"Smirk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... relief, Brimbecomb drew a long breath. She had not recognized him! The dim light of the candle showed him that the same dazed expression still remained in her faded eyes. The smirk on her face, the crouch of her emaciated figure, about which the rags swirled in the wind, the dismal hut, and the loneliness of her surroundings, made such a picture of woe that Everett shuddered and hastened ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... interpolations and erasures that would confound and overcome a lawyer. When customers did not die, it was pastime to be dallying with the living. In adding up a bill with haste, how many times will four and four make nine? They generally did with Jehu. The best are liable to errors. It cost a smirk or smile; Jehu had hundreds at command, and the accident was amended. How easy is it sometimes to give no bill at all! How very easy to apply, a few months afterwards, for second payment; how much more easy still to pocket it without a word; or, if discovered and convicted, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... a smirk, and a blush on her face, "I'll promise to wed the boy Who takes me to-morrow to Epsom Race!" (Which I would ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... laid his head a little on one side and drew in his chin, with Mr. May's smirk exactly, and wagging his tail slightly, he commenced to play the false Kishwegin. He sidled and bridled and ejaculated with raised hands, and in the dumb show the tall Frenchman made such a ludicrous caricature of Mr. Houghton's manager that Madame wept again with laughter, whilst ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... appears to me a complicated and unnatural composition, with one or two interesting scenes. The best actor was he who represented the blind man. The chief actress is an overgrown dame, all fat and dimples, who kept up a constant sobbing and heaving of her chest, yet never getting rid of an eternal smirk upon her face. A bolero, danced afterwards by two Spanish damsels in black and silver, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... conversation broke loudly and generally: "And did you notice that slimpsy thing she wore last night? Indecent, if you ask me, with not a petticoat under it, I'll be bound!... Always wears shoes twice too small for her ... What men can see in her ... How they can endure that perpetual smirk!..." They were at last discussing the Klondike woman, and whatever had befallen our guest of honour I knew that those present would never regain their first awe of the occasion. It was now ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... her distress she put on a complacent smirk, straightened her emaciated form, and sat there, looking like the very ghost of pride, wrapped in ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... energetically at work. His theme was a problem with which nearly every city is unhappily familiar. In Buck's terminology, it was identified as "The Centre Street mashers": those pimply, weak-faced, bad-eyed young men who congregate at prominent corners every afternoon, especially Saturdays, to smirk at the working-girls, and to pass, wherever they could, from their murmured, "Hello, Kiddo," and "Where you goin', ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... above the thought of money.' Your hopes are blasted at the words, and your proud spirit is tamed. The dream of the millionaire and landed proprietor fades away, as you gradually catch his parsimonious drift. Yet you smirk appreciation of the promise. You are to 'consider everything as your own'; there, surely, is something solid? 'Tis a draught (did you ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... with a knowing smirk, which is the nearest approach to a laugh in which he ever indulged. Then he takes out his snuffbox and taps it, which is a sign that he is going to say something worth while. "Yes, one must go everywhere, and do everything, just to find out how bad things are. By this ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... give a fellow that has come so far to see you such a hot morning." Joe said a deal more of the same make; and all the time he was saying it, the old man laid himself back in his great chair, and kept twiddling his thumbs, and glancing up at Joe with a half-smirk on his face, as if he had got something very ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... must understand that Mr. Hoopdriver was not one of your fast young men. If he had been King Lemuel, he could not have profited more by his mother's instructions. He regarded the feminine sex as something to bow to and smirk at from a safe distance. Years of the intimate remoteness of a counter leave their mark upon a man. It was an adventure for him to take one of the Young Ladies of the establishment to church on a Sunday. Few modern young men could have ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... hard at work all day, trying to make and secure the money that gives her and her family everything they want, and which wearies me body and soul, to expect her to let me stay at home, and be quiet. I know I ought to dress and go into Gnu's house, and smirk at his wife, and stand up in a black suit before him attired in the same way, and talk about the same stocks that we discussed down town in the morning in colored trowsers. That's a social duty, I suppose. And I ought to see various slight young ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... fell to coquetting with himself; and that was the funniest thing of all, for he turned his head up, down, from side to side, and drew in his chin with prinky little jerks and tilts. He would stretch his neck, throw up his head, turn it to one side and smirk—actually smirk, the most complacent and self-satisfied smirk that anyone ever saw on the face of a bird. It was so comical that Freckles and the Angel told the Bird Woman of it ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... square, and he had a very firm pair of bow-legs, which in some men is not displeasing. He knew his job; his voice rolled like the deep notes of an organ; we knew what he meant for us to do, and we did it. The other man was narrow and chicken-breasted, his long legs weak, his smile a smirk, his pronunciation so affected that we disgraced him because we blundered from pure lack of comprehension. Why is it that men's outsides so often correspond to their innards? And how did the latter of these two get his job? ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... wage war?"—And, in fact, during my last visit I found that Alexyei Sergyeitch had aged very greatly; even the pupils of his eyes had acquired a milky hue—like that in infants—and on his lips there appeared not the discerning smile of former days, but that strainedly-sweet, unconscious smirk which never leaves the faces of very old people even in ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... exclaimed Alfred, with a smirk of well-assumed satisfaction—"that, indeed! Well, I think I may say, Daddy, that all's right in ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... free to be devoured by envy, stabbed by calumny, strangled by slander. I believe if I were a painter, and desired to portray Cleopatra's death, I would assuredly give to the asp the baleful features and sneering smirk of Mrs. Prudence. Every Sunday when she twists those two curls on her forehead till they lift themselves like horns, puts up her eye-glasses and pays her respects to our pew, I catch myself whispering 'Cerastes!' ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... executed! Here was Warren's opportunity. He caught up his weapon from the table with the left hand, and sent a shot at the intruder, leaping at the same time toward the rear entrance. Monty swung the light about, but the other threw on an electric switch. He stood by the iron portal a fiendish smirk ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... be seen in the eyes of Russian peasants; and those of us left will see it some day on Gabriel's face when he comes to blow us up. It is a look that should wither and abash man; but he has been known to smirk at it and offer flowers—with ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... the same rule in art, only varying the objects—are smirking. In fact,' said Miss La Creevy, sinking her voice to a confidential whisper, 'there are only two styles of portrait painting; the serious and the smirk; and we always use the serious for professional people (except actors sometimes), and the smirk for private ladies and gentlemen who don't care so much ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... sensible. I want you to like me." Pope tried to appear amiable, but the effort resulted in a painful smirk. ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... office of Vice-Chamberlain. Next to him is Sir H. Selwin-Ibbetson, Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, and whom I have heard genially described as "one of the prosiest speakers in the House." Next to him, with a paper in his hand and a smirk of supreme self-satisfaction on his face, is Mr. ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... working world, With posture and hint and smirk, These sons of the devil are standing by While Man does ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... irrelevant to the structure of the human body; flappers who swung scarlet bows on their plaits and otherwise assailed their Presbyterian environment by glad cries of the appearance; and on all these faces the smirk of superior sagacity that vulgar people give to the untriumphant ideal. "I must work out the ethics of suicide this evening," thought Ellen chokingly, "for if the world's like this it's the wisest thing to do. But not, ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... street toddling images meet, And smirk and kotow in a way that is sweet; Their obis are tied with particular pride, Their silken kimonos hang ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... fight with a rapier is quite another thing," he went on. He smirked and made a face at the parakeet who did its best to smirk back. "That is a graceful and fine art. Refined, and not at all degrading to ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... "don't be utterly insufferable. If you had one drop of hot blood in you, you'd be just as thrilled as we are. Just because you've been around and around the world until you got dizzy or something, you needn't stand there with that 'See-the-little-children-play' smirk on your face. You don't really care whether we lose Pirate's Haven or ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... often-repeated encore; but once entered, he would have seen that all faces were at present sober, and most of them serious—it was the regular and respectable thing for those excellent farm-labourers to do, as much as for elegant ladies and gentlemen to smirk and bow over their wine-glasses. Bartle Massey, whose ears were rather sensitive, had gone out to see what sort of evening it was at an early stage in the ceremony, and had not finished his contemplation until a silence of five minutes declared that "Drink, boys, ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... mother, drawing her away from the door and down the stairs. "He must be trying to teach himself to dance. I suppose he wants to learn how, so he'll be able to dance at the party," she added, with smirk. Then Mother Stina began to shake with laughter. "He came near frightening the life out of me," she confessed. "Thank God he can be young for once!" When she had got over her fit of laughing, she said: "You're not to say a word about ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... that he strode on, gazing at the stars, and that often, in his absent-mindedness, he stumbled and staggered in his gait. In his portraits we can read the same double story. In some the prevailing tone is dignity; in others there is the faint suggestion of a smirk. His faults were those often found in men of genius. He was nearly always in a hurry, and was never in time for dinner. He was unsystematic in his habits, and incompetent in money matters. He was rather imperious in disposition, ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... town Per coach for Mrs. Pigot frank it down, So may'st them prosper in the paths of Sale,[11] And Longman smirk and critics cease ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... brisk young man, with a bright eye, peculiar smirk, spotted neckcloth, and gray gaiters with pearl buttons. "Cars ready for Boston and way stations. All aboard. Now's your time—quick, or you'll lose ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... not go near her so long as that odious actor is hanging