herself laughing. The marvel of it was unbelievable. O'Reilly was sitting beside her bed of leaves at the time; impulsively she pressed his hand to her lips, repeating a question she had asked him ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... rolled Bibby up and threw him away, while his master shuddered at the open disclosure of his trusted major-domo's vulgarity, mendacity and general lack of sportsmanship. Somehow all at once the case began to break up and go all to pot. The jury got laughing at Bibby, the footmen and the cops as Mr. Tutt painted for their edification the scene following the arrival of Mrs. Witherspoon, when Schmidt was discovered asleep, as Mr. Tutt put it, like Goldilocks in the ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... be in great good-humor, and cracked jokes at each other's expense in the midst of boisterous shouts of laughter. The writer sat next to one of the liveliest talkers in the party; and, after listening and laughing awhile, told the "Tar Baby" story by way of a feeler, the excuse being that some one in the crowd mentioned "Ole Molly Har'." The story was told in a low tone, as if to avoid attracting attention; but the comments of the negro, who was a little past middle age, were loud and frequent. "Dar now!" ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... Shagspere; or, more probably, this last euphonious variety arose out of the gross clownish pronunciation of the two hiccuping "marksmen" who rode over to Worcester for the license; and one cannot forbear laughing at the bishop's secretary for having been so misled by two varlets, professedly incapable of signing their own names. The same drunken villains had cut down the bride's name Hathaway into Hathwey. Finally, to treat ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... laughing now—he with apparent pleasure in her coquetry and animation, she still a little confused and ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... best and most learned of Divines [Rev. Joseph H. Twichell] and read it to him. He came within an ace of killing himself with laughter (for between you and me the thing was dreadfully funny. I don't often write anything that I laugh at myself, but I can hardly think of that thing without laughing). That old Divine said it was a piece of the finest kind of literary art—and David Gray of the Buffalo Courier said it ought to be printed privately and left behind me when I died, and then my fame as a literary artist ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... brain. She seemed to see people hurrying from many different parts of the world, with their minds all bent on the same thing: getting to Monte Carlo as soon as possible. She saw these people, good and bad, mingling their lives with Mary's life; and she saw the Fates, like Macbeth's witches, laughing and pulling the strings which controlled these people's actions toward Mary, hers toward them, as ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... thou weepe? Come neerer, then I loue thee Because thou art a woman, and disclaim'st Flinty mankinde: whose eyes do neuer giue, But thorow Lust and Laughter: pittie's sleeping: Strange times y weepe with laughing, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... purpose, sense of relation, in that access of delirium which transported me, and can only remember now that in the midst of my shouting, a word, uttered by the fiends who used my throat to express their frenzy, set me laughing high and madly: for I was crying: 'Hi! Bravo! Why don't you stop? Madmen! I have been ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... laughing awkwardly. In the last few minutes he had developed a sentiment hitherto unknown to him—pique! He had been imagining Cornelia in love with him, and angry at his preference for Sophie; whereas, it would now seem that the only reason she cared for him at all, was because he was Sophie's ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... dozen single friends and two married couples; you can stay with me if you like, it will be quite proper," she said, laughing. ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... from 'wanton quick desires' and 'lustful heat.' One is almost tempted to imagine that the author is laughing in his sleeve when we discover of what little avail ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... know," said Tom, laughing, yet looking as if he felt the dignity of his one and twenty years. "Odd, is n't it, how people live together ever so long, and don't seem to find one another out, till something comes to do it for them. Perhaps this smash-up was sent to introduce ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... end of his beat we doubled up like jack-knives and dashed across that road, plunging through the trees on the other side. Not a sound came from the sentries. We struck across fields with delirious speed, we reeled along like drunken men, laughing and gasping and sometimes reaching out ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... gliding O'er the graves of the sailors beneath, The waves round the vessel yet pointing The scene of their anguish and death. They seemed to the fancy bewailing The sudden and terrible doom Of those who were yesterday singing And laughing in sight ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... youngest of the three, Laughing idler, full of glee, Arm in arm does fondly chain her, Thinking, poor trifler, to ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... then," declared the other suddenly, and, suiting the action to the word, she swarmed over the sill; but she left one huge boot in the snow, and Nan, laughing delightedly, ran for the poker to fish for it, and drew it in and shut ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... out of the group, found herself walking alone. The Danforths were breaking the quietness of the meadows with their laughing voices. She was glad to escape them and ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... young lovers, talking and laughing in the gayest of spirits. Their faces were flushed with vigourous exercise, and every motion of their bodies betokened abounding health. Life was very sweet to them on this bright summer day as they advanced toward ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... they were brought to be boiled. The hangman fetched them in a dirty basket, out of some by-place, and, setting