"Gay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this friendly home he recited "The Raven" with such artistic effect that his auditors induced him to give it as a public reading at the Exchange Hotel. Unfortunately, it was in midsummer, and both literary Richmond and gay Richmond were at seashore and mountain, and there were few to listen to the poem read as only its author could read it. Later in the same hall he gave, with gratifying success, his lecture on ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... quite mortified that he could not produce the evidence of the murder of the two sons of Edward IV., so as to settle this gay young pretender; but he did not succeed in finding the remains, though they were afterwards discovered under the staircase of the White Tower, and buried in Westminster Abbey, where the floor is now paved with epitaphs, and ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... your griefs Twas a happy marriage betwixt a blind wife and a deaf husband Unjust judges of their actions, as they are of ours Very idea we invent for their chastity is ridiculous Virtue is a pleasant and gay quality We ask most when we bring least We say a good marriage because no one says to the contrary. When jealousy seizes these poor souls When their eyes give the lie to their tongue Who escapes being talked of at the same rate Wisdom has its ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Essays of Montaigne • David Widger
... bright morning showed me my new surroundings in their true colors; even in the sunshine these were not very gay. But gayety was the last thing I wanted. Peace and quiet were my whole desire, and both were here, set in scenery at once lovely to the eye and ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... alphabetically. This happened to place Leola after Guy, and perhaps might give her the last word, as it were, with the people; but our committee was there, and superior to such accidents. The flags and the bunting hung gay around the draped stage. While the audience rustled or resoundingly trod to its chairs, and seated neighbors conferred solemnly together over the programme, Stuart, behind the bunting, played "Silver Threads among ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... bells went on ringing as they trooped back to the old man's house. They went in gay carriages, though the distance was but some hundred yards. But brides and bridegrooms cannot walk on their wedding-days in all their gala garments, though it be but a ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... woman, in a portentous bonnet, beneath whose gay yellow ribbons appeared a dusky old face, wrinkled like a ship's timbers, out of which looked a pair of keen black eyes, where the best beauty, that of loving-kindness, had not ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... she led the way through a low door into a long narrow room with a row of little square windows on each side all covered with little square white curtains. The walls and ceiling were planked and the workmanship of the whole rude and clumsy; but a gay carpet covered the floor, a chandelier adorned with lustres, hung from a hook in the ceiling, large gilded vases and a mirror in a tarnished gilt frame adorned a shelf over the hearth, mahogany chairs stood ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... the contrary, Casimir Dudevant, a natural son of Colonel Dudevant (an officer of the legion of honour and a baron of the Empire), was, according to George Sand's own description, "a slender, and rather elegant young man, with a gay countenance and a military manner." Besides good looks and youth—he was twenty-seven—he must also have possessed some education, for, although he did not follow any profession, he had been at a military school, served in the army as sub-lieutenant, and on ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... the great time for excursions all over the island, and the boys would often be out the whole day long among the hills, or about the coast. Eric enjoyed the time particularly, and was in great request among all the boys. He was now more gay and popular than ever, and felt as if nothing were wanting to his happiness. But this brilliant prosperity was not good for him, and he felt continually that he cared far less for the reproaches of conscience than he had ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... trenches to enjoy life. A very pleasant lot of young fellows they are, and very easily pleased. One I met invited me to midday tea in his bombproof shelter in a forward trench. I accepted gratefully and found him a charmingly gay host. He took a childlike pleasure in showing me all the conveniences he had fitted up, and kept on saying, 'Ah, how comfortable and peaceful it is here,' with the sound of rifle shots and hand grenade and mine explosions in our ears ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... for quitting our quarters; Adieu to the chase, to thy walks and thy waters, To thy hunt, ball, and theatre, and card tables too, And to all thy gay fair ones, a ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... to the barn, climbed to the hayloft, and undid the bundle containing his Buck Benson outfit. This was fresh from the mail-order house in Chicago. He took out almost reverently a pair of high-heeled boots with purple tops, a pair of spurs, a gay shirt, a gayer neckerchief, a broad-brimmed hat, a leather holster, and—most impressive of all—a pair of goatskin chaps dyed a violent maroon. All these he excitedly donned, the spurs last. Then he clambered down the ladder from the loft, somewhat impeded by the ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... change he suddenly experienced in his habits and his tastes during those demoralising days of retreat and merciless hours of pursuit. But, in spite of all, he had kept his good humour and never lost his gay spirits. He still accompanied his talk with elaborate gestures, and seemed to be just as much at ease behind his heap of wood, bombarded