about. His smirk at me the other ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... saw that we were talking of the boy, her interest in the conversation vanished, even more quickly than her appetite. She had to go, she said suddenly; she was so sorry, and the discontented curiosity of her look gave place again to the smirk of ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... was beside Thurid, and ere the devilish smirk had faded from his handsome face I had caught him full upon the mouth with my clenched fist; and as the good, old American blow landed, the black dator shot back a dozen feet, to crumple in a heap at the foot of Kulan Tith's throne, spitting blood and teeth ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of striking, and brilliantly make it. Thus, as a mechanical toy, was the only way to treat this minute critic, for like the Duke at Ferrara, this Duke (and his mother) did not choose to stoop. He would merely wear his "cursed smirk" as he nodded applause, but he had some trouble in keeping off ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... use to him! On week-days he's playing at Spider and Fly, And on Sundays he sings about Cherubim! Nailing shillings to counters is his chief work: He nods now and then at the name on his door: But judge of us two, at a bow and a smirk, I think I'm his match: ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... thought that till the nurse went to America we would request the governess to dine with us. On Anne's departure, I signified to the head waiter that from that time Miss Hall would take her dinner with the children; whereupon, with a smirk and sniff of the most insolent disdain, and an air of dignity that had been hurt, but was now comforted, the bloated superior servant replied, "Well, ma'am, to be sure, it always was so in them famullies where I have lived; the governess never didn't eat at the table." The ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... Barker was waiting for them—an oily smirk on a face smooth save where a thin fringe of white whiskers dangled from his jaw-bone, ear to ear; fat, damp hands rubbing in anticipation of the large fee that was to repay him for celebrating the marriage and for keeping quiet about it afterward. At the proper place in the brief ceremony ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... growls at you for the favor, a cat that would eat you if he dared, is a pretty revelation. Ca donne furieusement a penser. [Footnote: Ca donne furieusement a penser: "That makes one think very hard."] It gives you a suspicion of just how far the polish we most of us smirk over will go. My cats at San Lorenzo knew some few moments of peace between two and three in the afternoon. That would have been the time to get up a testimonial to the kind soul who fed them. Try them at five and they would ignore you. But try them ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... grandstand plays. Thought you was some stuff, didn't you?" The man paused for breath, and Connie scrutinized his face, but could not remember to have seen him before. He shifted his glance to the other, who had returned to the edge of the bunk, and was regarding him with a sneering smirk. ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... at her curiously, a smirk of suspicion crossing his narrow fox face. "Oh! You'll bring it to-morrow, will you?" he sneered. "Well, do you know that to-morrow's New Year's Eve and that this mantilla's got to be delivered to-night? They have been telephoning all day for it. To-morrow, eh? ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... a Universalist. At any rate in theory, or rather in the conviction of what best suits myself. I'm one of those men who are born to be free, who've got to fill their lungs with air, who must get out into the wilds if they're to live—God! I'd sooner be snowed up on a battlefield than smirk at a damned afternoon tea-party any day in the week! If I want a woman, I like to take her by her hair and swing her up behind me on the saddle ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... effect, that old Falieri's eyes began to sparkle, and his face grew redder and redder, whilst he puckered up his mouth and smacked his lips as if he were draining sundry glasses of fiery Syracuse. "But who is this paragon of loveliness of whom you are speaking?" said he at last with a smirk. "I mean nobody else but my dear niece—it's she I mean," replied Bodoeri. "What! your niece?" interrupted Falieri. "Why, she was married to Bertuccio Nenolo when I was Podesta of Treviso." "Oh! you are thinking about my niece Francesca," continued ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... addressed stepped out with swaggering alacrity. We hoped he would make a mistake and were ready to jeer and laugh at him. But to our great annoyance his salute was perfect, affectedly perfect. As he came back to the ranks he leered horribly at the Sergeant and then looked at us with a smirk of triumph ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... ring. One of the army carried a bright green bucket, on which were painted in white letters the words "Cyclone Dick Fisher." A moment later there was another, though a far less, uproar, as Kid Brady, his pleasant face wearing a self-conscious smirk, ducked under the ropes and sat down in ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... like an old fool, as the saying is! Just watch her smirk! I'm mighty glad Ellen Robinson's there to relieve me of the responsibility. She'll be over after a while, and then we'll know who he is. There goes Julia in. She watched him out o' sight! Well, I wonder what ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... jolly-looking old fellow, in a barracan jacket and gaiters, with a smirk of welcome, and a very sharp, red nose, that seemed to promise good cheer, opened the door with a promptitude that indicated a hospitable ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... to find the house where the sick woman was, for as we turned into the strate, a dirty ould hag, smoking a short pipe, came up to us with a smirk ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... the masonry. As all visitors to the mansion are aware, these paintings represent women of middle age, of a date some two hundred years ago, whose lineaments once seen can never be forgotten. The long pointed features, narrow eye, and smirk