them down among the felons, he and they made sport of them. They took them by the hair, flouting, jeering, and laughing at them; and then giving them some ill names, boxed them on their ears and cheeks; which done, the hangman put them into his kettle, and parboiled them with bay-salt and cummin-seed: that to keep them from putrefaction, and this to keep off the fowls from seizing upon them. The whole ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... places- -Gravesend, Greenwich, and Richmond; and such numbers of people, that when you have once sat down on the deck, it is all but a moral impossibility to get up again—to say nothing of walking about, which is entirely out of the question. Away they go, joking and laughing, and eating and drinking, and admiring everything they see, and pleased with everything they hear, to climb Windmill Hill, and catch a glimpse of the rich corn-fields and beautiful orchards of Kent; or to stroll among the fine old trees of Greenwich Park, and survey the ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... Paris, at the same time, a woman of rank claims to have discovered the cause of cholera in a microscopic insect, developed in low and filthy localities. Her details were so minute, that the Academy of Science, which began by laughing at the introduction of the matter, has been compelled to listen, and the subject is ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Bell,' said her brother, laughing, 'which is polite, at all events. I must tell her there's a young lady at home that you ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... happiness—no. It is too brief, too treacherous. If one learns to depend upon that, one is doomed to perpetual disappointment. I have long understood that contentment is better than what we call happiness—much better. Yes, we wrote, laughing together over the possibility that our ancestral home might be seeking us, but believing nothing of the kind. How we did joke over our united efforts at composing it! He was the scholar, but I suggested all sorts of long-stilted sentences to him, which ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... edge of the Smiling Pool and turned down by the Laughing Brook. His eyes twinkled with mischief, and he hurried as only Billy can. As he passed Jerry Muskrat's house, Jerry ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess
... half as much as you do," replied Prudy; "but I used to lie and think about the Saviour when I had the lameness.—Hark! Is that Dotty laughing? Let's go in and see if she ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May
... and made them all laugh by her account of her brother Marmaduke's description of the terrible formality of that first evening at Market Square Place. She seemed gifted with a wonderful amount of fun and merriment: Jacinth caught herself laughing after a fashion which was very rare ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... 110 For by my troth I have been laughing at him Even till the merry tears so filled my eyes That I lost sight ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... right," remarked Roy a little doubtfully. He saw several passengers smiling, and he wondered if they were laughing at him, or if he had made a mistake. He resolved to be careful, as he did not want it known that he was making a long ...
— The Boy from the Ranch - Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences • Frank V. Webster
... Royale people were running frantically to and fro, laughing and gesticulating in glee. The customers in the cafes stood on their chairs, and even on tables, to watch, and occasionally to join in, the sudden fever. The fiacre was slowed to a walking pace. Flags and ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... glad that the rest of the room was busied once more with its talking, laughing, and drinking, and some old man (sitting on a table and his nose coming through the tobacco-smoke like a rat through a hole in the wall) had struck up a tune on a fiddle. Peter was glad, because no one watched them together. He liked to meet Stephen in private. He buried his ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... "Well," Harry said, laughing, "we little thought, when we saw the champagne handed over to the rajah, that we were going to have the serving ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... nor did he ever drink any wine, except when he dined with us; but got drunk every night, more or less, on the ship's spirits, in his own cabin. He was always most violent in the evening. Our only revenge was laughing at his monstrous lies on Sunday, when he dined with us. One night, his servant came and told the midshipman of the watch, that the captain was lying dead drunk on the deck, in his cabin. This was communicated to me, and I determined to make the best use of ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... our faces bright and gay, Our moving lips, our laughing eyes, But scarce a word of what we say Can pass the zone that ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... not like it, but would go along. The train jumped the track on a short curve, throwing Kruesi, who was driving the engine, with his face down in the dirt, and another man in a comical somersault through some underbrush. Edison was off in a minute, jumping and laughing, and declaring it a most beautiful accident. Kruesi got up, his face bleeding and a good deal shaken; and I shall never forget the expression of voice and face in which he said, with some foreign accent: 'Oh! yes, pairfeckly safe.' Fortunately no other hurts were suffered, and in ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... confusedly, to see the flies darting here and there, and buzzing more loudly than ever, while Pomp had settled into a decided snore. It was hotter than before, and great drops stood on my face, and tickled as they ran together and made greater drops. The children too were still playing about, and laughing merrily, and I went on thinking that the flies must be teasing Pomp very much, and that those children would laugh and play if the Indians came and buzzed round the tent; and that one which had settled on the canvas just over my head ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... to laughing; and the little tell-tale looked around from one to another with a face full of innocent wonder. They couldn't be laughing ...