with bullets, as in the best appointed drawing-room. His clothes were stained ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... small percentage of the whole is flung into the pit, and, for them, where one in ten was heavy slaughter, now one in ten is reasonable escape. The rest, for the greater part of the time, live an unnatural life, death near enough to make them reckless and far enough to make them gay. Commonly men and women more or less restrain themselves because of to-morrow; but what if there be no to-morrow? What if the dice are heavily weighted against it? And what of their already jeoparded restraint when the crisis has ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... was far from gay, and though the fare was better, the vivacity and the warmth of the conversation was far, indeed, from that of the famous improvised banquet at the time of the election to the Council-general. The gaps occasioned by ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... for one to have the name of being gay without starting that child running around ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... to Russia. She went with him to St. Petersburg, taking her baby, Charles Francis, born in 1807; but broken-hearted at having to leave her two older boys behind. The life at St. Petersburg was hardly gay for her; they were far too poor to shine in that extravagant society; but she survived it, though her little girl baby did not, and in the winter of 1814-15, alone with the boy of seven years old, crossed ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... conversation veered around to the death of Mr. Carwell. Out of respect to his memory, an important match had been called off on the day of his funeral. But now those last rites were over, the clubhouse was the same gay place it had been. Though more than one veteran member sat in silent reverie over his cigar as he recalled the friend who never again would tee ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... in London the famous rookery of St. Giles which is now, at last, about to be penetrated by a couple of broad streets. St. Giles is in the midst of the most populous part of the town, surrounded by broad, splendid avenues in which the gay world of London idles about, in the immediate neighbourhood of Oxford Street, Regent Street, of Trafalgar Square and the Strand. It is a disorderly collection of tall, three or four-storied houses, with narrow, crooked, filthy streets, in which there is quite ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... the gods. Not long afterwards the Horse, having become broken-winded, was sent by his owner to the farm. The Ass, seeing him drawing a dungcart, thus derided him: "Where, O boaster, are now all thy gay trappings, thou who are thyself reduced to the condition you ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... Teresita looked back and waved a hand at the gay horseman who still stood fair across the highway ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... habitations of ostlers and horses, and proceeded through several narrow streets, lined with lofty houses, the shops of which were all open, and the shopkeepers, chiefly women, looked respectable and sprightly, with gay bouquets in their bosoms, to the Hotel de l'Europe; it is a fine inn, to which we had been recommended at Havre, kept by Madame F——, who, with much politeness, and many captivating movements, dressed a-la-Grec, with immense golden ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... respire. He led the citizens more and more from the recesses of private life; and carried out that social policy commenced by Pisistratus, according to which all individual habits became merged into one animated, complex, and excited public. Thus, himself gay and convivial, addicted to company, wine, and women, he encouraged shows and spectacles, and invested them with new magnificence; he embellished the city with public buildings, and was the first to erect at Athens those long colonnades—beneath the shade of which, sheltered ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... at night, chummy, but to-morrow morn I'll wake; The Cry of the Crowd will sound aloud in my ear ere dawn shall break. 'Twill muster with its booming bands and with its banners gay; For to-morrow's the Feast of May, brother, to-morrow's our ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, May 3, 1890. • Various
... times as we settle in the little house in the lane near by my dear ravine—plays, picnics, pleasant people, and good neighbors. Fanny Kemble came up, Mrs. Kirkland, and others, and Dr. Bellows is the gayest of the gay. We acted the "Jacobite," "Rivals," and "Bonnycastles," to an audience of a hundred, and were noticed in the Boston papers. H. T. was our manager, and Dr. B., D. D., our dramatic director. Anna was the star, her acting being really very fine. I did "Mrs. Malaprop," "Widow Pottle," and the ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... run to open it for him; it is a hot day; he comes in panting; she must convoy him to the kitchen, and see with her own eyes that his water-bowl is replenished. Through the open kitchen-door the court is visible, all sunny and gay, and peopled with turkeys and their poults, peahens and their chicks, pearl-flecked Guinea fowls, and a bright variety of pure white and purple-necked, and blue and cinnamon-plumed pigeons. Irresistible spectacle to Shirley! She runs to the pantry for a roll, and she stands on the doorstep ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... Charles II. It happened, that on a public day a celebrated beauty of those times was in the Cross Bath, and one of the crowd of her admirers took a glass of the water in which the fair one stood, and drank her health to the company. There was in the place a gay fellow, half fuddled, who offered to jump in, and swore, though he liked not the liquor, he would have the toast. He was opposed in his resolution; yet this whim gave foundation to the present honour which is done to