of the one, so suggestive of merciless treachery; the bill-hook nose, large teeth, and bold eye of the other suggesting arrogance to the point of ferocity, haunt the beholder ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... dollars greenbacks swapped for six hundred and ninety miles of travel at ten cents a mile. I hastily stepped aside. A subtle fragrance and a rustle warned me that I was obstructing a representative of the fair sex. So did the smirk and ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... the clamor slackened, she replied, "Why, young Cuffy from the baker's, and all he said was, 'David Dubbs,—to be sent—card inside,' and then kissing his hand, and crying 'Love to her,' meaning I don't know who," with a smirk at Polly, "he jumped aboard his wagon and flew away down ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... smile distorted the wrinkled face of AEsop and made it appear more than usually repulsive. "You mean me," he said, and the smirk deepened, only to dissipate quickly ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... with an energy that amazed his faithful follower. The nightmare horror of the situation had affected him much as a sudden blow in the parts about the waistcoat might have done. But, now, as Spike would have said, he caught up with his breath. The smirk faded slowly from the other's face as he listened. Not even in the Bowery, full as it was of candid friends, had he listened to such a trenchant summing-up of his mental ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... could develop her into a real woman. But I haven't, and it wouldn't be worth while when there are so many real women, ready made, out where I come from. This girl would be exactly the wife for you, though. Just as she is, she'd help you mince about from parlor to parlor, and smirk and jabber and waste time. She's been educating for the job ever since she was born." He laid his hand in gracious, kindly fashion on his friend's shoulder. "Think it over. And if you want my help it's yours. I can show ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... as her neighbours' amazement, she perceived Mr Briggs! who, in order to look about him at his ease, was standing upon a chair, from which, having singled her out, he was regarding her with a facetious smirk, which, when it caught her eye, was ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... finery, braved it with the best. It was remarkable to me to see how easily and simply she carried herself in a dress and a company entirely strange to her. She had no mauvaise honte, for she made no pretence; she was not self-conscious, for she deceived nobody; she did not smirk nor make herself in any way ridiculous. She was still herself, put in a position where—as she had the wit to see—staidness was the natural thing; therefore staid she was. I would have defied any fine ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... It should not be just an affected smirk, but a smile of genuine friendliness for all the world. Please by wearing inconspicuous clothes that are faultless in taste, fit, and cleanliness; and of a quality suited to your vocation. Show also that you take good care of what you wear, for that ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... the novice's smirk," she remarked. "A moment ago I heard him tell his neighbour that he preferred not to discuss the war. He probably thinks that there is a spy under ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the little. The low hills are a-smirk with flowers and greenery; the dominating peaks, austere and desolate, holding a ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... Dearborn County Medical Society was as towering as ever, but somehow it was all different. There was a note of unreality nowadays in Mrs. Donnelly's professions of wonder at her bearing up under her multiplied maladies; there was almost a leer of mockery in the sympathetic smirk with which the Misses Mangan listened to her symptoms. Even the doctors, though they kept their faces turned toward her, obviously did not pay much attention; the people in the street seemed no ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... turn one solitary eyelash when Hamlet follows up his death by rushing before the curtain and grinning his thanks. Desdemonas who come forward, after the smothering scene, to receive flowers, and Romeos and Juliets who rise from the tomb that they may bow and smirk before an audience—while we have such as these among us, let us not cast ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... you! The more shame for you to take them. Better throw them away than wear them as a badge of degradation. Yes, throw them away, or send them back whence they came. Wash that paint off your face. Get rid of that made-up smirk around your mouth. Remember that you are going ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... pleasure.] Rejoicing. — N. rejoicing, exultation, triumph, jubilation, heyday, flush, revelling; merrymaking &c. (amusement) 840; jubilee &c. (celebration) 883; paean, Te Deum &c. (thanksgiving) 990[Lat]; congratulation &c. 896. smile, simper, smirk, grin; broad grin, sardonic grin. laughter (amusement) 840. risibility; derision &c. 856. Momus; Democritus the Abderite[obs3]; rollicker[obs3]. V. rejoice, thank one's stars, bless one's stars; congratulate oneself, hug oneself; rub one's hands, clap ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... had "turned about and wheeled about," it was Sir Francis Burdett, and accordingly the artist introduces him as indulging in a very flourishing pas seul; he wears a self-satisfied smirk, and carries his thumbs in his waistcoat, in allusion to his own contention that he had been always consistent. Yet this self-satisfied aristocratic-looking personage not many years before had distinguished himself as the most prominent of radical malcontents, and had been ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... I apprehend the mood: There was the blameless shrug, permissible smirk, The pen's pretence at play with the pursed mouth, The titter stifled in the hollow palm Which rubbed the eye-brow and caressed the nose, When I first told my tale; they meant, you know— 'The sly one, all this we are bound believe! Well, ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... of gloves, and a smirk"; and with this heartless expression of nonchalance Lucy