— Little Folks Astray • Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)
... caught the last phrase, felt like laughing and consequently looked very serious. The spectacle of two antiques discussing love seemed to him as hilarious as two paupers discussing wealth. He patted ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... written long ago of a Princess of Brunswick: 'Her mouth has ten thousand charms that touch the soul.' She made a tour of the beautiful room where she had received him, singling out this treasure or that from the spoils of a hundred bric-a-brac shops, laughing over her quests, discoveries, and bargainings. And when he asked if she would delight him again with a favourite piece of his which he had heard her play at another ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... my chamber. At bedtime I look in to make sure the fire will keep in until morning, and that my darlings are all right. While daylight lasts we are very happy together. I am busy with my pygmies and my flowers. I feed the hummers with sugar-and-water in winter, with a taste of honey on Sundays"—laughing cheerily. "To make them glad that Sunday has come, you know. I've an idea that they need stronger food in cold weather than in summer. It helps tame them to make them eat from the tip of my finger. I take a great deal of pains to keep a succession of plants in flower, ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... on the great headland overlooking the sea. It was a glorious day. The sky was clear, the sun was shining brightly, and the bright waves beneath were laughing and playing in the light of the sun. To me, as I sat there, the great sea was singing a wondrous song, full of a rich, rare music, which touched the deepest feelings of my nature. I had not heard much in my life about religion, and I am afraid I had not thought much about God, but as I sat there ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... We will send off Audrey to be nursemaid to the babies, and—and you and I will have a nice quiet time at home alone!" Her lip quivered just for a moment, but her big brown eyes, full of a strained look of excitement, glanced from one to the other with half-laughing defiance, as though daring them to say ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... of the most unashamedly ignorant men I ever met—I remember his gravely informing a correspondent once that Ben Jonson had written Rabelais to pay for his mother's funeral, and only laughing good-naturedly when his mistakes were pointed out to him—wrote with the aid of a cheap encyclopedia the pages devoted to "General Information," and did them on the whole remarkably well; while our office boy, with an excellent pair of scissors for his assistant, was responsible for our ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... plash, and gurgle; and fill the place with life, and light, and coolness; and sing in the people's ears the sweetest of all earthly songs—save the song of a mother over her child—the song of "The Laughing Water." ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... and leered at him as he nudged her elbow, the lights from the merry-go-round she stood watching illumining her wealth of fair hair and her strong young figure silhouetted against the glare. Garron had studied her shrewdly, singling her out in the group of village girls laughing with their sweethearts. The girl he nudged he saw did not belong to the village—moreover, she was barefooted, mischievously drunk, and flushed with riding on the wooden horses. She was barely eighteen. She laughed outright ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... facts struck the public fancy and brought forth a remarkable family of myths. It would appear that the Major's staff went upon his errands, and even ran before him with a lantern on dark nights. Gigantic females, "stentoriously laughing and gaping with tehees of laughter" at unseasonable hours of night and morning, haunted the purlieus of his abode. His house fell under such a load of infamy that no one dared to sleep in it, until municipal improvement leveled ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on Pierson's throat. Then flashed into his mind that warning which demands and gets a hearing in the wildest tempest of passion before an irrevocable act can be done. It came to him in the form of a reminder of his laughing remark to Pauline when he told her of the traditions of murder in his family. He released Pierson and fled from ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... that derision is not a special sin distinct from those mentioned above. For laughing to scorn is apparently the same as derision. But laughing to scorn pertains to reviling. Therefore derision would seem not ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... put up with the insult if only it should break the bonds which tied them to the hated Continental System of Napoleon. But the Czar was outraged; he had been personally insulted, and his policy was toppling. He had secured nothing, he would be the laughing-stock of his people, and he could no longer justify himself in resistance to popular tendencies. He was likewise true-hearted enough to feel the loss of a friend, and proud enough to smart under the feeling that he had been duped. Much of this he concealed, although his suite thought they could ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... made me jump! I didn't know anybody was sitting there behind me." It was almost uncanny the way his eyes twinkled through his hair, as if he were laughing with her over some good joke they had together. It gave her such a feeling of comradeship that she stood and smiled back at him. Suddenly he raised his right paw and thrust it towards her. She drew back another step. She was not used to dogs, and ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... of the hat, swept in a dark wave over her shoulders, and she flung it back with a movement of the hand. The gleam of the stars gave me the contour of her face, and the sparkle of her eyes. A woman, young, pretty—and actually laughing at me, her white teeth clearly visible. Whatever of conceit or audacity may be part of my nature, deserted me in a flash, and I could ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... not show it, are slightly on the defensive when they come into a clothing store. That is why it is so very important that there be no talking or laughing among the clerks. ...