the lady we mention in our liquors, who ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... to psalms and anthems, entertain conscientious objections to hearing the Bible set to music in a concert-room; and sure may we all be, that, unless the whole thing be regarded as a religious service, (in a mixed gay company who think of sound more than sense, not very easy,) the warbling of sacred phrases, and variations on the summoning trumpet, and imitated angelic praise, and the unfelt expressions of musical repentance, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... answer to your quistion, sorr," said Finn, with dignity. "He'd 'a' had lamps befoor his house now, sorr, if he hadn't been gay ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... a splendid sight. Five large boats, manned by sailors, and filled with soldiers in gay red coats. How their guns glittered in the sun! The oars all moved together in regular order, and the officers in their fine uniforms stood up to direct the expedition. It was a courageous company come with a warship and cannon to ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... type of desert. There had been wonderful effects of light and shade and strange changes in the colour of the sand and rocks, owing to geological reasons. Sometimes such strange effects that he found it hard to believe, from a distance, that there were not bright carpets or gay ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... you are sapping the foundations of royalty at home, and propagating here the dangerous doctrine of resistance, the distance of America may secure its inhabitants from your arts, though active. But I will unfold to you the gay prospects of futurity. This people, now so innocent and harmless, shall draw the sword against their mother country, and bathe its point in the blood of their benefactors; this people, now contented with a little, shall then refuse to spare what they themselves ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... Lilly had said, to sit there amid the green boughs, and pleasant leafy smells, a buzz of gay voices in the air, and a general sense of holiday. The Gymnasium would have furnished many a pretty picture for an artist during those three afternoons, only, unfortunately, no artist was let in to ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... wood, perhaps because the apparatus was only of a provisional nature, and it could then be more easily taken down. Enormous cables were hanging from all sides, giving the entire apparatus an aspect of solidity and grandeur. The top was gay with flags and banners of various colors, floating pennants, and massive garlands of flowers and leaves, all ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... fair Melrose aright, Go visit it by the pale moonlight. For the gay beams of lightsome day Gild but to flout the ruins gray: When the broken arches are black in night, And each shafted oriel glimmers white; When the cold light's uncertain shower Streams on the ruin'd ...
— Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway - Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from - Worcester to Shrewsbury • J. Randall
... still not eighteen, a soft white slip of being, tall, slender, brown-haired and silent, with very still deep dark eyes. She and your three aunts formed a very gracious group of young women indeed; Alice then as now the most assertive, with a gay initiative and a fluent tongue; Molly already a sun-brown gipsy, and Norah still a pig-tailed thing of lank legs and wild embraces and the pinkest of swift pink blushes; your uncle Sidney, with his shy lank moodiness, acted the brotherly part of ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... the Cruciferae into five sub-orders in accordance with the position of the radicle and cotyledons, yet Mons. T. Gay (Ann. des Scien. Nat., ser. i. tom. vii. p. 389) found in sixteen seeds of Petrocallis Pyrenaica the form of the embryo so uncertain that he could not tell whether it ought to be placed in the sub-orders 'Pleurorhizee' or 'Notor-hizee'; so again (p. 400) in Cochlearia saxatilis ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... and Madame de Sevigne, Montesquieu, Baronius, Tacitus, Bayle, Brantome, and the early volumes of the Encyclopaedia. But her gay, expansive nature was not capable, for long, of purely intellectual or stoic consolation. In a moral environment such as that of Elizabeth's court it was too easy for the reader of Brantome to seek elsewhere the "love" romances had spoken of, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... foreign visitors invited to the congress were M. Franklin-Bouillon, President of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the French Chamber of Deputies, the ex-minister M. Albert Thomas, M. Fournol, M. Pierre de Quirielle, Mr. H.W. Steed, Mr. Seton-Watson, and Mr. Nelson Gay. ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... Sprite Columns" in the Court of Ages bring the somber symbolism of this court back to the gay spirit of festival. The sprites are the work of Leo Lentelli; they have a quaint elfin quality that is very engaging. The amusing and lovely group seated about the base of the column have a certain chic habit of pointing elbows, wrists and ankles that lends an unworldly attraction. ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... nothing serious happening, no nest that any one cared anything about. His mate could not disguise her agitation by assuming nonchalance, but flitted about in the willows and chirped pitifully. I hurried away to relieve her distress. The cottages on the slopes were gay with tourists enjoying their summer outing, and beautiful Kiowa Lodge, perched on a shoulder of the mountain among embowering pines, glowed with incandescent lights, while its blithe-hearted guests pursued their chosen kinds of pastime; ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... know it is not gay. But it is in the metier. When Pere Paragot was alive it was different. He had his good qualities, Pere Paragot. He was like a watch-dog. If any man came near me he was fierce. I did not amuse myself, it is true, but ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... Vol. II, of "L'Italis Economica nel 1873" (Roma, Tipografia Barbera, 1873). This work was the result of official surveys and most careful studies made by leading economists and statisticians. For a copy of it I am indebted to Mr. H. N. Gay, Fellow of Harvard University. ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... it for the many times I have heard it, and the many thoughts its harmless music has given me. Sometimes, in the twilight, when I have felt a little solitary and down-hearted, John—before baby was here to keep me company and make the house gay—when I have thought how lonely you would be if I should die; how lonely I should be if I could know that you had lost me, dear; its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp upon the hearth, has seemed to tell me of another little voice, so sweet, ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... Following. He was a gentle boy 180 And in all gentle sorts took joy; Oft in a dry leaf for a boat, With a small feather for a sail, His fancy on that spring would float, If some invisible breeze might stir 185 Its marble calm: and Helen smiled Through tears of awe on the gay child, To think that a boy as fair as he, In years which never more may be, By that same fount, in that same wood, 190 The like sweet fancies had pursued; And that a mother, lost like her, Had mournfully sate watching ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... might have been followed up, hard as we'd ridden, and we didn't like to throw a chance away. We didn't want the old man to laugh at us, and we didn't want to do any more time in Berrima—not now, anyhow. We'd been living too gay and free a life to begin with the jug all ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... that I have of late very seldom mentioned the name of Mrs. Hunt. The fact is, that I did not at this period enjoy that domestic felicity, of which I had heretofore partaken. I was, as I have more than once stated, gay, thoughtless, and dissipated. I seldom ever spent a retired, quiet evening at home, enjoying the rational amusements of my own domestic fireside. We bad always company at home, or I was one of a party abroad; myself and Mrs. Hunt were living a true fashionable life, and we entered ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... grew the trees; 'twas twilight in their shadows, Although broad day without; But gay the laddies at the fagot-picking Went ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... quietly, but very much as if the same will of her own which had led her to marry Jim Ruggles, when a gay, dissipated fellow, kept her determined to give him what he wanted, even to the doubtful extreme I saw. So she struggled bravely on during the next four weeks of Jim's existence, keeping herself and her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... sight of her uncle beckoning to her, and went to him. Doctor Churchill saw Mrs. Birch, lying among the gay striped pillows in a hammock which had been brought along for her special use, and went over to her. His eyes noted the direction in which Charlotte was vanishing, but he sat down on a log by the hammock as if he had no other thought than for the gracious ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... consisting of about thirty horse, and as many on foot, were leisurely traversing the mountain passes between the counties of Dumfries and Lanark. Their arms were well burnished; their buff coats and half-armor in good trim; their banner waved proudly from its staff, as bright and gay as if it had not even neared a scene of strife; and there was an air of hilarity and gallantry about them that argued well for success, if about to commence an expedition, or if returning, told with equal emphasis ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... we are considering poems "in lighter vein," let us not forget the three famous initials signed to a column in the Chicago Tribune, Don Marquis of the Evening Sun, who can be either grave or gay but cannot be ungraceful, and the universally beloved Captain Franklin P. Adams, whose Conning Tower increased the circulation of the New York Tribune and the blood of its readers. Brightest and best of the sons of the Colyumnists, his classic Muse ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... 22.—To-day is the second of Mr. Emerson's 'Readings,' or 'Conversations,' and he is coming with Longfellow and the Hunts to have dinner afterward.... We had a gay, lovely time at the dinner; but, first about the lecture. Emerson talked of poetry, and the unity which exists between science and poetry, the latter being the fine insight which solves all problems. The unwritten poetry of to-day, ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... Egyptian Fleshpots, scorn'd. Not David so; for he Faiths Champion Lord, Their Altars loath'd, and prophane Rites abhorr'd: Whilst his firm Soul on wings of Cherubs rod, And tun'd his Lyre to nought but Abrahams God. Thus the gay Israel her long Tears quite dry'd, Her restor'd David met in all her Pride, Three Brothers saw by Miracle brought back, Like Noahs Sons sav'd from the worlds great wrack; An unbelieving Ham graced on each hand, 'Twixt God-like ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... the dance came at last, and long before the time, the road leading to Col. Alexander's plantation presented a gay spectacle. The females were seen flocking to the place of resort, with heads adorned with gaudy bandanna turbans and new calico dresses, of the gayest colors, —their whole attire decked over with bits of gauze ribbon and other fantastic finery. The shades of night ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... world therewith. It was a name wholly out of my sphere, both then and now; but I know it has since risen into note among the people of the world. I believe, too, its owner has carried up to the topmost height of celebrity always the gay, gentlemanly spirit and kindly heart which he showed when sitting with us and eating swedes. Still, I will not mention his surname—I will ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... however, in reply, a sign for silence; she had heard Lady Grace enter the other room from the back landing, and, reaching the nearer door, she disposed of the question with high gay bravery. "I won't bargain with the Treasury!"