glided away ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... all about me, for a time at least, laid down their burdens and found rest and comfort in their Father's house. It did me more good than the preaching of all the bishops in London, or the finest pageant at St. Paul's; and I am truly glad I went, though the saucy conductor did smirk at ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... him and gave his head an affectionate pat, and the son glanced up with a blandness that might easily have become a smirk. Yet his mother's complacent satisfaction with the inevitable irritated him. Madeline Elton might be the most admirable combination of the virtues and the graces, but he wanted to find ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... had children, and was strictly proper. But his way of talking to women and about them was more odious than the way of a debauchee. He invariably called them "the ladies," or more exactly, "the leedies"; and he hardly ever spoke to a "leedy" without a smirk and some faint attempt ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... his mind within, he thought: "Tradition, handed down for hours and hours, Tells that our globe, this quivering crystal world, Is slowly dying. What if, seconds hence, When I am very old, yon shimmering dome Come drawing down and down, till all things end?" Then with a weazen smirk he proudly felt No other mote of God had ever gained Such giant grasp of ...
— Practice Book • Leland Powers
... ruff, rail, The cock, the curlew, and the quail, These, and thy choicest viands, do extend Their tastes unto the lower end Of thy glad table; not a dish more known To thee, than unto any one: But as thy meat, so thy immortal wine Makes the smirk face of each to shine, And spring fresh rose-buds, while the salt, the wit, Flows from the wine, and graces it; While Reverence, waiting at the bashful board, Honours my lady and my lord. No scurril jest, no open scene is laid Here, for to make the face afraid; But ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... now y'are entered; see the coddled cook Runs from his torrid zone to pry and look And bless his dainty mistress: see The aged point out, "This is she Who now must sway The house (love shield her) with her yea and nay": And the smirk butler thinks it Sin in's napery not to express his wit; Each striving to devise Some gin ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... own excuse, Madam," he answered, smiling and unabashed. "Have I your Majesty's leave to present it?" he continued, with a smirk and ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... Norton Programmer's Guide to the IBM PC". The original cover featured a picture of Peter Norton with a silly smirk on his face, wearing a pink shirt. Perhaps in recognition of this usage, the current edition has a different picture of Norton wearing a pink shirt. See also ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... announcements, such as the approach of a flying stationer, the roup of a deceased weaver's loom, or the arrival in Thrums of a cart-load of fine "kebec" cheeses, he treated as the merest trifles. I see still the bent legs of the snuffy old man straightening to the tinkle of his bell, and the smirk with which he let the curious populace gather round him. In one hand he ostentatiously displayed the paper on which what he had to cry was written, but, like the minister, he scorned to "read." With the bell carefully tucked under his oxter he gave ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... secondary honors, it matters not, they remain indelibly impressed on our minds. After one has seen Steen's pictures it is impossible to see a drunkard, a buffoon, a cripple, a dwarf, a deformed face, a ridiculous smirk, a grotesque attitude, without remembering one of his figures. All the degrees of stupidity and of drunkenness, all the grossness and mawkishness of orgies, the frenzy of the lowest pleasures, the cynicism of the vulgarest vice, the buffoonery of the wildest ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... time that hatred of inequalities which, repulsive though it is in theory, is yet the true nerver of the strong right arm of progress. It is as characteristic of the homely, human countenance of Democracy as the supercilious smirk is of the homely, inhuman countenance of caste. Arthur did not want to get up where Ross was seated in such elegant state; he wanted to tear Ross, all the Rosses down. "The damn fool!" he fumed. "He goes lounging about, wasting the money we make. It's all wrong. And if we weren't a herd of ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... flower viciously and pulls off its petals] I believe that if I had the power I'd do this to all of you! I'd do this to all of you! I'd do this to all of you! You just wait, you young scamp! I'll catch you. My heart boils, it boils, it boils over! And now I must smirk before the mistress as if I were a fool. What a life! What a life! The sinners in hell do not suffer as I suffer in this house! [She ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... and I had reasons for avoiding such curiosity,—reasons well enough founded, for instantly grins, broader than before, widened the mouths of the two married ladies, while even Miss Thrale began a titter that half choaked her, and Augusta, nodding to me with an arch smirk, said, "Miss Burney, I wish ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... contriving 200 A wheel-work image as if it were living, Should find with delight it could motion to strike him! So found the Duke, and his mother like him: The lady hardly got a rebuff— That had not been contemptuous enough, 205 With his cursed smirk, as he nodded applause, And kept off ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... Delmour, while we stood in a respectful semi-circle before her, modestly conscious of our worth, our toes turned out, and each man's features wreathed with that politely unnatural smirk which masculine features assume when confronted by feminine beauty. "Gentlemen, on the eve of your proposed departure for Baffin Land in quest of living specimens of the five-spotted Philohela quinquemaculata, I have been instructed by Professor Bottomly to announce to you a great good fortune ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... He was most becomingly dressed. He wore a white cravat, and no collar. He had light hair