— Sam Lambert and the New Way Store - A Book for Clothiers and Their Clerks • Unknown
... perhaps, in solitude; and, by a great exertion of self-command, resolves to bear it with fortitude and in silence. Some days after, in a public room, he sees strangers reading it also: he hears them scoffing and laughing loudly: in the midst of all this, he sees himself pointed out to their notice by some one of the party who happens to be acquainted with his person; and, possibly, if the libel take that particular shape which excessive malice is ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... whether it brought ridicule from others or assurance in his own heart. It takes some courage for any of us to call ourselves by names which rest on God's promise and seem to have little vindication in present facts. The world is fond of laughing at 'saints,' but Christians should familiarise themselves with the lofty designations which God gives His children, and see in them not only a summons to life corresponding, but a pledge and prophecy of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... with a little scornful inflection. "And you could look on while a cattle-driving boor made himself a laughing-stock ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... another eclat of laughter, still more obstreperous. "I can't help laughing; but it is merely hysterical, on the faith of a gentleman. I laugh in proportion to my desolation. I could at this moment tear out my beard by handfuls through sheer despair. Par exemple, madame, par ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... the other laughing, "you might as well ask me to print that—or, for that matter to write it. My edication has been altogether in the woods; the only book I read, or care about reading, is the one which God has opened afore ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... merry Christmas to me, with presents in the morning, you and letters in the afternoon, and a party at night," said Amy, as they alighted among the ruins of the old fort, and a flock of splendid peacocks came trooping about them, tamely waiting to be fed. While Amy stood laughing on the bank above him as she scattered crumbs to the brilliant birds, Laurie looked at her as she had looked at him, with a natural curiosity to see what changes time and absence had wrought. He found nothing to perplex or disappoint, much to admire and approve, for overlooking a few little ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... many years beheld the despotic march of Catholicism in America, and this country for a number of years has been the laughing stock of Protestant European countries for permitting this brazen demon to tread up and down the avenues of ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... out for 48 hours, tended throughout that time with wonderful devotion by Sergt. Westall, who well earned a bar to his D.C.M. This sergeant, the bravest of the brave, when with the 2/4th next autumn near Arras, was last seen in a shell-hole close to the German wire, during a daylight patrol, laughing at the Huns, who were firing rifle grenades at him, but has since returned safely from captivity in Germany. Casualties among other ranks were 140, of whom 28 were killed and 31 missing, of most, if not all, of whom, I fear, no news has ever been heard. Failure is often more heroic than success, ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... the title "A Germless Eden," some verses sent in by an unknown contributor. The Editor is now informed that the original version of these lines was the work of Mr. ARTHUR GUITERMAN, of New York, who published them in 1915 with Messrs. HARPER AND BROTHERS in The Laughing Muse, a collection of his humorous verse. The Editor begs both author and publishers ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various
... me the key to the mystery. The letter for the Russian consul was the cause of Meeker's attentions to me! And, instead of being a newspaper correspondent, to Meeker I was a Russian agent, probably a spy! It was all I could do to restrain myself from laughing ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... Benito. "They say he's an old beau who wears a toupee and knee-breeches. All Washington that dares to do so will be laughing ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... her a genial, comfortable kind of person, easy to get on with, and generally "jolly," as boys would say. She saw the little tremble of Nat's lips as she smoothed his hair, and her keen eyes grew softer, but she only drew the shabby figure nearer and said, laughing: ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... must once have been brilliant, and faded yellow damask hangings. A feeling of awe had crept over Griselda as they entered this ancient drawing-room. What grand parties there must have been in it long ago! But as for dancing in it now—dancing, or laughing, or chattering—such a thing was ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... I will gather thee such store of gear, as shall be a provision for thee against the time of want, and teach thee rare tricks to gain access to fruitful vineyards and strip the fruit-laden trees.' 'How excellent,' rejoined the fox, laughing, 'is what the learned say of those who are past measure ignorant, like unto thee!' 'What do they say?' asked the wolf; and the fox answered, 'They say that the gross of body are gross of nature, far from understanding and nigh unto ignorance. As for thy saying, O perfidious, stupid self-deceiver, ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... right, but he said his success was accidental and he might ruin the axe if he tried again. So he made two extra helves and had a dozen cornel-wood pegs ready to drive out the bit of broken handle next time I broke it; as I did, according to his laughing forecast. ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... several pretentious villas and mansions, the slatted blinds and curtains of the windows of which were raised to admit of the freer entrance of the cool and balmy air of the night. From within there issued forth bright lights, together with the exhilarating sound of merry voices laughing and talking, or perhaps a song accompanied by the tinkling music of a spinet or of a guitar. An occasional group of figures, clad in light and summer-like garments, and adorned with gay and startling colors, passed him through the moonlight; so that what with the brightness ...
— The Ruby of Kishmoor • Howard Pyle |