—she had passed out by ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... a few moments in a little room, very artistically furnished. A young man appeared, looking very elegant. He was smiling and altogether charming. I could not grasp the fact that this fair-haired, gay young ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... to his people A brother to his fellows A man of truth A helpful and dependable brother A lover of nature Obedient to the orders of his leaders Joyful and gay Economical and generous A man of courage Pure in thoughts, words, and deeds (opposition to drinking, smoking and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... in the great store room of the Alaska Fur and Trading Company's post at Kat-lee-an. The westering sun streaming in through a side window lighted up shelves of brightly labeled canned goods and a long, scarred counter piled high with gay blankets and men's rough clothing. Back of the big, pot-bellied stove—cold now—that stood near the center of the room, lidless boxes of hard-tack and crackers yawned in open defiance of germs. An amber, mote-filled ray slanted toward the ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... been gay and smiling when he parted from M. Fauvel downstairs, he now wore a melancholy aspect, as he gravely bowed, and refused to seat himself in the chair which Mme. ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... her good wishes fade: Let with strong hand the rein to bend be made. One slow we favour, Romans, him revoke: And each give signs by casting up his cloak. They call him back; lest their gowns toss thy hair, To hide thee in my bosom straight repair. But now again the barriers open lie, And forth the gay troops on swift horses fly. At least now conquer, and outrun the rest: My mistress' wish confirm with my request. 80 My mistress hath her wish; my wish remain: He holds the palm: my palm is yet to gain. She smiled, and with ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... all present ample time to take in the drift of his cogent, weighty arguments and to appraise them at their proper worth. Had it been any one else, Mr. Lloyd George would have been voted an unmitigated nuisance on all hands. As a result of prolonged residence in the Gay City at a somewhat later date, the Right Honourable Gentleman is now, it is understood, in the habit of bandying badinage with the midinettes in the argot of the Quartier Latin. But at the time that I speak of his acquaintance with the Gallic tongue was ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... and, not seeing him, stopped short in astonishment. Before they discovered him again, he was halfway down to the lower road. They sent a bullet after him which went through his beaver hat and he turned, waved his hand in a gay good-bye, and rode on to Stamford. It is said that General Tryon afterward sent him a suit of clothes to make up for ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton
... mounted the merry-go-round Miss Thorley stepped into a gay little sleigh drawn by two fat polar bears. After he had seen Mary Rose properly astride the neglected ostrich Mr. Jerry took the seat beside ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... the height of this public quarrel, we met in the street. "Franklin," says he, "you must go home with me and spend the evening; I am to have some company that you will like;" and, taking me by the arm, he led me to his house. In gay conversation over our wine, after supper, he told us, jokingly, that he much admir'd the idea of Sancho Panza, who, when it was proposed to give him a government, requested it might be a government of blacks, as then, if he could not agree with his people, he might sell ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... the pages of her magazine, but she felt disinclined to read. She was pretty; her brown hair framed a rose-tinted face, her smile was charming, her blue eyes were gay and honest and kind. Men often looked at her, and it cannot be denied that the swift appraisement of masculine eyes, the momentary homage of a glance that said "you are fair," meant something to her. Such tributes to her beauty were minor joys, to be classed ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... noble: it separates.—One of the most refined forms of disguise is Epicurism, along with a certain ostentatious boldness of taste, which takes suffering lightly, and puts itself on the defensive against all that is sorrowful and profound. They are "gay men" who make use of gaiety, because they are misunderstood on account of it—they WISH to be misunderstood. There are "scientific minds" who make use of science, because it gives a gay appearance, and because scientificness leads to the conclusion that a person is superficial—they ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... seen a man dragged to death in Texas simply because he was black. A young man murdered in Wyoming simply because he was gay. In the last year alone, we've seen the shootings of African Americans, Asian Americans, and Jewish children simply because of who they were. This is not the American way. We must draw the line. Without delay, we must ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William J. Clinton • William J. Clinton