closely cut, and his face was as smooth as a woman's. His shirt was whiter than any shirt I have ever seen before or since, and it was made of very fine material. He carried an agreeable smirk upon his countenance, and he disinterred, now and then, some very long and extraordinary word from the dictionary, when he was particularly desirous either to make himself understood or conceal his meaning. I had almost omitted to add, that he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... with their stares and their quizzing-glasses. There is, at times, something almost German in the British lack of delicacy, which is, so far, rare with us here, though I doubt not the French will taint a few among us. But insolence in stare and smirk is not among our listed sins, though, doubtless, otherwise the list is full as long as that of any nation, and longer, too, for ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... and adjacent rooms all manner of cloaking and shawling was going on, and the Barchester folk were getting themselves gone. Mrs Proudie did her best to smirk at each and every one, as they made their adieux, but she was hardly successful. Her temper had been tried fearfully. By slow degrees, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... not a traitor to your mind. Who, knowing innocence in danger, dares Not turn his eye, for fear of smirk, or stares, By other courts, is Justice's statue blind, That to the wall, not Bench, should be assigned. Oft, Precedent is Folly with gray hairs; So you, recalling Junius, heard the prayers Of friendless Stilow; then, what did ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... queer you noticed it," says the shopman, with a smirk. "You were so taken up with that fine student that . . . ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... take yer ter Minehead and get the piousest parson in the town. Would yer like Darlin' fer a bridesmaid—and grog and angel-cake? Me jest settin' ready ter kiss yer every time yer passes it. I 'm blowed! You are wickeder than ol' Flint's lantern. It must be Red Joe. Him with the smirk! There 's a young feller 'round here, Betsy, as wants ter look out ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... asking it seemed that men MIGHT work, But prejudice was rampant in every shop and field; And, "What if you ARE trying, MY scythe you may not wield!" Men told the thief, who answered—"Indeed, I will not shirk!" And carpenters and builders turned from him with a smirk, And farmers hurried by him to house the harvest's yield. And so he took his dagger, all rusted, and his shield, And sought again the highway where thieves and ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... guise, As though an artificer, after contriving {200} A wheel-work image as if it were living, Should find with delight it could motion to strike him! So found the Duke, and his mother like him: The lady hardly got a rebuff— That had not been contemptuous enough, With his cursed smirk, as he nodded applause, And kept off ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... Except for the smirk on her face, all I can learn of her now is that she was one of [Pg viii] a small family who lived in the country, invented their own games, dodged the governess and let the rest of the world go hang. She read everything that came her way, including, as the context amply proves, ...
— The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan • Daisy Ashford
... Solomon, lurk Around the corner to see him work— Sitting cross-legged, like a Turk, Drawing the waxed end through with a jerk, And boring the holes with a comical quirk 15 Of his wise old head, and a knowing smirk. But vainly they mounted each other's backs, And poked through knot holes and pried through cracks; With wood from the pile and straw from the stacks He plugged the knot holes and calked the cracks; 20 And a bucket of water, which one would think ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... see the holy ones air their smug pieties and admire them and smirk over them, and at the same moment frankly and publicly show their contempt for the pieties of the Boer—confidently expecting the approval of the country and the pulpit, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... her mouth down at the corners; deceit had given it a foolish smirk; spite had plowed an ugly frown in her brow; while she had tried so many arts to make her rich brown skin as delicately white as Hilda's, that it was changed to the ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... Happuch's work and feel nothing added to her toil," was the sharp response. "Small use are her hands in any kitchen. We had better make up our minds to wed her to a fine gentleman, who wants naught of his wife but to dress up in grand gowns, and smirk and simper over her fan; for no useful work will he get out of her. If rushes are wanted, she had better go quickly ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... on the part of artists who were, after all, contemporaries either of Sappho or Pindar. And it is more probable that the sculptors of Aegina were still embarrassed about the modelling of lips and cheeks than that, having Homer by heart, they imagined his heroes to die silently and with a smirk. ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... account my niece a peasant girl?" he asked. "Would you have her smirk and squirm at every piece of flattery you utter? So that she weds your Highness what shall ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... Rita is to be the intermediary for all those objects. And why? Because every bald head in this Republican Government gets pink at the top whenever her dress rustles outside the door. They bow with immense deference when the door opens, but the bow conceals a smirk because of those Venetian days. That confounded Versoy shoved his nose into that business; he says accidentally. He saw them together on the Lido and (those writing fellows are horrible) he wrote what he calls a ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... ready. She greatly liked the new fun, the hopping and whirling to Winnie's steady "One, two, three! One, two, three!" There was a grown-up, affected smirk on her delicate little face, at which Mrs. Tennyson laughed every time she looked out. I think Lu would have hopped and minced up and down the walk until night, if Winnie's mother hadn't told them it was ...