... philosophy unusual in her. "That's why we have the hardest share, I guess—because we have to keep gay and bright, no matter how ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... and gay at the time I speak of, and passionate too! Two of my brother lieutenants fought a duel, much more serious than those pin- prick encounters which are now the fashion. They fought with pistols, on ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... fretfully debating, the door of the room again opened. There appeared an athletic, adventurous-looking officer in brilliant uniform who was smiling at something called after him from the antechamber. His blue coat was spick and span and very gay with double embroidery at the collar, coat-tails, and pockets. His white waistcoat and trousers were spotless; his netted sash of blue with its stars on the silver tassels had a look of studied elegance. The black three-cornered hat, broidered ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... ensconced myself in the second row of reserved seats. I had an excellent view of the stage. There, in the middle of the platform, stood the conjuror's table—a quaint, cabalistic-looking piece of furniture with carved black legs and a deep bordering of green cloth all round the top. A gay pagoda-shaped canopy of many hues was erected overhead. A long white wand leaned up against the wall. To the right stood a bench laden with mysterious jars, glittering bowls, gilded cones, mystical globes, ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... fact that Addison Wilmott was a well-known New Yorker, living in Paris, a man of leisure who was enjoying to the full a large inherited fortune. He and his dashing wife lived in a private hotel on the Avenue Kleber, where they led a gay existence in the smartest and most spectacular circle of the American Colony. They gave brilliant dinners, they had several automobiles, they did all the foolish and extravagant things that the others did and ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... region lifted a mile into the rare atmosphere, was a ridge all naked boulder and spire along its crest, its sides studded with pine and incense cedar. The afternoon sunlight streaked the big bronze tree trunks, making bright gay spots and patches of light, casting cool black shadows across the open spaces where the brown dead needles lay in thick carpets. It was early June, and thus far only had the springtime advanced in its vernal progress upward through ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... and moods, the photoplaywright is certainly not bound by these limits. Yet even in life the emotional tone may radiate beyond the body. A person expresses his mourning by his black clothes and his joy by gay attire, or he may make the piano or violin ring forth in happiness or moan in sadness. Even his whole room or house may be penetrated by his spirit of welcoming cordiality or his emotional setting of forbidding harshness. The feeling of the soul emanates ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... in the highest Roman excellence. His is the bright enthusiasm of display, not the steady one of duty; but though it be lower it need not be less real. There are warriors who meet their death with a song and a gay smile; there are others who meet it with stern and sober resolve. But courage calls both her children. Christian Europe has been kinder and juster to Seneca than was pagan Rome. Rome while she copied, abused him. Neither as Spaniard nor as Roman can he claim ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... a bright morning in June along a path gay with the opening efflorescence of the hibiscus and entangled here and there with the wild blossoms of the convolvulus,—two magnitudes might have been seen approaching one another. The one magnitude who held a tennis-racket in his hand, carried himself with a beautiful erectness ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... Franco-Scottish family, being descended by Thimothy, his father, from one Sir John Ramsay, a Scotchman, who, with others of his compatriots, went over to France in the 16th century. He may have joined an army raised for the French wars, or may have formed part of a bridal train similar to the gay retinue of the fair Princess Mary, who went from the dark fells and misty lochs of the land of the Royal Stuarts to be the loveliest queen who ever sat on the throne of la belle France. De Ramezay was the father of thirteen children, by his wife, Mademoiselle ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway
... "Carissimar" gives me the 'ump, For I 'ear it some six times per morning; and then there's a footy old pump Blows staggery toons on a post-'orn for full arf a-hour each day, To muster the mugs for a coach-drive. My heye and a bandbox, it's gay! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various
... sad that spirits so gay should be gone from a world that needs gayety so much? That is probably the worst of death; it is so indiscriminate," the reader ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... dead throughout this landscape of manifest life. Where are they—all the dying, all the dead, of the populous woods? Where do they hide their little last hours, where are they buried? Where is the violence concealed? Under what gay custom and decent habit? You may see, it is true, an earth-worm in a robin's beak, and may hear a thrush breaking a snail's shell; but these little things are, as it were, passed by with a kind of twinkle for apology, as by a well-bred ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... a sensible physician named Pidoux: "Sire, the malady from which you suffer is due to no witchcraft. Lead a quiet life for ten weeks, and drink the water of Pougues." The best king France ever had, namely, the gay Gascon, and after him Louis XIII., by no means one of the worst, had recourse to Pougues waters; also that arch-voluptuary and arch-despot, the Sun-King, who imagined that even syntax and prosody must bow to his will. [Footnote: One day the young ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... breeze did not prevent Cicely from setting off in high spirits, as she rode near the Queen, who declared that she wanted to enjoy through the merry maiden, and who was herself in a gay and joyous mood, believing that the term of her captivity was in sight, delighted with her daughter, exhilarated by the fresh breezes and rapid motion, and so mirthful that she could not help teasing and bantering the Earl a little, though ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... judged. Barbara was young and enjoyed it, as any young girl would. There were moments when her laughter and merry voice had no trace of trouble in them, when it would have been difficult to believe that a cloud had ever hung in her life; but there were other times when her eyes looked beyond the gay crowd by which she was surrounded, when her attention could not be fixed, and when her face had sadness in it. She was conscious of sorrow and tears under all ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... of the upper classes was like that prevailing among the same classes in France, though much less extravagant. The long, wide-frocked coats were of gay-coloured and costly material, with lace at neck and wristbands. The waistcoat might be richly embroidered with gold or silver. Knee-breeches took the place of our unsightly trousers, and were fastened with bright buckles at the knee. Stockings were of white or coloured silk, and shoes ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... for the time although sweet and delicious, had nothing in it gay or joyous; the lane along which I was strolling was steeped in the fast increasing shadows, for although the air aloft was full of sunshine, and the topmost leaves of the tall ashes shimmered like ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... beheld them full of lusty life; Last eve in beauty's circle proudly gay; The midnight brought the signal sound of strife; The morn, the marshalling in arms; the day, Battle's magnificently stern array! The thunder clouds closed o'er it, which, when, rent, The earth is covered thick with other clay, Which her ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... which he was writing. The translation of Froissart by Lord Berners seemed to him a sufficiently good model to serve for the whole mediaeval period.[435] In his review of Tales of My Landlord he says of the proem to his book: "It is written in the quaint style of that prefixed by Gay to his Pastorals, being, as Johnson terms it, 'such imitation as he could obtain of obsolete language, and by consequence, in a style that was never written or spoken in ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... at the shepherd's shins, and tore his nether garments, and made him dance with pain and rage. If anything could have added more agony to the next few minutes it was the sight of Tricky. That ever gay animal was careering down the hill straight towards the feeding sheep. The pump-handle was still tied to its neck, and it clattered over the stones with a noise weird enough to drive the whole flock into the sea. The shepherd knew there must be a catastrophe, but he ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... was said on this theme, and Mr. Harthouse was soon idly gay on indifferent subjects. But from this day, the Sparsit action upon Mr. Bounderby threw Louisa and James Harthouse more together, and strengthened the dangerous alienation from her husband and confidence against him with ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... lobby who dared to smoke soon hid their cigars under their coat-tails and departed to the hotels. The cuspidors were hidden. Gay frocks swept ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... of Boston and Philadelphia, inhabited by artisans of just the same grade as this poor Ned, with their white doors and steps, their hydrants of inexhaustible fresh flowing water, the innumerable appliances for decent comfort of their cheerful rooms, the gay wardrobe of the wife, her cotton prints for daily use, her silk for Sunday church-going; the careful comfort of the children's clothing, the books and newspapers in the little parlour, the daily district school, the weekly ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... with the great electric signs blinking at you from all sides—with the honking of the motor horns making a very Babel—with the crowds on the sidewalk, still hurrying, but for such a different reason—men and women in evening dress, all bound for one or other of the gay restaurants or theaters close by. And then the theater itself! To walk from the street to the gaily lighted lobby, its walls paneled from floor to ceiling with great mirrors that reflect lovely women and distinguished men. Then in the theater where the rich carpet deadens every footfall and ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... under the strain and worry which hang like dreadful dull clouds over every European power. In Switzerland the economic worries and the sufferings of the neighbouring belligerents have made the Swiss people feel that they are in the centre of the war itself. In France, although Paris is gay, although people smile (they have almost forgotten how to smile in Germany), although streets are crowded, and stores busy, the atmosphere is earnest and serious. Spain is torn by internal troubles. There is a great army of unemployed. The submarine war has destroyed ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... alone. Thus I should account in many cases for the greater beauty of the male over the female, without the need of the protective principle." ("More Letters", II. pages 73, 74. On the same subject—"the gay-coloured females of Pieris" (Perrhybris (Mylothris) pyrrha of Brazil), Darwin wrote to Wallace, May 5, 1868, as follows: "I believe I quite follow you in believing that the colours are wholly due to mimicry; and I further believe that the male is not brilliant from not having received ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... first all went well. The clouds hung low over the woods, the wind sighed in the trees, a drearier day you could hardly imagine. So they joined the rest at the other castle and took their seats to watch the jousting in the lists. So intent