— Lill's Travels in Santa Claus Land and other Stories • Ellis Towne, Sophie May and Ella Farman
... just dined at the station and drunk a little too much lay down on the velvet-covered seat, stretched himself out luxuriously, and sank into a doze. After a nap of no more than five minutes, he looked with oily eyes at his vis-a-vis, gave a smirk, and said: ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... bell, and Georgina answered it with a smirk on her face. 'Just call Hollands, and come in here with him,' said her ladyship. The butler soon came in; and Jane says, if ever the devil looked through any man's eyes, she believes he did through his, as he glared at her with a look of triumph, his mistress's back ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... slapping me on my back. "Introduce me to your charming friends," and with this he gave a horrible low -born smirk at Miss Travis, to whom, to my infinite sorrow, by some accursed miracle, he appeared as plainly visible as he was ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... deserted home. The door opened and a figure appeared. It was Mr. Wurley's agent, the lawyer who had been employed by Farmer Tester in his contest with Harry and his mates about the pound. The man of law saluted him with a smirk of scarcely concealed triumph, and then turned into the house again and shut the door, as if he did not consider further communication necessary or safe. Tom turned with a muttered imprecation on him and ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... at this appeal, and, looking as wise as if he had been Solomon's nephew, gave a knowing smirk, and said— ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... older, less comely than Janet, and having the smirk of a perfunctory greeting upon her flabby face, stood within the room assigned to Mistress Katherine. As her eyes fell upon the maid, she stepped back surprised, and with a confusion she essayed to hide in her coarse voiced acknowledgment of ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... With a smirk of satisfaction, the overseer presented his arm to a pretty young lady, whose dark eyes had somewhat smitten him, and led the way to the further end of the shop, followed by ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... His face had a queer attempt at melancholy, sadly at variance with a smirk of satisfaction which might be read between the lines. Though his calling was not a lively one, it did not depress his spirits, as in the bosom of his family he was the most cheery of men, and to him the "tap, tap" of coffin-making was as sweet and exhilarating ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... is, I mean, they would be after him if they knew everything." A cunning smirk crossed ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... and smirk'd, and bow'd, None could please her of all the crowd; Lung and Tung she thought too loud; Opulent Tin was much too proud; Lofty Long was quite too tall; Musical Sing sung very small; And, most remarkable freak of all, Of great Hang-Yu the lady made game, And Yu-be-Hung she mocked the ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... a near-gold ring with a smirk almost of recklessness, a plain gold ring whose worn appearance called to mind the finger taken from a dead Kurd's cartridge pouch. It may be that Measel bought it, but neither Fred nor I spoke to him again, for half ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... picked for the part because of this face—plump, pinkly tinted cheeks, lustrous, curling hair of some repellent composition, eyes with a hard glitter, each lash distinct in blue-black lines, and a small, tip-curled black mustache that lent the whole an offensive smirk. Garbed now in a raincoat, he, too, was posed before the emporium front, labelled "Rainproof or You Get Back Your Money." So frankly evil was his mien that Merton Gill, pausing to regard him, suffered ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... Compliments, Streight we gang'd into the Kirk; There full weel she tuck the documents, And flang me many pleasing Smirk: Weel I weat that I have gear enough, She's have a Yode to ride ont; She's neither drive the Swine, nor the ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... by deep red curtains, and containing a lofty four-post bedstead with a kind of grand baldacchino covering it in. The sight of this reminded me that I had been six hours on horseback, and undressing with a self-satisfied smirk on ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... you thought would envy you giggle and smirk and nudge each other and make suggestions that are supposed to be mirth-compelling. And then and there you decide to do differently next summer. A sunburned nose may be a treasurable possession away from town, but back among the hosts of the ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... fifteen, with hair the color of fresh sawdust, white eyebrows, and an uncommonly wide-awake look. Ringdove, his father's successor, could never teach Perry the smirk, the grace, and the seductiveness of the counter, so the boy had found his place in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... left the heart untouched. It became evident that faults of training or, perhaps, of temperament, were to be set off against the actress' unquestionable merits. The elegant artificiality of the American school, a tendency to pose and be self-conscious, to smirk even, if the word may be permitted, especially when advancing to the footlights to receive a full measure of applause, were fatal to such sentiment as even so stilted a play could be made to yield. It was but too evident that Parthenia was at all times more concerned with the fall of her drapery ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... protection of the Stars and Stripes, which he would drag down, has made himself so emphatically one of the "capitalists," whom he hates, that he resides on New York's famous "Riverside Drive," and was able to testify with a smirk, "I flatter myself that I am not a failure." (See printed "Testimony" of the trial of the ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... up in a smugly humble fashion, a deprecating smirk on his face. Out of my experience with stewards on the Atlantic liners at the end of the voyage, I could have sworn he was waiting for his tip. From my fuller knowledge of the creature I now know that the posture was unconscious. An hereditary ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... advent was all fire, Stoop to the leaden level of cold water? A spectacle indeed to tame and tire The zeal of his most confident supporter. What will DUNRAVEN say? Quidnuncs will quiz, And Balfour-worshippers will smirk and chuckle, And ask if he considers it "good biz" To the Teetotal interest to truckle. They may be right—or wrong, these babblers busy. They were not always ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various
... then, from a Zincala— Unmake yourself from being child of mine! Take holy water, cross your dark skin white; Round your proud eyes to foolish kitten looks; Walk mincingly, and smirk, and twitch your robe: Unmake yourself—doff all the eagle plumes And be a parrot, chained to a ring that slips Upon a Spaniard's thumb, at will of his That you should ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... Catia was not unimpressive in her new dignity of wifehood; but the dignity bore traces of diligent rehearsal, and left singularly little to the imagination. By her side, Scott, looking down upon his fellow townsmen, wore the self-conscious smirk of a sheepish schoolboy; and the best of his fellow townsmen respected him the more on that account. Catia was the more impressive of the two, they told themselves; but there was no especial sense in a pair of young things like these, ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... himself, he looked at the two girls and wanted to say something; but he was speechless. When much worried he would always smirk. It was a disagreeable habit. In Eleanore it always aroused a feeling of intense compassion. "There is nothing wrong, father," she stammered, and made an awkward gesture which indicated to him that it would be most agreeable to her if he would go away. "Gertrude has pains in her stomach; ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... compared his time with the clock at the back of the room—and so closely were the amateur executioners observing their victim that every eye went back to the clock as well. Even Carl was guilty of that imitation. Consequently he saw the editor, standing at the back, make notes on his copy-paper and smirk like an ill-bred hound stealing a bone. And the Greek professor stared at Frazer's gauche movements with a grim smugness that indicated, "Quite the sort of thing I expected." The Greek's elbows were on the arm of the seat, and he held up before ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... that he meant to attack her. She could see that determination in his eyes and in his manner. He was still grinning, but now the grin had become set, satyric, hideous. It was a mere smirk. No mirth was behind ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... orange, wasn't he? But he was very good, I thought. Dress your ladies in cheerful dresses, not quite so vulgar as Chalon's. . . . I heard from my sister that you had finished Wilkinson to the perfect content of all: I had charged her particularly not to allow Mrs. W. to intercede for any smirk or alteration whatever. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... bailiffs shouting, and ushers responding, gradually subsided into a whisper of, "That's Jorrocks! That's Cheatum!" as the belligerent parties took their places by their respective counsel. Silence having been called and procured, Mr. Smirk, a goodish-looking man for a lawyer, having deliberately unfolded his brief, which his clerk had scored plentifully in the margin, to make the attorney believe he had read it very attentively, rose to address the court—a signal for half the ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... pretty cock-sure of yourself, Poddy, even back in the days when we both worked on the old Tribune," commented Ferguson with a smirk of amusement. "But this proposition of yours is the deckle-edged limit and no mistake. If you were anybody else I'd have a ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... No burning faith I find; The deeper thinkers sneer and smirk, And give my toil no mind; From nod and wink I read they think That ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... see the devil smirk as he went off with it?" asked Jeremy. "Golly, he thinks we're fools! The theory is that we two had betrayed you, Rammy, and swapped the letter against his bare promise to pay us in Damascus. He chucked in a little blackmail ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... blame the young lady!—dear me, no!" he said, with a smirk. "Loyalty, you know. What do ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... creatures!" "Poet's theme!" and so on,—stuff that springs from what Diogenes calls the spooney view of women, and only applicable to the young and handsome,—a very small minority. It is sad to see the graceless, the "gone-off," and the downright elderly smirk complacently at a few phrases which are only aimed at them in derision. The others, too, one would think, ought to care little for adulation that fades ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various |