were they in watching the gay spectacle of the prancing steeds, the fluttering pennons, and the glittering armour of the knights, that they failed to mark the change, the fatal change, in the weather. For the wind was rising and had begun to disperse the clouds, and suddenly the sun broke ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... she knew how deeply she had hurt me. The others laughed. The colour rose in Nancy's cheeks, and she gave me an appealing, almost tearful look, but my heart had hardened. As soon as supper was over I left the table to wander, nursing my wrongs, in a far corner of the garden, gay shouts and laughter still echoing in my ears. I was negligible, even my pathetic subterfuge had been detected and cruelly ridiculed by these friends whom I had always loved and sought out, and who now were so absorbed in their own prospects and happiness that they cared nothing for mine. And Nancy! ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... from it. He felt a fleet sorrow for her in the inevitable destruction of the release for which she had so long searched, her new peace, so soon to be smashed. All sorrow for himself had gone under. Isabel Penny returned to the drawing room, and moved about, her flowered silk at once gay and obscure in the semidarkness. "The fire, Howat," she directed; "it's all but out." He stirred the logs into ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Thus dress'd so gay, he took his way O'er barren hills, alone, alone! His guide a star, he wander'd far, His pillow ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... of an eagle's wing, Or the flight of a shaft from Tartar string, Into the wood Sir Rudolph went: Not with more joy the schoolboys run To the gay green fields when their task is done; Not with more haste the members fly, When Hume has ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... chivalry furnishing themes for bards and minstrels, but affording none of those solid benefits to his country on which history loves to pause, and hold up as an example to posterity. But in his present company Richard showed to the greatest imaginable advantage. He was gay, good-humoured, and fond of manhood ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... on, good dog! through the night so chill, Till sunrise surges over the hill, Till the heather glows and the peaks are gay, And ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... singular thing was, that my master, who was such a gay chap, should live in such a hole. He had only a ground-floor in John Street—a parlor and a bedroom. I slep over the way, and only came in with his boots and brexfast ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... new residence hall, as modern as the other is historic. Three stories in height, its verandahs are in the form of a hollow square, and look out upon a courtyard gay with the bright-hued foliage of crotons and other tropical plants. Beyond is the garden itself, filled not with the roses and chrysanthemums of winter Lucknow, but with the perpetual summer foliage of spreading ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... preached, but his sermon was rather a homily on the duties of the rich towards the poor, especially at a time when the rich were about to migrate like gay-plumaged birds of passage to other lands and climes in search of pleasure, leaving behind the millions of their fellow mortals and fellow Christians, whose ceaseless life-struggle left no leisure for the delights which they had come to look upon as ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... when we sat down on our black bear-skin, gay Persian carpet and clean new mats, to rest with our backs to the wall, sipping our tea with the air of comfortable men, and chat over the incidents of the "picnic," as Livingstone persisted in calling our journey ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... (including the old Blacks), which have been ranked by most authors under the name of F. grandiflora as a distinct species, said to inhabit Surinam; but this is a manifest error. This form is considered by the highest authority, M. Gay, to be merely a strongly marked race of F. chiloensis. (10/101. 'Le Fraisier' par le Comte L. de Lambertye 1864 page 50.) These five or six forms have been ranked by most botanists as specifically distinct; but this may be doubted, for Andrew Knight (10/102. ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... were stores of all sorts with open fronts with gay signs and with gayly colored goods on display, making a picture of ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... house itself, once so gay and bright, looked melancholy; it was a very quiet house now, and the family seldom left it, for the walk to the bridge was too great an effort for Mme. Willemsens. Louis had almost identified himself, as it were, with his mother, and with his suddenly ...
— La Grenadiere • Honore de Balzac
... as did her mother, there was nothing feeble about her, nor was she averse to action. Life at Ardkill Cottage was dull, and therefore she also was dull. Had she been surrounded by friends, such as she had known in her halcyon school days at Paris, she would have been the gayest of the gay. ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... with sullen brow, Sitt'st behind those virgins gay; Like a scorched, and mildew'd bough, Leafless mid the blooms ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... sense of nearness and remoteness, an extraordinary concentration, and an absence of her own proper individuality. Never had she heard such music. How suave it was compared with the austere and regular rhythm of the hymns she sang in church! The gay tripping measure of the market-woman's song filled her with visions and laughter. There was an accent of insincerity in the serenade that troubled her as a sudden cloud might the dreams of the most indolent of lazzaroni, but the beseeching passion of the duet revealed to her sympathies ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore |
